August 15, 1901] 



NA TURE 



389 



one. The object of the student is to become a practical 

 engineer, and all his work is necessarily directed to that end. 

 Like other workers in different fields, his aim is the acquisition and 

 utilisation of " power," but in his case it is his object to direct 

 mechanical and electrical power so as to add to the convenience 

 of the public. A machine is an instrument for converting heat 

 or electrical energy into what is termed "kinetic energy," and it 

 is with the laws and modes of this conversion that he has to 

 deal. Such abstract sciences as chemistry, physics and geology, 

 therefore, are studied as means to an end, not for their own 

 sakes. They afford him a glimpse of the principles on which 

 his engineering practice is based ; and mathematics is essential 

 in order that he may be able to apply physical principles to the 

 practical problems of his profession. 



We see, then, that a University, as it at present exists, 

 provides, or may provide, technical instruction for theologians, 

 for lawyers, for medical men and for engineers. It is, in fact, 

 an advanced technical school for these subjects. 



But it is more, and I believe that its chief function lies in 

 the kind of work which I shall attempt now to describe. The 

 German Universities possess what Ihey term a "philosophical 

 faculty " : and this phrase is to be accepted in the derivational 

 meaning of the word — a faculty which befriends wisdom or 

 learning. The watchword of the members of this faculty is 

 research ; the searching out the secrets of nature, to use a 

 current phrase, or the attempt to create new knowledge. The 

 whole machinery of the philosophical faculty is devised to 

 achieve this end ; the selection of the teachers, the equipment of 

 the laboratories and libraries, the awarding of the degrees. 



What are the advantages of research? Much is heard nowa- 

 days regarding the necessity of State-provision for its encourage- 

 ment, and the Government places at the disposal of the Royal 

 Society a sum of no less than 4000/. a year, which is distri- 

 buted in the form of grants to applicants who are deemed 

 suitable by committees appointed to consider their claims to 

 assistance. 



There are two views regarding the advantage of research 

 which have been held. The first of these may be termed the 

 utilitarian view. Vou all know the tale of the man of science 

 who was asked the use of research and who parried with the 

 question — What is the use of a baby ? Well, I imagine that 

 one school of political economists would oppose the practice of 

 child-murder on the ground that potentially valuable property 

 was being destroyed. These persons would probably not be 

 those who stood to the baby in a parental relation. Nor are 

 the most successful investigators those who pursue their in- 

 quiries with the hope of profit, but for the love of them. It 

 is, however, a good thing, I believe, that the profanuin vulgus 

 should hold the view that research is remunerative to the public 

 — as some forms of it undoubtedly are. 



The second view may be termed the philosophical one. It 

 is one held by lovers of wisdom in all its various forms. It 

 explains itself, for the human race is differentiated from the 

 lower animals by the desire which it has to know " why." 

 You may have noticed, as I have, that one of the first words 

 uttered by that profound philosopher, a small child, is " why." 

 Indeed, it becomes wearisome by its iteration. We are the 

 superiors of the brutes in that we can hand down out know- 

 ledge. It may be that some animals also seek for knowledge ; 

 but at best it is of use to themselves alone ; they cannot trans- 

 mit it to their posterity, except, possibly, by the way of hereditary 

 faculties. We, on the contrary, can write and read ; and this 

 places us, if we like, in the possession of the accumulated 

 wisdom of the ages. 



Now the most important function, I hold, of a University is 

 to attempt to answer that question, "why?" The ancients 

 tried to do so ; but they had not learned that its answer must 

 be preceded by the answer to the question, "how?" and that 

 in most cases — indeed in all — we must learn to be contented 

 with the answer to "how?" The better we can tell Iwtv 

 things are, the more nearly shall we be able to say why 

 they are. 



Such a question is applicable to all kinds of subjects ; to what 

 our forerunners on this earth did ; how they lived ; if we go 

 even further back, what preceded them on the earth. The 

 history of these inquiries is the function of geology, palaeon- 

 tology and palceontological botany ; it is continued through 

 archteology, Egyptian and Assyrian, Greek and Roman ; it 

 evolves into history, and lights are thrown on it by languages 

 and philology ; it dovetails with literature and economics. In 



NO 1659, VOL. 64] 



all these, research is possible ; and a University should be 

 equipped for the successful prosecution of inquiries in all such 

 branches. 



Another class of inquiries relates to what we think and how 

 we reason : and here we have philosophy and logic. A different 

 branch of the same inquiry leads us to mathematics, which 

 deals with spatial and numerical concepts of the human mind, 

 geometry and algebra. By an easy transition we have the 

 natural sciences ; those less closely coimected with ourselves as 

 persons, but intimately related to our surroundings. Zoology 

 and botany, anatomy, physiology and pathology deal with living 

 organisms as structural machines, and they are based on physics 

 and chemistry, which are themselves dependent on mathe- 

 matics. 



Such inquiries are worth making for their own sakes. They 

 interest a large part of the human race, and not to feel inter- 

 ested in them is to lack intelligence. The man who is content 

 to live from day to day, glad if each day will but produce him 

 food to eat and a roof to sleep under, is but little removed from 

 an uncivilised being. For the test of civilisation is provision ; 

 care to look forward ; to provide for to-morrow ; the to-morrow 

 of the race, as well as the to-morrow of the individual ; and he 

 who looks furthest ahead is best able to cope with nature, and 

 to conquer her. 



The investigation of the unknown is to gather experience 

 from those who have lived before us, and to secure knowledge 

 for ourselves and for those who will succeed us. I see, however, 

 that I am insensibly taking a utilitarian view ; I by no means 

 wish to exclude it, but the chief purpose of research must be 

 the acquisition of knowledge, and the second its utilisation. 



I will try to explain why this is so, and here you must forgive 

 me if I cite well-known and oft-quoted instances. 



If attempts were made to discover only useful knowledge 

 (and by useful I accept the vulgar definition of profitable, i.e. 

 knowledge which can be directly transmitted into its money 

 equivalent) these attempts would, in many, if not in most, cases 

 fail of their object. I do not say that once a principle has been 

 proved and a practical application is to be made of it that the 

 working out of the details is not necessary. But that is best 

 done by the practical man, be he the parson, the doctor, the 

 engineer, the technical electrician or the chemist, and best of 

 all on a fairly large scale. If, however, the practical end is 

 always kept in view, the chances are that there will be no 

 advance in principles. Indeed, what we investigators wish to 

 be able to do, and what in many cases we can do, although 

 perhaps very imperfectly, is to prophesy, to foretell what a given 

 combination of circumstances will produce. The desire is 

 founded on a belief in the uniformity of nature ; on 

 the conviction that what has been will again be, should 

 the original conditions be reproduced. By studying the 

 consequences of varying the conditions our knowledge is 

 extended ; indeed, it is sometimes possible to go so far as to 

 predict what will happen under conditions, all of which have 

 never before been seen to be present together. 



When Faraday discovered the fact that when a magnet is 

 made to approach a coil of wire an electric current is induced 

 in that wire, he made a discovery which at the time was of 

 only scientific interest. That discovery has resulted in electric 

 light, electric traction and the utilisation of electricity as a 

 motive power ; the development of a means of transmitting 

 energy, of which we have by no means seen the end ; nay, we 

 are even now only at its inception, so great must the advance in 

 its utilisation ultimately become. 



When Ilofmann set Perkin as a young student to investigate 

 the products of oxidation of the base aniline, produced by him 

 from coal-tar, it would have been impossible to have predicted 

 that one manufactory alone would possess nearly 400 large 

 buildings and employ 5000 workmen, living in its own town of 

 25,000 inhabitants, all of which is devoted to the manufacture of 

 colours from aniline and other coal-tar products. In this work 

 alone at least 350 chemists are employed, most of whom have 

 had a University training. 



Schonbein, a Swiss schoolmaster interested in chemistry, was 

 struck by the action of nitric acid on paper and cotton. He 

 would have been astounded if he had been told that his experi- 

 ments would have resulted in the employment of his nitro- 

 celluloses in colossal quantity for blasting, and for ordnance o. 

 all kinds, from the go-ton gun to the fowling-piece. 



But discoveries such as these, which lead directly to practical 

 results, are yet far inferior in importance to others in which a 



