BIOLOGICAL LABORATORIES 229 



The brief statement to be here made about the policy of this institu- 

 tion will be facilitated and possibly rendered more interesting by putting 

 it in the form of a trenchant comparison between the two exclusively 

 research stations of the Pacific coast ; the Herzstein laboratory at Pacific 

 Grove and the Seripps Institution. 



For full two thousand years there have been among the inquiring 

 two conceptions or faiths about the nature of the world, particularly the 

 living part of it, that stand over against each other with a sharpness 

 and apparently irreconcilable antagonism which, seen in their fullness, 

 are highly poetic as well as profoundly scientific. These two concep- 

 tions flow from the university experience of the unity, on the one hand, 

 and the diversity, on the other, of nature. Because of the first some 

 men have conceived that at its core nature is One and Simple ; and with 

 an irresistible faith they have sought to penetrate to the single essence 

 or substance held by this philosopher to be Spirit, by that Matter, the 

 grasping of which should constitute the discovery of the great mystery 

 of existence. 



This kind of faith has found no finer expression in the modern era 

 of all-pervading scientific analysis than in Tennyson's 



Flower in the crannied wall, 

 I pluck YOU out of the crannies;- — 

 Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 

 Little flower — but if I could understand 

 What you are, root and all, and all in all 

 I should know what God and man is. 



The distinguished scientist whose investigations the Herzstein labo- 

 ratory was built primarily to further would probably agree that were 

 his ultimate biological ideas and aims to be expressed in the poet's wa}', 

 these lines would need as little alteration as any that could be found. 

 He might wish to have the first line so altered as to give the flower's 

 place to the sea urchin ; and would probably want " God " replaced by 

 "' Mechanism" or some term which disguises its anthropomorphism as 

 effectually. But the great basal idea "... if I could understand A¥hat 

 you are ... all in all, I should Ivnow what God and man is," would 

 presumably need no alteration. 



And why should not devout chemico-physical biologist and devout 

 theist alike have each his unfaltering faith in substance. One or at most 

 very few, All-pervasive, All-potent, Eternal? For has not each in his 

 own sphere and his own way discovered to the deepest depths of his 

 nature a few mighty realities underneath the vast, bewildering maze of 

 phenomena ? 



No one can look upon the simple laboratory under the pine trees at 

 Pacific Grove and contemplate the idea for which it stands without 

 seeing true grandeur in its simplicity. 



