Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 2.djvu/665

Rh must be recollected that our whole civilization is pervaded by a knowledge of facts primarily derived from scientific investigation. Such inventions as those we have alluded to are not produced in a barbarous country, or even in those of a comparative high civilization without science.

If we desire an illustration of the condition of civilization based upon empirical art, upon facts accidentally discovered, or invention without science, we have merely to turn to China and Japan. These countries have long since utilized all the facts and empirical processes the result of accident or simple invention, and have, consequently, remained stationary for thousands of years, and must remain so continually, unless they borrow a knowledge of science from abroad.

It is not, however, merely the material wants of man that are gratified by the results of science; it administers also to his highest intellectual development. Placed in a universe of constant change, on an isolated globe, surrounded by distant celestial objects on all sides, subjected to influences of various kinds, it is a sublime occupation to measure the earth and weigh the planets, to predict their changes, and even to discover the materials of which they are composed; to investigate the causes of the tempest and volcano, to bring the lightning from the clouds, to submit it to experiment by which it shall reveal its character, and to estimate the size and weight of those invisible atoms which constitute the universe of things. It is the pursuit, above all, which impresses us with the capacity of man for intellectual and moral progress, and awakens the human intellect to aspirations for a higher condition of humanity, and gives a pleasurable consciousness to those who successfully pursue it, of contributing, in however small a degree it may be, to such a desirable consummation. The effect of such pursuits on the mind of the individual himself cannot be otherwise than salutary. While it exalts the understanding, it exercises the imagination, and awakens and constantly cherishes a love of truth for its own sake. The man imbued with the proper spirit of science does not seek for immediate pecuniary reward from the practical applications of his discoveries, but derives sufficient gratification from his pursuit and the consciousness of enlarging the bounds of human contemplation, and the magnitude of human power, and leaves to others to gather the golden fruit he may strew along his pathway. This fact is strikingly illustrated in the generous devotion by our illustrious visitor of the proceeds of his labors in this country to the advance of science.

In the foregoing remarks it is not our wish to disparage any other pursuit, or to diminish the love of ancient literature, but, on the contrary, we would cherish whatever tends to develop the human mind. We would carefully preserve the knowledge of the past, and transmit it to posterity, enlarged by the achievements of the present. We hold that every age of the world has had its mission, and has left its