5 o POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



are aspects of certain biological problems, for instance, that admit of 

 no other than mathematical treatment; and this treatment ought to 

 be, indeed to be thoroughly sound must be, at the hand not of a 

 botanist or zoologist with some incidental mathematical training, but 

 of a mathematician. The astrophysicist is really a physicist using 

 his tools in astronomy. The biochemist is primarily a chemist apply- 

 ing his cunning in the domain of living things. The paleontologist, 

 whatever else he may be, must be a zoologist, and so on. So important 

 is this matter that at the risk of seeming verbosity, I venture to illus- 

 trate it yet further. 



Take anthropology, and to make the case more concrete, consider 

 the question of the native peoples of western North America, for in 

 a remote, amateurish sort of way I have an interest in some phases 

 of this question. The broadest, fullest knowledge possible about these 

 tribes is, of course, the ultimate aim. The investigations must then 

 comprehend their somatology, their language, their psychology, their 

 culture and their archeology, which runs into paleontology and so into 

 geology. Now who but one soaked in linguistics is really competent 

 to handle the language end of the problem ? But where, think you, is 

 the man thus prepared who is equally soaked in comparative anatomy 

 and thus made equally fit for the somatological end of the problem? 

 He simply does not exist, nor can he. 



Or again, take the field of marine biology, about which I speak 

 with some of the confidence that experience is capable of begetting. 

 And first let the distinction be sharply made, as it surely must be, 

 between marine biology and general biology advanced by researches on 

 marine organisms. The former has for its aim, in the large, the 

 getting of as comprehensive an understanding as possible of the life of 

 the sea. It, of course, presents itself under a great variety of second- 

 ary, tertiary, etc., questions; but the sum total of the phenomena of 

 marine plants and animals will never be lost sight of as its real aim. 

 The latter makes use of animals and plants that live in the sea in 

 general biological researches. That these organisms happen to be 

 marine is an incident merely. The investigator turns away from his 

 sea organisms without hesitation when others, from whatever source, 

 come to hand that suit his purpose better. Further, the user of marine 

 organisms in such general investigations is quite indifferent to every 

 thing concerning them that does not bear upon his particular problem. 

 He puts aside the marine animal after it has served his purpose with- 

 out having even noticed, perhaps, the major part of its traits and 

 qualities, and questions about it. 



Now marine biology as here comprehended must have the correlated 

 efforts of highly trained investigators in several widely separated fields 

 of science. In the first place, there must be, of course, for the 



