24 ON THE RELATION OF 



independent man, certainly not out of those who have lived the 

 submissive slaves of a capricious tyrant. 



Accordingly every nation is interested in the progress of know- 

 ledge on the simple ground of self-preservation, even were there no 

 higher wants of an ideal character to be satisfied; and not merely 

 in the development of the physical sciences, and their technical 

 application, but also in the progress of legal, political, and moral 

 sciences, and of the accessory historical and philological studies. 

 No nation which would be independent and influential can afford 

 to be left behind in the race. Nor has this escaped the notice of the 

 cultivated peoples of Europe. Never before was so large a part 

 of the public resources devoted to universities, schools, and 

 scientific institutions. "We in Heidelberg have this year occasion 

 to congratulate ourselves on another rich endowment granted by 

 our government and our parliament. 



I was speaking, at the beginning of my address, of the in- 

 creasing division of labour and the improved organisation among 

 scientific workers. In fact, men of science form, as it were, an 

 organised army labouring on behalf of the whole nation, and 

 generally under its direction and at its expense, to augment the 

 stock of such knowledge as may serve to promote industrial 

 enterprise, to increase wealth, to adorn life, to improve political and 

 social relations, and to further the moral development of indivi- 

 dual citizens. After the immediate practical results of their work 

 we forbear to inquire; that we leave to the uninstructed. We 

 are convinced that whatever contributes to the knowledge of 

 the forces of nature or the powers of the human mind is worth 

 cherishing, and may, in its own due time, bear practical fruit, 

 very often where we should least have expected it. Who, when 

 Galvani touched the muscles of a frog with different metals, 

 and noticed their contraction, could have dreamt that eighty 

 years afterwards, in virtue of the self-same process, whose 

 earliest manifestations attracted his attention in his anatomical 

 researches, all Europe would be traversed with wires, flashing 

 intelligence from Madrid to St. Petersburg with the speed of 

 lightning? In the hands of Galvani, and at first even in 

 Volta's, electrical currents were phenomena capable of exerting 



