n BIOLOGY AXD THE STATE 103 



In conclusion, let me say that, in advocating 

 to-day the claim of biological science to a far greater 

 measure of support than it receives at present from 

 the public funds, I have endeavoured to press that 

 claim chiefly on the ground of the obvious utility to 

 the community of that kind of knowledge which is 

 called biology. I have endeavoured to meet the 

 opposition of those who object to the interference of 

 the State wherever it may be possible to attain the 

 end in view without such interference, but who 

 profess themselves willing to see public money ex- 

 pended in promoting objects which are of real import- 

 ance to the country, and which cannot be trusted to 

 the voluntary enterprise arising from the operation of 

 the laws of self-preservation and the struggle for 

 wealth. There are, however, it seems to me, further 

 reasons for desiring a thorough and practical recogni- 

 tion by the State of the value of scientific research. 

 There are not wanting persons of some cultivation 

 who have perceived and fully realised the value of 

 that knowledge which is called science, and of its 

 methods, and yet are anxious to restrain rather than 

 to aid the growth of that knowledge. They find in 

 science something inimical to their own interests, and 

 accordingly either condemn it as dangerous and un- 

 trustworthy, or encourage themselves to treat it with 

 contempt by asserting that ''after all, science counts 

 for very little " — a statement which is unhappily true 

 in one sense, though totally untrue when it is intended 



its history and organisation, the reader is referred to the appendix to 

 No. v. of the present series of papers. December 1889. 



