Wealth & Money Quote by Alexander Herzen

Herzen paints science as a ruthless, efficient machine: it "cuts its way" through the "muddy pond" of ordinary life, refusing to get its hands dirty. The image is deliberately abrasive. Science moves forward regardless of the mess, shedding value as it goes, yet it stays oddly aloof from the human world it transforms. That tension is the engine of the line: knowledge can be prodigiously productive while still failing to become usable, humane, or broadly shared.

The subtext is political, not merely philosophical. Herzen, a 19th-century Russian journalist and exile, watched modern ideas collide with an autocratic society whose institutions were too weak or too self-protective to translate insight into reform. The "wealth" science casts out is not just technology; it is possibility - new ways to organize labor, health, education, public life. The tragedy is in the recipients: the "puny boatmen" are the people and their would-be leaders, diminished by illiteracy, censorship, superstition, and a culture of dependency. They are on the water, closest to the resource, but lack the tools, training, and freedom to "fish" it.

Herzen's jab lands because it refuses two comforting myths at once: that progress automatically improves society, and that the public's failures are purely personal. The boatmen aren't stupid by nature; they're made small by conditions. Science, for its part, isn't a benevolent patron. It throws off riches as a byproduct, indifferent to who can collect them. The line reads like an early diagnosis of the innovation gap: breakthroughs are plentiful; capacity is the scarce commodity.