2o8 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



science in Britain is admitted by nearly every one. The fault 

 has lain largely with men of science themselves, who fail to 

 claim for their work the position which it should hold in the 

 thoughts of the nation. Our learned societies seem to be con- 

 cerned with little else than providing places for the reading and 

 printing of scientific articles, or occasionally supplying some 

 small funds for working expenses. But really the only way to 

 encourage science and art is to encourage the men who make 

 them ; and here men of science themselves take no worthy 

 stand for betterment. They let things drift. They content 

 themselves too often with talking futilities about the high aims 

 of science and the glory of being allowed to do scientific work 

 for nothing. All this is an attitude of fakirism — the lofty but 

 vain unpracticalness which leads to nothing but airy dreams 

 combined with beggary. In this world, for science as for every 

 movement, straight thinking and hard pushing are the only 

 things which win. 



The future lies with the younger men. They should see to 

 it that some kind of corporate body is formed to do more than 

 give opportunities for work — to attend to the interests of the 

 workers themselves, and to help those who are climbing the 

 precipitous heights of knowledge. They may allow the beggar 

 to sit still dreaming by the roadside, but themselves should 

 advance, staff in hand, to the more arduous task. With them 

 lies, not only their own future, but the future of their country. 

 We do not — and perhaps the whole world does not — fully 

 recognise the great principle that of all forms of human effort, 

 those efforts which result directly in discover}'-, whether in 

 science or in art, are by far the most important efforts for 

 humanity ; greater than the hunt for gold, the petty cries of 

 party politics, or the shouts of small nations at war. Discovery 

 is not for one time or one people, but for all time and the whole 

 world. It is the duty of men of science not only to make dis- 

 coveries themselves, but to see that everything is in train to 

 encourage discovery in others. 



