November 



o> 



1910J 



NATURE 



29 



work of civilisation moves forward without the present 

 of life and health. It is impossible to overestimate 

 results, both moral and material, that such a con- 



:nation would entail. 



i) We suggest that a fund should be established — to 



hcnown as the Edward VII. Tropical Research Fund — 

 interest of which should be devoted to furthering the 



cts which we have indicated. We think that the 



- which we have at heart will be best served by not 

 inpting to define too strictly the way in which this 

 nue should be appropriated. It is probable that in 

 first instance, and to a large extent, it would be most 

 ally expended in subsidising the efforts of the institu- 



- to which we have already referred, being administered 

 .1 body whose composition will be a guarantee to the 

 >cribers that their moneys are being wisely and 

 lomically applied. 



We are, my Lord Mayor, yours faithfully, 



NORTHCOTE. 



!5 St. James's Place, S.W., October 27. 



MODERN SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH.^ 

 T? ESEARCH is a word much used in newspapers and in 

 public discussions nowadays, but few people outside 



: ely scientific circles have any clear idea as to its mean- 

 Of course, the dictionary tells us that it signifies 



-marching again or a careful search, but the question 



1 arises. What is the object of the search and are there 

 rules to guide? 



1 he object ma}- be purely visionary, as was the object 



<i! the early chemists and alchemists, whose operations, 



nding through the dark centuries of the Middle Ages, 



behind practically nothing but an extensive, though 



ren, literature, the witness of the credulity and ignor- 



■^ of those times. The lesson to be derived from the 



ole of this strange history is one which needs to be 

 continually revived and set in the new light of modern 

 discovery and invention. The lesson is simply that until 

 men began to observe and interrogate nature for the sake 

 of learning her ways, and without concentrating their 

 attention on the expectation of useful applications of such 

 knowledge, little or no progress was made. In other 

 words, until a sufficient foundation of pure science has 

 been successfully laid there can be no applied science. 

 Real progress comes from the pursuit of knowledge for its 

 own sake. 



I say, again, this truth needs to be continually reiterated, 

 for there are still too many people who think that the 

 true and only business of science is to find out useful 

 things, and who regard all the rest as waste of time. 



The first qualification for research is undoubtedly that 

 kind of inspired curiosity which can never be eradicated, 

 and which we know by many examples is not defeated by 

 such obstacles as poverty, or ill-health, or pressure of other 

 necessary occupations. Another qualification is some 

 knowledge of the subject chosen for inquiry. As to this 

 latter qualification considerable differences of opinion have 

 been expressed. Priestley, whose statue stands near the 

 Town Hall in Birmingham, and many of the chemists of 

 his time, had very little preparatory instruction, but some 

 of them made discoveries of fundamental importance. 

 Priestley seems to have been of opinion that very little 

 preparation is necessary, and the discoveries which might 

 result from experiment were regarded by him as largely 

 the result of chance and to be compared with the game 

 which might fall to the gun of a sportsman in a new 

 country, and whether fur or feather cannot be foretold. 

 But though this might have been partly true in Priestley's 

 time, it is certainly very far from true in our day, when 

 the« apcumulation of knowledge, however imperfect, is still 

 immense. 



Every great discovery is the culmination of a long series 

 of discoveries each of which is a necessan," step, and ignor- 

 ance of these preliminaries stands in the way of advance. 



It will be worth while to examine a few cases by way 

 of illustration, \o better example can be found than the 

 establishment of the great principle in chemistry commonly 

 called the periodic law. According to this law, the proper- 



1 Presidential address delivered to the Vesey Club, Sutton Coldfield, on 

 October 13, by Sir William A. Tilden. F.R.S. 



NO. 2140, VOL. 85] 



ties of the elements and of their compounds stand in a 

 definite relation to their atomic weights. 



Modern views concerning the constitution of gases afifords 

 another illustration of the way in which the possession of 

 one kind of knowledge leads to more knowledge. Fort>- 

 years ago students were led to believe that there were two 

 kinds of gases, namely, on the one hand, those which by 

 the action of cold, or pressure, or both together could be 

 liquefied, and on the other hand some half a dozen which 

 could not be reduced to the liquid state. This was 

 attributed to some fundamental difference of constitution 

 in the two kinds of gas. 



If we look for an example drawn from the domain of 

 biology there is the doctrine of evolution, now universally 

 accepted, which is based on the results of the patient 

 collection of facts by Darwin and Wallace. But those facts 

 would perhaps not have been collected, and they would 

 certainly have been without meaning, but for the results 

 of the study of comparative anatomy by previous genera- 

 tions of naturalists and palaeontologists, as well as the 

 recognition of the great doctrine of uniformitarianism in 

 geology proclaimed and established by Lyell. 



The examples cited will not appeal to the practical man 

 in the same way as some instance taken from a direct 

 application of science to business or practical affairs. If 

 it is really necessary to consider a case of that sort, nothing 

 could be better than the dynatfio, which, as a transformer 

 of energy, comes into prominent daily use in connection 

 with lighting, traction, and as a general motive agent. 

 The detailed history of the evolution of the dynamo would 

 Be a long story, and on this occasion it is only necessary 

 to point out one or two facts. For the fundamental prin- 

 ciples involved we must go back to Benjamin Franklin, 

 and Galvani and \'olta, all in the eighteenth century, and 

 later to 183 1, when Faraday discovered the generation of 

 induced currents by moving a conductor in a magnetic 

 field. But doubtless the experiments made by Franklin 

 with the kite, by Galvani on frogs' legs, and by Volta and 

 Faraday with bits of wire, were by the people of their day 

 looked upon with a mixture of amusement and contempt, 

 just as some people even at the present time are apt to 

 exclaim, " Who cares whether there is oxygen in the 

 sun? " 



It is obvious, then, that whatever may have been possible 

 in Priestley's time, the wholly uninstructed person cannot 

 expect to meet with much success in these days in the 

 discovery of new facts ; and although the exceptional man 

 may acquire in a very short time some knowledge of a 

 special part of a subject, he is in perpetual danger of fall- 

 ing into great mistakes. It seems to me that a consider- 

 able amount of knowledge, skill, and experience is an 

 indispensable equipment for anyone who enters seriously 

 into the practice of scientific research. Not that these 

 qualifications alone serve as inducements to such a career, 

 for it would be quite easy to point to examples of learned 

 people who have added nothing new to the branch of 

 knowledge with which they are best acquainted. This is 

 not necessarily due to indolence, nor to ignorance of the 

 methods of research, but is merely the result of peculiarity 

 of temperament which lacks that divine curiosity which 

 alone supplies the stimulus. 



I am speaking now only of real scientific research, the 

 inquiry into the secrets of nature, not of the occupation 

 of those who have only practical ends in view. 



Looking back over the great principles of natural science, 

 we see that in every case they have been established by 

 the efforts of the amateur, and by amateur I mean all 

 who have undertaken the work for the pure love of it. 

 This includes, not only men of independent position like 

 Cavendish, Lyell, and Darwin, but a large number of men 

 who have held the office of professor or teacher, but who, 

 in this country at any rate, are neither paid to do such 

 work nor required by the conditions of their appoint- 

 ments to undertake it. So far as I know, there is but 

 one institution in this country- in which the professors are 

 not required to teach, but only to press forward into the 

 unknown, and that is the Royal Institution in London. 

 But the character which that famous place has assumed 

 during the last hundred years is not that with which it 

 began its career. It was started at the end of the 

 eighteenth century by Count Rumford with purely 

 utilitarian purposes in vieWj namely, for teaching the 



