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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLV. No. 1166 



science really labors in the hope of making 

 some enormous fortune or obtaining some 

 great honor. On another occasion, we heard it 

 said of a man who has been toiling for years 

 in the tropics for nothing, that " nobody knows 

 why he does it, but we all believe that he wants 

 a knighthood." When we timidly suggested 

 that he was guided merely by a sense of duty, 

 we were met by a stare of astonishment. Cer- 

 tainly this worker has never received a penny 

 for his work as yet and never will, and we fear 

 that not even a knighthood will come his way. 

 Jfo, men of science do not work either for 

 amusement or to make fortunes. Like artists 

 and musicians, they often find their labors 

 fascinating because nature imbues them with 

 an instinct in the directions chosen by them; 

 but they are also conscious that their work 

 will bring them no personal profit — not so 

 much as that which a tithe of the ability 

 shown by them in science would have yielded 

 them in politics, law or grocery. Their ulti- 

 mate object is to benefit humanity by adding 

 to the store of knowledge which lifts the civil- 

 ized man so far above the savage of the jungles. 

 And that is the gTeatest object which any man 

 can keep before his eyes. 



Another form of scientific snobbery is the 

 pretense that science has no practical object in 

 view — it is so lofty a pursuit that the man of 

 science should live among the stars and not 

 soil his fingers with the common earth of 

 everyday life. Even Lord Kelvin said " that 

 no great law in natural philosophy has ever 

 been discovered for its practical application " 

 — though no one based more patents on his 

 own researches than did Lord Kelvin. He 

 may have been right in one sense, but certainly 

 not in all (and he can not be accused of any 

 form of snobbery). Thus geometry was really 

 founded for the purposes of architecture and 

 navigation. Mechanics was created to assist 

 the engineer, and the theories of heat and of 

 the conservation of energy were probably gen- 

 erated by the steam-engine; while the entire 

 science of pathology has simply been created 

 for its practical application as regards the pre- 

 vention and cure of disease. Certainly inves- 

 tigations which were apparently useless at the 



outset have often led to valuable practical ap- 

 plications; but they were usually undertaken 

 because the worker knew that he must first 

 solve general problems before applying the 

 solution to specific cases. We believe that all 

 the great theorists had practical applications 

 before them like a distant light even in the 

 greatest darkness of their efforts. Is it likely 

 that N'ewton, or Harvey, or Faraday did not 

 prophetically see that their work would some 

 day benefit humanity? Nature is iniinite, 

 and it is therefore wise to toil in immediate 

 contact with human needs and not to lose one- 

 self entirely far away from the remotest 

 utilitarian objects. In most cases those who 

 lose all touch of the useful in their investiga- 

 tions end by becoming useless themselves. 

 They are above the practical, and therefore be- 

 come unpractical, and finally impossible. 



Perhaps the worst form of scientific snob- 

 bery is the pretense that the man of science is 

 absolutely above cash in any form. Let us 

 distinguish. To effect discovery, a man must 

 concentrate all his energies upon a single 

 point; he has no time to watch the share 

 market, or to promote companies in connec- 

 tion with his findings; and it will be lucky if 

 he succeeds in making any advance at all even 

 with all his energies bent upon the point of 

 issue. In that sense, therefore, he must ignore 

 cash. But even here various circumstances 

 should influence him. If he is a bachelor, he 

 may do as he pleases, and may live as a recluse 

 upon brown bread and water in a monk's cell 

 if he wish. But if he has children or other 

 dependants, is he justified in allowing them to 

 be brought up uneducated in poverty? Such 

 a thing would not be meritorious in him but a 

 crime; for we have our duties not only to sci- 

 ence but to our families. The scientist who 

 pretends his indifference to money is, there- 

 fore, often only a snob. Moreover, although 

 he himself may have no children, or may 

 possess independent means, this need not nec- 

 essarily be the case with others. His quixotic 

 attitude merely lowers the price of science in 

 the world and causes other and probably better 

 men to suffer. Still further, for the most 

 obvious economical reasons, it causes science 



