674 A Plea for Pure Science. [November, 
has even now arrived when such a grand laboratory should 
be founded. Shall our country take the lead in this matter, 
or shall we wait for foreign countries to go before ? They 
will be built in the future, but when and how is the question. 
Several institutions are now putting up laboratories for 
physics. They are mostly for teaching, and we can expedt 
only a comparatively small amount of work from most of 
them. But they show progress ; and, if the progress be as 
quick in this direction as in others, we should be able to see 
a great change before the end of our lives. 
As stated before, men are influenced by the sympathy of 
those with whom they come in contact. It is impossible to 
immediately change public opinion in our favour ; and, 
indeed, we must always seek to lead it, and not be guided 
by it. For Pure Science is the pioneer who must not hover 
about cities and civilised countries, but must strike into un- 
known forests, and climb the hitherto inaccessible mountains 
which lead to and command a view of the promised land, — 
the land which Science promises us in the future ; which 
shall not only flow with milk and honey, but shall give us a 
better and more glorious idea of this wonderful universe. We 
must create a public opinion in our favour, but it need not 
at first be the general public. We must be contented to 
stand aside, and see the honours of the world for a time 
given to our inferiors ; and must be better contented with 
the approval of our own consciences, and of the very few 
who are capable of judging our work, than of the whole 
world beside. Let us look to the other physicists, not in 
our own town, not in our own country, but in the whole 
world, for the words of praise which are to encourage us, or 
the words of blame which are to stimulate us to renewed 
effort. For what to us is the praise of the ignorant ? Let 
us join together in the bonds of our scientific societies, and 
encourage each other, as We are now doing, in the pursuit of 
our favourite study ; knowing that the world will some time 
recognise our services, and knowing, also, that we constitute 
the most important element in human progress. 
But danger is also near, even in our societies. When the 
average tone of the societies is low, when the highest 
honours are given to the mediocre, when third-class men are 
held up as examples, and when trifling inventions are mag- 
nified into scientific discoveries, then the influence of such 
societies is prejudicial. A young scientist attending the 
meetings of such a society soon gets perverted ideas. To 
his mind a molehill is a mountain, and the mountain a 
molehill. The small inventor or the local celebrity rises to 
