And _9th_. In consequence of the great benefit derived from scientific research by the inhabitants of each locality, it has become a duty of each large community to promote it, and local Town Councils might with advantage and perfect justice to the public, devote a portion of municipal funds to the purpose of aiding local scientific research. To this plan it may be objected, that as the results of research are cosmopolitan, diffusing themselves everywhere, and this diffusion cannot be prevented; the benefits arising from research cannot be restricted even to a large community. In reply to this:--As knowledge and its advantages are cosmopolitan, the duty of promoting research must be equally extensive. There is also a real return received by the public for expenditure of money in research, in the free liberty to use all new knowledge developed everywhere by such labour, and although the money expended by a {217} community upon particular researches or upon an individual investigator, does not directly produce an immediate return; practically an immediate and direct benefit is received by that community, because new scientific knowledge for the use of teachers and popular lecturers, and new inventions based upon it, of local value to that society, continually become public. Every civilized community has also received beforehand such benefits to an enormous extent; and each investigator may reasonably claim public support on the ground that he contributes to the general stock of new knowledge. Some persons however, who have not fully considered the subject, wish to receive not only the advantages accruing from the common stock of knowledge, but also to reserve to themselves the entire benefit arising from their own special contributions. Experience alone will prove which of the foregoing schemes is the most suitable in this country, or in particular cases. At present the plan largest in operation is the system of Government Grants, next in magnitude are the other funds distributed by the Royal Society, the British Association, the Chemical Society, the Royal Institution, the Birmingham Philosophical Society, and those provided by the munificence of private individuals. It is greatly to be hoped that the liberal spirit of private individuals will yet further remove the great blot which lies upon the reputation of the wealthy manufacturers, capitalists, and land-owners, who have derived such great profits from {218} scientific research and have scarcely aided it at all in return. It is also to be desired that the Corporations of manufacturing towns will recognise the value of original scientific enquiry to their fellow townsmen, and will undertake the responsibility of voting money from municipal funds to promote it. * * * * * Notes [1] See p.p. 165 to 167. [2] Essays and Addresses, Owen's College, 1874, pp. 172-182. [3] See Chapter 2, Section B.