RELATIONS OF RESEARCH TO INVENTION. 541 



the realm must naturally seem profitless. High aims count for 

 little or nothing results, and tangible results at that, are wanted. 



It would be easy to multiply instances in illustration of my 

 meaning. For example, iodine, discovered in 1812 by Courtois, 

 was for many years a chemical curiosity. Why should any one 

 waste his time in the study of so useless a body ? To-day indus- 

 tries unknown to Courtois, born since his day, find in iodine one 

 of their most necessary appliances. Photography, one of the arts 

 in which iodine is useful, itself grew out of researches which were 

 seemingly useless when made ; and the camera, its most essential 

 implement, was once only a philosopher's plaything. Investiga- 

 tions which had only the pursuit of truth for its own sake as a 

 justification, brought rainbows of color out of coal ; and coal-tar, 

 not forty years ago a nuisance to be thrown away, is now a source 

 of profit and prodigal of beauty. From the same hopeless material, 

 through researches still unarmed at profit, have come the latest 

 and best additions to our materia medica ; and so again the meth- 

 ods of Science, as applied by her highest votaries, are vindicated 

 by the fruits they bear. In short, every department of invention, 

 every advance in civilization, owes much to the student ; no in- 

 dustry is independent of the results won by purely abstract re- 

 search. Even the most trivial details of modern life are affected 

 by the work of the scientific investigator ; luxuries and necessa- 

 ries alike are influenced ; and so obtrusively evident is this truth 

 to most of us, that, taking it for granted, we daily ask, " What 

 next ?" Indeed, our gratitude to Science is often manifested in 

 that cynical form which has been wittily defined as "a lively 

 sense of favors yet to be received." We expect more in the future 

 than we have realized in the past, and, as the marvels of the last 

 century become commonplace, we look for new wonders which 

 shall be even greater. The magic of the ancients is already out- 

 done, and still the tide of discovery has not reached its flood. To 

 preserve what we have gained, and to insure the promise of the 

 years to come, is the problem before us. Speaking in the interest 

 of future invention we may fairly ask, How best shall the work 

 of investigation be furthered ? 



It is an old saying, and one partly true, that what has been, 

 shall be. We may, therefore, consider through what agencies 

 science has heretofore grown, and so recognize the foundations 

 upon which building is possible. These agencies, briefly summa- 

 rized, are as follows : First, individual enterprise ; second, schools 

 and universities ; third, learned societies and endowments ; fourth, 

 government aid. Like nearly all classifications this list is im- 

 perfect, for it represents only one phase of the truth ; and the 

 several items, far from being distinct, shade into one another 

 through many gradations of circumstance. Among them all, in- 



