Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained. I was taught that the way of progress was neither swift nor easy. You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end, each of us must work for our own improvement and, at the same time, share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful. It is my earnest desire that some of you should carry on this scientific work and keep for your ambition the determination to make a permanent contribution to science. Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less. One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done. Scientific work must not be considered from the point of view of the direct usefulness of it. It must be done for itself, for the beauty of science, and then there is always the chance that a scientific discovery may become like the radium, a benefit for humanity. The various reasons we have just enumerated lead us to believe that the new radioactive substance contains a new element to which we propose to give the name of RADIUM. There are sadistic scientists who hurry to hunt down errors instead of establishing the truth. We must act. |