516 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Eesearch recognizes no immediate boundary to its activities, and no 

 limit to its possible acquisitions. In placing only a temporary value 

 upon its constructive plans and using theories only as aids to new 

 facts, science grows in candor and modesty with its achievements. 



In biology and medicine, the spirit of research takes into account 

 the continual movement and flux in living things and their environ- 

 ment. It is a study of change, of transformation, brought about by 

 conditions which may or may not be under experimental control. We 

 describe carefully and minutely, not for the sake of the picture and 

 its details, but chiefly to be able to recognize the change. Unless we 

 know the consecutive pictures how can we detect the movement and its 

 trend ? It is the moving picture of the kinetoscope that has gradually 

 replaced the single view in repose. 



But there is danger that we may move too rapidly and find our 

 advanced positions untenable. The world is just now very optimistic 

 and expectations run high. If we give way to the feverish haste of 

 our day, the slow, sure advance of medical science may be brought 

 into discredit. For it is one of the features of this feverish haste to 

 leave the position held as soon as possible for one more advanced. We 

 move away because we have some doubt as to the security and trust- 

 worthiness of our present position, and we hope to gain by pushing 

 beyond it rather than strengthening it. As a result of this attitude 

 we find the thing most characteristic of the day and age is the rapid 

 remolding of our stock of information. Revolutionary views are ut- 

 tered from an inadequate basis of observational and experimental data. 

 Theories become kaleidoscopic in their variety. Old views long since 

 discarded come to the surface like old fashions. All this change and 

 ferment is both the cause and the effect of the enquiring attitude of 

 mind. Eesearch begets new data and the opposition to these begets 

 new research. Thus the fermentation is kept up and a froth several 

 years deep lies on the surface which few can penetrate. 



This haste and hurry is part and parcel of what might be called 

 nature's lavish waste of energy. The volume of our information in- 

 creases more rapidly than our knowledge of the principles which under- 

 lie and support it. The progress actually made is more apparent 

 than real. It is a swaying to and fro with but little forward move- 

 ment. Like the driftwood of which the waves are endeavoring to un- 

 burden themselves, many excursions back and forth must be made 

 before the fact is finally landed. It is often much battered and barely 

 recognizable. 



That there is here a golden mean to be followed need not be em- 

 phasized. The spirit of research should be properly tempered by a 

 true insight into the relation of enquiry to the great accumulation of 

 knowledge and the reserve forces stored in the every-day experience 

 of mankind and handed down from generation to generation. 



