4 88 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



picture of a personality or his work arises in the imagination 

 when the word ' scientist ' is pronounced. More or less in- 

 definitely, I suppose, it is conceded by all that a scientist is a 

 man of vast erudition (an impression, by the way, which is often 

 strikingly incorrect) who leads a dreary life with his head 

 buried in a book or his eye glued to telescope or microscope, or 

 perfumed with those disagreeable odours which, as everybody 

 knows, are inseparably associated with chemicals." And he 

 proceeds to show up this " average man " as taking cognisance 

 of science only at rare intervals when some unusual discovery 

 forces itself on his notice, and as possessing no idea at all of the 

 vast scope of science and the important part it plays in the life 

 of every individual. The chief point, however, that Prof. Robert- 

 son brings out very clearly is the fact that science is denied the 

 business basis of commercial pursuits. In business concerns it 

 is an elementary rule that part of the profits shall flow back 

 into the business to be devoted to the production of future 

 output ; and yet science, which gives enormous sums of money 

 to the world, is supposed to maintain itself as best it can on 

 practically nothing. " Of all the inexhaustible wealth which 

 Faraday poured into the lap of the world, not one millionth, not 

 a discernible fraction, has ever been returned to science for the 

 furtherance of its aims and its achievements, for the continuance 

 of research." It is impossible within the compass of so short 

 a note to quote the figures he brings forward to prove this fact, 

 but a perusal of them will well repay the reader for his trouble. 

 These justify his statement that " there is no regular machinery 

 for securing the permanent endowment of research, and it is 

 always and everywhere a barely tolerated intruder. In the 

 universities it crouches under the shadow of pedagogy, and 

 snatches its time and its materials from the fragments which 

 are left over when the all-important business of teaching the 

 young what others have accomplished has been done. In 

 commercial institutions it occasionally pursues a stunted career, 

 subject to all the caprices of momentary commercial advantage 

 and the cramped outlook of the ' practical man.' " Only one 

 sentence calls perhaps for criticism, when he tells us that 

 Faraday died a poor man . . . because ... he found it necessary 

 to choose between the pursuit of wealth and the pursuit of 

 science, and he deliberately chose the latter. This is not a 

 bad thing. It is perhaps as it should be, and as it has been in 



