74 



NA TURE 



[Nov. 26, 1885 



Is he the life of his laboratory, always there, always 

 setting an example to his students of patient and con- 

 tinuous research ? What is the number of researches 

 produced per annum, and what is their value ? Do his 

 students revere him or think little of him ? Do they give 

 any indications of benefiting by his instruction ? Has he 

 founded a school ? Has he impregnated his assistants with 

 the love of new knowledge, and do they spend their time 

 in getting it ? Or, again, is he the friend of manufacturers 

 a grata persona to limited liability companies? Is he a 

 noted expert in our courts of law? Is he never seen in 

 his laboratory ? Is the laboratory now silent, its appli- 

 ances rotting from disuse, and its old reputation for 

 research become merely the shadow of a shade ? 



It is really quite easy to find out whether this pro- 

 fessor of science is doing his duty or neglecting it ; 

 whether the getting of knowledge or the getting of money 

 is foremost in his thoughts. 



The dignity of a professor in a seat of learning 

 is closely associated with the dignity and the honour 

 of the seat of learning itself. An University which 

 appoints a man to a professorship places its honour 

 in his keeping so far as his science is concerned- 

 Now the members of an University, even though they 

 may not be especially learned in any particular branch of 

 knowledge, soon know, perhaps even by a kind of instinct, 

 whether a professor is upholding the honour of the alma 

 mater ^ in the welfare of which they are all interested ; or 

 whether by forsaking the fair fields of knowledge, and by 

 thinking only of self and pelf, he is dragging her reputa- 

 tion through the mire. This feeling in an University affords 

 another criterion which may be safely relied on if we wish 

 to know whether or not a professor is doing his duty. 



Take another case. Let it be that of one who is 

 engaged in commercial matters — whether large or small 

 is immaterial to our argument — into which scientific prin- 

 ciples and ideas largely enter ; or let us assume him 

 to be engaged, on the strength of his scientific attain- 

 ments, by a Government department or an industrial 

 body which wishes to utilise his knowledge. Does 

 he expand his routine work into an opportunity of 

 enriching science ? Does he make himself the recognised 

 master of a large field of knowledge which he gives to 

 the world ? Do his labours confer honour on himself or 

 on the body with which he is connected ? Or, on the other 

 hand, is his name never heard at a scientific society? does 

 he merely, in short, content himself with the perfunctory 

 performance of the work by which he makes his money ? 



We have referred to the dignity of a man of science ; 

 what does this mean ? The view it expresses is simply 

 the modern view representing that feeling of olden 

 time which made teaching so honourable while trade 

 was despised. Then, as now, the man was often 

 poor, but he spent his life in doing a common good, 

 while the trader was often rich, and dispensed his 

 wares for his own advantage. Nowadays the dignity 

 of a leading man of science is somewhat difticult to 

 define exactly, but the same idea lies at the bottom 

 of it. It is known that he cares more for science 

 than for mone>-. It is known that his whole heart is in 

 his researches ; even when they happen to be profitable 

 to himself or to others, he is still not a money-grubber. 

 This dignity is not confined to professors, but a man to 



possess it must be something more than commercial or 

 professional. We cannot imagine a bootmaker or a tailor 

 on the council of the Royal Society, but yet he employs 

 scientific processes to get his money as much as a 

 chemist does who spends his time in commercial 

 analyses or in courts of law. To come back to our 

 criterion, we think we have indicated that there are various 

 ways in which men of science can be allocated in the two 

 classes to which we have referred. 



We now proceed to refer specially, and as briefly as we 

 can, to Prof. Odling's address. It begins with a history 

 of the movement, and then goes on to show the ever- 

 increasing need there is of "professional services" which 

 are rendered by men of various grades, " from those of 

 us occupying the leading positions in the profession, to 

 the most humble individual practising in our ranks." We 

 are dealing, then, with the chemists employed by Govern- 

 ment and large corporations, as well as "experts "and 

 analysts ; and among these latter not only with the man of 

 " leading position " who charges ten guineas for analysing 

 a sample of water, but with the assistant who actually does 

 the work for the not excessive sum of half-a-crown. 



We next read as follows : — 



" It would seem, however, from observations not unfrequently 

 li.izarded by some very superior persons, whose happy mission 

 it is to put the rest of the world to rights, that there is some- 

 thing derogatory to the man of science in making his science 

 subservient in any way to the requirements of his fellows, and 

 thereby contributory to his own means for the support of him- 

 self and of those depending upon him. Now, on this not un- 

 comm:)n cant of the day a little plain speaking would seem to 

 be very much wanted. While the investigation of nature and 

 the interpretation of natural law are admittedly among the 

 highest, as they are among the most delightful, of human occu- 

 pations, the right application of natural law to effect desirable 

 objects is in itself a scarcely less worthy occupation ; many of 

 these objects being of paramount importance, and attainable 

 only by the exercise of high scientific sagacity aid skill, aided 

 by a fertility of resource and a persistent elasticity of spirit, 

 ready ever to cope with the successive novel difficulties found to 

 be continually opposmg themselves." 



On this we have to say — and we shall return to the 

 point further on — that we know of no one who has made 

 the abstract proposition which Prof. Odling condemns. 

 We are prepared to say, however, that in the opinion of 

 many who are not men of science, the appearance of a 

 man of science, occupying a "leading position" as an 

 e.Kpert in a court of law, whose "devotion" to his em- 

 ployer causes him to apparently contradict the statements 

 of another man of science on the other side, doubtless 

 equally " devoted," does not add to his dignity. A well- 

 known lawyer, now a judge, once grouped witnesses into 

 three classes; simple liars, damned liars, and experts. 

 He did not mean that the expert uttered things which he 

 knew to be untrue, but that by the emphasis which he 

 laid on certain statements, and by what has been defined 

 as a highly cultivated faculty of evasion, the effect was 

 actually worse than if he had. 



It is consoling to think that the qualities most valuable 

 in an expert, since experts there must be, are not those 

 for which men of science are best known. Coolness 

 under cross-exanrination, verbal de.xterity, a read)' wit, 

 not too much knowledge or conscience, the fidelity of a 

 partisan, or rather ^^professional devotion," and a dash 

 of impudence, are quite as frequently the passport to the 

 "professional eminence" of an expert as scientific ability. 



