]\IaRCH 22, I917] 



NATURE 



/D 



THE VALUE OF RESEARCH IX SCIENCE.^ 



SCIENCE of some sort is now being very widely 

 taught at all stages of education, and so far 

 from its progress being impeded as used to be the 

 case bv disadvantages of a public kind, most Govern- 

 ments are more or less alive to the importance of 

 devoting public funds in furtherance of scientific work, 

 and almost every honours list now contains the names 

 of men distinguished in science. In India the various 

 Go\ernmen(.s have made a very- fair beginning in the 

 matter of funds. 



It is impossible, and would be of little value for 

 our purposes, to estimate the amount devoted to 

 scientific teaching in schools and colleges by the 

 various education departments. I have, however, en- 

 deavoured, with the kind assistance of the Hon. Mr. 

 Davidson and the Financial Department of the Govern- 

 ment of Madras, to form some idea of the amount 

 being spent upon original research and other higher 

 scientific work throughout India. 



On the nature and essence of ■"research" I pro- 

 pose to offer a few obser\'ations later on, but it is 

 not without interest to note at this point the connec- 

 tions in which the word occurs in the various Budget 

 estimates. The Government of India supports a 

 Forest Research Institute and College at Dehra Dun, 

 and devotes about 4 lakhs a year to it ; it contributes 

 5 lakhs a year to the Indian Research Fund, about 

 55 lakhs to the Agricultural Research Institute atPusa, 

 and a lakh to the Central Research Institute at 

 , Kasauli. 



Some of the lcx;ai Governments have entertained, or 

 propose to entertain, what they call in the Budget 

 forest research officers. The Agricultural College in 

 - the Madras Presidency has for part of its title that of 

 j Research Institute. The Government of Bengal gives 

 research scholarships. The Punjab Government enters 

 a small portion of its contribution to Government 

 colleges as research grant. In Burma a small sum is 

 devoted to what are called leprosy researches. 



The Budgets, however, provide for many other forms 

 of scientific activity in connection with which the word 

 '"research" does not happen to have been used, such 

 as : further experimental work in connection with agri- 

 culture, bacteriological work as affecting man and 

 animals, other investigations of a medical nature, and 

 work relating to fisheries and other industries. 



Further, various Governments support museums, in 



some of which, at any rate, scientific work is carried 



on, and our institute here at Bangalore receives an 



annual grant of Rs.87,500 from the Government of 



India, which has promised, should any private indi- 



I vidual be willing to subscribe, to provide a like amount 



i so long as its total grant does not exceed Rs. 1,50,000. 



There are also the various Imperial surveys; in 



some of these the expenditure must, of course, be 



mainly debited to administrative work, but in the 



! majority of them the funds do something towards the 



prog^ress of science. 



I Without taking the surveys into account, the annual 



expenditure from public funds on scientific work in 



British India is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 



RS.70-S0 lakhs — that is to say, 500,000?. — and to this 



must, of course, be added large capital sums invested 



in buildings. This expenditure is supplemented to 



some e.xtent bv the more progressive of the native 



States, including, I need scarcelv say, the State in 



, which we have the pleasure to be at present. Lastly, 



f private sources have contributed, but to a lamentably 



^ small extent. In this last respect there have been 



1 From ths presidential address? delivered before the Indian Science 

 Congress, Bangalore, Januarv, 1017, by Sir Alfred Gibbs Bourne, F.R.S., 



XO. 2473, VOL. 99] 



a few striking exceptions, and perhaps the foremost 

 of these was the projected gift of the late Mr. Tata, 

 to the carrying out of which by his sons our institute 

 owes its existence. 



Now I propose to deal with the question of research. 

 Research is often alluded to as a perfectly simple 

 operation ; one even nears of men being " taught to 

 research " ; newspapers speak of it in the lightest 

 manner, whereas in even my student days it was 

 spoken of with almost bated breath as indicating some- 

 thing to which only the best of us could look forward, 

 something which few of us were ever likely to carry 

 on with any hope of success. 



It is probably impossible to find a classification of 

 research work devoid of considerable overlapping, and 

 in many cases the motives are undoubtedly mixed, 

 but it seems possible to recognise three classes : that 

 carried on with the single purpose of ascertaining the 

 truth in regard to the causes of things ; that which 

 has for its immediate object a specific utilitarian pur- 

 pose, but still without any expectation whatever of 

 a pecuniarily remunerative result; and research with 

 the avowed object of making money out of it sooner 

 or later. 



The first and second classes would come under the 

 head of scientific research in the sense in which the 

 term is used by the Privy Council Department of 

 Scientific gnd Industrial Research, while the third class, 

 is industrial research ; but what I want to emphasise 

 is the fact that the first class alone is research in pure- 

 science, while the second and third classes are both 

 research in applied science — that is, science put to. 

 practical use ; practical as distinguished from abstract 

 or theoretical. 



Huxley said that what people call applied science 

 is nothing but the application of pure science to par- 

 ticular problems. The Advisory Council says that this, 

 no doubt is so; there are not two different kinds of 

 science ; at the same time it realises that it has to 

 deal with the practical business world, in the eyes of 

 which a real distinction seems to exist between pure- 

 and applied science. There are, however, men: 

 in the business world who see more clearly. An 

 American manufacturer pointed out only the other 

 day that "there are no sharp lines to separate pure 

 from applied, scientific from practical, useful from use- 

 less. If one attempts to divide past research in such 

 a manner he finds that time entirely rubs out the lines- 

 of demarcation." 



But whatever terms have been used, the application- 

 of scientific knowledge for the good of mankind is. 

 as old as that knowledge itself, and one may safel_\' 

 say that the majority of those who have attempted 

 this application have not been swayed by any pecuniary- 

 motive. The scientific agriculturist is not in most 

 cases the person into whose pockets comes the money 

 secured by the use of better .methods. Medical science 

 in all its branches is applied science, and although- 

 the doctor may earn his living by means of fees, 

 medical research is not undertaken from pecuniarv 

 motives. It has been for the most part the application- 

 to a particular problem of the scientific knowledge of 

 the day, and there has, of course, been no such applica- 

 tion with a more noble purpose. Still, it is not pure 

 science, and there have often been medical men who- 

 have left further application to others, while thev have 

 reverted to purely scientific problems. 



What utilitarian research would have discovered the 

 fundamental facts in regard to electricit\- or have led 

 to the framing of the atomic theor}-? Who can sav 

 how many profound truths await discoverv becausi- 

 some utilitarian who happened upon a glimmering of 

 them did not think it worth while to pause and investi- 

 gate the apparently irrelevant? 



