manner of constructing all these engines of offence and defence. And as
he held this science of inventing and putting together engines, and all
arts generally speaking which tended to any useful end in practice, to
be vile, low, and mercenary, he spent his talents and his studious hours
in writing of those things only whose beauty and subtilty had in them
no admixture of necessity." Such is the aristocratic aim of science; in
democratic nations it cannot be the same.

The greater part of the men who constitute these nations are extremely
eager in the pursuit of actual and physical gratification. As they are
always dissatisfied with the position which they occupy, and are always
free to leave it, they think of nothing but the means of changing their
fortune, or of increasing it. To minds thus predisposed, every new
method which leads by a shorter road to wealth, every machine which
spares labor, every instrument which diminishes the cost of production,
every discovery which facilitates pleasures or augments them, seems to
be the grandest effort of the human intellect. It is chiefly from
these motives that a democratic people addicts itself to scientific
pursuits--that it understands, and that it respects them. In
aristocratic ages, science is more particularly called upon to furnish
gratification to the mind; in democracies, to the body. You may be sure
that the more a nation is democratic, enlightened, and free, the greater
will be the number of these interested promoters of scientific genius,
and the more will discoveries immediately applicable to productive
industry confer gain, fame, and even power on their authors. For in
democracies the working class takes a part in public affairs; and public
honors, as well as pecuniary remuneration, may be awarded to those who
deserve them. In a community thus organized it may easily be conceived
that the human mind may be led insensibly to the neglect of theory; and
that it is urged, on the contrary, with unparalleled vehemence to the