December 7, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



m 



ly on its support by the nation, the states and 

 the municipalities. 



The writer has on various occasions called 

 attention to the economic conditions which 

 limit scientific research. As one of the ob- 

 jects of the present work is to improve these 

 conditions, it may be well to repeat here the 

 argument. Our economic system rests on the 

 free exchange of services, A state of society 

 may some day be reached in which each will 

 aim to give as much as he can and to take as 

 little, but at present it appeals to our sense of 

 fairness that each should ask for his services 

 what someone else is willing to pay. In the 

 increasing complexity of our society this 

 method is working two serious injustices. 

 One of these is the formation of monopolies. 

 Thanks chiefly to the applications of science, 

 many services can now be supplied at a cost 

 less than people would be willing to pay. 

 When free competition is excluded, either by 

 the conditions of the case or by ingenious 

 combination, people may be made to pay more 

 than a fair return for certain services. The 

 problems of monopoly are being discussed on 

 all sides, and remedies are being sought in all 

 directions; but the injustice which in a way 

 is the converse of monopoly has scarcely been 

 noticed. This is the case in which an indi- 

 vidual gives services without an adequate re- 

 turn, owing to the fact that they are not ren- 

 dered to a single individual or group who will 

 pay for them, but to society as a whole. A 

 surgeon may ask for an operation for appendi- 

 citis as large a fee as his patient is willing to 

 pay, but should he after years of research dis- 

 cover a method of preventing appendicitis 

 altogether, he would receive no payment at all, 

 but would, on the contrary, give up all future 

 fees for the operation. The surgeons who 

 by risking and sacrificing their lives discov- 

 ered how to suppress yellow fever have re- 

 ceived no return for their great work. 



The two most important services for society 

 — the bearing and rearing of children and 

 creation in science and art — are exactly those 

 for which society gives no economic returns, 

 leaving them dependent on instincts which are 

 in danger of atrophy. This state of affairs 

 not only does injustice to the unrewarded in- 



dividual, but works immeasurable harm to 

 society — a greater injury probably than all 

 existing monopolies. There are more than a 

 hundred thousand physicians in the United 

 States who are practising on their patients 

 for fees, while there are scarcely two hundred 

 who are studying seriously the causes of dis- 

 ease and the methods of preventing it. The 

 conditions are similar in law and in all pro- 

 fessions and trades. The scientific investi- 

 gator is usually an amateur. He has wealth 

 or earns his living by some profession, and 

 incidentally does what he can to advance sci- 

 ence for love of the work. This has its good 

 side in producing a small group of men who 

 are not subject to purely commercial stand- 

 ards. But this is after all a minor factor, 

 and the scientific man is likely to look for 

 fame, which is scarcely more ideal than money 

 and can be supplied to but. few. Satisfaction 

 in the work itself is the best reward for work; 

 but no one can know that his work is of value 

 except by the reflected appreciation of others, 

 and in the existing social order the simplest 

 and probably the most adequate expression 

 of this appreciation is direct payment for the 

 service rendered. 



The methods that society has devised to 

 meet this situation, apart from the conferring 

 of honors and f arae, are recent and inadequate. 

 Copyrights and patents are the most direct 

 acknowledgment of property in ideas. They 

 have accomplished a good deal, and their scope 

 should be extended. At present only a small 

 part of discovery is covered by the patent 

 ofiice, and this perhaps not the part requiring 

 the greatest genius. It is, however, leading, 

 especially in Germany, to the development of 

 discovery on a sound commercial basis. It is 

 said that one chemical firm employs three 

 hundred doctors of philosophy to carry on sci- 

 entific investigations. Research has hitherto 

 been forwarded mainly by the universities, 

 where again Germany has led the way. The 

 professorship is given as a reward for success- 

 ful investigations, and the holder of a chair 

 is expected to devote himself to investigation 

 as well as to teaching. There is a tendency 

 to permit certain professors to engage almost 

 exclusively in research. Thus the astronom- 



