December 13, 1894] 



NA TURE 



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scientific men ; by the heads of universities ; by the presidents 

 of scientific associations, here and abroad ; and by none, 

 perhaps, more eloquently than by Dr. Edwin Ray Lankester, in 

 his address before the biological section of the British Asso- 

 ciation at Southport, in 1S83. 



What shall we say to the call and the examples of such men ? 

 Was the gift of Tyndall based only upon an idle fancy ? Or 

 was it the result of a clear perception of a profound truth, viz. 

 America's need of that money as a stimulus and support to 

 more scientific research ; the call on him being felt to be the 

 more imperious, because the need of it was so plain to him, 

 while obscure to others ; and making his act, therefore, a noble 

 instance of self-renunciation in an unappreciated c^use ? 



"To keep society as regards science in healthy play, " he 

 says, " three classes of workers are necessary : 



"(l) The investigator of natural truth, whose vocation it is 

 to pursue that truth and extend the field of discoveryfor truth's 

 own sake, without reference to practical ends. 



"(2) The teacher, to diffuse this knowledge. . . . 



" (3) The applierof these principles and truths to make them 

 available to the needs, the comforts, or the luxuries of life. . . . 



"These three classes ought to coexist and interact. The 

 popular notions of science . . . often relate, not to science 

 strictly so-called, but to the application of science." 



The great discoveries of scientific truth, he continues, are 

 "not made by practical men, and they never will be made by 

 them ; because their minds are beset by ideas which, though of 

 the highest value in one point of view, are not those which 

 stimulate the original discoverer. " 



In a chance conversation, a few weeks since, I received a 

 confirmation of these words, so direct and unexpected, that it 

 may bear citation. I was talking with an electrical expert who 

 had made several very interesting and important inventions. I 

 asked him of how much importance he conceived that the 

 scientific men of the closet, thejoriginal investigators, so-called, 

 had been in working out the great inventions of electricity 

 during the last fifty years — the telegraph cables, telephones, the 

 electric lighting, and the electric motors ; and whether these 

 achievements were not in reality due, mainly, to the practical 

 men, the inventors, who knew what they were after, rather than 

 to the men of science, who rarely applied their work to prac- 

 tical use ? 



"Not at all," he said, "the scientific men are of the utmost 

 importance ; everything that has been done has proceeded upon 

 the basis of what they have previously discovered, and upon 

 the principles and laws which they have laid down. Now-a- 

 days we never work at random. Look at that electric light \ 

 Of the energy expended in producing it, only 7 per cent. 

 appears as light ; the rest, 93 per cent, is wasted, mainly in 

 heat. We are all now trying to prevent this enormous waste. 

 I want to reverse that proportion ; but if I can reduce the waste 

 to only 33 per cent, a patent of my invention will be worth 

 millions of dollars for its economy in production. In seeking 

 this we do not work at random. I go to my laboratory ; study 

 the applications of the principles, facts, and laws which the 

 great scientists like Faraday, Thompson, and Maxwell have 

 worked out, and endeavour to find such devices as shall secure 

 my aim." 



This is but an expression, in another form, of what Tyndall 

 said twenty years ago ; " Behind all our practical applications 

 there is a region of intellectual action to which pr.actical men 

 have rarely contributed, but from which they draw all their 

 supplies. Cut them off from that region, and they become 

 eveniually helpless." 



What is true in one department of natural science is, I appre- 

 hend, equally true in all. The practical men do not work at 

 random, but upon the basis of what scientific research and 

 publication have previously put within their grasp. 



It is evident, therefore, that not only the advancement of know- 

 ledge itself, but all possibility of any continuous advance in those 

 great improvements which are to mitigate the sorrows, and promote 

 the health, the conveniences, and the comforts of men, is vitally 

 dependent upon the progress of scientific research. In recent 

 years how marvellous have these improvements been ! Besides 

 those that are most common and familiar to all, what miracles, 

 almost, have been achieved through the photograph, the 

 spectroscope, the microscope ; by the discovery of the sources 

 of fermentation and of putrefaction ; by the discovery of an- 

 esthetics and the application of antiseptic methods in surgery, 

 and in the treatment of other lesions I These latter discoveries 



NO. 



131 I, VOL. 51] 



alone have ameliorated beyond expression the sufferings of 

 man ; they save more lives than war and pestilence destroy, 

 surpassing even in that regard the safety lamp of Sir Humphrey 

 Davy — an invention which at the time it was made, was said 

 to have exceeded every previous discovery as a means of saving 

 human life, except, possibly, inoculation for smallpox. 



This vital relation between the advancement of knowledge 

 and the welfare of man furnishes an all-sufticient reason for the 

 continuous and never-ending prosecution of original research. 

 Of necessity the original work of discovery must always lead ; 

 that must always precede the practical applications. The 

 necessity for such research must therefore continue so long as 

 science and human society endure. As there is no limit to the 

 advance of knowledge, so there can be no limit to the benefac- 

 tions it is capable of conferring upon mankind. The more rapid 

 the advance, the more speedy the enjoyment of its fruits. In 

 this relation alone the need of ample provision for scientific 

 progress is one that addresses itself equally to the nation, to the 

 State, to philanthropists, and to all who would advance the 

 welfare of man on the broadest and most enduring lines. 



How shall such research be maintained and extended ? The 

 investigator of pure science does not work for profit. His dis- 

 coveries are not marketable. The law allows no patent upon a 

 principle of nature or the discovery of a new truth. Newton 

 could not patent the law of gravitation, nor Volta the galvanism 

 of the voltaic pile ; nor Ehrenberg and Schwann the discovery 

 of the widespread influence of bacteria ; nor Faraday, nor Henry, 

 elect ro-magnetism ; nor Joule, his correlation of forces; nor 

 Jackson, his anaesthetics ; nor Lister, his antiseptic treatment ; 

 nor Koch, nor Pasteur, their discoveries of the bacilli, the de- 

 struction of which may lead to the cure or amelioration of 

 terrible diseases. To the practical men and to the inventors, 

 on the other hand, who apply to the specific wants of men the 

 truths and principles which the men of science have made known 

 to them, the law, in the form of a patent, gives a monopoly of 

 from fourteen to twenty-one years. They thus obtain, as a rule, 

 a reasonable, and, in some cases, even an excessive, pecuniary 

 reward. In this country alone nearly 500,000 patents have been 

 issued ; they are increasing at the rate of about 25,000 per 

 year. In the extreme multiplication of patents affecting a 

 large part of everything we use, the whole world, it might 

 almost be said, is p.aying tribute to the inventors and practical 

 men ; while to the original discoverers, who have made so much 

 of all this possible, there is no promise of pecuniary reward. 



This is not said by way of complaint. In the nature of 

 things it is scarcely avoidable. The aims, the motives, the 

 methods, and the genius of the two classes of minds are and 

 ever must be widely distinct. Original discoverers cannot be 

 turned aside from their special work to become mechanics and 

 inventors without infinite loss. Prof. Henry had one form of 

 the electric telegraph in actual use some years before Morse 

 conceived it.' But how great would have been the loss to 

 science, without any corresponding gain, had Prof. Henry in 

 1S30 turned away from pure science to do the subsequent work 

 of Morse in adapting the telegraph to common and valuable 

 use ! 



Research in pure science can never be made a self-supporting 

 pursuit. It can never, therefore, be carried forward broadly, 

 and continuously, and effectively, except through men sustained 

 by some form of stipend or endowment. Occasionally, it is 

 true, men of independent fortune, like Harvey, and Darwin, 

 and Lyell, and Agassiz, have devoted themselves to original 

 research upon their own means, and have accomplished most 

 important results. But these instances are rare. Many other 

 persons, too, with aptitudes and tastes for research, though not 

 following a scientific career, have carried on private researches 

 in the intervals of leisure stolen from the exacting demands of 

 professional or business life ; and these have, in the aggregate, 

 added no small amount to the common stock of knowledge. 



It is no disparagement, however, of these subordinate workers 

 to say that nearly all the great discoveries, ana nearly all the 

 great advances along the lines of knowledge, have been achieved 

 by men who in the main have devoted their lives to the work, 

 and have been supported through institutions or endowments 

 which made this devotion possible. Government appointments, 

 professorial chairs, or salaried positions in scientific institutions 

 of some kind, have been and must continue to be our chief 

 dependence. And it is manifest that these can only be main- 

 tained by Government aid, or by the bounty of private in- 

 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1S7S, pp. 159, 262 



