66 PROGRESS OF SCIENCE IN THE CENTURY. 



actual life of animals as it is lived in nature. It 

 may be going too far to say with Espinas, "La, 

 pratique a partout devance la theorie/' but there is 

 no doubt as to the progressive impulse which comes 

 to a science from its corresponding art. 



On the other hand, an exaggeration of the impor- 

 tance of contact with practical problems and of im- 

 mediate practical results, is, we believe, disastrous to 

 the welfare of science, and it may not be out of place 

 to enter a brief protest. 



" The fundamental importance of abstruse re- 

 search receives too little consideration in our time. 

 The practical side of life is all absorbent ; the results 

 of research are utilised promptly, and full recogni- 

 tion is awarded to the one who utilises, while the in- 

 vestigator is ignored. The student himself is liable 

 to be regarded as a relic of mediaeval times. . . . 

 The foundation of industrial advance was laid by 

 workers in pure science, for the most part ignorant of 

 utility and caring little about it. ... The investi- 

 gator takes the first step, and makes the inventor 

 possible. Thereafter the inventor's work aids the 

 investigator in making new discoveries, to be utilised 

 in their turn."* In his admirable Introduction 

 to Science (1900) Dr. Alex. Hill says: "Great ad- 

 vances have been made by investigators whose object 

 was wholly technical. Yet, if the history of science 

 were written, it would be found that the first step in 

 advance, the germ of the discovery which became 

 fruitful in the hands of the practical chemist, the 

 mechanician, the pathologist, was discovered by the 

 investigator, for whom science lost its interest as soon 



"John J. Stevenson, "The Debt of the World to Pure 

 Science," Pres. Address, New York Acad., February, 1898, 

 Science, March 11, 1898; Rep. Smithsonian Institute for 

 1897, pp. 325-336. 



