A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



unoccupied tables at his disposal, and who will surely 

 extend the courtesy of their occupancy, for a reasonable 

 period, to any proper applicant, come he whence he 

 may. 



Thus it chances that one finds men of all nations 

 working in the Naples laboratory biologists from all 

 over Europe, including Russia, from America, from 

 Australia, from Japan. One finds women also, but 

 these, I believe, are usually from America. Biologists 

 who at home are at the head of fully equipped labora- 

 tories come here to profit by the wealth of material, 

 as well as to keep an eye upon the newest methods of 

 their craft, and to gain the inspiration of contact with 

 other workers in allied fields. Many of the German 

 university teachers, for example, make regular pil- 

 grimages to Naples during their vacations, and more 

 than one of them have made the original investigations 

 here that have given them an international reputation. 



As to the exact methods of study employed by the 

 individual workers here, little need be said. In this 

 regard, as in regard to instrumental equipment, one 

 biological laboratory is necessarily much like another, 

 and the general conditions of original scientific experi- 

 ment are pretty much the same everywhere. What is 

 needed is, first, an appreciation of the logical bearings 

 of the problem to be solved ; and, secondly, the skill and 

 patience to carry out long lines of experiments, many 

 of which necessarily lead to no tangible result. The 

 selection of material for the experiments planned, the 

 watching and cultivating of the living forms in the 

 laboratory tanks, the cutting of numberless filmy sec- 

 tions for microscopical examination these things, 



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