ORGANIZED SCIENCE 317 



/ 



tion— the scientific principle from the metaphysical matrix— and in 

 consequence others who rejected his metaphysics wrote off his physics 

 as well. Most scientists have succeeded better in making the required 

 distinction. A somewhat more common miscarriage of natural selec- 

 tion arises from the innovator's deficient commitment. 



Boyle questioned that the sandy deposit formed in water long 

 boiled in glass vessels is actually transmuted water. But he did not 

 think enough of his idea to carry out the experiments (with metal 

 vessels, for example) he conceived would resolve the issue. Unsup- 

 ported by action his scepticism counted for nothing, and we rightly 

 regard Lavoisier as the man who actually solved the problem. Wa- 

 terston created a kinetic theory years before its independent creation 

 by others. Rebuffed by the publications committee of the Royal 

 Society, Waterston did not make an effective fight for his ideas 

 which, in consequence, had no effect whatever. Perhaps, for both 

 geographic and temperamental reasons, he could not make such a 

 fight: then resident in distant India, he was so cast down by his fail- 

 ure that he never undertook any other scientific work. In 1935 Nod- 

 dack published her sceptical appraisal of Fermi's hypothesis of 

 transuranic elements. But she did nothing to exploit, or secure the 

 exploitation of, her idea that Fermi had produced an unprecedent- 

 edly gross nuclear transformation. Her idea then counted for noth- 

 ing, and nuclear fission was discovered, quite independently, only 

 in 1939. 



Excessive authority. Presumably the intensity of personal commit- 

 ment usually falls in the acceptable range where demonstrable deeds 

 are produced if at all producible. But even then natural selection may 

 fail. Natural selection must fail if excessive concentrations of author- 

 ity make special sanctuary for certain species of opinion. Authori- 

 tarian perturbations of the mechanism of selection are most frequent 

 wherever science overlaps the humanly compelling concerns of cos- 

 mology and technology. But even in pure science Gerhardt and Laur- 

 ent could make little headway against the well entrenched enmity 

 of a Dumas. High wisdom of the wielders of authority does not en- 

 sure wise exercise of authority. Planck's important doctoral disserta- 

 tion failed to win the attention of any of the three great masters to 

 whom he appealed— Clausius, Helmholtz, and Kirchhoff. Today the 

 threat of authoritarian perturbation of natural selection is no doubt 



