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Science & Education by Thomas Henry Huxley
page 219 of 357 (61%)
Biology would seem to be a topic that does not concern us at all. I
propose to put before you a few considerations with which I dare say
many will be familiar already, but which will suffice to show--not
fully, because to demonstrate this point fully would take a great many
lectures--that there are some very good and substantial reasons why it
may be advisable that we should know something about this branch of
human learning.

I myself entirely agree with another sentiment of the philosopher of
Malmesbury, "that the scope of all speculation is the performance of
some action or thing to be done," and I have not any very great respect
for, or interest in, mere knowing as such. I judge of the value of
human pursuits by their bearing upon human interests; in other words,
by their utility; but I should like that we should quite clearly
understand what it is that we mean by this word "utility." In an
Englishman's mouth it generally means that by which we get pudding or
praise, or both. I have no doubt that is one meaning of the word
utility, but it by no means includes all I mean by utility. I think
that knowledge of every kind is useful in proportion as it tends to
give people right ideas, which are essential to the foundation of right
practice, and to remove wrong ideas, which are the no less essential
foundations and fertile mothers of every description of error in
practice. And inasmuch as, whatever practical people may say, this
world is, after all, absolutely governed by ideas, and very often by
the wildest and most hypothetical ideas, it is a matter of the very
greatest importance that our theories of things, and even of things
that seem a long way apart from our daily lives, should be as far as
possible true, and as far as possible removed from error. It is not
only in the coarser, practical sense of the word "utility," but in this
higher and broader sense, that I measure the value of the study of
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