SCIENCE AND THE THOUGHT OF THE WORLD 



had been on sufferance ; welcomed, indeed, when it con- 

 tributed to the supply of man's material needs, as by the 

 steam engine and the railroad ; dallied with, and sometimes 

 smiled at, when her conclusions did not clash with what 

 men had been taught to regard as unassailable truth : but 

 rejected with scorn, and her prophets vilified with 

 epithets borrowed from the darkest times of mediaeval 

 persecution, whenever, in the spirit of the Society's motto, 

 she dared to utter words which were not in agreement with 

 inherited beliefs. Then, to some extent, the true position 

 of natural science was acknowledged, and she came into 

 her own the crown and sceptre of authority which are her 

 right as, to repeat Roger Bacon's words, Domina omnium 

 scientiarum. 



Ever since that time, notwithstanding cavillings here 

 and there, of which the echoes are still audible, natural 

 science has taken a truer place in relation to the general 

 thought of the age. Her position of supreme authority 

 has been recognised, and each year strengthened, by the 

 unbroken series of brilliant discoveries which have dis- 

 tinguished the last half-century, and which have impressed 

 themselves so much the more deeply on the public mind 

 because they have been lavishly accompanied by practical 

 applications and inventions, which have increased, to an 

 extent almost beyond words, the power, richness, and 

 happiness of human life. 



This is not the place to discuss in full how fruitful 



have been in all directions of human thought, and so 



100 



