A STATISTICAL STUDY OF AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE. 1 



THE SELECTION OF A GROUP OF ONE THOUSAND 

 SCIENTIFIC MEN 



THE psychologist, like the student of other 

 sciences, can view his subject from different 

 standpoints and pursue it by various methods. 

 He may get what knowledge he can of mental 

 processes by introspection, or he may use ob- 

 jective methods. He may confine himself to 

 the " inner life," or he may study the indi- 

 vidual in all his psychophysical relations. He 

 may give verbal descriptions, or he may make 

 measurements. He may describe static men- 

 tal life, or he may study the lower animals 

 and human beings from a dynamic and genetic 

 point of view. . He may attempt to determine 

 facts and laws that hold for mental life in 

 general, or he may attend to individual dif- 

 ferences. He may ignore the practical appli- 

 cations of his science, or he may investigate 

 them. Psychology has until recently con- 

 cerned itself chiefly with the first of these vari- 

 ous alternatives. But its recent progress and 

 future development seem to the present writer 

 to depend particularly on" the second. In this 

 case, our two main methods, which can often 

 be combined, are experiment and measure- 

 ment in the laboratory, and the inductive and 

 statistical study of groups of individuals. In 

 recent years great progress has been made in 

 both directions. Experimental psychology has 

 become a science coordinate with the other 

 great sciences, and statistics have been ex- 

 tended to include sociological and moral phe- 

 nomena. 



The intensive study of groups of individuals 

 has, however, only been begun. The origin of 

 the method may be attributed to Quetelet, 

 whose " Essai de physique sociale " was pub- 

 lished in 1835, and its principal development 



1 Reprinted from SCIENCE, N. S., 24: 658-665, 

 November 23; 699-707, November 30; 732-742, 

 December 7, 1906. 



to Dr. Francis Galton, whose "Hereditary 

 Genius " (1869) has been followed by a series 

 of books and articles, including " English Men 

 of Science" (1874). Another work bearing 

 closely on the subject matter of the present 

 paper is Alphonse de Candolle's " Histoire des 

 sciences et des savants depuis deux siecles" 

 (1873). Other extensive studies of groups of 

 individuals are: Dr. Paul Jacoby's "Etudes 

 sur la selection " (1881), which has as its sub- 

 ject matter the 3,311 Frenchmen of the eight- 

 eenth century whose biographies are included 

 in the " Biographie universelle," Professor A. 

 Odin's " Genese des grands hommes " (1895), 

 which is a study of 6,382 French men of let- 

 ters; Mr. Havelock Ellis's "A Study of British 

 Genius " (1906, published in the Popular Sci- 

 ence Monthly, February-September, 1901), 

 which considers 859 men and 43 women of 

 eminence, and Dr. F. A. Woods's " Mental and 

 Moral Heredity in Koyalty " (1906, published 

 in the Popular Science Monthly, August, 

 1902- April, 1903), which treats 832 membera 

 of royal families. 



I have myself selected as material for study 

 three groups : a thousand students of Columbia 

 University; 2 the thousand most eminent men 

 in history;* a thousand American men of 

 science.* 



3 " Physical and Mental Measurements of the 

 Students of Columbia University" (with Dr. Liv- 

 ingston Farrand). Psychol. Rev., 3: 618-648, 

 1896. Cf. also the dissertation for the doctorate 

 of Clark Wissler, " The Correlation of Mental and 

 Physical Tests," Psychol. Rev., Monograph Sup- 

 plements, 16: iv + 62, 1901. 



*"A Statistical Study of Eminent Men," Pop. 

 Bci. Hon., 53: 359-378, 1903. 



4 "Homo Scientificus Americanus: Address of 

 the president of the American Society of Natural- 

 ists," SCIENCE, N. S., 17: 561-570, 1903. "Sta- 

 tistics of American Psychologists," Am. Jour, of 

 Psychol., 14: 310-328, 1903. Towards the cost 



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