THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 



9 1 



THE PEOGEESS OF SCIENCE 



THE KOBEL PRIZES 

 The great prizes established by the 

 will of Alfred Nobel were awarded for 

 the sixth time on December 10, the 

 anniversary of the death of the 

 founder, as follows: Physics, Professor 

 J. J. Thomson of Cambridge; chem- 

 istry, M. Moissan of Paris; medicine, 

 Professor S. Ramon y Cajal of Madrid 

 and Professor Camillo Golgi of Pavia; 

 literature, Professor Giosue Carducci 

 of Bologna; for the promotion of peace 

 among nations, President Roosevelt. 

 These international awards, of the 

 value of about $40,000, are of suf- 

 ficient magnitude not only to be of 

 interest to scientific men, but also to 

 attract the attention of the civilized 

 world. They are thus a real factor 

 in increasing the dignity of the scien- 

 tific career and in encouraging scien- 

 tific work. 



Regret has already been expressed 

 here that the confidence placed by 

 Nobel in his native land has not been 

 justified. His large fortune was made 

 in Great Britain by the discovery and 

 manufacture of dynamite, and it seems 

 likely that the instructions of his will 

 would have been more adequately car- 

 ried out if their execution had been 

 entrusted to the Royal Society and the 

 British courts. Nobel doubtless be- 

 lieved that the international obliga- 

 tions would be fully met by the 

 Scandinavian countries, and it is truly 

 sad and discouraging that there should 

 be lack of good faith in the adminis- 

 tration of a fund intended as the 

 testator states ' to benefit mankind.' 



Nobel's will is perfectly clear and 

 explicit. It directs that the interest 

 from the fund ' shall be divided into 

 five equal parts,' which shall be an- 

 nually awarded in prizes to those 



persons who shall have contributed 

 most materially to benefit mankind 

 during the year immediately preceding. 

 " One share to the person who shall 

 have made the most important dis- 

 covery or invention in the domain of 

 physics; one share to the person who 

 shall have made the most important 

 chemical discovery or improvement; 

 one share to the person who shall have 

 made the most important discovery in 

 the domain of physiology or medicine; 

 one share to the person who shall have 

 produced in the field of literature the 

 most distinguished work of an ideal- 

 istic tendency, and, finally, one share 

 to the person who shall have most or 

 best promoted the fraternity of nations 

 and the abolishment or diminution of 

 standing armies and the formation and 

 increase of peace congresses." 



In face of these explicit directions 

 statutes have been drawn up, appar- 

 ently with the sanction of the King 

 of Sweden and others high in au- 

 thority, providing that only sixty per 

 cent, of the income need be used for 

 the prizes and that they need be 

 awarded only once in five years. The 

 balance of the income — except perhaps 

 in the case of the prize for the promo- 

 tion of peace, regarding which infor- 

 mation is lacking — is now used for 

 the support of certain laboratories and 

 libraries at Stockholm. These are 

 doubtless needed, possibly more than 

 the prizes established by Nobel, but 

 they have been founded in dishonor. 

 The clause establishing the laboratory 

 of physics and chemistry is unpleas- 

 antly disingenuous. It says that it is 

 to be " established primarily for the 

 purpose of carrying out, where the re- 

 spective Nobel committees shall deem 

 requisite, scientific investigation as to 

 the value of those discoveries in the 



