All that I mean to say is this:--permanent inequality of conditions
leads men to confine themselves to the arrogant and sterile research
of abstract truths; whilst the social condition and the institutions
of democracy prepare them to seek the immediate and useful practical
results of the sciences. This tendency is natural and inevitable: it is
curious to be acquainted with it, and it may be necessary to point
it out. If those who are called upon to guide the nations of our time
clearly discerned from afar off these new tendencies, which will soon
be irresistible, they would understand that, possessing education
and freedom, men living in democratic ages cannot fail to improve the
industrial part of science; and that henceforward all the efforts of
the constituted authorities ought to be directed to support the highest
branches of learning, and to foster the nobler passion for science
itself. In the present age the human mind must be coerced into
theoretical studies; it runs of its own accord to practical
applications; and, instead of perpetually referring it to the minute
examination of secondary effects, it is well to divert it from them
sometimes, in order to raise it up to the contemplation of primary
causes. Because the civilization of ancient Rome perished in consequence
of the invasion of the barbarians, we are perhaps too apt to think that
civilization cannot perish in any other manner. If the light by which we
are guided is ever extinguished, it will dwindle by degrees, and expire
of itself. By dint of close adherence to mere applications, principles
would be lost sight of; and when the principles were wholly forgotten,
the methods derived from them would be ill-pursued. New methods could
no longer be invented, and men would continue to apply, without
intelligence, and without art, scientific processes no longer
understood.