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♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[Jan. 1, 188(3. 



by those having the moral qualities, the judgment, the 

 determination, and the self-denial necessary above every- 

 thing else for their achievement. Not a few of us may 

 consider ourselves titted for higher work than the gods 

 provide for us, and fondlj' imagine what great things we 

 should effect if we could only have our daily bread 

 supplied to ITS liy the exertions and endowments of other 

 less gifted mortals. But experience is not on the whole 

 favoTirable to the view that, the conditions being pro- 

 vided, the expectation would be realised. Experience, 

 indeed, rather favours the notion that it is primarily the 

 necessity for work, and association with those under a 

 necessity to work, — those in whom a professional spirit 

 has been aroused, and by whom work is held in honour, 

 — that creates and keeps up the taste and the habit of 

 work, whereby the vague ambition to achieve is turned 

 to some productive account. Take, say,, a thousand of 

 the most eminent men the world has produced, r,nd 

 making no allowance for the large influence of descent or 

 training, or of association with those to whom work is a 

 necessity, or having been a necessity is become a habit, 

 consider what proportion of these men have, by their 

 means and position in early life, been free from any 

 stimulus or obligation to exert and cultivate their powers; 

 and consider, on the other hand, what proportion of 

 them have been stimulated to exertion and success by 

 the stern necessity of having either to achieve their own 

 careers, or to drop into insignificance, if not indeed 

 into actual or comparative degradation and poverty. We 

 ought, indeed, all of us to be students, and to be above 

 all things students ; but most of us cannot be, nor is it 

 desirable, save in the case of a special few, that we 

 should be only stiidents. We have, all, our duties to fulfil 

 in this world, and it is not the least of these duties to 

 render ourselves independent of support from others, and 

 able ourselves to afford support to those depending upon 

 us. Fortunate are we in being able to find our means of 

 support in the demand that exists for the apjiHcations of 

 a science which has for its cultivators so great a charm. 

 To judge, however, not indeed bj^ their coyness when ex- 

 posed to the occasional tempjtatiim of professional work, 

 but rather by their observations on the career of others, 

 the most sought after and highest in professional repute, 

 the pursuit of professional chemistry is, in the opinion of 

 some among us, a vocation open to the gravest of censure. 

 It is praiseworthy, indeed, for the man of science to con- 

 tribute to his means of livelihood by the dreary work of 

 conducting examinations in elementary science for all 

 sorts of examining boards, and by teaching elementary 

 science at schools and colleges, and by giving popular 

 expositions of science at public institations, and by ex- 

 changing a minor professional a]jpointment, aifording 

 abundant oppdrtunities for original work, in favour of a 

 more lucrative and exacting appointment involving duties 

 which, if rightly fulfilled, must seriously curtail these 

 same opportunities. It is praiseworthy of him to add to 

 his means by compiling manuals of elementary science, 

 and by writing attractive works on science for the delec- 

 tation of general readers : but it is, forsooth, derogatory 

 to him, if not indeed a downright ])rostitiition of his 

 science, that he should contribute to his means of liveli- 

 hood by making his knowledge subservient to the wants 

 of departments, corporations, and individuals, alike of 

 great and small distinction, standing seriously iu need of 

 the special scientific services that he is able to render 

 them." 



I fear it must be admitted that the sarcasm of the last 

 few lines was somewhat too unmistakably aimed at the 

 editor of Nature, though this would not have been so 



obvious but for the circumstance that Professor Odling 

 and other eminent men oi science had been rebuked so 

 bitterly by Mr. Lockyer for making their knowledge sub- 

 servient to persons and corporations who had had the 

 bad taste to overlook the sujierior qualifications of more 

 — dignified — persons. 



Naturally therefore much space is devoted to rebuking 

 the better-known chemist. This is not done perhaps in 

 the most open way. One is reminded rather of Koko's 

 (or rather Grossmith's) suggestion of the individual 

 representatives of Gilbert's types which " never would 

 be missed." As Koko by tracing an invisible moustache 

 here, an imaginary eyeglass there, and an imperceptible 

 development of collar elsewhere, unmistakably indicates 

 without actvially naming the persons to whom the Bab- 

 Ballader objects, so Mr. Lcckyer by mentioning some of 

 the best-known details of Prof. Odling's busy life, directs 

 pointedly against him the rebukes which he is professedly 

 directing against types. 



These rebukes imply that such work as a man of 

 science may do in the way of earning a living must not, 

 even though the work assists the industries depending 

 on science, interfere with higher work if higher work 

 has been undertaken. What is the higher work does not 

 very clearly ajjpear. Is the determination of the position 

 of a few lines in the solar spectrum high work ? and is 

 the application of the spectroscope to the impi-ovement 

 of metallurgical processes low work ? Would a Dr. 

 Huggins studying the lines of iron in the solar spectrum 

 be an altogether dignified person compared with a Bes- 

 semer studying spectra in his iron- works ? and what 

 position would then be assigned to a third person — Mr. 

 Lockyer, for instance — who should patent for his per- 

 sonal benefit a process which he thought likely to be 

 useful to metallurgists ] 



For my own part I find such discussions as these, at 

 least from Mr. Lockyer's standpoint, altogether wanting 

 in dignity. I hold with Professor Huxley that a man of 

 science should regard himself as a citizen iu the first 

 place, a student of science in the second (if in so high a 

 place). Whether a man who deems himself capable of 

 enlightening the world but is unwilling first to maintain 

 himself and his family, acts like Palissy, letting wife and 

 children want and run the risk of actually starving- 

 while he throws the last stakes in his gambling ventui-e 

 for fame and wealth, or whether he sickens his fellows 

 by begging unceasingly for State alms, he equally — in 

 my judgment — degrades research, if he does not di,>grace 

 manhood. I think far better of the man who like Mr. 

 Lockyer, as pictured without being named by Professor 

 Odling, and Professor Odling, as pictured without being 

 named by Mr. Lockyer, earns money for himself and his 

 familj^ by work in which i^cientific progress in one form 

 or another is held in view. 



Of course we can sympathise with those who believe 

 that they could do more useful work were they not 

 thus obliged to give so much time to the higher duties 

 of the citizen, the husband, the father ; and we may 

 rightly feel wroth with men who, having ample means 

 and perhaps no family dependent on them, leave their 

 powers unused (as, alas, Newton did from the time when 

 a well-paid post was given him). But men sometimes 

 misjudge their power.s, and are really doing more good iu 

 what seems to them inferior work than they could have 

 done (to say nothing about what they would luive done) 

 if freed for higher rese-irches. And as to the balance 

 between the sense of duty in regard to research on the 

 one hand and iu regard to family on the other, there should 

 be no question. The student of science who, as years 



