he exchequers of nations, the
history of science amply proves; but the hope of its doing so never
was, and it never can be, the motive power of the investigator.

I know that some risk is run in speaking thus before practical men. I
know what De Tocqueville says of you. 'The man of the North,' he says,
'has not only experience, but knowledge. He, however, does not care
for science as a pleasure, and only embraces it with avidity when it
leads to useful applications.' But what, I would ask, are the hopes of
useful applications which have caused you so many times to fill this
place, in spite of snow-drifts and biting cold? What, I may ask, is
the origin of that kindness which drew me from my work in London to
address you here, and which, if I permitted it, would send me home a
millionaire? Not because I had taught you to make a single cent by
science am I here to-night, but because I tried to the best of my
ability to present science to the world as an intellectual good.
Surely no two terms were ever so distorted and misapplied with
reference to man, in his higher relations, as these terms useful and
practical. Let us expand our definitions until they embrace all the
needs of man, his highest intellectual needs inclusive. It is
specially on this ground of its administering to the higher needs of
the intellect; it is mainly because I believe it to be wholesome, not
only as a source of knowledge but as a means of discipline, that I
urge the claims of science upon your attention.

But with reference to material needs and joys, surely pure science has
also a word to say. People sometimes speak as if steam had not been
studied before James Watt, or electricity before Wheatstone and Morse;
whereas, in point of fact, Watt and Wheatstone and Morse, with all
their practicality, were the mere outcome of antecedent forces, which
acted without reference to practical ends. This also, I think, merits
a moment's attention. You are delighted, and with good reason, with
your electric telegraphs, proud of your steam-engines and your
factories, and charmed with the productions of photography. You see
daily, with just elation, the creation of new forms of industry--new
powers of adding to the wealth and comfort of society. Industrial
England is heaving with forces tending to this end; and the pulse of
industry beats still stronger in the United States. And yet, when
analyzed, what are industrial America and industrial England?

If you can