476 Encouragement of Scientific Research. [October, 
wonder that our national amount of scientific work is so 
limited. What still aggravates the evil is the morbid, 
wealth-worship dominant in England which actually censures 
as “ idle ” the man, however affluent, who does not devote 
his time to some money-making pursuit. The man content 
with a competence, in order that he may have full time to 
devote to some important pursuit, is not a common English 
phenomenon, and when met with he is more apt to incur 
ridicule and contempt than respedt. 
Research, too, whilst it affords its votaries neither wealth 
nor even the very means of existence, can offer no compen- 
sation in the way of honour. Titles and distinctions in this 
country are very strictly confined to the following classes : 
— Military and naval men, lawyers, and financiers who 
“ threaten the ministry that they will withdraw their capital 
from the country unless placed in the social position to 
which they think themselves entitled.” Occasionally an 
eminent physician or engineer may be rewarded with a 
knighthood or baronetcy, — more, however, in acknowledg- 
ment of the successful routine practice of his profession 
than of anything done for the extension of human knowledge, 
— and some few men of science in the strictest term, such 
as Davy, Brewster, and Murchison, may thus be honoured. 
Berzelius was ennobled in Sweden, Liebig in Germany, and 
Cuvier in France, but England refuses to follow this example, 
and has never, we believe, offered even the lowest grade in 
the peerage to the most distinguished man of science. 
Philosophers, we are told, ought to be above such considera- 
tions ; yet philosophers have very much the same wants as 
other men. We may safely venture to say that had Newton, 
Davy, or Faraday been ennobled, the status of all scientific 
men in the kingdom would have been most distinctly raised, 
and their pursuits would henceforth have met with a much 
fuller appreciation. 
But in addition to all these direct discouraging influences 
the tendency to scientific research is repressed in an indiret 
manner, viz., by the circumstances which powerfully tend to 
draw talent into other channels. The most formidable rival 
of science in this country is the law which — as regards social 
position, influence, and emolument — offers rewards far be- 
yond anything that scientific research does or perhaps ever 
can offer. There are indeed those amongst us who think 
that we may be content, and accept our bar and bench as 
an adequate compensation for the want of such a phalanx of 
scientific worthies as Germany possesses. We cannot adopt 
this view. We do not see that any conceivable number of 
