UNEXPECTED DISCOVERIES. 223 



solved in a way much more satisfactory to the original 

 worker. 



At the Eoyal Institution of Great Britain, a fund 

 exists to defray the expenses of research conducted there ; 

 and aid towards defraying the cost of original scientific 

 researches made by private persons may be obtained from 

 the Government Grant Committee of the Eoyal Society. 

 The Chemical Society of London also now possesses a fund 

 to aid the prosecution of original inquiries in chemistry. 



CHAPTEK XXVI. 



UNEXPECTED OR i ACCIDENTAL '* DISCOVERIES. 



WE are too apt to attribute to accident or occult influ- 

 ence that which we cannot understand. A popular notion 

 exists that scientific discoveries in general are the results 

 of the purest accident ; but this idea is most incorrect. 

 The evolution of new truths is determined by the laws 

 of human progress, and discoveries therefore must occur. 

 The possibility of making any discovery is dependent, 

 as I have shown, upon certain other discoveries having 

 been previously made ; and when those have been made, 

 the additional new truth comes looming in the distance, 

 and is more or less thrust upon the notice of investiga- 

 tors, and cannot long remain unknown. The discovery 

 of the universal action of gravity was forced, as it were, 

 upon the notice of Newton, partly by its nearness, and 

 partly as a result of his studies ; and that of the com- 

 position of the sun was prelumined in the mystery of 

 6 Fraunhofer's Lines.' 



'Men have a willingness to believe that great dis- 



