The Utility of the Useless. 69 
and every-day needs might be multiplied almost without limit. But the 
foregoing must suffice to justify the contention that the fruits of academic 
research are not difficult to find in the appliances and contrivances which 
make the day’s work what it is, and that the commercial wealth and prosperity 
of the world is in no small measure dependent upon discoveries of seemingly 
small and trifling moment and nearly always of little utilitarian complexion. 
He who wishes to demonstrate to the man of commerce that it is in his own 
interest to encourage and aid the man of science, need experience no 
difficulty in adducing facts in support of his argument. It is easily 
possible to prove the benefits that accrue to commercial undertakings out 
of the employment ofa scientific staff. The proof is perhaps not so necessary 
now as it was not many years ago; but the necessity still exists, though in a 
modified degree. 
But, while science is of service to commerce, the entire subjection of 
science to commerce, or the requirements of the State, would not be productive 
of entirely good results. The bending of research to purely utilitarian ends 
would be fraught with grave danger in several directions, and not least in 
that it would discourage investigations instigated by a thirst for knowledge 
for its own sake—investigations which history has shown may develop 
into discoveries of surpassing moment. 
After all, the business of the scientist is to discover truth regardless of 
possible monetary profit either to himself or to humanity at large. Let 
the inventor use the knowledge if he cares and can. “ Your business, your 
especial business,’ said Pasteur once to his students, “must be, to have 
nothing in common with those narrow minds which despise everything in 
science which has no immediate application.’ 
) 
And Pasteur, apart from the 
inestimable work he did leading to modern surgery, taught the vinegar 
makers of Orleans how to increase their output, instructed France how to 
prevent the souring of her wines, and helped the brewers of London by 
instructing them concerning the importance of the purity of their yeast. 
(Issued separately, 6th December 1916.) 
