54 SCIENCE AND THE STATE 



them ; but neither the multitude nor its masters are 

 familiar with the names of the men whose work has 

 provided the comforts of the present day. If you 

 seek fame and riches, enter not upon a scientific 

 career ; for they are easier won in politics or 

 commerce or many other walks of life. If, however, 

 you will be content with the satisfaction which 

 faithful and unselfish work always brings, Nature 

 offers you a rich field in which you can exercise your 

 intellect." 



Rather than being- in league with militarism and 

 armament firms, science is, in fact, the only really 

 working socialism. Scientific men work too often 

 without reward for the love of their science, and 

 freely publish their discoveries for the good of the 

 whole community. Though the contributor of the 

 last mite of knowledge usually gets popular credit 

 for the whole discovery, the advance of science as 

 a whole is entirely bound up with this communism 

 of its inheritance. The spirit of secrecy, and of 

 individual ownership of knowledge, is absolutely 

 antagonistic to the spirit of science. 



It is a commonplace to the scientific man that 

 the grandest discoveries that have been made and 

 those at once most productive and fruitful in 

 money-making applications, both to the legitimate 

 arts of peace and the illegitimate purposes of war, 

 have been made by men in the simple pursuit of 

 truth for its own sake and without thought of any 

 pecuniary reward, or even of practical applications. 

 You can trust the State, after the lesson it has had, 

 to see that the application of science to war and to 

 industry and manufacture receives more attention 

 and encouragement than it did in the past. But 

 pure scientific research and investigation, made with 

 the simple desire to extend the bounds of knowledge, 

 is the goose that lays these golden eggs, and there 



