24 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 
weapons. The conception which led to this advance often appears 
simple and obvious when once it has been put forward. This is a 
common experience, and the scientific man often feels a sense of dis- 
appointment that he himself had not foreseen a development which 
ultimately seems so clear and inevitable. 
The intellectual interest due to the rapid growth of science to-day 
cannot fail to act as a stimulus to young men to join in scientific investi- 
gation. In every branch of science there are numerous problems of 
fundamental interest and importance which await solution. We may 
confidently predict an accelerated rate of progress of scientific discovery, 
beneficial to mankind certainly in a material but possibly even more so in 
an intellectual sense. In order to obtain the best results certain condi- 
tions must, however, be fulfilled. It is necessary that our universities 
and other specific institutions should be liberally supported, so as not 
only to be in a position to train adequately young investigators of 
promise, but also to serve themselves as active centres of research. At 
the same time there must be a reasonable competence for those who 
have shown a capacity for original investigation. Not least, peace 
throughout the civilised world is as important for rapid scientific 
development as for general commercial prosperity. Indeed, science is 
truly international, and for progress in many directions the co-operation 
of nations is as essential as the co-operation of individuals. Science, 
no less than industry, desires a stability not yet achieved in world 
conditions. 
There is an error far too prevalent to-day that science progresses 
by the demolition of former well-established theories. Such is very 
rarely the case. For example, it is often stated that Einstein’s general 
theory of relativity has overthrown the work of Newton on gravitation. 
No statement could be farther from the truth. Their works, in fact, 
are hardly comparable, for they deal with different fields of thought. 
So far as the work of Einstein is relevant to that of Newton, it is simply 
a generalisation and broadening of its basis; in fact, a typical case of 
mathematical and physical development. In general, a great principle 
is not discarded but so modified that it rests on a broader and more 
stable basis. 
It is clear that the splendid period of scientific activity which we 
have reviewed to-night owes much of its success and intellectual appeal 
to the labours of those great men in the past, who wisely laid the sure 
foundations on which the scientific worker builds to-day, or to quote 
from the words inscribed in the dome of the National Gallery, ‘The 
works of those who have stood the test of ages have a claim to that 
respect and veneration to which no modern can pretend.’ 
