Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 24.djvu/44

34 is motion, and yet do we know what it is that moves? Ordinary matter is a common substance, and yet who shall fathom the mystery of its internal constitution?

There is room for all in the work, and the race has but commenced. The problems are not to be solved in a moment, but need the best work of the best minds, for an indefinite time.

Shall our country be contented to stand by, while other countries lead in the race? Shall we always grovel in the dust, and pick up the crumbs which fall from the rich man's table, considering ourselves richer than he because we have more crumbs, while we forget that he has the cake, which is the source of all crumbs? Shall we be swine, to whom the corn and husks are of more value than the pearls? If I read aright the signs of the times, I think we shall not always be contented with our inferior position. From looking down we have almost become blind, but may recover. In a new country, the necessities of life must be attended to first. The curse of Adam is upon us all, and we must earn our bread.

But it is the mission of applied science to render this easier for the whole world. There is a story which I once read, which will illustrate the true position of applied science in the world. A boy, more fond of reading than of work, was employed, in the early days of the steam-engine, to turn the valve at every stroke. Necessity was the mother of invention in his case: his reading was disturbed by his work, and he soon discovered that he might become free from his work by so tying the valve to some movable portion of the engine as to make it move its own valve. So I consider that the true pursuit of mankind is intellectual. The scientific study of nature, in all its branches, of mathematics, of mankind in its past and present, the pursuit of art, and the cultivation of all that is great and noble in the world these are the highest occupations of mankind. Commerce, the applications of science, the accumulation of wealth, are necessities which are a curse to those with high ideals, but a blessing to that portion of the world which has neither the ability nor the taste for higher pursuits.

As the applications of science multiply, living becomes easier, the wealth necessary for the purchase of apparatus can better be obtained, and the pursuit of other things besides the necessities of life becomes possible.

But the moral qualities must also be cultivated in proportion to the wealth of the country, before much can be done in pure science. The successful sculptor or painter naturally attains to wealth through the legitimate work of his profession. The novelist, the poet, the musician, all have wealth before them as the end of a successful career. But the scientist and the mathematician have no such incentive to work: they must earn their living by other pursuits, usually teaching, and only devote their surplus time to the true pursuit of their science,