e
word 'practical.' They did not propose to themselves money as an end,
and knowledge as a means of obtaining it. For the most part, they
nobly reversed this process, made knowledge their end, and such money
as they possessed the means of obtaining it.

We see to-day the issues of their work in a thousand practical forms,
and this may be thought sufficient to justify, if not ennoble, their
efforts. But they did not work for such issues; their reward was of a
totally different kind. In what way different? We love clothes, we
love luxuries, we love fine equipages, we love money, and any man who
can point to these as the result of his efforts in life, justifies
these results before all the world. In America and England, more
especially, he is a 'practical' man. But I would appeal confidently to
this assembly whether such things exhaust the demands of human nature?
The very presence here for six inclement nights of this great
audience, embodying so much of the mental force and refinement of this
vast city,[26] is an answer to my question. I need not tell such an
assembly that there are joys of the intellect as well as joys of the
body, or that these pleasures of the spirit constituted the reward of
our great investigators. Led on by the whisperings of natural truth,
through pain and self-denial, they often pursued their work. With the
ruling passion strong in death, some of them, when no longer able to
hold a pen, dictated to their friends the last results of their
labours, and then rested from them for ever.

Could we have seen these men at work, without any knowledge of the
consequences of their work, what should we have thought of them? To
the uninitiated, in their day, they might often appear as big children
playing with soap-bubbles and other trifles. It is so to this hour.
Could you watch the true investigator--your Henry or your Draper, for
example--in his laboratory, unless animated by his spirit, you could
hardly understand what keeps him there. Many of the objects which
rivet his attention might appear to you utterly trivial; and if you
were to ask him what is the _use_ of his work, the chances are that
you would confound him. He might not be able to express the use of it
in intelligible terms. He might not be able to assure you that it will
put a dollar into the pocket of any human being present or to come.
That scientific discovery _may_ put not only dollars into the pockets
of individuals, but millions into t