232 ESSAYS BIOGRAPHICAL AND CHEMICAL 



applicants who are deemed suitable by committees 

 appointed to consider their claims to assistance. 



There are two views regarding the advantage of research 

 which have been held. The first of these may be termed 

 the utilitarian view. You all know the tale of the man 

 of science who was asked the use of research, and who 

 parried with the question What is the use of a baby ? 

 Well, I imagine that one school of political economists 

 would oppose the practice of child-murder on the ground 

 that potentially valuable property was being destroyed. 

 These persons would probably not be those who stood to 

 the baby in a parental relation. Nor are the most suc- 

 cessful investigators those who pursue their inquiries with 

 the hope of profit, but for the love of them. It is, how- 

 ever, a good thing, I believe, that the profanum vulyus 

 should hold the view that research is remunerative to the 

 public as some forms of it undoubtedly are. 



The second view may be termed the philosophical one. 

 It is one held by lovers of wisdom in all its various forms. 

 It explains itself, for the human race is differentiated 

 from the lower animals by the desire which it has to know 

 ' why.' You may have noticed, as I have, that one of the 

 first words uttered by that profound philosopher, a small 

 child, is ' why ? ' Indeed it becomes wearisome by its 

 iteration. We are the superiors of the brutes in that we 

 can hand down our knowledge. It may be that some 

 animals also seek for knowledge ; but at best, it is of use 

 to themselves alone; they cannot transmit it to their 

 posterity, except possibly by way of hereditary faculties. 

 W T e, on the contrary, can write and read ; and this places 

 us, if we like, in possession of the accumulated wisdom of 

 the ages. 



Now the most important function, I hold, of a Uni- 

 versity is to attempt to answer that question ' why ? ' 

 The ancients tried to do so; but they had not learned 



