154 The late Professor Edivard Forbes 1 s 



and willing. It is exactly by the aid of the classes of men 

 who do their professional and business duties best that science 

 has reaped, and is reaping, its most valuable harvests. 



To urge upon you the desirability of studying natural his- 

 tory, on account of the material benefits that may result from 

 the pursuit, would be to take a very low ground of persuasion. 

 You do not come here to acquire the art of making fortunes 

 by this kind of learning, but to study it because it is a 

 science worthy of the mind's employment intellectually en- 

 nobling in the knowledge it imparts. That which it pleased 

 the Creator to make — the universe and the world on which we 

 live, and the beings that live upon the world with us — these 

 are surely subjects worthy of our deepest study. Every crea- 

 ture, whether existing or extinct, every fragment of rock and 

 constituent mineral, each and all are revelations of Divine 

 wisdom. Now, all which was worthy of God's making is 

 worthy of man's learning, is too plain a truth to need a com- 

 ment. Well might the old Christian father exclaim, " Crea- 

 vit angelos in ccelo, vermiculos in terra ; non superior in istis, 

 non inferior in illis." 



Yet such is the nature of man, that he is constantly harp- 

 ing about things beneath his dignity. The politician, whose 

 business really concerns the fleeting moment, who, whilst he 

 boastfully fancies himself stirring the world — as the fly in 

 the fable stood upon the axle and fancied itself the mover of 

 the wheel — who is useful, because politicians must be as things 

 are constituted, and therefore, and therefore only, respectable — 

 the politician regards the man of science with compassionate 

 concern or supercilious indifference, deeming his pursuits un- 

 practical, because not always useful in the lowest sense. Yet 

 the very politics of the world are changing through the advance- 

 ment of every form of knowledge, and the development of the 

 character and power of nations depends in no slight degree on 

 the progress of sciences that seem at the moment wholly iso- 

 lated and theoretical. 



Show the man of commerce and the statesman a utilitarian 

 bearing in scientific researches, and all the dignity and va- 

 nity of man are forgotten. Show that gold is to be got or to 

 be saved through our work, and the value of our science is at 



