The Frontiers of the Sciences 



culture, enters a laboratory, where he will remain 

 for the rest of his life, breathing the same air, 

 imbibing the same doctrines and keeping his 

 brain busy with the concepts of his predecessors; 

 only too fortunate if he possesses sufficient 

 independence and individuality of mind to add 

 a few new ideas to the accepted ones. He has 

 neither time, nor perhaps inclination, to inquire 

 what is happening through the wall in the next 

 laboratory. Some naturalists have spent a life- 

 time studying algae or a class of insects; some 

 physicists have never touched an optical instru- 

 ment ; some chemists have devoted their entire 

 lives to the study of a single metal or of a class of 

 salts. It would be desirable that in addition to 

 these specialists who are the workers necessary 

 to scientific progress there should appear on 

 the scene from time to time a genius sufficiently 

 universal to grasp the sum of human knowledge 

 and by an effort of synthesis constitute Science 

 out of the separate sciences. 



Humanity has had its Newton and its 



Leibnitz, but such men no longer exist or have 



failed to reveal themselves if they do; and the 



reason is that the tree of knowledge has out- 



s 293 



