162 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 
So great is the power of science to transform serious oc- 
cupations into hobbies that even lawyers sometimes find 
themselves astride and ambling with the rest. 
In justification of the scientific societies, it may fairly 
be said that they were intended for the riding of hobbies, 
and everything in their constitution and practise conforms 
with the eminently useful ideal. Scientific societies rely 
very largely upon unpaid work and long may they continue 
todo so. One of their chief attractions is that within their 
precincts there is a respite from the wearing obligations of 
debit and credit. One can not find the like about a law 
court or a house of business, where as a rule those who are 
paid most are treated with the highest respect. 
It is the difference between hobby and business that 
brings us to the parting of the ways. If the national 
scientific effort is organized through the agency of societies 
where all the best work, even by the officers, is done with- 
out any regard to payment, we can not expect the public 
to look upon science as a business into which pecuniary 
considerations enter. It is, and must remain, a hobby. 
If, on the other hand, there should be created a Privy Coun- 
cil for Science, as Sir William Crookes suggests, there 
would be at least a permanent staff to whom the idea of 
paying for brains and time would not be fundamentally 
repugnant as it must be to the officers of a society. 
The idea of scientific investigation as a hobby does 
not necessarily originate with the general public; it is in- 
digenous in the older universities, where there are a large 
number of college officials intellectually competent to un- 
dertake researches, some of whom do and some do not. At 
Cambridge in my time scientific investigation was the oc- 
-cupation of the leisure men whose maintenance was provided 
by the fees and emoluments of teaching. It was as mucha 
hobby as chess or photography. There was no sense of 
collective responsibility for providing the nation with an- 
swers to its scientific questions. Scientific researches had 
become an element of competition for rewards of various 
kinds, and some “research students” were paid; but the 
idea of “making a living” by scientific investigation never 
