If the scientific worker is wealthy, and therefore presumably has abundant leisure, he will seek no material reward (precisely as those scions of wealthy families who enter the service of religion seek I suppose, no payment for their ministries). But it has been well remarked that "there is unfortunately no necessary connection between wisdom and the inheritance of riches; and consequently it is always within the bounds of possibility that a man of property may subsidize in his own person, not knowledge, but error, a mischievous crotchet or a perfectly fruitless and impossible inquiry, and may employ the contents of a bottomless purse in compelling the attention of the world to it.... There is also no guarantee in the case of a private person.... that the investigator is sufficiently furnished with the preliminary knowledge or training to make his remarks fruitful. In short, work supported by private means is very likely to be amateur work, or duplicate work."[1]
Every man who desires to make researches in science, and who is not possessed of private means sufficient, not only for his support, but to provide for the expenses of his researches (in some cases necessarily heavy), must either select an occupation which will provide the required means without taking him from his special subject of research, or must simply withdraw from the scientific work he had proposed to undertake. The alternative may present itself to him at the outset of his career; or gradually as his scientific work becomes more and more difficult, through the pressure of other duties; or sudden losses may bring the alternative home to him, after original scientific work has already commenced. Of the third case I shall say little in what follows, as it is probably unusual, and, when it occurs, must, for the most part, lead to entire withdrawal from scientific work. In whatever way the alternative may present itself, the student of science who determines to continue his investigations is not troubled by any great difficulty in selecting the occupation which he will combine with the pursuit of knowledge. For the available occupations are few indeed.
There are some salaried posts to which light scientific duties (chiefly educational) are attached. But these are not commonly, I believe,[2] to be obtained at the beginning of a scientific life, nor readily by those who find the gradual pressure of expenses interfering with scientific labors. They are not, indeed, necessarily awarded to science-workers at all; nor, when so held, have they invariably been found to encourage steady work in science. I am speaking, be it understood, of offices, professorial or otherwise, where the special duties
- ↑ Fortnightly Review for October, 1874: Mr. Appleton on the "Endowment of Research."
- ↑ In speaking about salaried and official posts, I rely on information derived from others, my own avocations not having led me at any time, or being at all likely hereafter to lead me, to seek direct information on such matters.
