6 9 o SCIENCE PROGRESS 



imposing scale. But in the case of Newton, who is certainly as important for 

 Britain as Descartes is for France or Galileo for Italy or Leibniz for Germany, no 

 attempt at a complete edition of his works has been made since the time of 

 Horsley. And many things have come to light which have enabled us to fix 

 Newton's place in the history of science much more accurately than we have been 

 able to before. Further, Newton's manuscripts, some of them containing work of 

 very great importance, as I happen to know from actual examination, are still 

 buried in various public and private libraries. 



Even if, with the help of France, Russia, Italy, and our other Allies, we were 

 to succeed in thoroughly eradicating the political pretensions of Germany and its 

 Allies, we would not have advanced a single step towards clearing ourselves of the 

 disgrace we have earned by our treatment of science. And it will be on such 

 charges that we shall be judged and condemned by the future unless we change 

 our point of view and prize knowledge more than power. Wastage of human life 

 is reprehensible on merely humanitarian grounds, except possibly where there is 

 only a choice between life and honour. But we are wasting something far more 

 important than life. We are wasting one of the few things which make the lives 

 of those of us who are not mere brutes worth living at all : the pursuit and con- 

 templation of knowledge. Such things as comfort and security are means to ends 

 of which this is one, and it is an unpardonable sin to waste means of promoting 

 the growth of our knowledge or to put obstacles in the way of this growth. It 

 may be necessary to deprive Germany of some of the necessities of life in order 

 to obtain results of military or political importance, just as the Germans found it 

 necessary to starve Paris in 1870, but when, no doubt with excellent intentions, 

 we deprive one of the few peoples of the world who provide certain unselfish 

 scientific work of the means of carrying on this work, we are, I think, bound to 

 take up this work ourselves for the sake of certain ideals which should be even 

 dearer to us than increase of power, trade, or even comfort. 



We ought to realise what we are leaving undone. This realisation must come 

 to us by British means, such as this journal. It would be very humiliating to our 

 national pride if we were forced to see ourselves dropping behind, say, Bulgaria or 

 Turkey in some paths of knowledge. 



