i88 3 .] 
A Plea for Pure Science. 
659 
this Association. Fain would I speak pleasant words to you 
on this subject ; fain would I recount to you the progress 
made in this subjedt by my countrymen, and their noble 
efforts to understand the order of the universe. But I go 
out to gather the grain ripe to the harvest, and I find only 
tares. Here and there a noble head of grain rises above 
the weeds ; but so few are they that I find the majority of 
my countrymen know them not, but think that they have a 
waving harvest, while it is only one of weeds after all. 
American science is a thing of the future, and not of the 
present or past ; and the proper course of one in my position 
is to consider what must be done to create a science of 
physics in this country, rather than to call telegraphs, elec- 
tric lights,, and such conveniences, by the name of Science. 
I do not wish to underrate the value of all these things ; 
the progress of the world depends on them, and he is to be 
honoured who cultivates them successfully. So also the 
cook who invents a new and palatable dish for the table 
benefits the world to a certain degree ; yet we do not dignify 
him by the name of a chemist. And yet it is not an un- 
common thing, especially in American newspapers, to have 
the applications of Science confounded with Pure Science ; 
and some obscure American who steals the ideas of some 
great mind of the past, and enriches himself by the applica- 
tion of the same to domestic uses, is often lauded above the 
great originator of the idea, who might have worked out 
hundreds of such applications had his mind possessed the 
necessary element of vulgarity. I have often been asked 
which was the more important to the world, pure or applied 
science ? To have the applications of a science, the science 
itself must exist. Should we stop its progress, and attend 
only to its applications, we should soon degenerate into a 
people like the Chinese, who have made no progress for 
generations, because they have been satisfied with the appli- 
cations of Science, and have never sought for reasons in 
what they have done. The reasons constitute Pure Science. 
They have known the application of gunpowder for centu- 
ries ; and yet the reasons for its peculiar adtion, if sought in 
the proper manner, would have developed the science of 
chemistry, and even of physics, with all their numerous 
applications. By contenting themselves with the fadt that 
gunpowder will explode, and seeking no farther, they have 
fallen behind in the progress of the world ; and we now 
regard this oldest and most numerous of nations as only 
barbarians. And yet our own country is in the same state. 
But we have done better; for we have taken the science of 
