IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 27 



However, there are blind leaders of the blind, and not 1 

 a few of them, who take this view of natural knowledge, j 

 and can see nothing in the bountiful mother of humanity 

 but a sort of comfort-grinding machine. According to 

 them, the improvement of natural knowledge always has ; 

 been, and always must be, synonymous with no more 

 than the improvement of the material resources and the 

 increase of the gratifications of men. 



Natural knowledge is, in their eyes, no real mother of 

 mankind, bringing them up with kindness, and, if need 

 be, with sternness, in the way they should go, and in- 

 structing them in all things needful for their welfare; 

 but a sort of fairy godmother, ready to furnish her pets 

 with shoes of swiftness, swords of sharpness, and omnip- 

 otent Alladin's lamps, so that they may have telegraphs 

 to Saturn, and see the other side of the moon, and thank 

 God they are better than their benighted ancestors. 



If this talk weretrue,^, for one, should not greatly ' 

 ^olHn^h^service of natural knowledge. I think 



X ~-y ^y,-^ _ . -, . 



I would just as soon be quietly chipping my own flint J 

 axe after the manner of my forefathers a few thousand 

 years back, as be troubled with the endless malady of 

 thought which now infests us all, for such reward. But 

 I venture to say that such views are contrary alike to 

 reason and to fact.VThose who discourse in such fashion 

 seem to me to be so intent upon trying to see what is 

 above Nature, or what is behind her, that they are blind 

 to what stares them in the face in her. 



I should not venture to speak thus strongly if my 

 justification were not to be found in the simplest and 

 most obvious facts, if it needed more than an appeal 

 to the most notorious truths to justify my assertion, that 

 the improvement of natural knowledge, whatever direc- 

 tion it has taken, and however low the aims of those ' 

 who may have commenced it has not only conferred 



