ene a, 
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GERMAN SCIENCE 119 
much has been written, in comparison with which any words 
of mine must sink into insignificance. It is the fashion to 
pretend that the belief exists no longer. Science, it is said, 
has gained the day; it is the modern study; it is the one 
towards which money is most freely devoted. This is only 
partly true. The support that science has received in these 
later times is, I am afraid, not in the wide sense disinterested. 
It is believed that science pays. And so it does, and so it 
may be commended. As citizens of a country that we desire 
shall survive, we who pursue science are anxious enough that 
it shall be known to pay. But we want much more than that. 
We want science to be appreciated for its own sake. And I 
boldly say, it is not so appreciated by any manner of means. 
I say it is distrusted. If you ask for proof, I might reply 
that it lies in the constant experience of my life. If you insist 
upon a sample, here is one. At the conclusion of a very able 
article appearing not long ago in a newspaper on the subject 
of London University, we find the following: 
‘The report is a masterly production, and if we disagree 
with it on the points indicated, it must be admitted that it 
errs in conformity with a tendency characteristic of the age— 
the tendency to close unrecognized doors, straighten roads and 
regulate everything in a “ scientific” spirit—a tendency which 
may ultimately have very much to answer for.’ 
The word scientific is in inverted commas. That I take to 
mean that it is not used in the right sense, as The Times puts 
General in inverted commas when it speaks of ‘ General’ Booth. 
Please understand that I do not quarrel with what I have 
quoted, On the contrary, I believe it is entirely in harmony 
with my own view—namely, that the common and wrong 
idea of science is that of something rigid, mechanical, un- 
imaginative, and something cramping to the human spirit. 
Science may be this if it is misconceived and misused ; it may 
tend to make a man or a nation narrow and one-sided, blind 
to other things as great as or greater than itself. But so, 
