EDUCATION IN AGRICULTURE. 25 



ate the benefit which the practical arts receive from science, 

 others undervalue that benefit. 



In endeavoring to form a just estimate and a sound opinion, 

 let us begin by recollecting that science and the arts are inde- 

 pendent, and seek different ends. The arts serve the body, or 

 if serving the mind serve it through the senses, and the presen- 

 tation to sense is the end of the art as such. But science serves 

 only the mind, and seeks a presentation to sense only as a means 

 of conveying truth to the understanding. Truth is sought by 

 science simply for truth's sake, or if sought as an instrument 

 it is sought only as an instrument for discovering truth. It is, 

 therefore, an irrelevant question to ask the use of any particular 

 branch of science, if by use is meant anything else than being 

 a key to higher truth. Certain propositions, in geometry for 

 example, may be called more useful than others, because tliey 

 lead to, or are subsidiary to, more of the higher theorems than 

 other propositions. The Pythagorean proposition, for instance, 

 is to be considered a useful proposition in the scientific or 

 mathematical sense, not because the carpenter squares the 

 frame of his building by it, or the draughtsman tests the ac- 

 curacy of his square, but because this proposition, that the sum 

 of the squares on the legs of a right triangle is equivalent to 

 the square on the hypothenuse, is a basis on which rests the 

 demonstration of numerous theorems in trigonometry, analytical 

 geometry, the differential calculus, and other branches of ab- 

 stract mathematics. A scientific labor is always justifiable 

 when it brings out truth, and truth is always worth having 

 and worth seeking for the satisfaction which its possession 

 gives to the human intellect. In the mere scientific instinct 

 which leads particular men to the investigation of particular 

 questions is a sufficient reason for the investigation ; and in 

 the simple satisfaction of an intelligent curiosity to know the 

 truth is a good, a benefit, a use, which compensates the scien- 

 tific man for his labor, and his sharing it wdth others entitles 

 him to receive in return the product of other men's labors. 



To a devout man there is also in scientific discoveries, how- 

 ever devoid of use in the arts of life, always a great value, 

 because he looks upon them as a reading of the Elder Scrip- 

 ture writ by God's own hand. No matter how trivial to vulgar 

 eyes the pursuits of a scientific investigator may be, the believer 



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