68 Research and National Purpose 



He can be expected to demand conditions which will allow 

 him to proceed as fast as his inspiration impels, and in the 

 direction it commands. He cannot predict when success will 

 crown his efforts. A lot of his work will turn out to be plain 

 hard slogging — but no less fascinating for that — whether he 

 is researching in some esoteric branch of natural knowledge, 

 or directing his energies to advancing some obviously utili- 

 tarian field of applied science. What he basically wants and 

 needs is the assurance that he will be allowed to give full rein to 

 his curiosity without being harried, until the moment comes 

 when he himself thinks his ideas have either flowered or run 

 into the sands — and it is time to change direction — or give up 

 research. He wants a library and journals in which to publish. 

 He wants an environment in which there are no bars to the 

 acquisition of the knowledge gained by others. He needs the 

 opportunity to discuss, at scientific meetings and seminars, 

 mutual interests with colleagues. When appropriate, he would 

 like guidance and encouragement, and when he discovers some- 

 thing new, the acclaim of colleagues — there have been very 

 few scientists who have wished to remain anonymous, or to 

 suppress the discoveries which they have made. Every scientist 

 is a member of a world-wide community of scientists, all of 

 whom work in the same field. The "community" may some- 

 times consist of no more than a half-dozen men; sometimes it 

 may number hundreds or even thousands. But whatever its 

 size it constitutes the particular environment in which the 

 scientist finds his interest, and where basically he seeks to be 

 recognized and judged. 



Whether a scientific discovery proves to be far-reaching or 

 trivial, it is inevitably an act of creation. What matters to the 

 scientist, as Koestler' so eloquently puts it, is "the emergence of 

 order out of disorder, of signal out of noise, of harmony out of 

 dissonance, of a meaningful whole out of meaningless bits, of 

 cosmos out of chaos." Few can enjoy this kind of revelation — 

 which indeed applies to any field of creative activity — or derive 



1. Koestler, Arthur (1965). Encounter, Vol. 25, p. 32. 



