sporadic
attempts and scattered adventures. The two strongest motives, patriotic
devotion and commercial gain, would have been lacking. The English have
never been good at preparing for a merely possible war; they are apt,
indeed, to regard such preparation as ill-omened and impious. This
strenuous and self-dependent breed of men, being conscious that they do
not desire war, and believing that he is thrice armed who has his
quarrel just, have always been content, in the face of many warnings, to
repose their main confidence in the virtue of their cause and the
strength of their character. The risks that they run through this
confidence have often been pointed out, but it should also be remembered
that by their reluctance to act on theory they have often been saved
from the elaborate futility and expense of acting on a false theory. The
disaster which has befallen Germany cannot but strengthen them in their
belief that it is dangerous to devote care and thought to preparing for
all imaginable conflicts. So also in the activities of civil life,
before they undertake a large outlay they ask to be assured of solid
gains. They leave it to the adventurers, who have never failed them, to
blaze the track for commerce. Where a new science is concerned, this
mode of progress is slow. Private enterprise and personal rivalry too
often bring with them the tactics of secrecy. Science is not an
individual possession, and the man who tries to appropriate it to
himself often sterilizes his work and forfeits his place in the history
of progress. In his anxiety to assert his own claims he forgets that his
work has been made possible only by what has come to him as a free gift
from others, that his own contribution to human knowledge is a slight
thing, that in protecting himself against imitators he is also depriving
himself of helpers and pupils, and is bartering the dignity of science
for the rewards of a patentee. The Wrights in America and Captain Ferber
in France left behind them a full and frank record of all their doings,
thereby conferring an enormous benefit on others, and securing for
themselves an unassailable position in the history of flight. Much may
be said in favour of the traditional English doctrine of free
competition. Where knowledge is readily accessible, and the field is
open to all, free competition stimulates and rewards industry and skill.
On the other hand, where a new science is struggling into being,
commercial c