Page:The Scientific Monthly vol. 3.djvu/558

 55 a THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

nre than in the past, and we may well apprehend that in course of time it may become clogged to the serious impairment of its outflow. The remedy lies in our hands and individually or collectively the de- cision must be taken now. There is only one solution of our problem and that is to cast off our swaddling bands, cut ourselves loose from patronage, and take into our own hands the destinies of our own insti- tution. While enlightened private patronage will still in a measure contribute towards the achievements of investigation in the future, in ever-increasing degree we must cease to be dependent upon others and look to the product of our own efforts to afford us the material founda- tion of fresh enterprises. I have elsewhere endeavored' to form some imperfect estimate of the monetary equivalent of the colossal value to which the accumulated investigations of mankind have given rise. Where values are so enormous, comprising almost the entire value of existence, such estimates are necessarily only f ragmentarily valid. One fact is abundantly demonstrated, however, and that is that by far the greater part of the siunmated value of the manufacturing industries of our day owes its existence to and depends for its continuance upon the labors of the scientific investigator. Of the vast annual income which is realized by these manufactures and which arises out of their patents a barely discernible fraction ever finds its way back to furnish the means of providing fresh discoveries and fertilizing the field upon which we must rely for the production of fresh growths of industrial enterprise.

If the scientific investigators produce this vast wealth they can also in some measure control ite Jposal and by observing the giding principle that in a steadily increasing degree investigation must be made self -supporting, they will undoubtedly in time be enabled to de- fleet some p^portiof of this wealth, and a very small proportion indeed would be sufiScient, to the services of their institution.

In isolated and strikingly successful instances this principle has already been practically applied. The Solvay Institute in Brussels owes its existence to the wealth proceeding from the discoveries of Solvay. The Institute of Experimental Therapy in Frankfort to which medicine already owes practical results of stupendous significance is supported by the proceeds accruing from Ehrlich's patents and the Research Corporation in New York, deriving its income from the Cot- trell patents, is the first instance of a more fundamental and far- reaching endeavor to place the institution of investigation upon a self- supporting basis. It is through repeated independent applications of this principle that the extensions and proliferations of re:earch in fu- ture generations are to derive their material bases.

The objection will unquestionably be urged by many scientific pur-

«'*The Cash Value of Scientific Research," The Scibnthio Monthly, 1 (1915), p. 140.

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