[Mackenzie] PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 3 



Forced by the stress of war to a realization of the desperate 

 condition in which she stood, on account of her past neglect of 

 scientific method, as an organized state, England called at last to her aid 

 her ablest leaders of science as well as her leaders of industry, appre- 

 ciating late in life that the latter, great though they might be, were 

 incapable alone of meeting and countering the peril that confronted 

 the country. At last it was realized that research and its keenest 

 prosecution alone could hope to match the results of German devotion 

 to the fullest application of every known invention and experimental 

 evidence which the most excellently equipped laboratories could pro- 

 duce. And, though pitifully few in numbers, and handicapped by 

 the paucity of great industrial laboratories, the scientific men of 

 Britain, as I have said, nobly answered that call, and their achieve- 

 ments became patent to the lowest and highest classes alike; and 

 this is the greatest result that the war has had for us as scientists. 

 The word Research, long known only to a small group of enthusiasts, 

 has come before our people as a new watch-word ; but it has taken a 

 whole world in arms to write it in large enough letters so that our 

 British eyes could see and read it. Before the war it had gradually 

 been appearing to him out of the mists of prejudice and stupid con- 

 servatism; it had begun to reach large groups of the community 

 to whom earlier it was entirely unknown. The farmer almost grudg- 

 ingly admitted that those college fellows' advice was valuable; and 

 the wonders of the results of research in modern medicine and surgery 

 came to every household. It was when it began to reach his home 

 and his pocket that science and research were raised in the estimation 

 of the average man. Three years of war has accomplished for science 

 what thirty years of peace might not have done. It is now the task 

 and duty of the scientific bodies to take full advantage of their posi- 

 tion, and to see that these words Science and Research carry their 

 proper signification, and that they shall continue to receive after the 

 war the attention paid them today. 



In time of peril to life we call in the doctor, but in after days of 

 abounding health we wonder we were so foolish as to throw away 

 money, when, as we now feel, a little time and rest would have restored 

 us to our normal selves without any humbugging physician. "When 

 the devil was well the devil a monk was he." It is the duty of scien- 

 tific organizations to see to it that the state does not follow the example 

 of the devil, and drift back to laissez-faire conditions. Advantage 

 must be taken of the present psychological condition to see to it that 

 the state subventions most liberally pure science and research; and 

 even more liberally for a time industrial research also; but in the end 

 industrial research will take care of itself, as men are convinced by 



