248 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



source of knowledge is an acknowledgment of ignorance, and meager- 

 ness of ability is to be measured by narrowness. That investigator with 

 a foreshortened horizon will find everything small. 



We hear it said that in science all facts have an equal value, just 

 as all links in a chain have equal importance. If this were so, then 

 all problems of science should have an equal significance and it would 

 make no difference what choice of problems were made. But the 

 premise is wrong, because we generally recognize that some phenomena 

 have very wide bearings while others do not, or at least do not in our 

 present understanding of them. Thus the phenomenon of the size of 

 an animal has not nearly so much significance as the phenomena of its 

 rate of growth or alternation of generations. We measure the value of 

 a phenomenon by the number of ideas we associate with it, that is, its 

 relative degree of complexity. As in art a painting of a basket of fruit, 

 no matter how excellent the technique, can not be compared in value 

 with a study of a human face, so in science the discovery and descrip- 

 tion of a new muscle, no matter how accurately made, can not be paral- 

 leled with an investigation of the process of formation of that muscle. 

 The human face and the process of differentiation call up ever-widening 

 associations, while the basket of fruit and the muscle suggest a meal. 

 To be sure, a master artist might make the basket of fruit appear 

 celestial, and a great anatomist make the muscle seem extraordinary, 

 but they would still suggest a meal, even though a meal for angels or 

 heroes. Men will differ as to the relative importance of any thing, and 

 we have no right to prefer our estimates to others. But it is generally 

 acknowledged in science that the investigation of a process is of a 

 higher order than the contemplation of one particular step, the number 

 of comparisons possible being the criterion of value. Thus it is certain 

 that all problems are not of equal value, because they have very dif- 

 ferent bearings. All need solution, they are of sufficient diversity to 

 appeal to all types of mind, but a man should assure himself that his 

 problem has really broad significance. And when the layman ap- 

 proaches us on the manner of our work we should not tell him, as is 

 often done, that he can not understand it because he is not a scientist; 

 for if we can not make it intelligent to him it is clear we have no good 

 comprehension of its bearings, and the fault is with us and not with 

 him. Every scientific research has some connection with human inter- 

 ests we should understand what the connection is ; if we do not under- 

 stand this we are to blame for any lack of sympathy. It is a duty of 

 the investigator towards his subject to make it comprehensible to the 

 layman, and when he does so his merits will be acknowledged, but not 

 before. 



Like every other process, so thought needs time, and by reflection 

 is meant thought pursued at leisure. When a certain result has been 



