486 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



given a commission in the R.F.A. He lost his life in the 

 Dardanelles. Prof. Bragg is a member of the Admiralty In- 

 ventions Board, and holds a temporary position in the Navy, 

 to which he devotes all the energy and enthusiasm that in 

 happier times would have been given to the further develop- 

 ment of his scientific work. 



D. O. W. 



Scientific Snobbery 



One reason for the neglect of science is that scientific men 

 themselves frequently misrepresent the objects for which 

 they work. For example, they often pretend that they per- 

 form their labours merely for their own amusement. We once 

 heard it wittily said of such a man that he takes out his watch 

 before dinner and exclaims, " Ha ! I have half an hour before 

 I must dress for dinner ; I will just step over to my laboratory 

 and make a discovery." But the public is not so easily 

 deceived and therefore thinks in its dull way that the man 

 of science really labours in the hope of making some enormous 

 fortune or obtaining some great honour. On another occasion, 

 we heard it said of a man who has been toiling for years in the 

 tropics for nothing, that " nobody knows why he does it, but 

 we all believe that he wants a knighthood." When we timidly 

 suggested that he was guided merely by a sense of duty, we 

 were met by a stare of astonishment. Certainly this worker 

 has never received a penny for his work as yet and never 

 will, and we fear that not even a knighthood will come his 

 way. No, men of science do not work either for amusement 

 or to make fortunes. Like artists and musicians, they often 

 find their labours fascinating because nature imbues them with 

 an instinct in the directions chosen by them ; but they are 

 also conscious that their work will bring them no personal 

 profit — not so much as that which a tithe of the ability shown 

 by them in science would have yielded them in politics, law, 

 or grocery. Their ultimate object is to benefit humanity by 

 adding to the store of knowledge which lifts the civilised man 

 so far above the savage of the jungles. And that is the greatest 

 object which any man can keep before his eyes. 



Another form of scientific snobbery is the pretence that 

 science has no practical object in view — it is so lofty a pursuit 

 that the man of science should live among the stars and not 



