ON AERONAUTICAL PROBLEMS. 409 
to proceed without interruption in the last four years,—but we are 
facing up to the necessity of doing this research now, and at full 
pressure. Seldom, I imagine, can new construction have been projected 
in the spirit which obtains at Cardington to-day. 
A Great Adventure. 
25. I wish that the public could be induced to take a similar view of 
this airship construction,—-to see it as a great adventure. For this is 
what it is: the goal, ability to fly to India, in comfort and without change, 
in the space of 100 hours; the problem, to design and construct a ship 
of vast capacity, with little help from past experience, by sheer hard 
thinking and hard work. According to Samuel Butler, ‘ Life is the art 
of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises’; Professor 
Unwin borrowed the epigram, and applied the description to engineering 
generally ; it is most true of airship construction. 
If this were the common view, we should be spared the wearisome 
controversy and propaganda which at present cloud the airship horizon. 
Having embarked in this country on a definite programme of two large 
ships, surely common-sense would suggest that we ought, for the next 
two years, to leave the design staffs in peace to do their best ; that silence 
on their part, while their plans develop, is a mark of health. But it 
seems to be deemed essential that public interest shall be stimulated by 
doses of pictorial ‘ dope ’, showing, in wondrous detail, what the new craft 
will be like ; and no one asks the question, ‘ If you know in such detail 
what these ships will look like, why don’t you start to build them straight 
away ?’ 
PART II. 
Recapitulation. 
26. I have dealt with some of the commoner topics of aeronautical 
discussion, and I have given my reasons for the view that not want of 
appreciation, but too complete an appreciation of their significance, may 
be the reason why they do not find a place in the forefront of our research 
programmes. I need hardly confess, to this audience, that much of what 
I have said is controversial: I have tried to form an honest judgment, 
but I have only expressed a point of view. If my remarks have seemed 
_ unduly positive, I must plead in excuse that freedom to indulge in con- 
| froversy is a new experience for me, and its temptations have been too . 
strong! 
After all, if I am wrong, little harm will have been done; a problem 
_ which is really important will not be obscured by my blunders. But if I 
am right? Admitting that these are not the most important topics from 
_ the standpoint of aeronautical research, what do I suggest in their place ? 
The Proper Aim of Research. 
27. Well, I have already given it as my opinion, that what Aeronautics 
needs most of all is to ‘settle down’, to steady advance along natural 
lines of development. Having spent so much of your time in insisting 
on the vanity of long-distance prediction, I do not propose now to make 
