66o 
A Plea for Pure Science. 
[November, 
the Old World and applied it to all our uses, accepting it 
like the rain of heaven, without asking whence it came, or 
even acknowledging the debt of gratitude we owe to the 
great and unselfish workers who have given it to us. And, 
like the rain of heaven, this Pure Science has fallen upon 
our country, and made it great and rich and strong. 
To a civilised nation of the present day the applications 
of Science are a necessity; and our country has hitherto 
succeeded in this line, only for the reason that there are 
certain countries in the world where Pure Science has been 
and is cultivated, and where the study of Nature is consi- 
dered a noble pursuit. But such countries are rare, and 
those who wish to pursue Pure Science in our own country 
must be prepared to face public opinion in a manner which 
requires much moral courage. They must be prepared to 
be looked down upon by every successful inventor whose 
shallow mind imagines that the only pursuit of mankind is 
wealth, and that he who obtains most has best succeeded in 
this world. Everybody can comprehend a million of money; 
but how few can comprehend any advance in scientific theory, 
especially in its more abstruse portions ! And this, I be- 
lieve, is one of the causes of the small number of persons 
who have ever devoted themselves to work of the higher 
order in any human pursuit. Man is a gregarious animal, 
and depends very much for his happiness on the sympathy 
of those around him ; and it is rare to find one with the 
courage to pursue his own ideals in spite of his surroundings. 
In times past men were more isolated than at present, and 
each came in contact with a fewer number of people. Hence 
that time constitutes the period when the great sculptures, 
paintings, and poems were produced. Each man’s mind 
was comparatively free to follow its own ideals, and the 
results were the great and unique works of the ancient 
masters. To-day the railroad and the telegraph, the books 
and the newspapers, have united each individual man with 
the rest of the world ; instead of his mind being an indivi- 
dual, a thing apart by itself, and unique, it has become so 
influenced by the outer world, and so dependent upon it, 
that it has lost its originality to a great extent. The man 
who in times past would naturally have been in the lowest 
depths of poverty, mentally and physically, to-day measures 
tape behind a counter, and with lordly air advises the natu- 
rally born genius how he may best bring his outward ap- 
pearance down to a level with his own. A new idea he 
never had, but he can at least cover his mental nakedness 
with ideas imbibed from others. So the genius of the past 
