32 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



themselves with the fact that gunpowder will explode, and seeking no 

 further, they have fallen behind in the progress of the world ; and we 

 now regard this oldest and most numerous of nations as only barba- 

 rians. And yet our own country is in this same state. But we have 

 done better ; for we have taken the science of the Old World, and ap- 

 plied it to all our uses, accepting it like the rain of heaven, without 

 asking whence it came, or even acknowledging the debt of gratitude 

 we owe to the great and unselfish workers who have given it to us. 

 And, like the rain of heaven, this pure science has fallen upon our 

 country, and made it great and rich and strong. 



To a civilized nation of the present day, the applications of science 

 are a necessity ; and our country has hitherto succeeded in this line, 

 only for the reason that there are certain countries in the world where 

 pure science has been and is cultivated, and where the study of na- 

 ture is considered a noble pursuit. But such countries are rare, and 

 those who wish to pursue pure science in our own country must be 

 prepared to face public opinion in a manner which requires much moral 

 courage. They must be prepared to be looked down upon by every 

 successful inventor whose shallow mind imagines that the only pursuit 

 of mankind is wealth, and that he who obtains most has best succeeded 

 in this world. Everybody can comprehend a million of money ; but 

 how few can comprehend any advance in scientific theory, especially 

 in its more abstruse portions ! And this, I believe, is one of the causes 

 of the small number of persons who have ever devoted themselves to 

 work of the higher order in any human pursuit. Man is a gregarious 

 animal, and depends very much, for his happiness, on the sympathy of 

 those around him ; and it is rare to find one with the courage to pur- 

 sue his own ideals in spite of his surroundings. In times past, men 

 were more isolated than at present, and each came in contact with a 

 fewer number of people. Hence that time constitutes the period when 

 the great sculptures, paintings, and poems were produced. Each man's 

 mind was comparatively free to follow its own ideals, and the results 

 were the great and unique works of the ancient masters. To-day the 

 railroad and the telegraph, the books and newspapers, have united each 

 individual man with the rest of the world : instead of his mind being 

 an individual, a thing apart by itself, and unique, it has become so in- 

 fluenced by the outer world, and so dependent upon it, that it has lost 

 its originality to a great extent. The man who in times past would 

 naturally have been in the lowest depths of poverty, mentally and 

 physically, to-day measures tape behind a counter, and with lordly air 

 advises the naturally born genius how he may best bring his outward 

 appearance down to a level with his own. A new idea he never had, 

 but he can at least cover his mental nakedness with ideas imbibed from 

 others. So the genius of the past soon perceives that his higher ideas 

 are too high to be appreciated by the world ; his mind is clipped down 

 to the standard form ; every natural offshoot upward is repressed, 



