in THE SCIENTIFIC MIND 49 



light. They are the aristocracy of God, into which not many 

 noble, not many rich, not many mighty, are called. Most of 

 them were poor ; many all but unknown in their own time, 

 many died and saw no fruit of their labours ; some were per- 

 secuted, some were slain, as heretics, innovators and corruptors 

 of youth. Of some the very names are forgotten. But though 

 their names be dead, their works live, and grow and spread over 

 ever fresh generations of youth, showing them fresh steps towards 

 that temple of wisdom which is the knowledge of things as they 

 are ; the knowledge of those eternal laws by which God governs 

 the heavens and the earth, things temporal and eternal, physical 

 and spiritual, seen and unseen, from the rise and fall of mighty 

 nations to the growth and death of moss on yonder moors. 

 Charles Kingsley. 



The scientific mind seeks continually for natural 

 revelations whether they can be applied to arts and 

 industries or not. The delight is in the chase, and it 

 ceases with the capture. An Oxford professor once 

 said that the one thing he valued in the system of 

 quaternions was the certainty that it could not be 

 denied by any utilitarian applications. The spirit that 

 prompted this remark was possibly obscurantist, and 

 the prediction has proved to be incorrect, but it 

 reflects the feeling of many scientific investigators, 

 who work primarily to extend knowledge and to 

 learn more of the mysteries of the universe, with little 

 thought of the possible usefulness of their observa- 

 tions and discoveries. To men of this type of mind, 

 science is sacred, and they bow their heads before 

 the vastness of the unknown. Realising that the 

 steps forward are very short in comparison with 

 distance to be traversed by the human race in the 

 future, they confess the truth of the stanza : 



Thou hast not gain'd a real height, 

 Nor art thou nearer to the light, 

 Because the scale is infinite. Tennyson. 



