3 o8 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



between Pure and Applied Science, not by the subjects it treats, nor by the degree 

 to which a particular research may lead to industrial applications, but rather by 

 the mental attitude of the worker. "Applied Science " is a vague term ; it includes 

 the unselfish and unremunerative researches of a Pasteur as well as the activity 

 of an inventor intent merely to exploit a patent, and between the two extremes 

 we have all the higher forms of " industrial science," which, while ultimately 

 benefiting the community as a whole, are primarily intended to increase the 

 wealth of individuals. To improve one's personal and thereby the national 

 prosperity is as worthy an object as the ambition to gain standing and reputation 

 by intellectual pursuits. I am not at present concerned with such considerations, 

 nor with the exact definition of " Applied " Science. For the purpose of this lecture 

 it is sufficient to define the prosecution of Pure Science as the search for knowledge 

 for its own sake. 



The utilitarian and idealistic motives are, however, frequently coexistent, and 

 a sharp distinction can seldom be drawn. A laboratory attached to a chemical 

 works may be full of men charged with the duty to conduct researches. These 

 may often lead to results of theoretical rather than practical value ; yet such work 

 — to my mind— falls within the category of industrial science, if its scientific 

 significance has been an incidental consequence rather than a primary motive. 

 On the other hand, men engaged in practical pursuits, having entered their pro- 

 fession as men of business merely, are often carried away — sometimes temporarily, 

 sometimes permanently — by the fascination of research, and produce work which, 

 whatever its ultimate industrial value may be, partakes of the spirit and virtue of 

 pure science. The life of Joule is instructive in this respect. He began with 

 the purely utilitarian object of making an electro-magnetic machine that would 

 work economically. " I hardly doubt," he writes as a boy of nineteen, " that 

 electro-magnetism will ultimately be substituted for steam to propel machinery." 

 He was then led on to consider what we should now call the " equivalence " of 

 different forms of energy, and, adopting the mechanical theory of heat, started on 

 his classical series of experiments. As the work proceeded, he fell more and more 

 under the spell of the intellectual pleasure of research for its own sake. Those 

 who knew him in his later years will agree that his interests were concentrated on 

 the advance of pure knowledge. " If I were a young man," he once said near the 

 close of his life, " I should tackle atomic weights." There was no idea here of 

 industrial applications. 



There is — in my opinion — good ground for pressing the claims of pure science 

 at the present moment, because there is some danger that the immediate necessity 

 of promoting industrial prosperity may drive pure science into the background. 

 Some have tried to allay that fear by pointing out that the greater the industrial 

 need, the greater must also be the demand for research, and that Pure Science 

 stands to be the gainer rather than the loser by the increased attention given to 

 its industrial side. The reassurance rests, I think, on a wrong interpretation of 

 what is implied in the meaning of " Pure Science," which loses the essential part 

 of its specific virtue by being pursued with a special view to its applications. That 

 the danger is a real one might be illustrated by the history of the German 

 Universities during the last twenty years. Science pursued merely for the sake of 

 its commercial value, whether immediate or ultimate, loses its claim to be called 

 " pure.'' 



The student who devotes himself to the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake 

 is sometimes regarded as an academic freak ministering selfishly to his own 

 intellectual appetite. We have all heard the story of the distinguished mathe- 



