Nov. 26, 1885J 



NA rURR 



Surely it is not necessary for us to point out the 

 sophistry and fallacy of the argument that " the right 

 application of natural law to effect desirable objects is 

 in itself a scarcely less worthy occupation " than " the in- 

 vestigation of Nature and the interpretation of natural 

 law," when such applications are made at the instigation 

 of an individual — a client — who pays for such application 

 of natural law at the rate of so many guineas a folio ; and 

 who, if it suits him, may then proceed incontinently to 

 suppress " the right application of natural law." Are we 

 to elevate such service as this to a high moral platform, 

 and claim for it the same homage or appreciation which 

 is accorded by the outside world to work done unselfishly 

 and for the benefit of the whole community ? 



Prof. Odling strengthens his view that we should by 

 the following considerations : — 



"In this matter, as in so many others, the sense of pro- 

 portion is but too often lost sight of. Because the investi- 

 gations of a Newton, a Darwin, a Dalton, a Joule, and a 

 Faraday have an importance of which few among us can 

 adequately conceive even the measurement ; because 

 among the scientific men now or but lately living in our 

 midst are to be found those whose investigations in pure 

 science have not only won for them a high renown, but 

 have earned for them the gratitude, and should have ob- 

 tained for them the substantial acknowledgments, of their 

 country and the world ; and because even the minor in- 

 vestigations and discoveries, placed before the world for 

 the world's use, and not merely to enrich a firm, that are 

 ever being made in pure science have all of them their 

 merit and their value, it does not follow that the mere 

 accomplishment, it may be in an abundant leisure, of two 

 or three minor investigations, however creditably con- 

 ducted, are to lift their authors into a scientific position 

 altogether above that of men whose laborious lives have 

 been spent in rendering their great scientific attainments 

 directly serviceable to the needs of the State and of the 

 community. The accomplishment of such-like investiga- 

 tions does not entitle their authors to claim exemption 

 from the duty of earning their own livelihoods or give 

 them a claim to be endowed by the contributions of 

 others with the means to jog leisurely along, without re- 

 sponsibilities and without anxieties, the far from thorny 

 paths of their own favourite predilection. However 

 heterodox it may be thought by some, the best of all en- 

 dowments for research is unquestionably that with which 

 the searcher, relying on his own energies, succeeds in 

 endowing himself. The work to which our natures are 

 repugnant, not less than the work which entrances us and 

 hardly makes itself felt as work at all, has to be done. In 

 some degree or other, we have most of us to obtain our 

 own livehhood ; and harsh as may seem the requirement. 

 It will, I suppose, be conceded that the necessity put 

 upon the mass of mankind of having to earn their daily 

 bread is an arrangement of Providence which has on the 

 whole worked fairly well ; and, further, that the various 

 arrangements hitherto tried for exempting certain classes 

 of men from the necessity of having to earn their 

 daily bread, in order that they might give them- 

 selves up to the higher spiritual or intellectual life, 

 have scarcely, to say the least of them, worked quite 

 so satisfactorily as they were intended to. All of 

 us are, without doubt, qualified for higher things 

 than the mere earning of our daily bread ; but the 

 discipline of having to earn our daily bread is, in more 

 ways than one, a very wholesome discipline for the mass 

 of us, and even for the best of us. It may here and 

 there press hardly on particular natures, but it is rarely 

 an impediment to the achievement of the highest things 

 by those having the moral qualities, the judgment, the 



determination, and the self-denial necessary above every- 

 thing el-:e for their achievement. Not a few of us may 

 consider ourselves fitted for higher work than the god's 

 provide for us, and fondly imagine what great things we 

 should effect if we could only have our daily bread 

 supplied to us by the exertions and endowments of other 

 less gifted mortals. But experience is not on the whole 

 favourable to the view that, the conditions being pro- 

 vided, the expectation would be realised. Experience, 

 indeed, rather favours the notion that it is primarily the 

 necessity for work, and association with those under a 

 necessity to work, — those in whom a professional spirit 

 has been aroused, and by whom work is held in honour, — 

 that creates and keeps up the taste and the habit of work, 

 whereby the vague ambition to achieve is turned to some 

 productive account. Take, say, a thousand of the most 

 eminent men the world has produced, and making no 

 allowance for the large influence of descent or training, 

 or of association with those to whom work is a necessity, 

 or having been a necessity has become a habit, consider 

 what proportion of these men have, by their means and 

 position in early life, been free from any stimulus 

 or obligation to exert and cultivate their powers ; 

 and consider, on the other hand, what proportion 

 of them have been stimulated to exertion and success by 

 the stern necessity of having either to achieve their own 

 careers, or to drop into insignificance, if not indeed 

 into actual or comparative degradation and poverty. We 

 ought, indeed, all of us to be students, and to be above 

 all things students ; but the most of us cannot be, nor is 

 it desirable, save in the case of a special iitvi, that we 

 should be only students. We have all our duties to fulfil 

 in this world, and it is not the least of these duties to 

 render ourselves independent of support from others, and 

 able ourselves to afford support to those depending upon 

 us. Fortunate are we in being able to find our means of 

 support in the demand that exists for the applications of 

 a science which has for its cultivators so great a charm. 

 To judge, however, not indeed by their coyness when ex- 

 posed to the occasional temptation of professional work, 

 but rather by their observations on the career of others, 

 the most sought after and highest in professional repute, 

 the pursuit of professional chemistry is, in the opinion of 

 some among us, a vocation open to the gravest of censure. 

 It is praiseworthy, indeed, for the man of science to con- 

 tribute to his means of livelihood by the dreary work of 

 conducting examinations in elementary science for all 

 sorts of examining boards, and by teaching elementary 

 science at schools and colleges, and by giving popular 

 expositions of science at public institutions, and by ex- 

 changing a minor professorial appointment, affording 

 abundant opportunities for original work, in favour of a 

 more lucrative and exacting appointment involving duties 

 which, if rightly fulfilled, must seriously curtail these same 

 opportunities. It is praiseworthy of him to add to his 

 means by compiling manuals of elementary science, and 

 by writing attractive works on science for the delectation 

 of general readers ; but it is, forsooth, derogatory to him, 

 if not indeed a downright prostitution of his science, 

 that he should contribute to his means of livelihood by 

 making his knowledge subservient to the wants of depart- 

 ments, corporations, and individuals, alike of great and 

 small distinction, standing seriously in need of the special 

 scientific services that he is able to render them. 



"A glance back suffices to show how foreign to the 

 ideas of the great men who preceded us is this modern 

 notion of any reprehensibility attaching to applied or 

 professional science. In his earlier days. Prof. Faraday 

 was largely employed in connection with all sorts of prac- 

 tical questions, and until almost the close of his life, con- 

 tinued to act as scientific adviser to the Trinity House. 

 No man was more constantly occupied in advising with 

 regard to manufacturing and metallurgic and fiscal ques- 

 tions than Prof. Graham, xyho ended his days holding the 



