THE ELECTRIC LIGHT. 



451 



your vessels which furrow the seas ; this abundance, 

 this luxury, this tumult,' * this commotion,' he would 

 have added, were he now alive, ' regarding the electric 

 light ' ' all come from discoverers in Science, though 

 all remain strange to them. The day that a discovery 

 enters the market they abandon it ; it concerns them 

 no more.' 



In writing thus, Cuvier probably did not sufficiently 

 take into account the reaction of the applications of 

 science upon science itself. The improvement of an 

 old instrument or the invention of a new one is often 

 tantamount to an enlargement and refinement of the 

 senses of the scientific investigator. Beyond this, the 

 amelioration of the community is also an object worthy 

 of the best efforts of the human brain. Still, assuredly 

 it is well and wise for a nation to bear in mind that 

 those practical applications which strike the public eye, 

 and excite public admiration, are the outgrowth of 

 long antecedent labours begun, continued, and ended, 

 under the operation of a purely intellectual stimulus. 

 * Few,' says Pasteur, ' seem to comprehend the real 

 origin of the marvels of industry and the wealth of 

 nations. I need no other proof of this than the fre- 

 quent employment in lectures, speeches, and official 

 language of the erroneous expression, u applied science." 

 A statesman of the greatest talent stated some time ago 

 that in our day the reign of theoretic science had rightly 

 yielded place to that of applied science. Nothing, I 

 venture to say, could be more dangerous, even to prac- 

 tical life, than the consequences which might flow from 

 these words. They show the imperious necessity of a 

 reform in our higher education. There exists no cate- 

 gory of sciences to which the name of " applied science " 

 could be given. We have science and the applications 

 of science which are united as tree and fruit.' 



