In past times various schemes have been adopted by benevolent men for bequeathing or giving their money so as to promote scientific discovery. Very generally there has been a certain amount of confusion between two distinct purposes--namely, that of creating new knowledge (the discovery of previously unknown things and new processes), and that of spreading existing knowledge amongst an increased proportion of the community. An admirable endowment for the latter purpose is that of Mr. Smithson, a member of the family of the present Duke of Northumberland, which was refused by the British Government for peculiar reasons, and conveyed by that gentleman to trustees in the United States of America about a hundred years ago, where the Smithsonian Institution has vastly aided the spread of science. Another valuable endowment which has been administered by special trustees for a still longer period is that of the celebrated physician Radcliffe, to whom we owe the scientific and medical library, an astronomical observatory, and travelling fellowships in the University of Oxford. The greatest sum dedicated to scientific research in England of late years is the noble gift of a quarter of a million sterling made by Lord Iveagh to the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine. There have been not a few generous donors of smaller sums for like purposes. An inquiry was set on foot a few years ago in America in order to obtain the opinions of those who had experience of scientific research and the institutions intended to promote it in different countries, as to the best methods to adopt in order to effect such promotion. I do not know whether any report was published, but I remember that I was consulted on the subject by the late Professor Simon Newcomb, a foreign member of the Royal Society and one of the most distinguished scientific discoverers in the United States. I am quite sure that no general agreement or conclusion on the subject has been arrived at. So far as I can see, whenever any high-minded philanthropist desires to devote in this country a large sum of money to the promotion of scientific discovery, he is liable to come under the influence of highly respectable and eminent persons who, although they have no acquaintance with the nature of scientific discovery and the way in which it actually takes place, do not hesitate to fix up a scheme based on some antiquated and mistaken model, which is accepted with simple faith by the benevolent donor.