Whether or not he has proved his thesis that the psychological explanation of the leisure class rests upon the consciousness of the invidious distinction which attaches to non-workers, he has at least demonstrated that the existence of the leisure class is provided with double psychic safeguards, first of all, by the mental attitude of this group itself, and secondly, by the attitudes of imitation, reverence, fear, and envy manifested by the masses.

The leisure class was responsible for the first steps in scientific development. This group was not only an efficient agent in conserving tradition and in adopting innovation, but also a much freer medium for the play of individual initiative and originality. Writing, second only to language as a tool of thought, was slowly evolved from its crude picture forms by the leisure classes of three nations. All the higher religions and moral systems, Judaism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity, were the products of "the classes" in society. Philosophy and logic, all the fine arts, arise, as in Greece, in favorable conditions, under the fostering protection of a class free from the grubbing care of existence. The development of mathematics and of astronomical calculations reaches a high stage under conditions where the succeeding generations of individuals add their contributions to the conserved increment of knowledge.

d) The leisure class is, of course, a vague phrase which includes a heterogeneous congeries of groups, those which impede as well as those which promote improvement. Professor Tyndall has made the following classification of groups necessary to advance technical development: "(1) the investigators of natural truth, whose vocation it is to pursue that truth and extend the field of discovery for its own sake, without reference to practical ends; (2) the teachers who diffuse this knowledge; (3) the appliers of these principles and truths to make them available to the needs, the comforts, or the luxuries, of life. These three classes ought to co-exist and interact." 11 In our discussion of the scientific group, we shall not again emphasize the function of diffusion, but confine our attention to the interdependence of the scientific discoverer and the practical applier. In modern times the significant social differentiation has occurred in the evolution of a new group, the scientific

11Iles, op. cit., p. 274.

circle, the primary aim of which is the discovery of knowledge by the experimental method.

The chief characteristic of the scientific group is a certain feeling of freedom from the practical application of its activities. This boyish "don't care" attitude of the scientist is secured only by freedom from pecuniary anxieties and responsibilities. The existence of a leisure class, safeguarded economically, enabled certain of its members to devote themselves exclusively to intellectual pursuits and the acquirement of knowledge. The establishment of universities made possible the stricter separation of the scientific from the leisure class in general.

The organization and the standards of the scientific group are peculiar and significant. The social bond between scientists may be quite impersonal and attenuated; the printed page need be the only means of communication. A Wallace without academic training may catch the cold inspiration of science through the medium. of its literature and achieve standing in its circles. The human nature of scientists is not so different from that of other people, but it is organized in a distinctive way. Ambition and rivalry are under tenser constraints than among the members of other groups, because the advancement of verifiable knowledge rather than the fortunes of a group is the end in view. Indications are multiplying that the ideal of science is to encourage a genuine co-operation of its members for the promotion of discovery. Cooley gives an admirable statement of the relation of the scientist to his group. "Science, as a social institution, is farther-reaching, and more accessible to those fitted to share in it, than is any other institution. Since the invention of printing and the consequent diffusion of books, the scientific men of all nations have formed a single co-operating group, enabled to co-operate by the facility of communication and by the exact and verifiable character of their work. . Compared

with the artist, the man of science is cold, and can carry on his pursuits with but little emotional support from his immediate surroundings. Letters, journals, and the notice of his work by others in the same line of research suffice for him.” 12

This independence of the scientist of his immediate surroundings and his dependence on his group is vital for the promotion of pure

12"Genius, Fame, and the Comparison of Races," in the Annals of the American Academy, IX (1897), 354-55.

science. His indifference to popular applause or condemnation is necessary for original investigation and his susceptibility to group praise or blame furnishes the required stimulation and criticism. Darwin says, "I can say with truth, that in after years, though I cared in the highest degree for the approbation of such men as Lyell and Hooker, who were my friends, I did not care much about the general public. I do not mean to say that a favorable review or a large sale of my books did not please me greatly, but the pleasure was a fleeting one, and I am sure that I have never turned one inch out of my course to gain fame." 13

Not only does the scientist forego the applause of the grandstand; he must turn his back on the "main chance." The man whose life-values are in terms of dollars and cents is not likely to be interested in the composition of matter, nor to devote his life to the study of the constitution of the atom. The economic interest in the scientist is sure to be subordinated to the intellectual interest. "Knowledge for knowledge's sake" is not a crowd-drawing slogan. Accordingly, this attitude of indifference to the practical application of a discovery, rooted as it is in the play instinct, is not likely innate, but acquired. The lives of many scientists exhibit decisive proof of this group attitude. Harvey was "notoriously open-handed, indifferent to wealth, and constitutionally incapable of driving a bargain." " Sir Humphry Davy, indeed, made a practical application of his knowledge in the invention of the safety-lamp, but he declined1 pecuniary compensation and never patented it. Our own Professor Henry was opposed to patenting his inventions on the ground1 that he did not think it "compatible with dignity of science to confine the benefits to the exclusive use of any individual." The scientist, like the football player, prefers the commendation of his team-mates to the plaudits of the grandstand.

The importance of the scientific group for discovery is that the attention functions for mediate, rather than for immediate, control of life. "Knowledge is power," and the presence of a group for the promotion of knowledge vastly increases the potential resources

13 Life and Letters, I, 66–67.

14Power, William Harvey, 1898, p. 38.

15 Holland, op. cit., pp. 136–37.

16 Crabtree, Marvels of Modern Mechanism, 1901, p. 531.

of society. The fact that the advancement of knowledge is no longer dependent upon the immediate, practical application makes possible the accumulation of a great reserve store of ideas which facilitates the social adjustment to an unexpected crisis. This mediate utility of knowledge, however, is never strong enough to appeal to the popular imagination.

Public recognition of the utility of scientific discovery is generally retrospective rather than anticipatory. Years spent on the observation of the tarnishing of silver or the twitching of the frog's leg seemed as much a waste of time as the classical scholar's devotion of his life to the study of the dative case in Greek. Yet the former "useless" researches were the origins of photography and telegraphy." Pasteur spent several years of his life in the apparently profitless study of crystallization, but the outcome18 of this investigation was the study of fermentation, and the final result was the discovery of the cause of many baffling diseases and the cure for hydrophobia. The electric light was a scientific toy for three-quarters of a century before it found practical utility for lighting purposes. Geissler and Crookes tubes were little more than a scientific wonder until Röntgen discovered1o that the cathode rays consist in part of X-rays which will readily pass through the human flesh so as to cast shadows of the bones upon a photographer's plate. The inevitable conclusion to be drawn from these facts is that scientific discovery has depended for support, not upon popular demand, but upon the intellectual interest of a small fraction of the population. In the division of labor in modern society, the practical application of discovery generally falls to a distinct group of workers, namely, the inventors.

In a sense, the practical inventor may be called the scientific middleman. This phrase emphasizes the two chief conditions for the success of the inventor. The practical applier is interested in the immediate utility of his effort, and he is dependent upon the results of scientific research. Striking illustrations of the dependence of the practical inventor upon scientific discovery are to be found in the invention of the electric light, the telegraph, and the wireless telegraph. It is difficult for us to believe that the electric light was discovered nearly half a century before Edison's birth, that the

17Iles, op. cit., p. 272. 18 Ibid., p. 273.

19 Ibid., p. 198.

telegraph of Morse was but the practical application of a laboratory experiment, or that Marconi gave only the finishing touches to an invention which had almost reached perfection at the hands of a group of men.

The first electric light was the brilliant flame produced at the moment of separation of two pieces of charcoal attached to the terminals of a powerful voltaic battery-the discovery20 of Sir Humphry Davy in 1809. The first incandescent lamp with a platinum burner, devised by Professor Grove in 1840, was little more than a laboratory toy, though five years later August King patented an incandescent lamp with unsealed platinum burner. The practical utilization of electricity for light had to wait upon the development of electrical generation. The discovery of magneto-electricity by Faradaya1 in 1831-32 was followed by the endeavors of many inventors in the development of the magneto-electric machines and the perfection of the dynamo. The appearance of an efficient dynamo at once made the perfection of electric lighting feasible. The advantage of the Edison lamp over its rivals was in the employment of an inexpensive bowed filament of carbon sealed in a vacuum. Edison's contribution is not to be overlooked; it constituted a rare triumph of inventive skill, based on an accident, but completed only after the most extensive search over three continents and after indefatigable experimentation. Yet the facts that his title to the invention was the result of a vacillating series of contests in court, that it depended upon the efforts of a long line of men between Sir Humphry Davy and himself as well as upon the perfection of the dynamo, disclose that the perfection of the electric light was in reality the reduction of a scientific discovery to practical application by a series of men.

The telegraph, like the incandescent light, was a co-operative invention. While the idea of communicating through distance by electricity is conceded to Morse, it is instructive to understand to what extent he borrowed from others. The telegraph consists of three essential parts: the battery and conducting wire, the electromagnet, and the receiving and the transmitting instruments. Only the third element represents Morse's contribution; all the remainder he obtained from the scientific store. The origin of the battery goes

20 Byrn, Inventions in the Nineteenth Century, 1900, p. 63.

21 Ibid., p. 48.