IV PREFACE. 



hoped, through such a course, to bring speciahsts into 

 mutually helpful and stimulating relations with one 

 another, and at the same time to make their work and 

 thought intelligible and useful to beginners. 



It was not intended to take the place of systematic 

 lectures, such as are given in the regular courses of 

 instruction ; it stands rather for the higher and the 

 more general needs of the science. Its leading pur- 

 pose, if I may be permitted to define it more with 

 reference to the possibilities of its future development 

 than to its present attainment, was to meet the rapidly 

 growing need of co-operative union among specialists. 

 Specialization has now reached a point where such union 

 appears to be an essential means of progress. Speciali- 

 zation is not science, but merely the method of science. 

 For the sake of greater concentration of effort, we 

 divide the labor ; but this division of the labor leads to 

 interdependence among the laborers, and makes social 

 co-ordination more and more essential. This is the 

 law of progress throughout the social as well as the 

 orgfanic world. An oro^anism travels towards its most 

 perfect state in proportion as its component cell-indi- 

 viduals reach the limit of specialization, and form a 

 whole of mutually dependent parts. Scientific organi- 

 zation obeys the same law. As methods of investiga- 

 tion improve, specialization advances, and at the same 

 time the mutual dependence of specialists increases. 

 Isolation in work becomes more and more unendura- 

 ble. Comparison of results, interchange of views and 

 ideas, and a thousand other advantages of social contact, 

 become of paramount importance to the highest devel- 

 opment. 



