538 
NATURE : 
the distribution of each different kind of molecules in the vessel 
is determined by the forces which act on them in the same way 
as if no other molecules were present. This agrees with 
Dalton’s doctrine of the distribution of mixed gases. 
J. CLERK-MAXWELL 
ORIGINAL RESEARCH AS A MEANS OF 
EDUCATION* 
THE subject of the value of original scientific investigation 
may be considered from many points of view. Of these, 
that of the national importance of original research is the one 
which naturally first engages attention; and it does not take 
long to convince us that almost every great material advance in 
modern civilisation is due, not to the occurrence of haphazard or 
fortuitous circumstances, but to the long-continued and dis- 
interested efforts of some man of science. Nor do I need to quote 
many examples to show us the immediate dependence of the 
national well-being and progress upon scientific discoveries thus 
patiently and quietly made. If it had not been for Black’s re- 
searches on the latent heat of steam, James Watt’s great dis- 
covery, which has revolutionised the world, would not have been 
made. Practical applications cannot be made until the scientific 
facts or principles upon which those applications rest have been 
discovered. In our own science I might instance hundreds of 
cases in which discoveries made in the pure spirit of scientific 
inquiry have (generally in the hands of others than the original 
investigators) led to results of the first importance to civilisation. 
Chloroform was first prepared by Liebig in 1834; but it was 
Simpson who long afterwards applied it to the relief of suffering 
humanity. Faraday in 1825 discovered benzole, and from it 
Zinin prepared a substance called aniline, which for many years 
remained a chemical curiosity only interesting to the scientific 
man. In due course, however, a practical sphere of usefulness 
was to be opened out for this little known substance. Perkin 
discovered that this rare body was capable of yielding 
splendid colours. Commercial skill then at once seized upon 
aniline, and, instead of its being made by the ounce, it is now 
manufactured by thousands of tons, and the bright and beautiful 
colours which it yields are known all the world over, and are 
alike pleasing to the eye of the connoisseur of fashion and of 
the dusky denizen of the forest primzval. Thus, too, the 
purely scientific researches of our distinguished fellow-citizen 
Dr. Schunck, respecting the dyeing principle contained in the 
well-known madder root, laid the foundations for the subsequent 
discovery, by Graebe and Lieberman, of the artificial production 
of this naturally occurring principle, termed alizarine, the manu- 
facture of which is now assuming such gigantic proportions. 
Again, the discovery of chlorine by Scheele, in 1774, lies at the 
foundation of the whole of our Lancashire trade, for without 
bleaching powder the cotton and paper manufactures could not 
exist on their present extended scale. I might almost indefinitely 
extend this list of discoveries, which, when first made, were 
apparently far removed from any useful application, but which 
all at once become the starting-point ofa new branch of industry, 
and a source of benefit or gratification to mankind. 
This subject of the national importance of original research is 
one which is gradually but surely forcing itself on public at- 
tention. A few years ago national elementary education was 
looked upon as a chimera ; now it has become the question of 
the day. As soon as English people see as clearly as we do the 
imperious necessity for encouraging, stimulating, and upholding 
original research as containing the seeds of our future position as 
a nation, they will not be behindhand in securing the free growth 
of those seeds. It is therefore the bounden duty of all those whose 
employment or disposition has led them to feel the truth of this 
great principle, to leave no stone unturned to make widely 
known and keenly felt the importance of the national encourage- 
ment of original investigation. : 
It might have been a useful task for me to contrast what is 
done in other countries for the encouragement of free inquiry 
and research, and what is done, or rather left undone, in Eng- 
land. We should have seen that on the Continent of Europe, 
to a great extent, and in the United States, in some measure, 
those who have to wield the sceptre of government are not only 
aware of the national importance of original research, but, what 
is more, that they act up to their convictions, whilst we feel 
that the same cannot be said in our country. We should have 
* Address by Prof. Roscoe at the opening of the new buildings of the 
Owens College Manchester. 
seen that in Germany the facilities given in the universities, 
which are Government institutions, and in the other numerous 
and well-organised scientific educational establishments, to origi- 
nal research are very great ; that an original investigation in 
some branch of human knowledge is considered the usual termi- — 
nation of the student’s university @areer; and that degrees are 
generally given only when some new observations or experiments 
have been added to the mass of human knowledge. We should 
[ Oct. 23, 1873 
find that the position of professor is mainly influenced by the — 
amount and quality of his original researches, and that this 
power, and not any secondary or subsidiary ones, as is some- 
times the case with us, is taken as the proof of a man’s fitness 
to fill the professorial chair. 
It is my wish, however engrossing this view of the subject 
may be, to ask you {to consider to-day another aspect 
of the question--viz. the educational value of original re- 
search; the value of personal communication with nature 
for its own sake, the influence which such employment 
exerts on the mind, the effect which such studies produce 
as fitting men for the active duties of life, and the question, 
therefore, as to how far original investigation should be encou- 
raged as an instrument of intellectual progress. It may be well, 
however, before we commence this special question, to place 
clearly before our minds what is meant by scientific inquiry in 
general, and to see how it is related to the studies and habits of 
mind with which men up to the dawn of the present, or scientific 
age, have been familiar. 
In the first place, then, the essence of the scientific spirit is 
that it is free and disinterested. If, therefore, any of the habits 
of mind, studies, or beliefs in which men have hitherto indulged 
have not been free nor disinterested, in so far they have not been 
scientific. In the second place, the spirit of true scientific inquiry 
knows nothing of tradition or authority. It lays down laws for 
itself, and refuses to be bound by any others. Scientific edu- 
cation begins with no preconceived idea in accordance with 
which everything else must be moulded. It starts in simple 
communion with Nature, and is content to pick up little by little 
the truth which she is always ready to communicate to patient 
listeners. Thus step by step and generation by generation, slowly 
but surely, the perfect edifice of science is being built up, and all 
those who contribute, however insignificantly, to this great work 
have the safe assurance that their labour has not been in yain. 
This processis, itis clear, at once opposed to, and, if successfully 
carried out, subversive of the old order of things. Betweena 
system based on authority and one founded on freedom of 
thought and opinion there can never be any united action; and 
whilst fully acknowledging that- intellectual eminence, and, of 
course, moral excellence, are common to all classes of men, and 
are not confined to those holding particular opinions, if only they 
be honest, it is as well that we should admit with equal candour 
that the followers of the old system have no claim to be called 
scientific, and that there is, from the nature of things, a great and 
impassable gulf between us and them. : 
It does not concern us at present to inquire which of these 
two systems, the free or the authoritative, is for the future to 
rule the world. It must now suffice for us to see clearly that the 
habits of mind necessary for the establishment of the one are 
absolutely opposed to those needed for the success of the other. 
I must, however, here not be misunderstood. It would ill be- 
come me, connected as I am with a college to which it has been 
our constant aim to impart a university character, to undervalue 
or depreciate the study of subjects other than those included 
under the head of the physical sciences. Literary studies, 
whether of modern or ancient authors, giving an acquaintance 
with the noblest thoughts and opinions of the great men of past 
ages ; historical studies, giving us a knowledge of the acts of 
men in times gone by ; the study of language and philology, as 
giving a knowledge of how men of all times and countries ex- 
pres; their ideas and language ; of logic, as pointing out the laws 
of thought ; and above all, that of mathematics, are all matters 
of the highest importance, the neglect of which would render our 
education poor and incomplete indeed. ‘The same rules, how- 
ever, which all acknowledge to be necessary for the teaching of 
physical science must be applied to the study of all these sub- 
jects. In short, the scientific method must be employed in all 
cases and carried out to its fullest extent. Whilst attempts to 
shackle the mind, or to stifle free inquiry, which have too fre- 
quently succeeded in past times, and which may, if we are not 
on our guard, succeed again, must be repulsed with all our 
vigour. 
