On the influence of brain-power on history : an address delivered before the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Southport on September 9th, 1903 / by Sir Norman Lockyer.

  • Lockyer, Norman, 1836-1920.
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: On the influence of brain-power on history : an address delivered before the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Southport on September 9th, 1903 / by Sir Norman Lockyer. 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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    them—for some better way may be found on inquiry— are accepted, great good to science throughout the Empire will come. Rest assured that sooner or later such a Guild will be formed because it is needed. It is for you to say whether it shall be, or form part of, the British Association. We in this Empire certainly need to organise science as much as in Germany they find the need to organise a navy. The German Navy League, which has branches even in our Colonies, already has a membership of 630,000, and its income is nearly 20,000/. a year. A British Science League of 500,000 with a sixpenny subscription would give us 12,000/. a year, quite enough to begin with. I for one believe that the British Association would be a vast gainer by such an expansion of one of its existing functions. Increased authority and prestige would follow its increased utility. The meetings would possess a new interest ; there would be new subjects for reports ; missionary work less needed than formerly would be replaced by efforts much more suited to the real wants of the time. This magnificent, strong, and complicated organisation would become a living force, working throughout the year instead of practically lying idle, useless, and rusting for fifty-one weeks out of the fifty-two so far as its close association with its members is concerned. If this suggestion in any way commends itself to you, then when you begin your work in your sections or General Committee see to it that a body is appointed to inquire how the thing can be done. Remember that the British Association will be as much weakened by the creation of a new body to do the work I have shown to have been in the minds of its founders as I believe it will be strengthened by becoming completely effective in every one of the directions they indicated, and for which effectiveness we, their successors, are indeed