1 80 Unsaleable nature of discoveries. 



advertised at the cost of the purchasers. But not one 

 of these occupations constitutes pure research, or is an 

 immediate source of new discoveries. Payment is 

 made for all kinds of scientific labour which will im- 

 mediately benefit individuals or corporations, but 

 very little for pure investigation, and nearly every 

 inducement exists to attract men of science from 

 pursuing such labour. 



It might be supposed that investigators would 

 patent or sell their discoveries ; but discoveries in 

 pure science cannot usually be patented or sold, 

 because they have not been converted by invention 

 into commercial commodities. New scientific truth is 

 utterly unsaleable ; no one will purchase it. Whilst 

 the real or intrinsic value of it is great, its extrinsic 

 value is small and is the sum of money it will sell for 

 in the market. No one would have purchased Oersted's 

 great discovery of electro-magnetism. It would also 

 be less to public advantage if investigators were to 

 neglect discovering new knowledge in order to apply 

 that knowledge to practical uses. It requires a 

 different training of mental power to discover new 

 truths, than to utilize them by means of invention, 

 teaching or lecturing ; and men who can invent and 

 instruct are far more numerous than those who are 

 able to discover. Discoveries are also generally much 

 more valuable than inventions, because a single dis- 

 covery (that of gutta percha for example) not 

 unfrequently forms the basis of many inventions. 

 Discoverers not unfrequently meet with new facts 



