ORGANIZED SCIENCE 307 



well observed a century ago, to an eflFort of discrimination of which 

 he might not otherwise be capable. 



The authors and asserters of the new opinions, in order to make them 

 defensible, have been compelled to make them consistent; in order to 

 recommend them to others, they have been obliged to make them 

 more entirely intelligible to themselves. 



Appreciation. The artist may well ignore his critics: they do not 

 paint. But the scientist's critics are also scientists, and he covets their 

 good opinion. The public at large may be totally indifferent, scorn- 

 ful, or even hostile toward what most engages his interest and effort. 

 However sympathetic, his family and nonprofessional friends are 

 usually incapable of understanding, and so of truly appreciating, his 

 achievements. Such appreciation he must and does seek from his 

 professional colleagues. Perforce a snob, he is all the more so in that, 

 even within the limited group of his fellows, he values most the 

 esteem of those he himself most admires. And this is of prime im- 

 portance: simple conformity and routine performance will not evoke 

 the esteem of the most illustrious in the scientific community. In a 

 statement highly characteristic in its use of the word "conquer," 

 Pasteur asserts: 



The recompense and the ambition of a scientist is to conquer the ap- 

 probation of his peers and of the masters whom he venerates. 



Equally characteristic, in its unaffectedness, is Darwin's statement to 

 the same effect. 



My love of natural science has been steady and ardent. This pure 

 love has, however, been much aided by the ambition to be esteemed 

 by my fellow naturalists. 



We have then perhaps already identified that ambition of which 

 Nicolle writes : 



Without ambition and without vanity nobody would enter a profes- 

 sion so contrary to our natural appetites. 



The scientist's vanity? Surely just that gratified in the making of an 

 important original discovery. 



Today the scientist's ambition and vanity may well be tempered 

 by rather less elevated considerations. The supports and rewards for 

 scientific work have ballooned in the last score of years. Thus the 



