136 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



difficulties. Patent specifications are in many cases the sole record of 

 inventions, yet in the cases of the type I have mentioned they tell us 

 nothing of the difficulties, simply because the specification is written 

 before the difficulties are encountered. I therefore suggest that if any 

 additional protection be given to a patentee in virtue of work done in 

 converting his invention into a practical mechanism in face of unsuspected 

 obstacles, the grant should be absolutely conditional on his placing on 

 public record for the guidance of others a complete history of his efforts 

 so that no one may have to contend with the same troubles again. 



I have one more suggestion to offer in closing, a suggestion which 

 touches this Association and kindred bodies more intimately. On this 

 question of assisting future inventors by increasing the store of knowledge 

 at their disposal, I see a possible sphere of usefulness for this Association 

 and kindred institutions by encouraging the great inventors of to-day to 

 place on record and publish through the medium of the Association or 

 institution an account, even a brief one, of the main historical features 

 of their inventions. If considerations of patents or of personal diffidence 

 make it undesirable to publish these records at the time they are written, 

 that need not impede the scheme, as publication could be made subse- 

 quently at a more convenient time or, say, after the inventor's death. 

 The main thing is to have some authentic record from the inventor or 

 discoverer himself recording the origin, growth and development of his 

 idea, the difficulties that beset him and the manner in which they were 

 overcome. Nor do I think we should stop there. In my opinion too much 

 attention has been paid in the past to success and too little to honest 

 failure. It is one of our human frailties to look with something of contempt 

 on the man who has failed to reach his goal, but this is not the attitude of 

 the great minds, nor should it be the attitude of modern science. On 

 one occasion Lord Kelvin was shown a report by a professor on a research 

 carried out by a research scholar, in which the professor had made some 

 rather contemptuous remarks on the results attained because these results 

 were mainly negative. Kelvin was highly indignant. All he looked 

 to was the fact that the young scholar had done his best on a subject 

 which merited investigation and in face of undoubted difficulties, and it 

 amazed him that any scientist should speak slightingly of the results, 

 simply because they were negative, when the real thing of value was the 

 earnest and diligent search after truth. 



If therefore my suggestion be adopted by this Association, would it not 

 be in the best interests of science to remember the failures as well as the 

 successes, and to encourage all serious workers in important fields of re- 

 search to furnish in the common cause a record of their work, even when 

 their aim has not been achieved, giving a faithful account of all the diffi- 

 culties and all the efforts made to surmount them ? Who knows but that 

 many of the so-called failures of yesterday may only be waiting for other 

 hands to-day to carry them on to a greater success than the world has yet 

 known ? Left to themselves they will lie in oblivion, yet, for all we know, 

 two of them may fit together and provide the answer to one more of the 

 riddles of the universe. 



Knowledge forms the working tools of Science, and my proposal is in 

 no way aimed at giving the scientific workers of to-morrow an easy task. 



