May 9, 1907] 



NA TURE 



2,7 



advantages of their forethought and prescience ; and 

 those countries which, content with ancient prestige 

 and former prowess, have neglected their duty to 

 hijj^^her learning and have left their universities to 

 languish on the doles of patriotic benefactors will 

 sinic into subsidiary places, and their part for the 

 future will be to serve the men of brains with whom 

 they have had to contend on such unequal terms. 



SCIENCE AND THE EMPIRE. 

 T T was a happy idea which resulted in the asso- 

 ■'■ elation of the British Empire League and the 

 British Science Guild to pay honour to the Colonial 

 Prime Ministers during their visit to this country. 

 The cooperation of men of science with statesmen 

 whose special work is to govern and develop the 

 constituent parts of the Empire can result in nothing 

 but increased national efficiency, and the presence of 

 Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Mr. Deakin, Sir Joseph Ward, 

 Sir William Lyne, Mr. F. R. Moor, and Mr. T. Bent 

 at the banquet lield on May 2 is a gratifying sign that 

 the need for applying the methods of science to affairs 

 of State becomes year by year more fulh* recognised. 

 The banquet provided the only opportunity the Prime 

 Ministers have had of meeting men of science and 

 others interested in the progress of knowledge and 

 desirous of introducing the scientific spirit into the 

 administration of Imperial affairs. 



Lord Derby occupied the chair at the banquet, and 

 about 260 guests were present, including many men 

 of science and distinguished representatives of the 

 Imperial service and administration, and of law, 

 art, and other departments of intellectual activity. 

 Mr. Haldane, who was to have represented the united 

 interests of the British Empire League and the 

 British Science Guild, was, unfortunately, unable 

 to be present ; and his place was taken by the 

 \"icc-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, Mr. 

 T. H. Warren, who, in supporting the toast of " Our 

 Guests," proposed by Lord Derby, referred to the re- 

 lation of universities to the Empire and national pro- 

 gress as follows : — 



Why do the universities and the educational interests 

 wish to add their greeting to those which have been 

 pressed, I am afraid, in overwhelming and almost surfeit- 

 ing measure, on those distinguished men who have crossed 

 the ocean to visit us? 1 can assure them that no welcome 

 can be more warm, but that is not enough. I think it is 

 because we feel that to the instinctive and intuitive welcome 

 which has manifested itself so spontaneously from every 

 portion of English society we have some little to add. 

 We feel that learning and science have something 

 to say to Empire. We feel that, more and more, nowadays 

 scientific training and thorough study of history, of the 

 science of history and of sociology, is necessary to the 

 proper carrying out of every great enterprise, and that 

 Empire is one of the greatest enterprises on which man, 

 intrepid man, has advanced. The student of history sees, 

 or thinks he sees, a development, an evolution in the 

 political as in the animal kingdom. The family, the clan, 

 the city, the kingdom, the Empire, as thev unravel them- 

 selves in the long series of sequences, need a correspond- 

 ing advance in trained and educated intelligence. Now, 

 we in our universities, and in the learned societies study 

 these questions in the abstract. It is our duty and 

 privilege in the insulated detachment, in the clear and 

 calm life of academic tranquillity, to study these problems, 

 and to try to find the solution of them ; to study economic 

 problems apart from the bias and prejudices of party and 

 of commercial interest, and to study science in that spirit 

 of disinterested devotion which, after all, I think Sir 

 Norman Lockyer will agree with me, in the long run has 

 the promise of this world, and, in a sense, of the other — 

 of the world alike of truth and the world of success. But 

 universities have now, not only an abstract, but a personal 



NO. 1958, VOL. 76] 



part to play. It is their privilegp to bring together, and 

 their duty to bring together, the brightest minds, at the 

 most impressionable age, of those who will be in the future 

 the leaders, whether in thought or in action, of the Empire. 

 The university has had in the past a great part in bring- 

 ing our leading men together in their early days and giving 

 them common sentiment and common lovaltv and know- 

 ledge of each other. May it not be so still' more in the 

 future on a wider scale and in a wider way? I hope that 

 the universities, and the learned societies, and the educa- 

 tional establishments of this country feel, I believe I can 

 say they do feel, that they have new and extended duties. 

 Already Oxford and Cambridge, and the old universities 

 of which I have spoken, realise that they are not only 

 universities of a kingdom, but universities of an Empire. 

 In future, no doubt, other universities of the Empire 

 more and more will play their part — the universities of 

 .Montreal, of Melbourne, of Sydney, of New Zealand, and 

 of the Cape. They, too, will have their traditions and 

 their opportunities. There will be special opportunities of 

 science and of learning, a special atmosphere and special 

 surroundings in one place more than another, and I look 

 forward to the time when students and professors will 

 pass to and from one university to another. Meanwhile, 

 let us make the beginnings, let us attack at once this 

 great future which lies before us, let us take those steps 

 which are now possible and promising. Let us use everv 

 opportunity of getting to know and to understand each 

 other, and then I think that this great gathering of iqoy 

 will prove not less fruitful in the scientific, and in the 

 learned, and in the academic, than it has proved and is 

 proving in the political and social sphere. 



The toast was responded to by Sir Wilfrid Laurier, 

 the Hon. Alfred Deakin, and Sir Joseph Ward. In 

 the course of his remarks, Mr. Deakin said : — 



Of all the meetings which we have been able to attend 

 this has perhaps the most distinctive character. Never 

 before in my experience have we seen blended the two 

 sections of an Empire League of patriotism united to a 

 body of scientific men whose immense abilities, whose 

 sterling achievements, are the pride of the last century 

 and the promise of this, and who are content to descend 

 from those exalted heights, in which they unravel the 

 mysteries of the universe, to find themselves perplexed by 

 the truisms of politics. And if, as has been suggested, this 

 union be typical, surely it is most fortunate, and certainly 

 most necessary. If there is anything on this earth in 

 human action which is casual and empirical, which is 

 go-as-you-please and happy-go-lucky, it is the British 

 Empire. Exactly how it came to be, precisely what it is, 

 and what on earth it is going to be, no scientific prophet 

 can tell. On the other hand, we have the men of science, 

 calm and luminous, rigid and regular — I mean in their 

 professional studies — aiming above all things at method, 

 at principle, at organisation, the last three things we 

 seem incapable of introducing into our Empire. .\nd yet, 

 though imperceptible, though unchangeable, there are 

 manifest forces of cohesion, which even the finest instru- 

 ments cannot measure, which keep this Empire as an 

 Empire together. There are a series of rudimentary, of 

 imperfect, of catch-as-catch-can organisations, by mearis 

 of which, in some mysterious manner, this unwieldy, this 

 gigantic and inexplicable combination, manages to survive. 

 Surely we shall yet be found willing to sit at the feet of 

 our scientific teachers and to endeavour, at all events at 

 the outset, to acquire that knowledge in scientific manner, 

 and bv scientific methods, which shall enable us to 

 appreciate, in the first place, the vast, the incalculable 

 natural resources which are at present in our possession 

 under the Flag — the means of utilising these instruments 

 of material power for the benefit of our race. That 

 appears to me to be the task of Empire, the task of 

 scientific conquest of its physical, and shall we not be 

 bold and say, ultimately of its political problems? The 

 Empire rests upon the individual citizen — the individual 

 citizen that has great capacity for service, providing you 

 permit him to have access to these means of knowledge, 

 to that stored-up wisdom of the ages, to these lessons and 

 teachings which science can place in our hands. By these 



