Miscellaneous. 



186 



[February, 1910. 



gone days the fact that several friends, 

 assertive in other matters but innocent 

 of ploughing, beyond the universal 

 ability to criticise everything in farm- 

 ing, found that there was nothing which 

 would more quickly and unexpectedly 

 land them in a ditch. We used to choose 

 a rather wet headland on heavy land to 

 accomplish this, and if they only stuck 

 long enough to the handles the ditch 

 inevitably received them, and they were 

 usually far less assertive on agricultural 

 matters subsequently. Turning is prac- 

 tically a matter of balancing, and one 

 requiring some experience, to enable the 

 plough to set in square without wrig- 

 gling or stopping. The plough should 

 always be balanced round ; that is, 

 jerked out and thrown on the breast 

 side ; then there is no ploughing or 

 cutting up of the headland, with its 

 inevitable mauling on wet land. In 

 some light land districts it is common 

 to see the plough allowed to run round 

 on tbe little wheel, and there it does not 

 so much matter ; it is no easier to the 

 holder and, except on these light soils, 

 very prejudicial to the headland. If a 

 plough is balanced round it is easy to 

 throw the head into proper line, and if 

 it falls short to turn it on to the wheel 

 opposite to the direction it is desired to 

 take, and let the horses pull it in. 



THE RELATION OF SCIENCE TO 

 HUMAN LIFE. 



(From Nature, Vol. 82. No. 2095, 



December, 1909). 

 In casting about for a suitable introduc- 

 tion for my address this afternoon, I 

 came across some words written by a 

 great Englishman which with your per- 

 mission I will read to you. 



"Remember the wise; for they have 

 laboured, and you are entering into their 

 labours. Every lesson which you learnt 

 in school, all knowledge which raises 

 above the savage and the profligate— 

 who is but a savage dressed in civilised 

 garments — has been made possible to 

 you by the wise. Every doctrine of 

 theology, every maxim of morals, every 

 rule of grammar, every process of mathe- 

 matics, every law of physical science, 

 every fact of history or of geography, 

 which you are taught, is a voice from 

 beyond the tomb. Either the knowledge 

 itself, or other knowledge which led to 

 it, is an heirloom to you from men whose 

 bodies are now mouldering in the dust, 

 but whose spirits live for ever, and whose 

 works follow them, going on, generation 



after generation, upon the path which 

 they trod while tney were upon earth, 

 the path of usefulness, as lights to the 

 steps of youth and ignorance. 



" They are the salt of the earth, which 

 keeps the world of man from decaying 

 back into barbarism. They are the 

 children of light. They are the aristo- 

 cracy of God, into which not many 

 noble, not many rich, not many mighty, 

 are called. Most of them were poor ; 

 many all but unkuown in their own 

 lime ; many died and saw no fruit of their 

 labours ; some were persecuted, some 

 were slain, as heretic?, innovators and 

 corrupters 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 gener- 

 ations 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." 



So spake Charles Kingsley, and his 

 words I make use of as an introduction 

 which strikes the key-note of what I 

 have to say to you to-day, 



The subject which I have chosen for 

 my address — the relation of pure science, 

 and especially of biological science, to 

 human life, andinferentially the relation 

 which ought to exist between pure and 

 applied science in a college of science, is 

 naturally of great interest to us in the 

 Imperial College, which is a college of 

 science and technology, and the purposes 

 of which are, in the words of the 

 charter, " to give the highest specialised 

 introduction and to provide the fullest 

 equipment for the most advanced train- 

 ing and research in various branches of 

 science, especially in relation to in- 

 dustry." Particularly do I desire to set 

 forth as clearly as I can the justification 

 for including in a college which deals not 

 only with science, but with science in 

 relation to industry, those brauches of 

 science which deal with organisms. 



As industry forms the principal occupa- 

 tion of human life, and as the phenomena 

 of organisms constitute the science of 

 life, it may seem absurd to set out 

 solemnly to justify the inclusion of the 

 biological sciences in a college which 

 deals with science especially in its 

 relation to human life. Nevertheless, 

 having regard to the fact that I have 

 heard some doubt expressed as to 

 whether the cult of the biological sciences 



