In an age when the world is so largely run by the results of scientific effort it is almost superfluous to speak of the value of science. If the things which science has contributed to our everyday use and which make life at the present time pleasant for us were removed, we should speedily understand the immense debt we owe to it.

Descriptive Astronomy; An Elementary Exposition of the Facts, Principles, and Theories of Astronomical Science, Part I (p. 1)