December 23, 1909] 



NA TURE 



229 



knowledge, and that there is nothing peculiar about the 

 knowledge of scientific men by which it differs from other 

 knowledge. 



Scientific men are not a class apart and distinct from 

 ordinary mortals. We are all scientific men in our various 

 degrees. If this is so, how comes it that the distinction 

 is so often made between scientific men and non-scientific 

 iren, between scientific knowledge and non-scientific know- 

 ledge? The truth appears to lie here: though it is tiue 

 that all men possess knowledge, i.e. science, yet there are 

 some men who make it their main business to concern 

 themselves with some kind of knowledge, and especially 

 with its mcrease, and to these men the term scientific has 

 been technically applied. Now the distinctive feature of 

 these men, in virtue of which the term scientific is applied 

 to them, is that they not only possess knowledge, but that 

 they make it their business to .-idd to knowledge, and it is 

 this part of their business, if any, which justifies their 

 being placed in a class apart from other possessors of 

 knowledge. 



The men who make it their main business to add to 

 knowledge may be divided into two classes, according to 

 the motive which spurs them on. (i) There are those 

 whose immediate object is to ameliorate the conditions of 

 human life and ti0 add to its pleasures; their motive is 

 utility, and their immediate goal is within sight. Such 

 are the great host of inventors, the pioneers in agriculture, 

 in hygiene, preventive medicine, in social reform and in 

 sound legislation which leads to social reform, and many 

 other subjects. (2) There are those who pursue knowledge 

 for its own sake without reference to its practical appli- 

 cation. They are urged on by the desire to know, by 

 what has been called a divine curiosity. These men are 

 the real pioneers of knowledge. It is their work which 

 piepares the wav for the practical man who watches and 

 follows them. Without their apparently useless investiga- 

 tions, progress beyond the limits of the immediately useful 

 would be impossible. We should have had no applied 

 electricity, no spectrum analysis, no aseptic surgery, no 

 preventive medicine, no anaesthetics, no navigation of the 

 pathless ocean. Sometimes the results of the seeker after 

 knowledge for its own sake are so unique and astounding 

 that the whole of mankind stands spellbound before them, 

 and renders them the same homage that the child does 

 the tale of wonderful adventure ; such is the case with the 

 work on radium and radio-activity, which is at present 

 fixing the attention of the whole civihsed world. Some- 

 times the work is of a humbler kind, dealing apparently 

 with trivial objects, and appealing in no way to the 

 imagination or sense of the w-onderful ; such was the work 

 which led to and formed the basis of that great generalisa- 

 tion which has transformed man's outlook on nature — the 

 theory of organic evolution ; such was the work which 

 produced aseptic surgery and the great doctrines of 

 immunity and phagocytosis which have had such 

 tremendous results in diminishing human pain. The 

 temper of such men is a curious one ; no material reward 

 can be theirs, and, as a rule, but little fame. Yet man- 

 kind owes them a debt which can never be repaid. It 

 is to these men that the word scientific has been specially 

 applied, and with this justification — they have no other 

 profession save that of pursuing knowledge for its own 

 sake, or, if they have a profession, it is th.nt of the teacher, 

 which, indeed, they can hardly avoid. Ought such men, 

 working with such obiects, to find a place in the Imperial 

 College ? 



It is a curious thing, but it has only comparatively 

 recently been realised, that a sound and exact knowledge 

 of phenomena was necessary for man. The realisation of 

 this fact, in the modern world at any rate, occurred at the 

 end of the Middle Ages ; it was one of the intellectual 

 products of the Renaissance, and in this country Francis 

 Bacon was its first exponent. In his " .Advancement of 

 Learning '* he explained the methods b\^ which the increase 

 of knowledge was possible, and advocated the promotion 

 of knowledge to a new and influential position in the 

 organisation of huinan society'. In Italv the same idea 

 was taught by the great philosopher Giordano Bruno, w-ho 

 held that the whole universe was a vast mechanism of 

 which man, and the earth on which man dwells, was a 

 portion, and that the working of this mechanism, though 



NO. 2095, VOL. 82] 



not the full comprehension of it, was open to the investi- 

 gation of man. For promulgating this impious view both 

 he and his book were burnt at Rome in 1600. \ou will 

 find the same idea cropping up continually in the written 

 records of that time ; Copernicus gave it practical recogni- 

 tion when he demonstrated the real relation of the earth 

 to the sun, and it was thoroughly grasped by our own 

 Shakespeare, who gave it expression in the dialogue 

 between Perdita and Polixines in the VtinUr's Tale :— 



Perdita. The fairest fiowers o' the season 

 Are our carnations and streaked gillyvors. 

 Which some call Nature's bastards : of that kind 

 Our rustic garden's barren; and I care not 

 To get slips of them. 



Poli.Kiiics. Wherefore, gentle maiden, do you neglect 

 them ? 



Perdita. For I have heard it said 

 There is an art which, in their piedness, shares 

 With great creating nature. 



Polixines. Say there be; 



Yet nature is made better by no mean. 

 But nature makes that mean : so, o'er that art 

 Which vou sav adds to nature, is an art 

 That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry 

 \ gentle scion to the wildest stock and make conceive a 



bark of baser kind 

 By bud of nobler race : this is an art 

 Which does mend nature, — change it rather ; but 

 The art itself is nature. 



It is not diflicult for us, though it may be diflicult to 

 our descendants, to understand how hard it was for man 

 to attune himself to this new, this mighty conception, and 

 the intellectual history of the last three hundred years is 

 a record of the struggles to make it prevail. 



Trained through long ages to believe that the heavens 

 were the abode of the gods, who constantly interfered 

 in the daily afifairs of life and in the smallest operation of 

 nature, it 'seemed to men impious to maintain that the 

 earth w^as in the heavens, and to peer into the mysteries 

 which surrounded them, and the endeavour to do so has 

 been stoutly resisted; but the conflict, in so far as it has 

 been a conflict with prejudice, is now over. It vanished 

 in the triumph of the modern views on the origin of man 

 which will be for ever associated with the names of 

 Lamarck, Spencer, and Darwin. 



The triumph of these views does not mean that they are 

 correct or that we know anything more about the great 

 mvsterv of life than we did before. He would be a bold 

 and a 'prpjudiced man who made that assertion. What it 

 means is this, that man is grown up, that he has cast 

 off the intellectual tutelage under which he has hitherto 

 existed, that he has attained complete intellectual freedom, 

 and that all things in heaven and earth are legitimate 

 subjects of investigation. But it means even more than 

 this ; it means that the conviction is rapidly growing upon 

 him that the only wav in which he can hope to improve 

 his condition is by understanding the laws, physical as w-ell 

 as spiritual, under which he exists, and this he is deter- 

 mined to try to do by the only method open to him— that 

 of minute and arduous research. 



,\nd is it, I ask, an unworthy ambition for man to set 

 before himself to understand those eternal laws upon which 

 his happiness, his prosperitv, his very existence depend. 

 Is he to be blamed and anathematised for endeavouring 

 to fulfil the divine iniunction, ^car God and keep His 

 Commandments, for that is the whole duty of man? 

 Before he can keep them, surely he must first ascertain 

 what thev are ! . ■ • 



We hear a great deal nowadays about the humanities 

 and the humane studies— the study of " ancient elegance 

 and historic wisdom "—and I should be the last to mini- 

 mise in any degree the value and intense interest which 

 is attached' to the study of the writings and utterances 

 of the mighty dead. They will always retain undimmed 

 their attraction and inspiration for man, and man will 

 alwavs think with gratitude and affection of their authors ; 

 but it is possible to overdo a thing, and this talk of the 

 humanities and humane studies has been overdone. After 

 all, a live dog is better than a dead lion— but in this case 

 we are dealing with a living lion. 



