tion of the bionomic[1] value of science. This is, of course, to be expected. If knowledge is selected for survival because of its utility to the knower and to his race, systematic knowledge, or science, would disappear as a temporary freak unless it were likewise useful.
Now it is not necessary that we examine this doctrine in its entirety before we avail ourselves of the truth brought out by it. That truth is the truth of the practical utility of science. It is to science that we owe a very large part of our modern civilization, with all its practical achievements. But this is saying that science is practical. It helps in the performance of human work. But this practicality of science is not incompatible with its theoretical character. Indeed, it is because of its theoretical character that it is so practical. That is, it is because science is such a comprehensive knowledge of things in their interconnections and their laws that men with this knowledge of nature can do things never dreamed of in earlier days of human ignorance. Nothing has shown itself in human history to be so practical as broad, inclusive theory—if the theory be true. The world's work does not need less theory, but more. Infinitely much is waiting to be done, but it will wait till some one who knows comes along; it is held back because theoretical science has not gone forward more rapidly. The theorist, it is true, is not himself necessarily practical. But his knowledge communicated to others more interested in achievement than in science is the light which reveals the pathway human progress is to take.
But not all theoretical sciences have proved as yet to be equally practical. Not all have equal value in indicating ways by which objects of human desire can be reached. But no one can safely and confidently predict that these relative values will remain constant. Unexpectedly even to specialists in a science, that science may at a stroke prove to be one of the utmost value to the practical life of the world. All that can be done is to say that up to the present time one science has yielded more practical
- ↑ I.e.,., value in promoting life. Bionomics is the science of "the economics of the living organism" (Minot, Science, N. S., Vol. XXI, No. 392), i.e., the science of the principles which are involved in the maintenance of living organisms.
