George Gore - The Scientific Basis of National Progress, Including that of Morality

It is true that many things which have appeared very promising in theory or in experiment, have failed altogether in practice, but why is this? it is not that the principles of nature operated in the one case and did not operate in the other, but that we have imperfectly understood them, that from some unforeseen circumstances we have been unable to apply them; or that we have indolently abandoned them without sufficient or proper trial. In many cases we are unable to obtain the same conditions of success upon the large scale that we have upon the small one. In other cases a process fails because of its too great expense; many attempts have been made to supersede steam as a motive power by means of electro-magnetism, and engines driven by that force have been constructed of five or ten horse-power, but the cost of driving them has been found to be at least ten times the amount of that of the steam-engine of equal strength. And in other cases we fail because we attempt at once to carry out upon a large scale that which has only been the subject of limited experiment, instead of enlarging the process by small degrees, and adapting the apparatus, the materials and the treatment, to the size of the operation.

That also which appears very simple in the hands of an experimentalist, almost invariably becomes much more complex when carried into practice in a manufactory, simply because there is then a greater number of conditions to be fulfilled. Electro-plating a piece of steel with silver is to a chemist a very simple matter, because it is of no importance to him whether the silver adheres firmly, is of good colour, or is deposited at a certain cost; but with a manufacturer unless all these conditions are fulfilled, the process is a failure. These matters, however, belong to invention and not to original discovery.

We should not condemn theoretical science because we are not able, even with fair and persevering trial, to apply it to any useful purpose, but wait patiently until circumstances ripen for its application. Many inventions which are inapplicable in one state of knowledge become applicable by the progress of scientific research. The idea of an electric telegraph, attempted by Mr. Ronalds, in the year 1816, with the aid of frictional electricity, had to wait the development of the galvanic battery and the discovery of electro-magnetism before it could be successfully applied.

Many manufacturers seem to think that because some of their operations are completely routine, and have been handed down to them by their predecessors in nearly their present state, they are not at all indebted to science; but there is no manufacture, especially among metals, which has not in some degree been aided by scientific discovery.

In addition to the great benefits accruing from original research to all classes of society, our Governments have also derived immense advantages from the same source. The revenues have been greatly increased by the universal advantages conferred upon all kinds of industry and commerce by scientific knowledge. The additional taxes upon increased incomes from agriculture, arts, manufactures, mines; increased value of land and rents; investments in railway, telegraph, steam-ship and other companies, have been extremely great. From the sale of patents alone, a surplus sum of nearly six hundred thousand pounds has already accumulated. Our Governments are also indebted to original research for the use of percussion-powder, gun-cotton, improvements in cannon, projectiles, rifles, armour-plated ships, the ocean telegraph, field telegraph, the telephone, rapid postal communication, the speedy transport of troops and war-material, and a multitude of other advantages. The value of science to Governments in the prevention of war by means of more ready correspondence through telegraph is incalculable. Mr. Sumner, of America, at the period when the Atlantic telegraph was first employed, stated that the use of that telegraph averted a probable rupture between Great Britain and America. There was a period when we did not possess such evidence of the great value of science; but that time has now passed away, and our governing men have had abundant proof of the national importance of scientific discovery, and of the essential dependence of the welfare of this country upon scientific research.

Whilst vast sums of money are spent upon the applications of science in military and naval affairs, research itself is neglected; the superstructure is attended to, but the foundations are left to decay. A very small proportion of the money which is expended upon military affairs would, if devoted to research, save a great deal of expense in warfare: —

Our Government has as yet made but little payment for the labour of pure research in experimental physics or chemistry; it has, however, given four thousand pounds a year for five years to be distributed by the Royal Society among scientific investigators, partly as personal payment. Income tax is deducted from these grants.

Want of recognition of the value of science has been so general in this country, that it is quite pleasing to quote a somewhat different case from the Illustrated London News , January 4th, 1873, viz., that of the late Archibald Smith, L.L.D., F.R.S. That gentleman was an investigator in pure mathematical science, and devoted the latter part of his life to the application of mathematics in the computation, reduction, and discussion of the deviation of the mariners' compass in wooden and in iron ships, and made practical deductions therefrom in the construction of those vessels. He published those practical applications of his scientific knowledge in the form of an Admiralty Manual, which was afterwards reprinted in various languages. Her Majesty's Government subsequently "requested his acceptance of a gift of two thousand pounds, not as a reward, but as a mark of appreciation of the value of his researches, and of the influence they were exercising on the maritime interests of England and the world at large." The kind of labour rewarded in this case was not scientific discovery, but the practical application of previously existing scientific knowledge.

The case of the late Dr. Stenhouse, F.R.S., is one of rather an opposite kind. That gentleman devoted his life throughout to pure investigations in organic chemistry, and published several of his researches in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. 9 9 See "Royal Society Catalogue of Scientific Papers," vol. 5, pp. 719 and 890; and vol. 8, p. 1,010. His discoveries are very numerous, and although not much applied to practical uses by himself, the result of his researches on Lichens, and the yellow gum of Botany Bay, have been applied extensively by other persons in the manufacture of "French purple" and picric acid, and will doubtless continue to be applied to valuable uses. He held the Government appointment of Assayer to the Royal Mint, London, an office for several years unprofitable to him, but of increasing remunerative value, and which would have been subsequently worth £1,200 a year; but after the decease of his colleague, Dr. Miller, in 1870, that office, which was then worth to him about £600 a year, was abolished by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he lost the appointment, receiving, however, £500 as compensation. An application was therefore made to the Government, and a partial recompense to him was obtained, by Her Majesty granting him one hundred pounds a year "for eminence in chemical attainments, and on account of loss by suppression of office in the Mint." The only difference in these two instances, was, that in the second there was a very much greater amount of pure research and discovery, and a much smaller degree of applied knowledge.