itself may become valuable as a necessary means." Perhaps a day may come when, science being in a sense complete, indifferent documents and facts may be safely thrown overboard; but we are not at present in a position to distinguish the superfluous from the necessary, and in all probability the line of demarcation will never be easy to trace. This justifies the most special researches and the most futile in all appearance. And, if it come to the worst, what does it matter if there is a certain amount of work wasted? "It is a law in science, as in all human effort," and indeed in all the operations of nature, "to work in broad outlines, with a wide margin of what is superfluous."
We shall not undertake to refute these arguments to the full extent in which this is possible. Besides, Renan, who has put the case for both sides of the question with equal vigour, definitively closed the debate in the following words: "It may be said that some researches are useless in the sense of taking up time which would have been better spent on more serious questions.... Although it is not necessary for an artisan to have a complete knowledge of the work he is employed to execute, it is still to be desired that those who devote themselves to special labours should have some notion of the more general considerations which alone give value to their researches. If all the industrious workers to whom modern science owes its progress had had a philosophical comprehension of what they were doing, how much precious time would have been saved!... It is deeply to be regretted that there should be such an immense waste