402 BRAIN WORK AND 



ready yet ; it still waits for its Newton, not- 

 withstanding the brilliant attempts of late 

 years. Even the empirical knowledge of the 

 laws of electrical currents was in its infancy 

 when a few bold men laid a cable at the bottom 

 of the Atlantic Ocean, despite the warnings of 

 the authorised men of science. 



The name of " applied science " is quite 

 misleading, because, in the great majority of 

 cases, invention, far from being an applica- 

 tion of science, on the contrary creates a new 

 branch of science. The American bridges 

 were no application of the theory of elasticity ; 

 they came before the theory, and all we can 

 say in favour of science is, that in this special 

 branch, theory and practice developed in a 

 parallel way, helping one another. It was not 

 the theory of the explosives which led to the 

 discovery of gunpowder ; gunpowder was in 

 use for centuries before the action of the gases 

 in a gun was submitted to scientific analysis. 

 And so on. One could easily multiply the 

 illustrations by quoting the great processes of 

 metallurgy ; the alloys and the properties they 

 acquire from the addition of very small amounts 

 of some metals or metalloids ; the recent 

 revival of electric lighting ; nay, even the 

 weather forecasts which truly deserved the 

 reproach of being " unscientific " when they 



