64 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS — SECTION B. 



immediate practical applications. It so happens, however, that 

 the greatest discoveries are made with no eye to their immediate 

 usefulness.^ When Faraday called his wife into his laboratory 

 to show her the first toy progenitor of the modern electro motor, 

 his enthusiasm was not disturbed by any considerations 

 concerning the practical value of his discovery — he never made 

 a cent out of it, anyway, though the brains which developed his 

 visions were much inferior to his own. The man of affairs is apt 

 to take the production of some valuable new product, by the 

 application of well-worn principles, as a " triumph of science," 

 but it is not for such triumphs that the scientific societies bestow 

 their honours. The worker who is honoured by his colleagues 

 is the one who widens the horizon of truth and knowledge. 



It is sincerely to be hoped that the administrators and 

 statesmen who guide our national destinies, now that they have 

 wakened to the need for scientific research, will not fall into the 

 trap of encouraging only the " applied sciences " whose imme- 

 diate utility they can grasp, but will be far-sighted enough also 

 to encourage science in the abstract, pure and unalloyed. To 

 them may be commended a study of the history of science. It 

 can never be predicted how soon an abstract laboratory observa- 

 tion will develop enormous economic importance. One of the 

 most striking instances of this is provided by the Hertzian elec- 

 tric waves, which were referred to in the first edition of Karl 

 Pearson's " Grammar of Science," as of no practical application, 

 but which were used for wireless telegraphy by Marconi before 

 the second edition had appeared. But before Hertz came 

 Crookes, and before him Hittorf, Geisler, Maxwell. De la Rue, 

 right back to Faraday, all studying the electric discharge for its 

 own sake ; each advancing his science step by step along its 

 logical line of development with no inkling of the future economic 

 significance of his labour. That is the history of science. As 

 Pope said of Leblanc and Faraday : " It is impossible to calcu- 

 late the capitalised value of the alkali industry founded by 

 Leblanc. who committed suicide owing to poverty, or of the 

 chemical industries based on the work of Michael Faraday, who 

 ended his days in comparative comfort on a Civil List pension." 



The administrators who control the money-bags must not 

 ask to see their money's worth before they spend the money. 

 Scientific discovery of any vital kind can not be made to order, 

 although to a certain extent the results of scientific research can 

 easily be applied to order. But science in the abstract must come 

 first and foremost. Scientific Education and Applied Science 

 must run parallel. For the nations which spend most freely in 

 scientific education and research, can be prophesied the greatest 

 economic prosperity. 



