December 15, 1910] 



NATURE 



225 



is the satisfactory reason that in dealing with such matters 

 South African Governments have been, on the whole, 

 sympathetic and, in some directions, markedly liberal. 

 Here again, however, and perhaps in a special degree, it 

 is necessary to give warning that the State should not 

 burden itself with work proper to individuals and private 

 corporations, but should confine itself to needful scientific 

 work which other agencies cannot accomplish. It should 

 never be forgotten that the State which discourages self- 



Ip is undermining its own strength. 



Thus far we have been considering sciences with direct 

 practical applications ; indeed, the reasons for considering 

 them at all has been in the main because of the existence 

 <if these applications — because the sciences bear more or 



~? immediately on the welfare and prosperity of the 



ate. What, then, are we to say of sciences from which 

 the State or its people cannot hope to obtain any immediate 

 benefit? Our answer is — and it ought to be given with 

 entire frankness — such sciences must be content to take a 

 second place. The State, we feel, has a perfect right to 

 •^xpect something tangible in return for its outlay ; and, 

 - supply of funds being limited, it is bound to pass in 



view before it any proposed series of scientific schemes, 

 separating them out into practical and impractical, and 

 thereafter sifting the practical into those that are urgent 

 and those that are not. A manifest danger, however, 

 besets the discriminators between rival schemes, it being 

 far from easy to foresee what particular research will 

 prove fruitful of practical af)plications and what will not. 

 How often has one seen the pure mathematics of to-day 

 change into the applied mathematics of to-morrow, and 

 the previously despised insect collector being hailed shortly 

 afterwards as a benefactor of mankind ! .All that one can 

 hope for is that those with whom such decisions rest will 

 lUvays take the best advice available. Of recent years 



iropean Governments have tended more and more in 



ch cases to consult their great leading scientific cor- 

 porations ; the Government of the Union may in like 

 manner find our own Royal Society a willing and useful 

 guide. I would merely add as a fact worth ruminating on 

 that the States which have differentiated least between pure 

 and applied science are the States which lead the world 

 to-day. 



While thus whole-heartedly urging the great importance 

 of science on those who may be called to administer the 

 affairs of State, it would be unfair to ignore the difficulties 

 and troubles which well-disposed administrators are said 

 to have experienced in their dealings with scientific men, 

 or ■• experts," as they prefer to call them. The complaint 

 of the most moderate of these critics is that the man of 

 science is normally unpractical, and that his value to the 

 State is marred by eccentricities due to over-study or 

 excessive specialisation ; and those critics who are not 

 moderate, and who love a biting phrase better than strict 

 accuracy, say that when he is not an astute self-seeker 

 he is either a mooning pedant or a pernicious crank. Now 

 in regard to this I should first wish to ask whether it be 

 not the case that the failure of the scientific expert is 

 often due to causes wholly outside himself. Time and 

 again one has seen a man chosen for his high qualifica- 

 tions in a special branch of knowledge, and then set, not 

 to the work of extending this knowledge by investigation, 

 but to the absolutely diverse work of " running " a 

 Government office or carrying on a purely business under- 

 taking. Failure, nine times out of ten, is thus inevitable, 

 so rare is it to find the successful student and the capable 

 administrator combined in one. Surely it is the merest 

 common sense to urge that if both sets of qualifications 

 be wanted, reasonable care should be taken either that 

 they are possessed by the same individual or that a prac- 

 ticable arrangement involving their separation has been 

 previously devised. One thing certain is that in particular 

 the appellation " self-seeking " as applied to men of science 

 is singularly unfortunate, for, though the man of science 

 with such a bent is not unknown, one's whole experience 

 IS that he is a comparative rarity, and that the more zeal 

 a man has for science the less regardful he is of self. 

 Indeed, it has been maintained that in the virtues of un- 

 selfishness and truthfulness the man who has chosen the 

 pursuit of science for his life-work noteworthilv excels. 

 No less an authority than Helmholtz, himself a' man of 

 the world as well as a great investigator, has spontane- 

 NO. 2146, VOL. 85] 



ously testified to this, speaking with enthusiasm of the 

 scientific man's " Sittenstrenge " and his " Uneigen- 

 niJtzige Begeisterung. " Unfortunately, it is possible that 

 this " Sittenstrenge " is exactly what our public men 

 would consider an eccentricity, their short-sightedness lead- 

 ing them to mistake a surface freckle for a deep-seated 

 defect. 



Be all this as it may, however, it is important to urge 

 on both sides the fact that the man of science and the 

 man of affairs, whatever their respective frailties may be, 

 have need of each other, and must therefore in the future 

 strive to know each other better, and learn to cooperate 

 more effectively in the interest of the State. To this end 

 he who aims at State administration must seek to possess 

 other qualities and other aptitudes than those of the mere 

 party politician, so that, besides doing his own proper 

 work well, he may be the better able to gauge the value 

 of pure scientific work, and be the better fitted to sympa- 

 thise with the ideals and aspirations of even the extremest 

 of specialists. On the other hand, the specialist must 

 aim a little more at width of outlook and knowledge of 

 men and affairs, must seek to moderate his exaggerated 

 estimate of the importance of his own little domain, and 

 must try to see good in the labours of other specialists 

 in fields far distant from his own. never forgetting that 

 all fields are but perfectly fitted portions of a cosmic 

 whole, and that, as the botanist and the astronomer in 

 particular must come to know. 



Thou can-it not stir a flower 



Withoot iroubling a star. 

 It would be a neglected opportunity if we did not note 

 in passing that the need for a good understanding between 

 the devotee of statecraft and the student of science is only 

 part of a much wider need. Men who aspire to be leaders 

 in municipal affairs, in commerce, in trade, in the manu- 

 facturing industries, in agriculture, must all come to know 

 how substantially dependent they are upon science, and 

 how, indeed, in a very real way, they must become more 

 and more scientific themselves in the conduct of their 

 affairs. With them also the day is gone when rule-of- 

 thumb is a sufficient guide. Even sound common sense, 

 so great a standby in the past, is no longer enough : what 

 is wanted is that glorified form of common sense known 

 as scientific method. Practical men in every line of life 

 are beginning to see this, though they may not use the 

 term. In plain language, what it means is the employ- 

 ment, at every stage of a process or undertaking, of the 

 means best suited to attain the desired end. And as a 

 method it is always essentially the same, no matter how 

 the desired end may vary — whether the latter be, as we 

 in Cape Colony have seen it to be, the sanitation of a 

 town, the tracking of a crime, the repression of a native 

 rebellion, the fighting of an invading disease, or the 

 capturing of a market for fruit or wool. In all of these 

 there was the same need for collecting accurate data, 

 using all previously acquired relev.ant knowledge, planning 

 skilfully a course of procedure, selecting wisely the human 

 agents necessary, and then prosecuting with steady per- 

 sistency the plan resolved on. 



• I need hardly say, in conclusion, that all that the most 

 enlightened State can do will never be fully effective with- 

 out a continuance of that zeal and devotion on the part 

 of the " private worker " which has been so conspicuous 

 in the past history of science ; and, fortunately, in the 

 course of evolution man has become so constituted that a 

 stoppage of the supply need not be feared. Many will still 

 be found willing and eager to work for the work's sake, 

 whether the State does its duty or the reverse, merely rest- 

 ing on the assurance that " Nature never did betray the 

 heart that truly ' loved her.' " 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 

 Cambridge. — The special board for biology and geology 

 has adjudged the Walsingham medal for iqio to A. V. 

 Hill, of Trinity College, for his essay entitled " The Heat 

 Produced by Living Tissues, with Special Reference to 

 Muscular .Activity"; and a second Walsingham medal to 

 J. C. F. Fryer, of Gonville and Caius College, for his 

 essay entitled " The Structure and Formation of Aldabra 

 and Neighbouring Islands — with Notes on their Flora and 

 Fauna." 



