Sept. 20, 1883] 



NATURE 



5ii 



science in our own country must be prepared to face public 

 opinion in a manner which requires much moral courage. They 

 must be prepared to be looked down upon by every successful 

 inventor whose shallow mind imagines that the only pursuit of 

 mankind is wealth, and that he who obtains most has best 

 succeeded in this world. Everybody can comprehend a million 

 of money ; but how few can comprehend any advance in scien- 

 tific theory ; especially in its more abstruse portions ! And this, 

 I believe, is one of the causes of the small number of persons 

 who have ever devoted themselves to work of the higher order in 

 any human pursuit Man is a gregarious animal, and depends 

 very much, for his happiness, on the sympathy of those around 

 him ; and it is rare to find one with the courage to pursue his 

 own ideals in spite of his surroundings. In times past, men 

 were more isolated than at present, and each came in contact 

 with a fewer number of people. Hence that time constitutes the 

 period when the great sculptures, paintings, and poems were 

 produced. Each man's mind was comparatively free to follow 

 its own ideals, and the results were the great and unique works 

 of the ancient masters. To-day, the railroad and the telegraph, 

 the books and newspapers, have united each individual man with 

 the rest of the world : in-tead of his mind being an individual, a 

 thing apart by itself, and unique, it has become so influenced by 

 the outer world, and so dependent upon it, that it has lost its 

 originality to a great extent. The man who in times past would 

 naturally have been in the lowest depths of poverty, mentally and 

 physically, today measures tape behin i a counter, and with 

 lordly air advises the naturally born genius how he may best 

 bring his outward appearance down to a level with his own. A 

 new idea he never had, but he can at least cover his mental 

 nakedness with ideas imbibed from others. So the genius of the 

 past soon perceives that his higher ideas are too high to be 

 appreciated by the world : his mind is clipped down to the 

 standard form ; every natural offshoot upwards is repressed, until 

 the man is no higher than his fellows. Hence the world, through 

 the abundance of its intercourse, is reduced to a level. What 

 was formerly a grand and magnificent landscape, with mountains 

 ascending at-ove the clouds, and depths whose gloom we cannot 

 now appreciate, has become serene and peaceful. The depths 

 have been filled, and the heights levelled, and the wavy harvests 

 and smoky factories cover the landscape. 



As far as the average man is concerned, the change is for the 

 better. The average life of man is far pleasanter, and bis mental 

 condition better, than before. But we miss the vigour imparted by 

 the mountains. We are tired of mediocrity, the curse of our 

 country. We are tired of seeing our artists reduced to hirelings, 

 and imploring Congress to protect them against foreign competi- 

 tion. We are tired of seeing our countrymen take their science from 

 abroad, and boast that they here convert it into wealth. We are 

 rired of seeing our professors degrading their chairs by the 

 pursuit of applied science instead of pure science ; or sitting 

 inactive while the whole world is open to investigation ; lingering 

 by the wayside while the problem of the universe remains 

 unsolved. 



For generations there have been some few students of science 

 who have esteemed the study of nature the most noble of pur- 

 suits. Some have been wealthy, and some poor ; but they have 

 all had one thing in common — the love of nature and its laws. 

 To these few men the world owes all the progress due to applied 

 science, and yet very few ever received any payment in this 

 world for their labours. 



But there will be those in the future, as well as in the past, 

 who will do so ; and for them higher prizes than any yet obtained 

 are waiting. We have but yet commenced our pursuit of science, 

 and stand upon the threshold wondering w hat there is within. 

 We explain the motion of the planet by the law of gravitation ; 

 but who will explain how two bodies, millions of miles apart, 

 tend to go toward each other with a certain force ? 



We now weigh and measure electricity and electric currents 

 with as much ease as ordinary matter, yet have we made any 

 approach to an explanation of the phenomenon of electricity ? 

 Light is an undulatory motion, and yet do we know what it is 

 that undulates? Heat is motion, yet do we know what it is 

 that moves? Ordinary matter is a common substance, and yet 

 who shall fathom the mystery of its internal constitution? 



How shall we, then, honour the few, the very few, who, in 

 spite of all difficulties, have kept their eyes fixed on the goal, 

 and have steadily worked for pure science, giving to the world a 

 most precious donation, which has borne fruit in our greater 

 knowledge of the universe and in the applications to our physical 

 life which have enriched thousands and benefited each one of 



us ? There are also those who have every facility for the pur- 

 suit of science, who have an ample salary and every appliance 

 for work, yet who devote themselves to commercial work, to 

 testifying in courts of law, and to any other work to increase 

 their present large income. Such men would be respectable if 

 they gave up the name of professor, and took that of consulting 

 chemists or physicists. And such men are needed in the com- 

 munity. But for a man to occupy the professor's chair in a 

 prominerrt college, and, by his energy and ability in the com- 

 mercial applications of his science, stand before the local com- 

 munity in a prominent manner, and become the newspaper 

 exponent of his science, is a disgrace both to him and his 

 college. It is the deathblow to science in that region. Call 

 him by his proper name, and he becomes at once a useful 

 member of the community. Put in his place a man who shall 

 by precept and example cultivate his science, and how different 

 is the result ! Young men, looking forward into the world for 

 something to do, see before them this high and noble life, and 

 they see that there is something more honourable than the 

 accumulation of wealth. They are thus led to devote their lives 

 to similar pursuits, and they honour the professor who has drawn 

 them to something higher than they might otherwise have 

 aspired to. 



I do not wish to be misunderstood in this matter. It is no 

 disgrace to make money by an invention, or otherwise, or to do 

 commercial scientific work under some circumstances. But let 

 pure science be the aim of those in the chairs of professors, and 

 so prominently the aim that there can be no mistake. If our 

 aim irr life is wealth, let us honestly engage in commercial pur- 

 suits and compete with others for its possession. But if we 

 choose a life which we consider higher, let us live up to it, 

 taking wealth or poverty as it may chance to come to us, but 

 letting neither turn us aside from our pursuit. 



The w ork of teaching may absorb the energies of many ; and 

 indeed this is the excuse given by most for not doing any scien- 

 tific work. But there is an old saying that where there is a will 

 there is a way. Few professors do as much teaching or lecturing 

 as the German professors, who are also noted for their elaborate 

 papers in the scientific journals. A university should not only 

 have great men orr its faculty, but have numerous minor pro- 

 fessors and assistants ot all kinds, and should encourage the 

 highest work, if for no other reason than to encourage the student 

 to his highest efforts. But, assuming that the professor has high 

 ideals, wealth such as only a large and high university can com- 

 mand is necessary to allow him the fullest development. 



And this is specially so in our science of physics. In the early 

 days of physics and chemistry many of the fundamental experi- 

 ments could be performed w ith the simplest apparatus. And so 

 we often find the names of Wollaston and Faraday mentioned 

 as needing scarcely anything for their researches. Much can 

 even now be done with the simplest apparatus ; and nobody, 

 except the utterly incompetent, need stop for want of it. But 

 the fact remains that one can only be free to investigate in all 

 departments of chemistry and physics, when he not only has a 

 complete laboratory at his command, but a friend to draw on 

 for the expenses of each experiment. That simplest of the de- 

 partments of physics, namely, astronomy, has now reached such 

 perfection that nobody can expect to do much more in it without 

 a perfectly equipped observatory ; and even this would be use- 

 less w ithout an income sufficient to employ a corps of assistants 

 to make the observations and computations. 



But would it not be possible to so change public opinion that 

 no college could be founded with a less endowment than say 

 1, 000, coo dollars, or no university with less than three or four 

 times that amount ? 



The total wealth of the 400 colleges and universities was in 

 1S80 about 40,000,000 dollars in buildings, and 43,000,000 

 dollars in productive funds. This would be sufficient for one great 

 university of io,coo,ooo dollars, four of 5,000,000 dollars, and 

 twenty-six colleges of 2,000,000 dollars each. But such an idea 

 can of course never be carried out. Government appropriations 

 are out of the question, because no political trickery must be 

 allowed around tbe ideal institution. 



In the year 18S0 the private bequests to all schools and 

 colleges amounted to about 5,500,000 dollars. We must make 

 the need of research and of pure science felt in the country. We 

 must live such lives of pure devotion to our science, that all shall 

 see that we ask for money, not that we may live lives of indolent 

 ease at tbe expense of charity, but that we may work for that 

 which has advanced and will advance the world more than any 

 other subject, both intellectually and physically. We must live 



