296 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



starvation of the late Graff; but compare what ia 

 considered as competency or affluence by your Faradays, 

 Liebigs, and Herschels, with the expected results of a 

 life of successful commercial enterprise : then compare 

 the amount of mind put forth, the work done for society 

 in either case, and you will be coast-rained to allow that 

 the former belong to a class of workers who, properly 

 speaking, are not paid, and cannot be paid for their 

 work, as indeed it is of a sort to which no payment 

 could stimulate.' 



But while the scientific investigator, standing upon 

 the frontiers of human knowledge, and aiming at 

 the conquest of fresh soil from the surrounding region 

 of the unknown, makes the discovery of truth his ex- 

 clusive object for the time, he cannot but feel the 

 deepest interest in the practical application of the 

 truth discovered. There is something ennobling in the 

 triumph of Mind over Matter. Apart even from its 

 uses to society, there is something elevating in the idea 

 of Man having tamed that wild force which flashes 

 through the telegraphic wire, and made it the minister 

 of his will. Our attainments in these directions appear 

 to be commensurate with our needs. We had already 

 subdued horse and mule, and obtained from them all 

 the service which it was in their power to render : we 

 must either stand still, or find more potent agents to 

 execute our purposes. At this point the steam-engine 

 appears. These are still new things ; it is not long 

 since we struck into the scientific methods which have 

 produced these results. We cannot for an instant 

 regard them as the final achievements of Science, but 

 rather as an earnest of what she is yet to do. They 

 mark our first great advances upon the dominion ol 

 Nature. Animal strength fails, but here are the forces 

 which hold the world together, and the instincts and 



