THE ENDOWMENT OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. 357 



If the scientific worker is wealthy, and therefore presumably has 

 abundant leisure, he -will seek no material reward (precisely as those 

 scions of wealthy families who enter the service of religion seek I 

 suppose, no payment for their ministries). But it has been well re- 

 mai'ked that " there is unfortunately no necessary connection between 

 wisdom and the inheritance of riches ; and consequently it is always 

 within the bounds of possibility that a man of property may subsidize 

 in his own person, not knowledge, but error, a mischievous crotchet 

 or a perfectly fruitless and impossible inquiry, and may employ the 

 contents of a bottomless purse in compelling the attention of the 

 world to it. . . . There is also no guarantee in the case of a private 

 person .... that the investigator is sufficiently furnished with the 

 preliminary knowledge or training to make his remarks fruitful. In 

 short, work supj^orted by private means is very likely to be amateur 

 work, or duplicate work." ' 



Every man who desires to make researches in science, and who is 

 not possessed of private means sufficient, not only for his support, but 

 to provide for the expenses of his researches (in some cases necessarily 

 heavy), must either select an occupation which will provide the re- 

 quired means without taking him from his special subject of research, 

 or must simply withdraw from the scientific work he had proposed to 

 undertake. The alternative may present itself to him at the outset 

 of his career; or gradually as his scientific work becomes more and 

 more difficult, through the pressure of other duties ; or sudden losses 

 may bring the alternative home to him, after original scientific work 

 has already commenced. Of the third case 1 shall say little in what 

 follows, as it is probably unusual, and, when it occurs, must, for the 

 most part, lead to entire withdrawal from scientific work. In what- 

 ever way the alternative may present itself, the student of science 

 who determines to continue his investigations is not ti'oubled by any 

 great difficulty in selecting the occupation which he will combine with 

 the pursuit of knowledge. For the available occupations are few in- 

 deed. 



There are some salaried posts to which light scientific duties (chiefly 

 educational) are attached. But these are not commonly, I believe,* 

 to be obtained at the beginning of a scientific life, nor readily by 

 those who find the gradual pressure of expenses interfering with scien- 

 tific labors. They are not, indeed, necessarily awarded to science- 

 workers at all ; nor, when so held, have they invariably been found 

 to encourage steady work in science. I am speaking, be it under- 

 stood, of offices, professorial or otherwise, where the special duties 



^Fortnightly Review for October, ISH : Mr. Appleton on the "Endowment of 

 Research." 



* In speaking about salaried and official posts, I rely on information derived from 

 others, my own avocations not having led me at any time, or being at all likely hereafter 

 to lead me, to seek direct information on such matters. 



