field; and be told then--perhaps to their own astonishment--as many a
gallant soldier has been told, that by simply walking straight on, and
doing the duty which lay nearest them, they have helped to win a great
battle, and slay great giants, earning the thanks of their country and of
mankind.

And, meanwhile, if they get their shilling a day of fighting-pay, they
are content. I had almost said, they ought to be content. For science
is, I verily believe, like virtue, its own exceeding great reward. I can
conceive few human states more enviable than that of the man to whom,
panting in the foul laboratory, or watching for his life under the tropic
forest, Isis shall for a moment lift her sacred veil, and show him, once
and for ever, the thing he dreamed not of; some law, or even mere hint of
a law, explaining one fact; but explaining with it a thousand more,
connecting them all with each other and with the mighty whole, till order
and meaning shoots through some old Chaos of scattered observations.

Is not that a joy, a prize, which wealth cannot give, nor poverty take
away? What it may lead to, he knows not. Of what use it may become, he
knows not. But this he knows, that somewhere it must lead; of some use
it will be. For it is a truth; and having found a truth, he has
exorcised one more of the ghosts which haunt humanity. He has left one
object less for man to fear; one object more for man to use. Yes, the
scientific man may have this comfort, that whatever he has done, he has
done good; that he is following a mistress who has never yet conferred
aught but benefits on the human race.

What physical science may do hereafter I know not; but as yet she has
done this:

She has enormously increased the wealth of the human race; and has
therefore given employment, food, existence, to millions who, without
science, would either have starved or have never been born. She has
shown that the dictum of the early political economists, that population
has a tendency to increase faster than the means of subsistence, is no
law of humanity, but merely a tendency of the barbaric and ignorant man,
which can be counteracted by increasing manifold by scientific means his
powers of producing food. She has taught men, during the last few years,
to foresee and elude the most destructive storms; and there is no reason
for doubting, and many reasons for hoping, that she will gradually teach
men to elude other terrific forces of