48 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



of the old world. There were a goodly number of men of 

 science, and many important discoveries were being made, but 

 no bonds had yet been formed to connect the interests of the men 

 of science and the men of affairs. 



Speculative science, in the nature of things, can only interest 

 and attract scholarly men. and though its results, concisely and 

 attractively stated, may have a passing interest to a certain por- 

 tion of every community, it is only by its practical applications 

 that it secures the hearty support of the community at large. 



Huxley, in his recent discourse upon " The Advance of Science 

 in the Last Half Century,"* has touched upon this subject in a 

 most suggestive and instructive manner, and has shown that Bacon, 

 with all his wisdom, exerted little direct beneficial influence upon 

 the advancement of natural knowledge, which has after all been 

 chiefly forwarded by men like Galileo and Harvey, Boyle and 

 Newton, "who would have done their work quite as well if 

 neither Bacon nor Descartes had ever propounded their views 

 respecting the manner in which scientific investigation should be 

 pursued." 



I think we should look upon Bacon as the prophet of modern 

 scientific thought, rather than its founder. It is no doubt true, 

 as Huxley has said, that his " scientific insight " was not sufficient 

 to enable him to shape the future course of scientific philosophy, 

 but it is scarcely true that he attached any undue value to the 

 practical advantages which the world as a whole, and incident- 

 ally science itself, were to reap from the applications of scientific 

 methods to the investigation of nature. 



Even though the investigations of Descartes, Newton, Leibnitz, 

 Boyle, Torricelli, and Malpighi, had directly helped no man to 

 either wealth or comfort, the cumulative results of their labors, 

 and those of their pupils and associates, resulted in a condition 



* WOOD, T. H. : The Reign of Victoria; a survey of Fifty Years of Pro- 

 gress. London, 1887. 



