36 
TRANSACTIONS OF THE TEXAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
knowledge. We are reminded here of the definition of capital in polit¬ 
ical economy, viz., wealth employed for the production of more wealth. 
Except in one important respect, however, the analogy is only in the 
sound of words, and is unreal. Capital consists mainly in material things 
which are worn out and consumed in use, though replaced by new things 
which it is instrumental in producing, and with an increase. Knowledge 
is intangible, and is a property of the human mind. It is never worn 
out, and once secured it is rarely lost or diminished. But in one respect 
the analogy is real. Wealth may or may not be capital. Whether it be 
so or not depends upon the use which is made of the wealth; and thus 
the word capital designates wealth in certain specific relations. So, too, 
knowledge may or may not be science (or scientific), this depending on 
the use which is made of it. If it is employed in obtaining more knowl¬ 
edge it is scientific; or if it is employed in finding new uses of knowledge 
in general it is also scientific. Thus scientific knowledge is growing 
knowledge. Whatever it gains it keeps, and none is either used up or 
lost. And as knowledge increases, so, too, increases the possibility of 
its use. 
The knowledge of the Asiatic nations then is unscientific because it is 
not employed to increase knowledge, nor to find new uses for it. There¬ 
fore it is veiy nearly stationary. It would be wholly so were it not that 
now and then some new truth or some new utility is stumbled upon by 
accident, whose importance and suggestiveness are too striking and im¬ 
pressive to be missed. That the Chinese of the present century have 
more knowledge than the Chinese of 4000 j^ears ago is certain; that they 
have more than their ancesters of 1000 years ago is probable; but the 
difference is probably not great, and whatever it may be, it has been 
achieved by accident and without system, and not by deliberate well- 
planned systematic research. Charles Lamb’s account of the discovery 
of roast pig is to us a delicious morsel of fun. In Asia it is a serious 
parable. 
Since science is the use of knowledge for increasing knowledge and for 
finding new uses for it, we may look briefly at the process by which its 
aims and results have thus far been achieved. There must certainly be 
some great difference in the methods or processes of the scientific man of 
today and those of ancient or mediaeval philosophers. The questionings 
and reasonings of antiquity brought but few answers, and the growth of 
knowledge was dismally slow. More is now added in a year than was 
added in a century during the flourishing periods of Greece and Rome. 
What has determined such a vast difference in results ? Why are modern 
inquiries so fruitful when ancient ones were so barren ? I believe that 
the cause of the difference is to be found in the enormous superiority of 
modern scientific logic. Without attempting to point out the full dis- 
