an idle manner," the original motive will often be outgrown. In the use of the microscope one thing is very likely to happen. A curious sensation of shame will steal over an observer when he becomes conscious that what is really ridiculously small is not the animal or plant which he is handling, but his own knowledge of its functions and powers and organization. This very feeling, however, will give him an assurance that he has an endowment for life in things strange and beautiful to be observed and studied. Nature is prodigal, and in the hope of rearing a couple of sprats will produce five thousand eggs, and more than half a million for a couple of flounders. We need not then be surprised if many hundreds or thousands of observers are used up in unproductive labour or self-amusement for every true light of science that shines upon a generation. Yet the laborious accumulation of knowledge by very humble workers may ultimately be of service to mankind. Thus Gilbert White of Selborne not improbably traces the extirpation of leprosy from this part of the globe to the improved knowledge and therewith the greatly extended use of vegetables. So happy a result could never have been foreseen by the botanists who trifled away their unremembered lives in studying kales and carrots and "sweet smallage."
It is commonly supposed that the advance of science has been greatly hindered by the persistent and often recurring opposition of theologians. That may be true of the middle ages, but of the last century and our own it is extremely doubtful. The new views on the age of the earth, on the antiquity of man, on the transmutation of species, severally in their turn aroused, it is true, the most violent hostility. The evidence adduced crashed in among accepted beliefs like the bomb of a nihilist. Denunciation and ridicule were freely employed against the new opinions. The "conspiracy of silence" was adopted wherever it could be made effective. The social discouragements, which we all more or less unconsciously apply to those whose opinions we dislike, were no doubt brought to bear as remorselessly as ever upon the happiness and prosperity of many outspoken geologists and evolutionists. But the very fierceness of the controversies helped to arouse attention and keep it awake. Besides, the age was an age in which freedom had found her voice, and the country in which
