RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS IN PURE SCIENCE 51 



THE DUTIES TO THE PUBLIC OF EESEARCH INSTITU- 

 TIONS IN PURE SCIENCE 



Bx Peofbssor WM. E. RITTER 



SCIENTIFIC DIEECTOK OF THE SAN DIEGO MARINE BIOLOGICAL STATION 



THOSE most familiar with the Marine Biological Station of San 

 Diego must have recognized that while up to the present moment 

 it has devoted itself almost exclusively to research, an undoubted tend- 

 ency has been manifested to depart from the strait and narrow way. 

 Elementary instruction was given to young people several summers; an 

 aquarium and museum open to the public free of charge were main- 

 tained a number of years; from time to time popular lectures and 

 demonstrations have been given by the investigators connected with 

 the laboratory; recently relations have been entered into with the Cali- 

 fornia State Game and Fish Commission and with the United States 

 Bureau of Soils for the investigation of industrial problems pertaining 

 to the sea; and in various less obvious ways efforts have been made to 

 be of service outside the realm of exclusive research. 



It seems desirable to place on record more fully than has hitherto 

 been done the ideas held by the scientific director touching the duties 

 to the public of institutions for research in science generally and of 

 this station particularly.^ 



As a point of departure for what is to be said we take the assertion 

 that " Science for its own sake " as frequently understood is a false and 

 unrealizable ideal. Science " for its own sake," art " for its own sake," 

 wealth or anything else " for its own sake," if held without fundamental 

 qualification, bears the germs of its own degradation if not of its death. 

 Science can no more live " to itself alone " than can a human being. 

 The fallacy prevalent here is in reasoning that because science and 

 because art each has an exalted intrinsic nature and worth, it therefore 

 has a nature and worth quite apart from its relation to other things and 

 to men. Somehow it seems difficult to grasp the truth that the worth 

 of science is in deepest essence partly intrinsic or resident, and partly 

 extrinsic and relative. However, that its essential worth is thus two- 

 fold becomes obvious upon reflection. On the one hand science has a 

 nature of its very own, an absolute nature. It is not anything else 

 whatever. It is not religion, it is not philosophy, it is not art of any 

 kind, it is not mathematics, it is not commerce. At the same time, 



* Indeed this little essay is in the first instance an administrative document 

 addressed to the patrons and board of managers of the station. 



