26 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



has an overweening confidence often in formal logic, but is unable 

 to see that this useful device may plaj^ tricks by bringing him, for 

 example, simultaneously to right and to wrong conclusions by 

 reason of wi'ong premises. His worst defect is manifested in 

 asking for and in expecting to get more lenient consideration 

 in the forum of demonstration than that accorded to his more 

 modest but more effective competitors. 



How inadequate are the hasty popular estimates of these excep- 

 tional individuals is sufficiently witnessed in the extensive experi- 

 ence of the Institution. In the brief interval of its existence it 

 has had to deal with about 12,000 of them. Many of these have 

 been commended to the Institution in terms w^ell calculated to 

 set aside the laws of biologic continuity and thus to elevate the 

 aspirants abruptly from irreproachable respectability^ to question- 

 able fame. To some of them have been attributed quaUties 

 worthy of the mythological characteristics conceived by the un- 

 restrained imaginations of men in prescientific times. Not a few 

 of them have proved to be obvious fakers, schemers, or incompe- 

 tents masquerading in the name of learning with the confident 

 expectation that the Institution would indorse, finance, or other- 

 wise promote their objects under the guise of research. But, as 

 might have been predicted, the history of all this varied experience 

 is a history of f utihty clouded here and there by manifestations of 

 the baser traits of mankind and lighted up only occasionally by 

 flashes of wit, wisdom, or humor in the prevaiHng pathologic cast. 



RESEARCHES OF THE YEAR. 

 In spite of the disturbing conditions by which the world has 

 been confronted during the past three years, the researches of the 



Institution have proceeded, in general, with- 

 Departments ^^^ essential modifications or limitations. Thus, 



while the complexities of these conditions and 

 the uncertainties they entail have increased in marked degree, 

 there has been as j^et no corresponding diminution in the produc- 

 tive capacities of the departments of research. Many circum- 

 stances have arisen to change the incidence and to enlarge the 

 scope of their activities, but all these have remained within the 

 limits of their respective fields of investigation. It is a significant 

 fact in respect to these activities that there is now manifest not 

 only an increasing public appreciation of the knowledge devel- 

 oped bj^ these departments, but also an increasing public demand 



