all that they did, men who after eight weeks were writing orders as well as any general in the army'. But after they had held commissions for several months the Professor has been amazed to find that the army is unable to find a special use for the men of special ability. It makes the whole lot into 'second-lieutenants and grades them according to the dates when they joined, so that very often the youngest rank above their elders, and the pupils above their teachers'. And as lieutenants and second-lieutenants they give their lives for England and the world, doing their work splendidly, never complaining, but without any scope for the exercise of the special gifts which distinguish them from the average man.
I have tried in this lecture to show what we have lost by the national neglect of science. There may be some who fear that improvement in this respect would foster the callous materialism and brutality which have been such a shock to the world. But it is not German science which is responsible for the horror, but the German spirit, which has used science, as it has used everything else except a sane psychology, for its own ends. Science, pursued for its own sake because of the enthusiasm, and indeed inspiration, which it calls into being, is in reality one chief bulwark of the modern world against materialism.
I would ask those who have thought that science tends towards a material view of life to read the words written by Charles Darwin to his old teacher and friend, Professor J. S. Henslow, who had maintained that 'however delightful any scientific pursuit may be, yet, if it should be wholly unapplied, it is of no more use than building castles in the air'. Darwin was not satisfied to meet this contention by the reply that the practical use often comes