624 ENDOWMENT FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. 



gator of pure science does not work for profit. His discoveries are not 

 marketable. Tlie law allows no patent upon a principle of" nature or 

 the discovery of a new truth. Xewtou could not patent the law of 

 gravitation, nor Volta the galvanism of the voltaic pile; nor Ehrenberg 

 and Schwaniij the discovery of the widespread influence of bacteria; 

 nor Faraday, nor Henry, electro-magnetism; nor Joule, his correlation 

 of forces; nor Jackson, his anaesthetics; nor Lister, his antiseptic treat- 

 ment; nor Koch nor Pasteur, their discoveries of the bacilli, the 

 destruction of which may lead to the cure or amelioration of terrible 

 diseases. To the practical men and to the inventors, on the other 

 hand, who apply to the specific wants of men the truths and principles 

 which the scientists have made known to them, the law, in the form of 

 a patent, gives a monopoly of from fourteen to twenty-one years. They 

 thus obtain, as a rule, a reasonable, and, in some cases, even an exces- 

 sive, pecuniary reward. In this country ahme nearly 500,000 patents 

 have been issued; they are increasing at the rate of about 25,000 per 

 year. In the extreme multiplication of patents affe(;ting a large pait of 

 everything we use, the whole world, it might almost be said, is ijaying 

 tribute to the inventors and practical men; while to the original dis- 

 coverers who have made so much of all this possible, there is no promise 

 of pecuniary reward. 



This is not said by way of complaint. In the nature of things, it is 

 scarcely avoidable. The aims, the motives, the methods, and the genius 

 of the two classes of minds, are and ever must be Avidely distinct. Orig- 

 nal discovereis can not be turned aside from their si)ecial work to be- 

 come mechanics and inventors without infinite loss. Prof. Henry had 

 one form of the electric telegraph in actual use some years before Morse 

 conceived it.* But how great would have been the loss to science, 

 without any corresponding gain, had Prof. Henry in 1830 turned away 

 from pure science to do the subsequent work of Morse in adapting the 

 telegraph to common and valuable use! 



Eesearch in pure science can never be made a self supporting pur- 

 suit. It can never therefore be carried forward broadly, and contin- 

 uously, and effectively, except through men sustained by some form of 

 stipend or endowment. Occasionally, it is true, men of independent 

 fortune, like Harvey, and Darwin, and Lyell, and Agassiz, have de- 

 voted themselves to original research upon their own means, and have 

 accomplished most important results. But these instances are rare. 

 Many other persons, too, with aptitudes and tastes for research, though 

 not following a scientific career, have carried on private researches ni 

 the intervals of leisure, stolen from the exacting denninds of profes- 

 vsional or business life; and these have, in the aggregate, added no 

 small amount to the common stock of knowledge. 



It is no disparagement however of these subordinate workers to say 

 that nearly all the great discoveries, and nearly all the great advances 



'Smitlisoniau Report, 1878, pp. 159, 262 



