8 AN INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 



source of food or fame, but simply prompted by curiosity 

 to find out whither it leads. It may be a pathologist who 

 sets out to search for an antitoxin. He has no interest, of 

 which he is conscious, in the chemistry of complex nitrog- 

 enous compounds. He will apply to the professed chemist 

 for all the information he requires. But when his questions 

 regarding the nature of the albuminoid constituents of serum 

 are not satisfactorily answered, he finds himself involved in 

 a long research, which soon becomes an end in itself, and 

 not merely a means to an end. A hundred similar illus- 

 trations might be given. But few scientific workers are still 

 engaged in middle life upon the researches which they once 

 thought the main objects of their existence. "The thoughts 

 of youth are long, long thoughts ! " At sunrise the distant 

 peaks are clear, while the barriers which break the road 

 that must be traversed before their slopes are reached are 

 hid in mist. At noonday the pass which has yet to be 

 crossed before a camping-place is reached occupies a larger 

 place in the traveller's thoughts than the loftiest of the 

 mountains which lie beyond. 



It may almost be said that science owes its progress to 

 the deserters from the professions. A lad starts, as he is 

 bound to do, to qualify as a manufacturing chemist, an 

 engineer, a doctor. He discovers in himself an aptitude 

 for one or other of the sciences upon which his profession 

 is based, and he stays behind to work at the subject which 

 interests him most, perhaps for a short time before pressing 

 on towards his professional career, perhaps for life. It is 

 for this reason that a school of pure science is strong only 

 when it gives opportunities of passing on to professional 

 work. The remarkable success of the scientific schools at 

 Cambridge in recent years is largely, if not chiefly, due to 

 the growth of the medical school. Every laboratory now 

 has its complement of graduates who, while they may act 

 as lecturers or demonstrators, give up the greater part of 

 their time to research. Probably two out of every three 



