46 



NATURE 



[September 8, 192 1 



of resident members who should devote themselves 

 wholly to science-^with a place and station in 

 society the most respectable and independent — 

 "free alike," as Playfair put it, "from the em- 

 barrassments of poverty or the temptations of 

 wealth." Such men, "ordained by the State to 

 the undivided functions of science," would, he 

 contended, do more and better work than those 

 who snatch an hour or two from their daily toil 

 or nightly rest. 



This ideal of "combining what is insulated, and 

 uniting in one great institution the living talent 

 which is in active but undirected and unbefriended 

 exercise around us," was not attained during 

 Brewster's time, nor, notwithstanding the reitera- 

 tion of incontrovertible argument during the past 

 seventy years, has it been reached in our own. 



I have been led to dwell on Sir David Brewster's 

 association with this question of the relations of 

 the State towards research for several reasons. 

 Although he was not the first to raise it — for Davy 

 more than a century ago made it the theme of 

 presidential addresses, and brought his social in- 

 fluence to bear in the attempt to enlist the prac- 

 tical sympathy of the Government — no one more 

 consistently urged its national importance or sup- 

 ported his case with a more powerful advocacy 

 than the principal of the University of Edinburgh. 

 It is only seemly, therefore, that on this particular 

 occasion, and in this city of his adoption, where 

 he spent so much of his intellectual energy, I 

 should specially allude to it. Moreover, we can 

 never forget what this Association owes to his 

 large and fruitful mind. Every man is a debtor 

 to his profession, from which he gains counten- 

 ance and profit. That Brewster was an ornament 

 to his is acknowledged by every lover of learning. 

 That he endeavoured to be a help to it was grate- 

 fully recognised during his lifetime. After his 

 death it was said of him that the improved position 

 of men of science in our time is chiefly due to his 

 exertions and his example. 



I am naturally led to connect the meeting of 

 1850 with a still more memorable gathering of this 

 Association in this city; In August, 1871 — just more 

 than half a century ago — the British Association 

 again assembled in Edinburgh under the presi- 

 dency of Lord Kelvin — then Sir William Thomson. 

 It was an historic occasion by reason of the 

 address which inaugurated its proceedings. Lord 

 Kelvin, with characteristic force and insistence, 

 still further elaborated the theme which had been 

 so signal a feature of Sir David Brewster's 

 address twenty-one years previously : " Whether 

 we look to the honour of England," he said, "as a 

 nation which ought always to be the foremost in 

 promoting physical science, or to those vast 

 economical advantages which must accrue from 

 such establishments, we cannot but feel that ex- 

 perimental research ought to be made with us an 

 object of national concern, and not left, as 

 hitherto, exclusively to the private enterprise of 

 self-sacrificing amateurs, and the necessarily in- 



NO. 2706, VOL. 1 08] 



consecutive action of our present Governmental 

 Departments and of casual committees." 



Lord Kelvin, as might have been anticipated, 

 pleaded more especially for the institution of 

 physical observatories and laboratories for experi- 

 mental research, to be conducted by qualified 

 persons, whose duties should be not teaching, but 

 experimenting. Such institutions as then existed, 

 he pointed out, afforded only a very partial and 

 inadequate solution of a national need. They 

 were, for the most part, " absolutely destitute of 

 means, material, or personnel for advancing 

 science, except at the expense of volunteers, or 

 of securing that volunteers should be found to 

 continue such little work as could then be carried 

 on." 



There were, however, even then, signs that the 

 bread cast upon the waters was slowly returning 

 after many days. The establishment of the 

 Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge, by the 

 munificence of its then chancellor, was a notable 

 achievement. Whilst in its constitution as part of 

 a university discipline it did not wholly realise the 

 ideal of the two presidents, under its successive 

 directors. Prof. Clerk Maxwell, the late Lord 

 Rayleigh, and Sir J. J. Thomson, it has exerted a 

 profound influence upon the development of ex- 

 perimental physics, and has inspired the founda- 

 tion of many similar educational institutions in this 

 country. Experimental physics has thus received 

 an enormous impetus during the last fifty years, 

 and although in matters of science there is but 

 little folding of the hands to sleep, "the divine 

 discontent " of its followers has little cause for dis- 

 quietude as regards the position of physics in this 

 country. 



In the establishment of the National Physical 

 Laboratory we have an approach to the ideal 

 which my predecessors had so earnestly advocated. 

 Other presidents, among whom I would specially 

 name the late Sir Douglas Gakon, have con- 

 tributed to this consummation. The result is a 

 remarkable testimony to the value of organised 

 and continuous efi"ort on the part of the British 

 Association in forming public opinion and in in- 

 fluencing Departmental action. It would, how- 

 ever, be ungrateful not to recall the action of the 

 late Lord Salisbury — himself a follower of science 

 and in full sympathy with its objects— in taking 

 the first practical steps towards the creation of 

 this magnificent national institution. I may be 

 allowed, perhaps, to refer to this matter, as I 

 have personal knowledge of the circumstances, 

 being one of the few survivors of the Committee 

 which Lord Salisbury caused to be formed, under 

 the chairmanship of the late Lord Rayleigh, to 

 inquire and report upon the expediency of estab- 

 lishing an institution in Great Britain upon the 

 model of certain State-aided institutions already 

 existing on the Continent, for the determihation 

 of physical constants of importance in the arts, for 

 investigations in physical problems bearing upon 

 industry, for the standardisation and verification 



