514 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. II., No. 30. 



Seeing that the results of research are distinctly of 

 imperial and not of local value, it would seem ap- 

 propriate that a portion of the imperial revenue should 

 be devoted to their achievement. In fact, as I have 

 before mentioned, the principle of such an applica- 

 tion of public money has long been admitted, and is 

 in operation. 



Whilst voluntary donations on the part of private 

 persons can do little to constitute a fund which shall 

 provide the requisite endowment for the scheme of 

 biological institutes which I have sketched (not to 

 mention those required for other branches of science), 

 yet those who are interested in the progress of scien- 

 tific investigation may, by individual effort, do some- 

 thing, however little, towards placing research in a 

 more advantageous position in this country. Sup- 

 posing it were possible, as I am sanguine enough to 

 believe that it is, to collect in the course of a year or 

 two, from private sources, a sum of ±120,000 for the 

 maintenance of a biological laboratory and staff : it 

 would be necessary, in expending so limited a sum, 

 to aim at the provision of something which would be 

 likely to produce the lai-gest and most obvious results 

 in return for the outlay, and to benefit the largest 

 number of scientific observers in this department. 



I believe that it is the general opinion among biolo- 

 gists, that there could be no more generally useful 

 institution thus set in operation than a biological 

 la*)oratory upon the seacoast, which, besides its own 

 permaneut staff of officers, would throw open its 

 resources to such naturalists as miglit from time 'to 

 time be able to devote themselves to researches with- 

 in its precincts. There is no such laboratory on the 

 whole of (he long line of British coast. At Naples 

 there is Dr. Dohrn's celebrated and invaluable labora- 

 tory, which is frequented by naturalists from all parts 

 of the world; at Trieste, the Aiistrian government 

 supports such a laboratory; at Concarneau, Eoscoff, 

 and Villefranche, the French government has such 

 institutions; at Beaufort, in North Carolina, the 

 Johns Hopkins university has its marine laboratory : 

 and at Newport Professor Alexander Agassiz has ar- 

 ranged a very perfect institution also for the study of 

 marine life. In spite of the great interest which Eng- 

 lish naturalists have always taken in the exploration 

 of the sea and marine organisms; in spite of the fact 

 that the success, and even the existence, of our fisher- 

 ies industries, to a large extent depend upon om- gain- 

 ing the knowledge which a well-organized laboratory 

 of marine biology would help us to gain, — there is 

 actually no such institution in existence. 



This is not the occasion on which to explain pre- 

 cisely how, and to what extent, a laboratory of marine 

 zoology might be of national importance. I hope to 

 see that matter brought before the section during the 

 course of our meeting. But I may point out now, 

 that though it appears to me that the great need for 

 biological institutes, to which I have drawn your at- 

 tention, can not be met by private munificence, and 

 must, in the end, be arranged for by the continued 

 action of the government in carrying out a policy to 

 which it has for many years been committed, and 

 which has been approved by conservatives and liberals 



alike, yet such a special institution as a laboratory 

 of marine biology, serving as a temporary workshop 

 to any and all of our numerous students of the im- 

 jjortant jn'oblems connected with the life of marine 

 plants and animals, might very well be undertaken 

 from private funds. Should it be possible, on the 

 occasion of this meeting of the British association 

 in Soutliport, to obtain some promise of assistance 

 towards the realization of this project, I think we 

 shall be able to congratulate ourselves on having done 

 sometliing, though small, perhaps, in amount, towards 

 making better provision for biological research, and 

 therefore something towards the advancement of 

 science. 



In conclusion, let me say, that, in advocating to-day 

 the claim of biological science to a far greater meas- 

 ure of support than it receives at present from the 

 public funds, I have endeavored to press that claim 

 chiefly on the ground of the obvious utility to the 

 community of that kind of knowledge which is called 

 biology. I have endeavored to meet the opposition 

 of those who object to the interference of tlie state, 

 wherever it may be possible to attain the end in view 

 without such interference, but who profess themselves 

 willing to see public money expended in promoting 

 objects which are of real importance to the country, 

 and which cannot be trusted to the voluntary enter- 

 prise arising from the operation of the laws of self- 

 preservation, and the struggle for wealth. There are, 

 however, it seems to me, further reasons for desiring 

 a thorough and practical recognition by the state of 

 the value of scientific research. There are not want- 

 ing persons of some cultivation, who have perceived 

 and fully realized the value of that knowledge which 

 is called science, and of its methods, and yet are 

 anxious to restrain rather than to aid the growth of 

 that knowledge. They find in science something 

 inimical to their own interests, and accordingly either 

 condemn it as dangerous and untrustworthy, or en- 

 courage themselves to treat it with contempt by assert- 

 ing, that, ' after all, science counts for very little,' 

 — a statement which is unhappily true in one sense, 

 though totally untrue when it is intended to signify 

 that the progress of science is not a matter which 

 profoundly influences every factor in the well-being 

 of the community. Amongst such people there is a 

 positive hatred of science, which finds expression in 

 their exclusion of it, even at this day, from the ordi- 

 nary curriculum of iiublic-school education, and in 

 the baseless, though oft-repeated calumny, that sci- 

 ence is hostile to art, and is responsible for all that 

 is harsh, ugly, and repulsive in modern life. To such 

 opponents of the advancement of science it is of 

 little use to offer explanations and arguments. But 

 we may, when we reflect on their instinctive hostility, 

 and the misrepresentations of science and the scien- 

 tific spirit which it leads them to disseminate, con- 

 sole ourselves by bringing to mind what science 

 really is, and what truly is the nature of that calling 

 in which a man who makes new knowledge is en- 

 gaged. 



They mock at the botanist as a pedant, and the 

 zoologist as a monomaniac; they execrate the physi- 



