THE UTILITY OF SCIENCE 



an endeavour to get at the setting and significance 

 of things or events; (2) that there is a delight 

 and an endeavour in scientific workmanship that 

 is its own reward; and (3) that in the higher 

 reaches of science, the discovery of a formula, a 

 general law, a pedigree, a homology, an inter- 

 relation whatever it may be is in some measure 

 a personal achievement. 



"Science for its own sake," like "Art for Art's 

 sake," is an autonomy worth fighting for. Both 

 scientific inquiry and artistic device are natural 

 and necessary expressions of the evolving human 

 spirit, and for this reason a utilitarian apology 

 for either is gratuitous. Scientific inquiry is 

 noble in itself, and it is its own reward. As 

 Bacon said: "We see in all other pleasures there 

 is satiety, and after they be used their verdure 

 departeth. . . . But of knowledge there is no 

 satiety, but satisfaction and appetite are per- 

 petually interchangeable, and therefore it ap- 

 peareth to be good in itself simply without 

 fallacy or accident." 



SCIENCE AND PRACTICAL LORE. Historical in- 

 quiry shows that the concrete sciences grew out 

 of practical lore, and that even after they began 

 to stand on their own legs as independent theo- 

 retical interpretations of Nature, they have often 

 received fresh stimulus by coming back to prac- 

 tical problems. Did not botany arise out of 



