Page:The Scientific Monthly vol. 3.djvu/559

 SCIENTIFIC INVE8TI0ATI0N SS3

isis that this procedure would involve the ^^ taint'' of commercialism, that once the investigator enters into the market-place his ideals will be contaminated and the purity of his aims sullied. My reply to this is that a fundamental instinct of mankind can not be suppressed so easily. Investigation will proceed even if individual investigators fall by the wayside, and the distinguished instances of successful enter- prise of this type to which I have drawn attention are living proofs that the investigators to whom they owe tiieir origin were not so lack- ing in determination and enthusiasm as to relinquish their life-work merely because personal advantage tempted or the chaffering of the market disturbed them.

Churchmen in all ages have been known to sacrifice personal advan- tage to impersonal ideals, statesmen have occasionally placed patriot- ism before profit. Are investigators then so inferior to other men, of so delicate a moral and mental fiber that they will be ready to sacrifice their ideals at the altar of Mammon directly the opportunity presents itself? Or i& it, that never having submitted to the trial they are needlessly distrustful of their own moral stamina? I doubt not that the objector woidd, if questioned, be confident of his own ability to hold fast his ideals, it would be the weaker brother for whom he would be solicitous. Well, let the weaker brethren go, for we can readily spare them, and they too may have their utility in the "debatable land'' between science and industry to which I have alluded as a future sphere of governmental or commercial enterprise.

Should the few but noteworthy precedents which have already been set develop, as I am confident they will, into an avowed policy of the majority of scientific men, then a momentous thing will have happened, for science will have capital of its own to dispose of without fear or favor, without deference to the caprice of the patron or the objectives of a donor or the utilities of the moment. When this hour arrives the campaign of the conquest of nature will have entered upon a new phase, and, equipped at last to conquer, a definite strategy of investigation will have become an imperative necessity.

Investigation has hitherto proceeded haphazard, a compromise be- tween the availability of funds and the talents and inclination of the investigator. These latter must always remain a determining factor, but the availability of the paltry means which are usually needful, will, it is to be hoped, cease to determine with iron and senseless rigidity the evolution of civilization. At the present time it is comparatively easy to obtain money to endow astronomy, because the subject is in itself inspiring and has never lacked great popularizers and expositors and also perhaps in some measure because a telescope or an observa- tory is a visible monument to the donor. It is easy to obtain money for objects of real or fancied utility, for the investigation of certain aspects

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