_ 
On an Index of Papers devoted to Physical Science. 341 
Art. XX XJ.—On an Index of Papers on subj of Maithe- 
matical and Ph: ons Science; by Lieut. E. B. Hunz, Corps 
of Engineers, U. 8. A 
Tue history of science exhibits a continual tendency tawards 
specialisation. The sphere of each laborer becomes more and 
more limited as the area of research is expanded and distributed 
into well defined specialities. ‘The same thing is observable in 
Scientific research which in the mechanical and chemical sae is 
familiarized under the name of subdivision of labor. ‘The 
advantages and disadvantages of the specialising adadid are 
equally observable in the domains of science and of man nufactures. 
The restriction of investigation and of industry to limited fields 
of exercise, has the effect to produce the highest skill within 
those fields, at the price of narrowness of conception and priva- 
tion of power concerning all other spheres of action and research, 
The man whose life is spent in heading pins becomes almost 
preternaturally skillful in the manipulations of that manufacture, 
ut this man in any other opr 8 industry is a blanderer and 
abigot. So too the man of science who assiduously cultivates 
a chosen speciality becomes sees preéminent, but in so doing, 
he is in great danger of losing his grasp on those aiphabeoes 
which transcend his particular field, and of becoming no 
impotent but bigoted relative to those branches of research which 
he has not pursued. As the microscopist restricts his field, but 
intensifies his vision within that field, so the cultivation of a 
Speciality withdraws into a single study the diffused powers o 
the original mind. The microscopist and the specialist find the 
he difficulty in seeing the parts in their relations to the whole. 
roblem is more important to the scientific investigator than 
that of rightly coérdinating his general and special cu culture. If 
generalisation too largely prevail, his life will probably be ex- 
ae but fruitless. If a speciality absorbs all his powers, there 
will be an abundance of ignoble and innutritious — If he 
Som, how properly to combine the general and the special, 
he is likely to bear such rich and lasting fruit as i made the 
names of Newton and Leibnitz, Euler and Grange, Cuvier 
and Agassiz, and all of their illustrious kindred, such rsp 
sources of strength. The power to generalise and the power to 
specialise must coéxist in the true magnate of science. a 
things may be done by men anne in either ; but not the great- 
the special, harms his own nature, It may be said that power 
in specialities can only thus be attained ; that specialist devotees 
* Read before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, at 
vidence, August, 185 
