16 THE CONTROL OF LIFE 



rather than for life, is there not danger in bringing 

 the criterion of practical value into prominence ? Will 

 not the democratisation of Science tend to stop tlie 

 unfolding of its finest flowers ? A picture painted to 

 tell a story is apt to be bad art ; a novel written as 

 a piece of propagandism is likely to be bad literature ; 

 and so, they say, scientific investigation pursued with 

 a directly utilitarian end in view is apt to defeat itself. 

 Now, a reference to the history of Science makes it 

 quite plain that the kind of questioning which is rewarded 

 in the first instance by illumination is also the surest 

 and sometimes the shortest road to increased practical 

 mastery. The quiet thinkers in the scientific cloisters 

 are often, like the poets, " the makers and shakers of 

 the world." Professor A. N. Whitehead remarks : " It is 

 no paradox to say that in our most theoretical moods 

 we may be nearest to our most practical applications." 

 It is admirably shown in Sir E. A. Gregory's Discovery , 

 that wireless telegraphy, the telephone, aeroplanes, ra- 

 dium, antiseptics, antitoxins, spectrum analysis, and 

 X-rays were all discovered in the course of purely 

 scientific and very theoretical investigation. Lord 

 Kelvin, pre-eminent alike in theoretical insight and in 

 practical applications, once said : "No great law in 

 Natural Philosophy has ever been discovered for its 

 practical applications, but the instances are innumerable 

 of investigations apparently quite useless, in this narrow 

 sense of the word, which have led to the most valuable 

 results." 

 For eighteen centuries many great minds gave their 



