4 
Transactions Texas Academy or Science. 
for investigation and research, particularly along scientific lines. It has 
done more, for it has caused the scientific method of study and research 
to be extended to other fields than those included in the domain of sci- 
ence; it has overcome fanatical prejudice and has taught charity even to 
ignorance. 
The intelligent applications of science naturally presuppose a knowl- 
edge of the underlying fundamental principles, but it has sometimes 
happened that invention, hit upon almost at haphazard, has served to 
suggest important researches and to verify principles that once recognized 
and formulated are capable of indefinite extension. It has been the cus- 
tom to speak of Pure Science as a thing apart from Applied Science, the 
two being assumed to be governed by entirely different purposes. Pure 
Science was supposed to have for object the discovery and simplification 
of truths that pertain in any way to the mysteries of nature, regardless of 
ultimate utility, while Applied Science held only that to be good which 
was suitable for use in furthering the material interests of man. This 
view does not do either branch of science justice, for, each is, in great 
measure, indebted to the other for its present stage of development — and 
for the facilities afforded for further advancement. Without pure sci- 
ence there could be no applied science, but it is not usually recognized 
that pure science owes many debts to applied science also. 
In speaking of the work of the applied scientist Dr. L. 0. Howard says, 
in Science, for January 18, 1901 : 
“I have a strong conviction that humanity gains far more from scien- 
tific work undertaken with an economic aim than from the labors of the 
other class of scientific men, and I believe it to be a most unfortunate 
condition of affairs that hundreds of the men, best fitted by brains and 
training to attack the many economic problems that are fairly crying for 
solution, are delving away in their search for truths and principles which 
when found have only a remote bearing, if any at all, upon the sum total 
of human happiness. I was once filled with the resounding majesty of 
the phrase ‘science for Science’s sake/ but now, while I admit the grand- 
eur of the idea, I have come to parallel it and its opposite in my mind 
with the contrast between abstract and practical Christianity — both beau- 
tiful, but one for gods and the other for men.” 
Dr. Howard has perhaps put the case too strongly, for the true man of 
science is never blind to the potential possibilities for good inherent in 
every important discovery of scientific truth. Surely no well-wisher of 
humanity could ever really indorse such sentiments as are embodied in 
the toast said once to have been proposed to pure mathematics, “May it 
never be of any use to anybody.” It seems to me that notwithstanding 
the ever-increasing present tendency towards specialization there is now a 
closer bond between pure and applied science than has ever existed here- 
tofore. Pure science seeks always to add something to the world’s store 
