EDITOR'S TABLE. 



125 



But, as we have admitted, there 

 may be cases where the nature of 

 the individual is such as to repel 

 all effort for its improvement. Here 

 the law must step in, and secure 

 the community against the dangers 

 to which the existence of such in- 

 dividuals exposes it. There is a 

 certain element in the population 

 which wishes to live, and is deter- 

 mined to live, on a level altogether 

 below anything that can be called 

 civilization. Those who compose it 

 are nomadic and predatory in their 

 habits, and occasionally give way to 

 acts of fearful criminality. It is 

 foolish not to recognize the fact, 

 and take the measures that may be 

 necessary for the isolation of this 

 element. To devise and execute 

 such measures is a burden a thou- 

 sand times better worth taking up 

 than the burden of imposing our 

 yoke upon the Philippine Islands 

 and crushing out a movement to- 

 ward liberty quite as respectable, to 

 all outward appearance, as that to 

 which we have reared monuments at 

 Bunker Hill and elsewhere. The 

 fact is, the work before us at home 

 is immense; and it is work which 

 we might attack, not only without 

 qualms of conscience, but with the 

 conviction that every unit of labor 

 devoted to it was being directed to- 

 ward the highest interests not of 

 the present generation only, but of 

 generations yet unborn. The "white 

 man," we trust, will some day see 

 it; but meanwhile valuable time is 

 being lost, and the national con- 

 science is being lowered by the as- 

 sumption of burdens that are not 

 ours, whatever Mr. Kipling may have 

 said or sung, or whatever Governor 

 Roosevelt may assert on his word as 

 a soldier. 



8PECIALIZA TION. 



That division of labor is as ne- 

 cessary in the pursuit of science as 

 in the world of industiy no one 



would think of disputing; but that, 

 like division of labor elsewhere, it 

 has its drawbacks and dangers is 

 equally obvious. When the latter 

 truth is insisted on by those who are 

 not recognized as experts, the ex- 

 perts are apt to be somewhat con- 

 temptuous in resenting such inter- 

 ference, as they consider it. An ex- 

 pert himself has, however, taken up 

 the parable, and his words merit at- 

 tention. We refer to an address 

 delivered by Prof. J. Arthur Thomp- 

 son, at the University of Aberdeen, 

 upon entering on his duties as Re- 

 gius Professor of Natural History, 

 a post to which he was lately ap- 

 pointed. " We need to be remind- 

 ed," he said, " amid the undoubted 

 and surely legitimate fascinations 

 of dissection and osteology, of sec- 

 tion cutting and histology, of physi- 

 ological chemistry and physiological 

 physics, of embryology and fossil 

 hunting, and the like, that the chief 

 end of our study is a better under- 

 standing of living creatures in their 

 natural surroundings." He could 

 see no reason, he went on to say, for 

 adding aimlessly to the overwhelm- 

 ing mass of detail already accumu- 

 lated in these and other fields of re- 

 search. The aim of our efforts should 

 rather be to grasp the chief laws of 

 growth and structure, and to rise to 

 a true conception of the meaning of 

 organization. 



The tendency to over-speciali- 

 zation is manifest everywhere; it 

 may be traced in physics and chem- 

 istry, in mathematics, in archaeol- 

 ogy, and in philology, as well as in 

 biology. We can not help thinking 

 that there is a certain narcotic in- 

 fluence arising from the steady ac- 

 cumulation of minute facts, so that 

 what was in the first place, and in 

 its early stages, an invigorating pur- 

 suit becomes not only an absorbing, 

 but more or less a benumbing pas- 

 sion. We are accustomed to pro- 

 fess great admiration for Brown- 

 ing's Grammarian, who — 



