DR. NOBEL'S WILL.
WE do not know the personal history of Dr. Alfred Nobel, the dynamite manufacturer, and cannot, there- fore, go into ecstasies over the nobility of his character as displayed in his will. For anything we know he may have left relatives who had a fair right to expect that much of his fortune would be bequeathed to them, and who would be justified in terming his bequest, as the Scotch still de- scribe such bequests, a "mortification." The notion that a will must be a noble one if only kinsmen are dis- appointed seems to us to have no more foundation than the notion that it is charitable to give to the poor while your creditors are still unsatisfied. If he had no near relatives, however, or dependents with an equivalent claim from tacit promises, Dr. Nobel's will may fairly be pronounced an unusual attempt by a millionaire to benefit the whole world by the disposal of his accumulated wealth. He has not be- queathed it to his own city or even his own country, but has directed that it should be funded, apparently in Sweden, and its interest devoted every year to the advancement of science in the following way. The income is to be "divided into five equal portions. The first of these is to be allotted as a prize for the most important discovery in
the domain of physics. The second is for the principal chemical discovery or improvement. The third is for the chief discovery in physiology or medicine. The fourth is for the most distinguished literary contribution in the same field; while the fifth is to be allotted to whomsoever may have achieved the most or done the best to promote the cause of peace. All these prizes are open to Scandinavians and foreigners alike," the decision among claimants resting, as we imagine from some previous telegrams, either with the Uni- versity of Stockholm or with a Board composed of Swedish men of science. As the property amounts to two millions sterling, and will be invested at three and a quarter per cent., these prizes will amount to fortunes for the competitors who are for- tunate enough to obtain them. After allowing a liberal margin for the waste and jobbery inseparable from a legacy of this kind, and for the necessary remuneration to the members of the Distributing Board, upon whom the will imposes a very laborious and invidious task, there will remain a solid gift of more than £10,000 for each winner of a prize. That is really a large gift to a man who will as a rule not be well off, and will quite suffice to render the competition one of unusual keenness, and one which will be watched by all men of science in Europe with a certain jealousy. They will like to see it well distributed, and will assuredly comment in no measured terms upon any conspicuous instance of favouritism, either for any nationality or for any particular branch of science that is not fairly within the range of the testators' intentions. These did not, it will be at once per- ceived, cover the whole scientific field. Dr. Nobel was devoted only to applied science. A. pure mathematician, even if he had advanced far beyond Mr. Clifford, would have no claim upon the bequest; nor would an astronomer, or any savant who had made a wonderful but useless discovery in the field of psychology. Still, the word " physics " covers a large area; chemistry is a science which attracts thousands; every doctor or surgeon will have some remote latent hope of winning the third prize ; the fourth will be contested by every quack as well as every student of applied science throughout the world ; while the fifth will, we should fancy, be the subject of endless discussion, in which there will be mixed up no small amount of controversial anger. We do not suppose the prize will be awarded to the Czar of Russia, to the Swiss President if he happens to arbitrate, or to any diplomatist. Dr. Nobel clearly meant to reward any one who should contribute an invention or an idea which will be a permanent assistance to the cause of peace; but then of whom can that be most fairly said ? Will the prize be awarded to some successful preacher of the doctrine of non-resistance; or to some one who has intro- duced a conscription of women, thereby developing the horror of war ; or to some one who has invented a weapon of destruc- tion so terrible that soldiers will not face it, and armies, becoming useless, will cease gradually to exist ? The last was probably the thought in the mind of the testator. His immense experience in explosives may have produced in his mind an idea that his branch of physical science would ultimately extinguish war, and although that notion has as yet no warrant from experience, we are not clear that it is wise to reject it lightly. It is quite certain that conscription, by forcing whole nations into the field, has made Europe dread war, as involving incalculable risks; and experience proves that the majority even of the best trained and bravest men will not face a certainty of destruction which will involve the whole of them. Our own sailors in the last days of wooden ships are said to have jumped overboard rather than face the new shells, and thus to have rendered the construction of ironclads a matter of pressing official con- cern. No army would defy without balloons foes who from manageable balloons were raining down dynamite shells; and soldiers as determined as the Austrians did not at all feel their courage increased by the fact that their adversaries at Sadowa were armed with rifles before which their own were hardly more useful than bows and arrows. It is quite possible if an asphyxiating shell were discovered which destroyed whole brigades at once, that private soldiers would refuse to fight, and if they did there exists no power on earth which could compel them. We shall be very curious to hear what the Distributing Board does with the prize to be awarded under the fifth clause, and shall rather expect to see that its result is a great increase in the courage or foolhardiness—call it which you like—with which chemists, Anarchists, and makers of projectiles will deal with the fulminates which are known to exist, but have never yet been brought under even partial control.
Will Dr. Nobel succeed in his obvious design of greatly increasing the devotion of thoughtful men to physical science ? We are not quite sure. He may, for he may turn towards physics the attention of men who have the gift of scientific investigation, but who have avoided using it because they wished to get on in other lines more open to them, or because they had, for family or other reasons, an absolute necessity for making money. It is conceivable, too, if the prizes are distributed with marked skill and impartiality, that they may come to be regarded as the Red Ribbons of science, and may be sought, especially by Southerners, as proofs and recog- nitions of world-wide distinction. We suspect, however, the increase will not be very great. The prizes will fall as a rule to men who were not seeking them, but were, like Lord Rayleigh or Lord Kelvin, seeking knowledge for the sake of knowledge, or, like Mr. Edison, were pursuing experiments from a mixture of motives, of which the desire for money is only one. The reward is not sufficient to stir the blood of the man whose first motive in inventing is money, for if he suc- ceeds be looks to see his patents bring him in every year more than Dr. Nobel's prize will yield him for once. The man with whom science is a passion will, of course, not be moved at all, any more than the man who has devoted his life to the scientific side of medicine, and who seeks his reward in pro- fessional reputation or in lessening the sum of human misery rather than in any single fee, even if it be one of ten thousand pounds. Men will write poetry, or paint, or pursue the path of scientific investigation, if they have a bent that way, whether fortune rewards their labours or not, and whether or not they see great prizes in hard cash at the end of their road. To many of them competition for such a prize will appear undignified, a feeling sure to be in- creased by the doubt almost certain to be fostered by the Press as to the perfect impartiality of the Distributing Board, who cannot know all nationalities or all physical sciences equally well. It is in an increased number of devotees of science that we should rather seek an increased success in physical investigation, and that would have been obtained more easily by a somewhat different destination of Dr. Nobel's bequest. It seems a little Philistine to say so, but we sus- pect our ancestors were right, and that there is no way of fostering any study quite equal to the establishment of bur- saries or fellowships tenable, say, for ten years. It is in the bias given to the young that we must seek the advancement of any intellectual pursuit, and nothing helps to give that bias like the security of a modest income during the early years when enthusiasm is strong and hope is bright, and the man regards the apprehension that he may work himself out as the fad of disappointed fogies who miss their ancient strength. The money would be sufficient to establish thirty such fellowships at least for every year, and from an annual addition of that number of men to those who are devoted to scientific investi- gation much might have been expected, more especially as they would have included a number of Asiatics, who have in a peculiar degree some of the qualities required for minute and patient observation. Asia has added nothing yet to the general mass of scientific knowledge. Dr. Nobel had, how- ever, thought out his own plan, he had a right to dispose of his own money, and we can only hope that the distributors he selected, who are not yet clearly defined in the telegrams, though they are certainly to be Swedes, will employ the great weapon he has placed in their hands to the general advantage of mankind, which, we must repeat for the hundredth time, does not invariably benefit by scientific discovery.
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