Page:Science the handmaid of religion.djvu/9

Rh cannot be considered as secured when his material necessities are satisfied, but when his mental and moral longings also have obtained the ends for which they seem to crave.

The proper end of science therefore is not anything practical. The end of science is an intellectual end. Practice belongs to art, which is the application of science. But the end and object of science is discovery; that is, the uncovering of something concealed. Science is but another name for knowledge; and knowledge is an end in itself. For as the body desires to be fed and warmed and clothed, and to enjoy conditions in which the healthy exercise of its functions may be permitted, so the soul desires knowledge; and when it has gained knowledge, it is, so far, happy and satisfied.

No doubt there have been, and there will be to a greater and greater extent, practical applications of the mathematical and physical sciences; but the mathematician and the physicist, as such, have no practical ends immediately in view. Their aim is knowledge, the knowledge of nature in her infinite variety, in her inflexible law, in her adaptation of means to ends, whether apparent or real, in her phenomenal and causal aspects. Nor can we doubt, that when men of science have in different ages, according to their varying lights, from Thales of Miletus, or probably from the time of the magicians of Egypt, thousands of years before Thales, to Tyndall of London, pursued the investigation of