Science or knowledge of nature lies at the root of all the
arts and manufactures, and it was our relation to scientific teaching
and research that required investigation. Naturally enough, Huxley
took the keenest interest in this question and made large
contributions to its solution, contributions which have not yet been
put completely into operation. He insisted most strongly upon a point
that we as a nation have not yet completely grasped. There is no
difference between applied science and any other kind of science. The
chemistry of manufactures, the physics of industrial machinery, the
biology of agriculture and of fisheries, are not different from other
chemistries and physics and biologies. They are merely special cases
of the application of the same general fund of knowledge, and the same
general principles of investigation. Huxley wished that the term
"applied science" had never been invented, or that it could be
destroyed. A man cannot study the chemistry of dyeing or make advances
in it unless he be a thoroughly trained chemist in the full sense of
the word. More than that, many of the greatest discoveries, using the
word "great" as applied to commercial advantage rather than to
abstract progress in knowledge, have been made by those who were
pursuing research for its own sake rather than for any immediate
commercial advantage to be derived from it.
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