THE ROYAL SOCIETY AND THE STATE 



In the past the Royal Society has been not infrequently 

 greatly hampered in giving its advice, by the knowledge 

 that the funds absolutely needed for the carrying out of 

 the matters in question in accordance with our present 

 scientific knowledge would not be forthcoming. Though 

 I am now speaking on my own responsibility, I am sure 

 that the Society is with me if I say that the expenditure 

 by the Government on scientific research and scientific 

 institutions, on which its commercial and industrial pro- 

 sperity so largely depend, is wholly inadequate in view 

 of the present state of international competition. I throw 

 no blame on the individual members of the present or 

 former Governments ; they are necessarily the represent- 

 atives of public opinion, and cannot go beyond it. The 

 cause is deeper, it lies in the absence in the leaders of 

 public opinion, and indeed throughout the more influential 

 classes of society, of a sufficiently intelligent appreciation 

 of the supreme importance of scientific knowledge and 

 scientific methods in all industrial enterprises, and indeed 

 in all national undertakings. The evidence of this grave 

 state of the public mind is strikingly shown by the very 

 small response that follows any appeal that is made for 

 scientific objects in this country, in contrast with the 

 large donations and liberal endowments from private 

 benefaction for scientific purposes and scientific institutions 

 which are always at once forthcoming in the United States. 

 In my opinion, the scientific deadness of the nation is 



mainly due to the too exclusively mediaeval and classical 



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