602 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



garding all matters under discussion. Can it be truly said that 

 the labours of any other professions are so valuable to mankind ? 

 Where the priest, the clinician, and the lawyer do good service 

 to the few people surrounding them, and the soldier, sailor, 

 and politician do good service for their country, the discoverer 

 confers benefits upon the whole world, and not for the present 

 generation only, but for all times. We have already argued 

 the case. Mathematics, chemistry, physics, physiology, and patho- 

 logy have practically built up all those great and wonderful 

 additions which modern civilisation has added to the civilisation 

 of the past, and, with their sisters of the arts, have made a 

 fitting palace for what ought to be a higher race. Yet the 

 payment of the highly qualified men who formed these sciences 

 in the past and who are still perfecting them is less than that 

 given to all the other professions, and, compared with the 

 value of the work, is almost infinitely less. Indeed it would 

 appear that the second principle enunciated above is just the 

 opposite of the truth — that work is paid for in the inverse ratio 

 of its value : and this is not a mere cynical gibe, but the 

 actual truth. The greatest benefits which the world has ever 

 received, that is, those which it has received from science, 

 literature, art, and invention, have generally been paid for not 

 at all. 



But it may now be said that the scale of payment for science 

 is purely a question of supply and demand. That is so — and 

 the same principle governs the case of sweated industries of 

 all kinds. - In the latter, the employer exploits the necessities 

 of a crowded and poor population in order to have his work 

 done at the cheapest rate. As regards science, however, 

 the employer is the public itself, and the sweated labourer is 

 the highest type of intellect in the country. The process by 

 which the sweating is rendered possible is something as follows : 

 Young graduates, fired with enthusiasm for science or with 

 the desire of investigating some question which has occurred to 

 them, take scholarships or poorly paid research-studentships. 

 At first, while they are young, everything goes well with them ; 

 but after some years they find that the shoe begins to pinch. 

 Then, unfortunately, it is too late. They have lost the time 

 which they should have used in perfecting themselves for their 

 proper profession, whatever that may be — in which they have 

 already been outpaced by men of the same age who were not 



