The practical value of science

I have endeavored to state the higher and more abstract arguments by which the study of physical science may be shown to be indislensable to the complete training of the human mind, but I do not wish it to be supposed that because I may be devoted to more or less abstract and unpractical pursuits I am insensible to the weight which ought to be attached to that which has been said to be the English conception of Paradise - namely, ' gettinig on'. Now the value of a knowledge of physical scienice as a means of getting on, is indubitable. There are hardly any of our trades, except the merely hukcstering ones, in which some knowledge of science may not be directly profitable to the pursuer of that occupation. An Industry attains higher stages of its development as its processes become more complicated and refined, and the sciences are dragged in, one by one, to take their share in the fray.

Thomas Huxley, Science vol.1 n.1 (1880)