attain, and because they would thereby be put into a sphere in which they could exercise their talents to the fullest extent, and render the greatest service and honour to the nation. If also the salaries offered were not too great, those persons only would become candidates who at present have insufficient means to defray the considerable cost of experiments.
It would be necessary to appoint only persons who would undertake to devote their time solely to the discovery of new facts and principles in science, and the determination of purely scientific questions, and not to the making of inventions; because discovery is of far greater national value than invention; and because inventions would immediately on their publication be seized, modified, and patented by individuals for their own personal benefit. Discoveries, on the other hand, would require a large additional amount of labour expended upon them by inventors before they could be converted into saleable commodities.
Each professor should be allowed perfect freedom to choose his own special subjects of research in the sciences he had been accustomed to study, because each investigator is usually the best judge of what researches are the most likely to yield him important results. No discoverer of repute would be very likely to trespass on another man's sphere of research, because he would usually have an abundance of good subjects of his own; and every honourable man would purposely avoid doing so; and we find this practically to be the case at the present time. Separate sets of
rooms would be necessary for each investigator in order to keep the researches private and distinct.
The whole of the new knowledge obtained by research should be treated as national property, and all of it worthy of publication should be made known without the least reserve, it would also be desirable to publish the results at reasonable intervals of time. The publication might take place, as at present, in the journals of the learned Societies, or in the leading scientific magazines, and the value of the work would be largely guaranteed by such a mode of publication. The professors should also engage not to sell, patent, or prematurely disclose any of the knowledge obtained. By electing to such offices only discoverers of repute, the nation might reasonably depend for the results upon the known ability and industry of the men. That the results obtained would, many of them, be highly valuable, does not admit of doubt, because long experience has uniformly proved it; but no discoverer can tell beforehand what results he will obtain, otherwise research would hardly be needed.
An objection has been made that no one can tell how long it will be after a discovery is made before the nation will derive the chief benefit. The length of time which elapses between the publication of discoveries and their practical fruits is very variable. Usually benefit commences at once and gradually widens; directly discoveries are published they begin to be used by compilers of scientific books, and by teachers and lecturers in science, and are thus diffused
amongst the public in general, and begin to produce beneficial effects. Inventors, manufacturers, medical men, and others, also begin to apply them to their respective purposes. In some cases striking applications are immediately made of them, and public attention is thus directed to the useful result; but in many cases the beneficial effects are small, numerous, and indirect, and it is difficult to trace and describe them. The objection also is deficient in force, because expenditure in any other occupation, and receipt of the profit upon it, are rarely simultaneous. Many of the wisest reforms in this country have been a long time in producing their results. We must therefore be content, as in all ordinary cases of investment, with the conviction that the expenditure will be profitable, and we must wait patiently for the certain harvest. In research, as in many other human enterprises, a man who will not move until he is absolutely certain that what he intends to do will at at once succeed, must sit still and perish.
Suggestions have also been made to appoint a Government Committee, or Council, whose function should be to value scientific discoveries, and make corresponding amounts of reward to the discoverers. But this appears to be a less feasible plan, because no man can, at the period of discovery, determine what amount of practical result a discovery will ultimately produce. Who could have foretold with certainty at the date of Oersted's discovery of electro-magnetism, that this discovery would result in
the expenditure of hundreds of millions of pounds upon telegraphs alone?[[35]]
Objections have been made to definite payment for labour in research, on the ground of indefiniteness of the results, and the impossibility of measuring their value. Can we expect to buy new scientific knowledge at so much a pound, or to retail discovery by the pint? The work of discoverers is as definite as that of many other persons who are paid. Who can measure the value of the cure of souls, of the duties of a judge, or of those of a field-marshal? Instead of paying for the labour of research in a definite way, we have adopted unsatisfactory makeshifts. Exceptional gifts, and semi-charitable pensions, have been with difficulty obtained in a few cases for scientific men; most often for those who applied scientific knowledge to practical uses than for those who discovered that knowledge. In this country, neither lawyers, medical men, military persons, nor clergymen are paid definitely by results, but by time and labour, in accordance with the reputation of the man, and there is no sufficient reason why investigators should not be similarly remunerated. The differences in the cases are only ones of degree.