August 16, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



225 



The proviso in the Will to the effect that for 

 the prize competition only such works or inven- 

 tions shall be eligible as have appeared " during 

 the preceding year " is to be so understood, that 

 a work or an invention for which a reward under 

 the terms of the Will is contemplated, shall set 

 forth the most modern results of work being done 

 in that of the departments, as defined in the Will, 

 to which it belongs; works or inventions of older 

 standing to be taken into consideration only in 

 case their importance have not been previously 

 demonstrated. 



This action loosened up the stringency of 

 the phrase used by Nobel, but the committees 

 have not even kept within the elastic limits 

 that they imposed upon themselves, as a glance 

 at the table shows. What we have put down 

 as the " age of achievement " is the year of 

 the man's life when he produced his first work 

 of superlative importance, the excellence of 

 which was either recognized at once by the 

 world or would have been discernible by a 

 learned and well-equipped body like the Nobel 

 Committee. But in many cases, nothing had 

 occurred to " demonstrate the importance " of 

 their achievements during " the preceding 

 year," or even during the time the Nobel 

 Foundation has been in existence. Carducci 

 was too weak to rise from his chair when the 

 emissaries of the Nobel Committee brought 

 him his medal and too feeble in mind to 

 answer them. He had not published a book 

 for nine years, and his position as the fore- 

 most of Italian poets had been established for 

 over thirty years. The fame of Sully-Prud- 

 homme, Echegaray and Mistral has declined 

 rather than risen in the last six years, because 

 they have become more historic monuments 

 than leaders of modern thought. 



Mr. Lange defends the appropriation of 25 

 per cent, of the income for administrative 

 expenses on the ground that it is necessary in 

 order to insure that the prizes are worthily 

 bestowed. This might be justifiable if the 

 money were spent for this purpose. If the 

 committees used the laboratories and libraries 

 they have established out of the Nobel Fund 

 for the purpose of testing the real value of 

 alleged inventions it would do much to pro- 

 mote science and assist in the discovery of 

 struggling genius. But no man is allowed to 



present his own claims. He must first have 

 the endorsement of scholars occupying cer- 

 tain narrowly specified official positions in his 

 own land. 



As a matter of fact, the selections of the 

 Nobel Committees have not been such as re- 

 quired special ability or expenditure for in- 

 vestigation. Any college student in chem- 

 istry, physics or medicine, if asked offhand to 

 name the greatest living men in his branch of 

 science would have hit upon at least fifteen 

 out of the twenty-two names on the list of the 

 Nobel prize men. In the choice of those who 

 had done most for the promotion of peace or 

 produced the greatest work in idealistic litera- 

 ture there would have been greater diversity of 

 opinion, but not because the names chosen 

 were not well known. Did it require an $80,- 

 000 laboratory to test the reality of the X- 

 rays ? How much of the " rather more than 

 $12,000 " appropriated for that purpose last 

 year did the committee expend in repeating 

 Baeyer's synthesis of indigo, first made a 

 quarter of a century ago, and now accom- 

 plished at the rate of thousands of tons a 

 year? Did the Caroline Medical-Chirurgical 

 Institute of Stockholm have to spend much 

 time in ascertaining that Golgi's method of 

 nerve staining, which has been in common use 

 for over twenty years, is practical and valu- 

 able? How large a reference library was 

 needed to discover that Mommsen was a great 

 historian ? 



The Nobel bequest was reported to be more 

 than $8,000,000. This, if invested in safe 

 securities, as Nobel directed, should produce 

 about $64,000 for each of the five annual 

 prizes. So much of the income has been spent 

 for other purposes, in salaries, traveling ex- 

 penses, ceremonials and purchases of books and 

 apparatus, that the amount of the money 

 prize has now shrunk to $37,000. And still 

 the local administrators are not satisfied with 

 what they get out of it. Mr. Lange suggests 

 that they may take advantage of the clause 

 allowing them to suspend the award for not 

 longer than four years in the absence of suit- 

 able candidates in order to get money for the 

 " constructive " work of the Nobel Peace In- 

 stitute, for the maintenance of a library and 



