212 PART IV. PREP A RA TORY STAGE. 



this may be found in how Aristotle came to be pre-eminent 

 among the scholastics. Byzantine scholars acclimatised him in 

 their land and also popularised him in Egypt. When in the 

 seventh century the bellicose Arabs invaded the latter country, 

 they became disciples of Aristotle, and carried his fame to 

 wherever their conquests extended. Thus he came to be studied 

 in Spain, of which the Arabs had become the masters. And 

 thence the works were gradually introduced to the rest of Europe. 

 Collaboration, which Bacon so strongly recommended, is 

 becoming more and more prevalent. Dictionaries, encyclopedias, 

 and text-books are now frequently compiled by companies of 

 scholars; the heavens are at present being mapped out by 

 about a score of observatories concertedly; an International 

 Committee deals with the work done in relation to the exact 

 determination of atomic weights, whilst an International Com- 

 mission of Scientific Aeronautics directs the studies for upper 

 air research ; national and international scientific institutions, 

 academies, conferences, and periodicals, facilitate exchange of 

 opinions and co-operation ; and men of science, especially physi- 

 cists and biologists, not rarely keep in intimate contact with 

 others who are pursuing kindred lines of enquiry. 1 Except 

 for this fact of collaboration, scientific advance would be much 

 retarded. The knowledge we possess of radium, the advances 

 which are being recorded in chemistry, and the progress re- 

 gistered in the biological sciences are largely due to men readily 



1 Here is an example : "About the middle of the nineteenth century there 

 came into existence in most countries organisations, either voluntary or 

 State supported, for collecting observations of weather from a number of 

 places and for summarising the observations when collected. At the present 

 time the land surface of the globe is covered by a network of stations at 

 which regular observations of weather are made on a definite plan. Over 

 wide areas, especially in the tropics, the network is of very wide mesh, 

 so that many facts which it would be desirable to record escape notice. The 

 organisation of the work is still imperfect in other respects also, but each 

 year sees a further approach to the meteorologist's ideal of securing regular 

 observations from the whole world, so that he may be able t.o study the 

 world's weather changes as a whole. Nor is the ocean neglected, for most 

 ocean-going ships keep a regular record of weather observations. Each 

 station or ship forwards its records regularly to the central institution of its 

 country for correlation with those taken elsewhere. In this way a vast amount 

 of material is collected and made available for study or for application to the 

 affairs of every-day life. The central institutions of different countries are 

 kept in contact with one another by periodic conferences of their directors, 

 which conferences elect from their members a committee to deal with current 

 questions." (R. G. K. Lempfert, op. cit., pp. vi-vii.) 



The need for co-operation is also appreciated in the efficiency movement. 

 "Wherever possible more than one observer should be set to work, as the 

 statistics will be much more valuable if personal idiosyncrasies can be 

 eliminated by comparison and repetition." (M. and A. D. McKillop, op. cit., 

 p. 84.) So, too, Mr. and Mrs. Gilbreth urge that methods of efficiency 

 should be discovered by trade associations rather than by individuals or 

 firms, and that skill should be transferred to bodies of workers simultaneously 

 rather than to one individual at a time. 



