30 ON THE EELATIOIS" OF 



adequate to the value of his work. It is only too true, 

 that many a man to whom a monument has been erected 

 after his death, would have been delighted to receive 

 during his lifetime a tenth part of the money spent in 

 doing honour to his memory. At the same time, we must 

 acknowledge that the value of scientific discoveries is now 

 far more fully recognised than formerly by public opinion, 

 and that instances of the authors of great advances in 

 science starving in obscurity have become rarer and rarer. 

 On the contrary, the governments and peoples of Europe 

 have, as a rule, admitted it to be their duty to recompense 

 distinguished achievements in science by appropriate ap- 

 pointments or special rewards. 



The sciences have then, in this respect, all one common 

 aim, to establish the supremacy of intelligence over the 

 world : while the moral sciences aim directly at making 

 the resources of intellectual life more abundant and more 

 interesting, and seek to separate the pure gold of Truth 

 from alloy, the physical sciences are striving indirectly 

 towards the same goal, inasmuch as they labour to make 

 mankind more and more independent of the material re- 

 straints that fetter their activity. Each student works in 

 his own department, he chooses for himself those tasks for 

 which he is best fitted by his abilities and his training. 

 But each one must be convinced that it is only in connec- 

 tion with others that he can further the great work, and 

 that therefore he is bound, not only to investigate, but to 

 do his utmost to make the results of his investigation 

 completely and easily accessible. If he does this, he will 

 derive assistance from others, and will in his turn be able 

 to render them his aid. The annals of science abound in 

 evidence how such mutual services have been exchanged, 

 even between departments of science apparently most 

 remote. Historical chronology is essentially based on 

 astronomical calculations of eclipses, accounts of which 



