II BIOLOGY AND THE STATE 65 



are mysteriously supported by the State Exchequer, 

 and are thus fair game for attacking with all sorts of 

 demands for gratuitous service ; or, on the other hand, 

 the notion at work appears sometimes to be that the 

 making of new knowledge in fact, scientific discovery 

 is an agreeable pastime, in which some ingenious 

 gentlemen, whose business in other directions takes 

 up their best hours, find relaxation after dinner or on 

 the spare hours of Sunday. Such mistaken views 

 ought to be dispelled with all possible celerity and 

 determination. It is in part owing to the fact that 

 the real state of the case is not widely and persistently 

 made known to the public, that no attempt is made 

 in this country to raise scientific research, and especially 

 biological research, from the condition of destitution 

 and neglect under which it suffers a condition which 

 is far below that of these same interests in France and 

 Germany, and even in Holland, Belgium, Italy, and 

 Eussia, and is discreditable to England in proportion 

 as she is richer than other States. 



It appears to me that, in placing this matter before 

 you, I may remove myself from any suggestion of 

 self-interest by at once stating that the great defect 

 to which I shall draw your attention is not that the 

 few existing public positions which are open in this 

 country to men who intend to devote their chief 

 energies to biological research are endowed with in- 

 sufficient salaries, but that there is not anything like 

 a sufficiently large number of those posts, and that 

 there is in that respect, from a national point of view, 

 a pecuniary starvation of biology, a withholding of 



