NATURAL SCIENCE TO GENERAL SCIENCE. 23 



worth living ; and therefore he must aim either at the practical 

 application of his knowledge, or at the extension of the limits 

 of science itself. For to extend the limits of science is really to 

 work for the progress of humanity. Thus we pass to the second 

 link, uniting the different sciences, the connection, namely, 

 between the subjects of which they treat. 



Knowledge is power. Our age, more than any other, is in a 

 position to demonstrate the truth of this maxim. We have 

 taught the forces of inanimate nature to minister to the wants 

 of human life and the designs of the human intellect. The 

 application of steam has multiplied our physical strength a 

 million-fold ; weaving and spinning machines have relieved us 

 of labours the only merit of which consisted in a deadening 

 monotony. The intercourse between men, with its far-reaching 

 influence on material and intellectual progress, has increased to 

 an extent of which no one could have even dreamed within the 

 lifetime of the older among us. But it is not merely on the 

 machines by which our powers are multiplied ; not merely on 

 rifled cannon and armour-plated ships ; not merely on accumu- 

 lated stores of money and the necessaries of life, that the power of 

 a nation rests : though these things have exercised so unmistak- 

 able an influence that even the proudest and most obstinate des- 

 potisms of our times have been forced to think of removing restric- 

 tions on industry, and of conceding to the industrious middle classes 

 a due voice in their councils. But political organisation, the 

 administration of justice, and the moral discipline of individual 

 citizens are no less important conditions of the preponderance 

 of civilised nations; and so surely as a nation remains in- 

 accessible to the influences of civilisation in these respects, so 

 surely is it on the high road to destruction. The several con- 

 ditions of national prosperity act and react on each other; 

 where the administi-ation of justice is uncertain, where the 

 interests of the majority cannot be asserted by legitimate means, 

 the development of the national resources, and of the power 

 depending upon them, is impossible; nor, again, is it possible 

 to make good soldiers except out of men who have learnt under 

 just laws to educate the sense of honour that characterises an 



