xii IMPKOVING CULTIVATED PLANTS 151 



cultivators in regard to the best times for the 

 sowing of wheat. We must not think from his 

 saying only this that he did not feel the deepest 

 sympathy with his poor fellow-countrymen, all but 

 crushed beneath the weight of their successive 

 misfortunes. He writes as a man of science, and 

 as such fte knows that it is useless to lament over 

 such calamities the part of the wise is to learn 

 how to prevent them in future. 



This is the heroic courage which science teaches, 

 not the courage which is only of use on the field 

 of battle, amid the flying of flags and the beating 

 of drums, but that infinitely more precious quality 

 which enables man to see all the results of his 

 work destroyed, and in place of simply giving way 

 to grief and depression, to take from the experience 

 the conclusions which will be valuable to others in 

 future. It is this heroic courage which makes 

 man great, in spite of all his weakness and petti- 

 ness, and one reason why science is so valuable to 

 humanity is that it is the love of knowledge more 

 than anything else, which leads to the development 

 of this particular kind of courage. 



