IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 21 



But spinning jenny and steam pump are, after all, but toys, 

 possessing an accidental value : and natural knowledge 

 creates multitudes of more subtle contrivances, the praises 

 of which do not happen to be sung because they are not 

 directly convertible into instruments for creating wealth. 5 

 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 10 

 thought, knitting for her children. Now stockings are good 

 and comfortable things, and the children will undoubtedly be 

 much 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 com- 15 

 forte ? 



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 20 

 improvement of natural knowledge always has been, and 

 always must be, synonymous with no more than the im- 

 provement of the material resources and the increase of the 

 gratifications of men. 



Natural knowledge is, in their eyes, no real mother of man- 25 

 kind, bringing them up with kindness, and, if need be, with 

 sternness, in the way they should go, and instructing them in 

 all things needful for their welfare ; but a sort of fairy god- 

 mother, ready to furnish her pets with shoes of swiftness, 

 swords of sharpness, and omnipotent Aladdin's lamps, so that 30 

 they may have telegraphs to Saturn, and see the other side 

 of the moon, and thank God they are better than their be- 

 nighted ancestors. 



If this talk were true, I, for one, should not greatly care 



