Page:Hardwicke's Science-Gossip - Volume 1.pdf/41

"CUI BONO?"

"Surely, my friends, plenty of bacon is good and indispensable: but, I doubt, you will never get even bacon by aiming only at that. You are men, not animals of prey."—Thomas Carlyle.

We English people have the credit of being one of the most utilitarian nations under the sun; yet, amongst ourselves, as though we believed it not, we call the present a utilitarian age, and flatter ourselves that during this nineteenth century we have become more practical. Now-a-days we are too utilitarian to erect handsome structures or do handsome things without first inquiring, What good will come of it? If, after a long sum in compound addition and subtraction, there appears a good balance in favour of the project, "Cui bono" kicks the beam, and the thing is done. Can we be surprised, then, after having worshipped this idol all the day, at having it flung at our heads at night? Shall we bend before it in our counting-houses, make the Ledger our prayer-book, and Contracts our homilies, and go home without expecting to see the shadow of the idol there? No! by the manes of "Porter's Progress," let's be true and faithful worshippers, even though we cast ourselves beneath the wheels, so that the car of Juggernath may pass over us!

Try the experiment with our youthful population. Pick up a little weed from the wayside in their presence; gaze at it earnestly, blow back the petals of the flower, take out a pocket lens, examine yet more closely, turn over the leaves, thoughtfully, but carefully, inspect it thoroughly, minutely; place it erect within the lining of your hat; return that undignified cylinder to its place of honour on the top of your head, and move on. Think you that this operation can be brought to a conclusion before you are assailed with the inquiry, "What are you going to do with it, what good is it?" Vain hope, for should you perchance escape it there, it will be at home waiting your return, and no sooner will you take the innocent little weed from its resting-place, than you will have to give an account of all the pleasures and profits, uses and benefits that you are ever likely to derive form preserving such rubbish between clean sheets of paper. How vain is it, under such circumstances, to attempt to convey to the mind of the inquirer any conviction unassociated with money value or domestic economy! If it can be proved that your little plant of knotgrass, or pimpernel, or barebell is a certain cure for croup, or will flavour a stew like parsley or tarragon, then it would be admitted that it really is of use; or that a handful would realize a shilling in Covent Garden Market, in that case they would even turn botanists themselves; but, not to be worth a farthing in hard cash, or furnish food for a canary, is sufficient to prove them worthy of wholescale condemnation as rubbish, and the collector little better than a fool.

Mrs. Partington, with the encroaching sea at the end of her mop, could not have trundled more fruitlessly than those kind friends who by their efforts would stay the progress of inquiry and investigation in the young student of nature, by throwing a Cui Bono at his head, provided he has acquired just sufficient knowledge to direct his investigations into a right channel. If man could live by bread alone; if his sole mission were to eat, sleep, and die; if he were content to measure his happiness by twopences, and his ecstacies by biscuits, then it would be legitimate to inquire of every pursuit that did not end in twopences or biscuits, "What good is it?" But inasmuch as there is a higher aim in life,