244 MODERN SCIENCE READER 



and much investigation are absolutely necessary before 

 enough knowledge can be got together to make profitable, 

 practical applications possible. During this early pre- 

 paratory stage the work is of no direct interest to the 

 purely practical man ; and yet without this work the 

 applications which he values would be impossible. Scien- 

 tific work in its highest form does not pay directly. Those 

 who devote themselves to the pursuit of pure science do not, 

 as a rule, reap pecuniary reward. They probably enjoy 

 their lives as much as if they did, though it is often difficult 

 to make them believe this. But because it does not yield 

 immediate reward to the worker, should the work stop? 

 Surely not. Our only hope of progress in intellectual as 

 well as practical matters lies in a continuation of this work. 

 And even though not a single tangible, practical result 

 should be reached, the work would be valuable. Why? 

 Because we are all helped by knowledge. The more we 

 know of the universe the better fitted we are to fill our 

 places in the world. All will concede the truth of that 

 proposition. But if this is true we have the strongest 

 argument for scientific work, for it is only through such 

 work that we are enlarging our knowledge. There is no 

 other way of learning. Somebody must be adding to our 

 stock of knowledge, or what we call progress in intellectual 

 and material things would stop. It also seems probable 

 that moral progress is aided by intellectual progress, though 

 it might be difficult to make this perfectly clear. I believe 

 it is so; though of course it does not follow that every 

 individual furnishes evidence of the relation between intel- 

 lectual and moral progress. 



But, my friends, whether we will or not, scientific inves- 

 tigation will go on as it has been going on from the earliest 

 times, and it will go on more and more rapidly with time. 

 The universe is inexhaustible, and its mysteries are inex- 

 plicable. We may and must strive to learn all we can, but 

 we cannot hope to learn all. We are finite; the mysteries 

 we are dealing with are infinite. 



