The national importance of scientific research / by George Gore.

  • Gore, George, 1826-1909.
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The national importance of scientific research / by George Gore. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    House of Lords. (See tlic “Clergy List,” also “Whitaker’s Almanack,” 1873, p. 155, and “ Walford’s County Families,” 1872, pp. 173 and 610.) AVe leave our readers to judge to -what extent these instances illustrate the statement that discoverers are not treated by us as -we treat other valuable members of the community. It is ■well known that had Faraday chosen, he might certainly have ‘ : made a large income as a consulting chemist and scientific advocate, but .. the love of traith for truth’s sake alone was strong in him, and he spon- taneously abandoned that course in order to pursue the more important national employment of pure research. It was a statement of his, “I ' cannot afford to become rich.” Discoverers are generally poor, because ', they are not paid for their labour; and a man cannot usually pursue with ■. ■ success pure scientific research and money, because such research occupies .-i a very great amount of time. It is scarcely credible that in a wealthy and civilized count) y, whilst the non-productive classes are most properly protected in the enjoyment of titles and material wealth which they have not earned, the gr’eatest ) scientific discoverers and benefactors of the nation are constrained to live ; in a state of comparative poverty whilst working for the pecuniary and | i other advantages of those classes, and of manufacturers, capitalists, land- 'i-;. owners, and the nation in general. By these remarks it is not intended to imply that discoverers are intentionally neglected; but that the cir- ) cumstances are a disgrace to the nation, and do not reflect any credit . upon the governing classes, or especially upon those who reap the greatest r advantage. The men who are rewarded the most highly in this country are not always those who yield the greatest services to the nation, but frequently those who render the most immediate or most apparent benefit; such short-sighted policy as this cannot produce the greatest degree of success. The national services of a great discoverer are immense, and probably not equalled by those of any man. AVho can estimate the value of the com- mercial, social, moral, political, and other great advantages to the world, of the discovery of the principle of electro-magnetism, which enabled the invention of the electric telegraph to be made! The men we pay the highest are not those who discover knowledge, but those who use or apply it; physicians, judges, bishops, lawyers, railway-managers, military and naval officers, and head masters of schools, are all gentlemen who render great services to the nation, by using, diffusing, and applying knowledge already possessed. AA^hy do scientific investigators in general pursue difficult researches if there is no payment for such labour?—First, from a spirit of inquiry; and second, to obtain high repute in their profession as teachers, &c. No scientific man who entertains a strong sense of the dignity of science, and who irr his occujration as a teacher or otherwise, continually perceives the incompleteness of our knowledge of the properties of matter, would willingly spare any amount of labour in order to make that knowledge more complete, especially as he knows that scientific discov'eries are of f- I Li i: