EFFECTIVENESS OF THE COMMITTEE ON OCEANOGRAPHY 215 



Real greatness was never attained without patience and industry — "Genius 

 is an inexhaustible power of taking trouble," Carlyle said. "Patience is power," 

 adds an Eastern proverb, "with time and patience the mulberry leaf becomes 

 satin." 



Check Master Irresponsible then, and consider well before you move. Make 

 your preparations carefully; they can never be too careful — the road is long. 

 Xo guesswork, no approximations. But when you strike out then throw your 

 whole self into the enterprise. Set all your sails. No wavering, for "self-trust 

 is the first secret of success," and don't check your boat when you are tacking. 



We pass many crossroads on our way through life, and the test of a man is 

 how he behaves at each crossroad, Some people cannot decide, they waver, 

 wishing to keep all ways open, and always looking back, they end by getting 

 nowhere. The traveler of the right mettle may consider well, but then he takes 

 one road, and sticks to that, and he always arrives somewhere. For him, the 

 only road is the road ahead of him, and there is no way back. 



I* have always thought the much-praised "line of retreat" is a snare for people 

 who wish to reach their goal. Let me tell you one secret of such so-called suc- 

 cesses as there may have been in my life, and here I believe I give you really good 

 advice. It was to burn my boats and demolish the bridges behind me. Then 

 one loses no time in looking behind when one should have quite enough to do^ in 

 looking ahead — then there is no choice for you or your men but forward. You 

 have to do or die. 



Let me try to tell you how it worked in my case. I have to apologize once 

 more for devoting so much time to myself, but I see no way of avoiding that, 

 if I am really to tell you something about my life. I was an undergraduate even 

 younger than most of you, probably, and a "ne'er do well" except for some little 

 sport perhaps. 



According to Carlyle, the first of all problems for a man to find out is what 

 kind of work he is to do in this universe. 



But even this little problem I had not been able to solve. I had a leaning to 

 science, but to which science? Physics and chemistry interested me most, but 

 Master Irresponsible, over whom I had no control at that time, did not like that 

 kind of work much. One day he suddenly took it into his head that zoology 

 would be better, as that promised more fun — more shooting and out-of-door 

 life — consequently we went in for zoology. 



Then one day the irresponsible creature suddenly suggested that we should go 

 on a voyage to the Arctic Sea, under the pretext of studying tre animal life of the 

 polar regions — I was 20 then. Off we went. That was the first fatal step that 

 led me astray from the quiet life of science. It gave me moie Arctic sport, more 

 interest in various polar problems than actual zoological research. And on that 

 voyage we were caught and beset in the pack ice, and drifted for over 3 weeks 

 toward the then unknown east coast of Greenland. I saw the mountains and 

 glaciers, and a longing awoke in me, and vague plans revolved in my mind of 

 exploring the unknown interior of that mysterious land. I returned home. I 

 was made curator of the Zoological Museum at Bergen. The Arctic dreams 

 were more or less forgotten. I went in, body and soul, for zoology, and especially 

 for microscopical anatomy. For 6 years I lived in a microscope; it was an 

 entirely new world. Master Irresponsible kept me fairly quiet during 3 years, 

 and we were well on the way to becoming a promising young zoologist. During 

 that period, too, I visited this university, just 40 years ago, and met for the first 

 time your great zoologist, my old friend, Professor Mcintosh, who is still among 

 us. I wrote some works especially on the microscopical anatomy of the nervous 

 system. They contained some discoveries of value, I believe, but still more 

 important were perhaps the new problems which they raised. We were full of 

 ambitious plans for investigations to solve those problems. Most of those 

 investigations have later been made by others, but some of the problems are still 

 waiting to be solved, I believe. 



Anyhow, we had possibilities of doing work worth doing, and of becoming a 

 sound man of science, and a university professor. I still feel a pang of regret 

 when I think of those lost opportunities. 



But just then Master Irresponsible took advantage of a weak moment, and 

 played me one of his fatal tricks. We had just finished a treatise on the nervous 

 system, with the result that the author's own nervous system was overstrained, 

 and needed a little rest. Then he brought back the Arctic dreams, and told me 

 that the time had come to carry out our old plan of crossing Greenland. It 

 would not take long, and we could soon return to the nervous system again with 

 renewed vigor. 



