THE SEMI-CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 21 



fertile channels, so that those who have the gift of connecting 

 facts shall not fail because the facts are not available. 



The advance of science demands that experiment or observa- 

 tion and theoretical discussion should advance in parallel lines. 

 Without organization, one of the teams on whose joint exertions 

 the advance depends, is likely to outrun the other. Thus New- 

 ton, when he had formulated his law of gravitation, which con- 

 nects the orbit of the moon with the acceleration of falling 

 bodies, did not publish his discovery for many years, because 

 he could not verify his theory as closely as he desired. It was 

 only after the French Academy had accurately measured an 

 arc of meridian and had discovered a substantial error in pre- 

 vious measurements that Newton's law of gravitation could be 

 said to be proved. In this case theory had gone ahead of obser- 

 vation; but examples of the opposite kind will not be wanting so 

 long as we have observers concerned entirely with the accumu- 

 lation of data, content to leave discussion to the dim future. It 

 is one of the objects of organizing science to bring the two factors 

 to bear on each other. 



International co-operation in research is necessary because 

 scientific inquiries can not be divided into compartments limited 

 by political boundaries. The very language which we use to 

 express our thoughts is tied down by conventions, some of which 

 we have absorbed as students, but which in the case of new 

 branches of learning have formally to be agreed upon. Our 

 measurements — and all accurate science depends on measure- 

 ments — have to be expressed in units, and how are these units to 

 be fixed except by agreement? While this will be acknowledged 

 by everyone, it is not equally recognized how much our present 

 refinements in scientific research depend on organized efforts. 

 Whether these efforts should be concentrated in a single lab- 

 oratory or confined within one political unit or carried out by the 

 combined scientific community of the world, mainly depends 

 on the nature of the problem. 



It is not my purpose to trace in detail the history of inter- 

 national problems and international organizations; but, rather, 



