ROBERT S. MORISON 



ize a host of widows' mites for the elimination of a single 

 disease. We will not include other sorts of funds to which the 

 term "private" might be applied. For example, support of basic 

 research directly by private industry is not dealt with here since 

 it has been so well discussed by Dr. Fisk, Dr. Wilson, and 

 others. 



Philanthropy Defined 



The part about a love for man perhaps deserves a word 

 or two of explanation. Philanthropy is frequently equated 

 with charity — the impulse to give something to other people 

 who are worse off than we are. This impulse may arise purely 

 out of pity or it may be complicated by self-interest as when one 

 gives something away to acquire merit in the eyes either of one's 

 fellows or of some higher power. 



But love, on the other hand, may often occur as a trans- 

 action between equals. When we give a gift to someone we 

 love, we do so partly in the hope of improving something which 

 we feel is already pretty good. A string of pearls to a beautiful 

 girl is in part a tribute to her beauty and in part a way of mak- 

 ing her even more beautiful. In the early days of modern 

 science much of the support for basic research stemmed from 

 motives of this sort. When Cosimo II established Galileo as 

 court mathematician and philosopher in Florence, he did so 

 at least in part because he thought Galileo's discoveries and 

 ideas would decorate the court of Florence. Anything which 

 made the court of Florence look good made its reigning duke 

 look even better. But it would be churlish to deny a de Medici 

 the right of acting in response to a more elevated motive. The 

 Renaissance believed, more than we do perhaps, that life could 

 be not only beautiful but magnificent. One reason for loving 

 man was man's magnificent faculty for creating new ways of 

 seeing the world which God has given him. Every man with 



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