24 ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 



fair share of happiness in the world by the aid of 

 the spinning jenny. And the great fire, at its worst, 

 could not have burned the supply of coal, the daily 

 working of which, in the bowels of the earth, made 

 possible by the steam pump, gives rise to an amount 

 of wealth to which the millions lost in old London are 

 but as an old song. 



But spinning jenny and steam pump are, after all, 

 but toys, possessing an accidental value; and natural 

 knowledge creates multitudes of more subtle con- 

 trivances, the praises of which do not happen to be 

 sung because they are not directly convertible into 

 instruments for creating wealth. When I contemplate 

 natural knowledge squandering such gifts among men, 

 the only appropriate comparison I can find for her 

 is to liken her to such a peasant woman as one sees 

 in the Alps, striding ever upward, heavily burdened, 

 and with mind bent only on her home ; but yet without 

 effort and without thought, knitting for her children. 

 Now stockings are good and comfortable things, and the 

 children will undoubtedly be much the better for them ; 

 but surely it would be short-sighted, to say the least of 

 it, to depreciate this toiling mother as a mere stocking- 

 machine a mere provider of physical comforts ? 



However, there are blind leaders of the blind, and 

 not a few of them, who take this view of natural 

 knowledge, and can see nothing in the bountiful 

 mother of humanity but a sort of comfort-grinding 

 machine. According to them, the improvement of 

 natural knowledge always has been, and always must 

 be, synonymous with no more than the improvement 

 of the material resources and the increase of the grati- 

 fications of men. 





