222 GENERAL CONDITIONS OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. 



much less rare ability manufacturers themselves usually 

 obtain much greater recompense for their exertions. 



It is very difficult to make the public understand or 

 intelligently credit the amount of time and labour ex- 

 pended in acquiring the ability to discover, and in dis- 

 covering new truths of nature, because those truths, when 

 once known, are often so simple and so self-evident, that 

 it appears to a person inexperienced in research almost 

 impossible not to have perceived them at first sight. As 

 an illustration of this want of knowledge, persons who 

 had gained many thousands of pounds by the aid of a dis- 

 covery and invention of mine, and had taken the entire 

 profit and credit during many years, informed me that a 

 school-boy might have done it, forgetting that the ability 

 to make the discovery was acquired at the expense of long- 

 continued habits of study combined with a natural aptitude 

 for science, and was my own individual property. The 

 blindness, even of persons of the best intentions, is some- 

 times so extreme in such cases, that they both deny any 

 credit and refuse to give any recompense to the real dis- 

 coverer ; and as there is no legal remedy in such cases, the 

 best course to pursue in order to obtain a recognition of 

 justice is to insist upon a thorough investigation of the 

 circumstances being made with the aid of an able scientific 

 man and a judicious lawyer. 



Notwithstanding the incalculably great advantages 

 this nation has received and is receiving from original 

 scientific enquiry, it is not at present possible for a 

 scientific man to obtain an income by such labour. This 

 is not, however, a suitable place to discuss the question 

 how scientific ability and cost of original research may be 

 repaid to the investigator. That difficult problem is being 

 considered, and if this country is to retain its superiority 

 as a manufacturing nation the question must soon be 



