SCIENCE AND THE GOVERNMENT.

BY PROFESSOR SIMON NEWCOMB, LL.D., UNITED STATES NAVY.

IT has sometimes been said that no other Government has so large and able a body of scientific experts in its employ as ours. To discuss in an exhaustive way the correctness of this statement would require a careful study of the systems adopted by other countries, especially France and Germany, in the administration of their public works. We should be met at the outset by the question whether the graduates of the Government technical schools of France and the men employed in Germany on public works of various kinds are to be included in the comparison. Whatever conclusion we might reach on this point, it may be conceded that no Government is more alive than our own to the public advantages which accrue from the applications of science to the arts of life, or has adopted a broader and wiser policy in promoting such applications.

Granting all this, there is a converse proposition on which it is not easy to reach an equally satisfactory conclusion. Notwithstanding the liberality of our policy in promoting scientific research, there is no Government less alive than our own to the advantages which it might derive from the advice and assistance of that large body of scientific experts who are not in Government employ. We fail to recognize the fact that questions of great practical importance are continually arising which cannot be dealt with in the most satisfactory way by the organized machinery of a Government bureau.

Our failure in this respect can be best seen by contrasting it with a class of cases in which nothing can be said against our wisdom in dealing with them. From time to time important questions of public and international law arise in which the best legal talent that the Government can command is necessary to the protection of its interests. In such cases we never hesitate to go outside the public service and call for assistance upon the

ablest jurists of the country. We no more than any other Government would have thought of conducting our cases before courts of arbitration without calling in some addition to the ordinary machinery of our Department of Justice.

The same exigency arises in the application of scientific method to the administration of those great public works which the development of our country constantly imposes upon the general Government. Here is required, from time to time, a knowledge of details which we cannot always expect to be at the command of a Government officer, no matter what may be his qualifications. The question then arises, where and how we shall obtain the results of the widest knowledge and the latest researches.

The reasons why the knowledge and experience of a Government officer are not always adequate to the problems which may come before him are obvious. Whatever his abilities, he is in some sort a subordinate, and the general ideas of discipline inseparable from the public service impede his action and prevent his full responsibility from being publicly recognized. He always has a chief who, in the eye of the law, is the really responsible head to whom the Executive and Congress look for authoritative views. As a general rule the scientific official is nearly, or quite, unknown as an exponent of those views. His proper functions are to do what he is told, to apply his experience to the case before him, and to give his chief the benefit of his attainments. If his opinions happen, for the moment, to be opposed to the popular view, he may get himself or his chief into difficulty by trying to give them effect. The larger the measure of worldly wisdom with which nature has endowed him, the feebler will be his attempts to become a factor in directing the policy of the department with which he is connected. In any case, his studies are likely to be confined to the limited field embraced in the round of his official duties; and thus it may happen that, how great soever his influence, he will not always be the best counsellor on questions lying outside the routine of those duties. Such being the case, why should not the Government call upon the best scientific talent of the country for advice and assistance just as it calls upon the best legal talent when need arises for it?

One answer is not far to seek. The men of the highest judicial

talent are publicly well known and easy to reach. No one in authority has any serious difficulty in learning who they are. But the public knows little of the standing of professors in the scientific world, or of the nature of the questions with which they are conversant. The result is that, if the system of calling in such men were adopted, any professor of chemistry of sufficiently good address, especially one who was accustomed to appearing before courts of law as an expert, might be called in as the best chemist, and any fine old gentleman who had published a brilliant essay on a new theory of the universe might be selected as an astronomer. In this respect other Governments are probably no better off than our own. It is said that some fifty years ago the British Admiralty had printed a few copies of an important work for presentation to some foreigners who, from their prominence in the scientific world, were best entitled to be honored with the gift. Professor Airy, the Astronomer Royal, was requested to make a selection of the names. A few days after he had sent in his list he was informed by the Secretary of the Admiralty that "my lords" were struck by the number of unknown names included; and that they wished to make an inquiry on the subject. Airy asked the Secretary for some specifications as to the names referred to.

"Well, as an example," said the Secretary, "here is the name of Professor C. F. Gauss, of Göttingen. Who is he?"

"Gauss is one of the greatest mathematicians of the age, and stands among the two or three most eminent masters in physical astronomy now living. Who else do you wish to know about?" "No one else; that will do," replied the Secretary.

It is the principal object of the present paper to show that this difficulty, formidable though it may appear at a distance, vanishes when we come to grapple with it. In every civilized country there are organized bodies of men of science and learning, at least one of which is recognized as having a national character. The importance which has been played by these bodies in the progress of the age cannot be overestimated. Modern science, properly so called, commenced with the foundation of the Academy of Sciences of France by Colbert, and the charter of the Royal Society of London by King Charles II. In the beginning the organizers of these societies had no distinctly utilitarian end in view. They were moved only by an enlightened appre

ciation of the lustre that would be thrown upon their respective countries by the progress of science and learning. We cannot suppose that they had any anticipation of what the measures they adopted would lead to in future generations. The benefits of attrition between men of like and yet slightly diverse minds were doubtless appreciated, but could not have been estimated at their full value. As we may trace back a race of animals to its progenitors, so may we trace all our applications of electricity and heat to the men who, in France, England and Italy, came together for mutual help and sympathy in the study of nature during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

From the beginning these men were animated by an esprit de corps of which the world at large has taken little account, but which has been an important factor in the result. One who by long and patient study discovers truths that seem to him interesting and important, is naturally desirous of making them known to his fellow-men without respect to any personal advantage that might accrue to himself. Disinterestedness of motive has been the pivot on which the policy of the bodies in question has very generally turned. In the beginning the French Academy adopted a regulation prohibiting its members from using for their personal advantages discoveries made with the co-operation of the Academy. Although other societies have not gone so far as this, their general policy has wisely been directed to the general enlightenment of mankind and the promotion of its best interests, rather than to that of the personal interests of its members.

One of the most striking features of this spirit during the two centuries in question has been the separation of the functions of the investigator and discoverer from those of the inventor. The Galileos, Newtons, Herschels and Faradays of science; the men but for whom the nineteenth century would have been like the eighteenth, and that, like the seventeenth, did not reap or attempt to reap any pecuniary advantage from their works. While they may not have gone so far as the eminent mathematician who is said to have thanked Heaven that he cultivated science that could not be prostituted to any useful purpose, it is certain that they were quite willing to leave to others the functions of determining in what way their discoveries could be applied to practical ends. This policy was essential to the highest success of their work. If they had not been guided by it; if they had always

been on the alert for discovering something admitting of practical application, their work would have been wanting in that breadth and fulness which was necessary to its ultimate usefulness. Many a pearl now of great price would have been thrown into the dust heap because the finder would not have seen its value. What prospect could Volta and Galvani have seen of benefits being derived from their experiments on the movements of the legs of a frog when certain metals were brought into contact with the muscles of these animals?

In pointing out the value of the work of the investigator we by no means belittle the functions of the inventor. The world justly holds in honorable remembrance the names of the men who have applied to practical uses the discoveries made by the investigators. Their functions were clearly necessary to the result. The pecuniary rewards which they reaped were so small when compared with the good they have done that a mathematician might rank them among the infinitesimal quantities. Yet, we should not forget that the Watts, the Stephensons and the Morses never made any addition to our knowledge of the laws of heat, steam or electricity. What they did was to take the knowledge gained by others and apply it to practical uses. We cannot say that they have got more than their due share of public credit, but we may fairly say that the public has not always been sufficiently alive to the very different functions of the class of men who form the scientific academies and societies of the world.

It is perhaps from a consciousness of the distinction between these two classes that the world has always refused to award its highest appreciation to mere utility. Witness the very different estimation in which we hold the useful negro and the useless Indian. The sentiment of reverence for pure philosophy was even stronger in early ages than at the present time. The contempt of the ancient philosophers for useful applications of knowledge was none too strongly expressed by the sentiment of the mathematician whom we have quoted. The encouragement given to men of science and learning by the founders of the national scientific societies of Europe was based much more upon a consciousness of the honor that they would do to their respective countries than on any hope of useful results from their labors. At the same time it was evident that these men might be of great benefit to the State. The latter had from time to time