If 16] Introduction xi 



phenomenon toueliing tlie life of every animal and every i)lant in the 

 sea. Adherence to this ideal, though unattainable in a literal sense, 

 has a sobering effect upon investigation, and gives it a definiteness and 

 co-ordination which it may otherwise lack. The particular problems 

 selected for investigation will then be determined entirely from the 

 point of view of feasibility and not from that of how they may prove 

 or disprove a dominant theory. "What particular group of problems 

 would it be most practicable to investigate at this particular time, in 

 this particular region, and in regard to available resources and infor- 

 mation already at hand ? 



The Scripps Institution looks at the matter in this way and. 

 although not restricting itself to marine biology, its efforts have been 

 largely spent toward gaining an understanding of the relations main- 

 tained between organisms and their natural environments. No other 

 aspects of biology .seem of greater importance at the present time, and 

 the Institution is so situated as to make this stiidy peculiarly prac- 

 ticable. But. as Ritter (1915, p. 232) says: 



The managing board have no delusions as to the uniquely "burning" char- 

 acter of the questions under investigation, or as to its having reached the 

 threshold of the Ultimate Mystery of Life and Death. Its profound belief in 

 the importance of biologic truth to the welfare of human kind is of such sort 

 that it knows that many other problems being studied by many other men and 

 other institutions are no less vital than those engaging its efforts; and that 

 problems of tomorrow, next year, next decade, next century, while different 

 from those of today, will be no less numerous and no less insistent than those 

 of today. It holds every item of positive knowledge of the living world 

 essential to the scientific interpretation of that world; that such interpretation 

 alone can beget a right attitude toward that world; and that the high level of 

 man's development which we call civilization is wholly dependent upon a right 

 attitude on the part of the largest number possible of the community toward 

 all things that live. 



3. Field Observation vs. Labor.vtory Experiment 



Some time ago Whitman (1902, p. 504) made this statement: 



The fundamental )irnblems of heredity, variation, adaptation, and evolution 

 cannot be wholly settled in the laboratory. ■ They concern vital processes known 

 only in living organisms — processes which are slow and cumulative in effects, 

 expressing themselves in development, growth, life-histories, species, habits, 

 instincts, intelligence. These problems require, therefore, to be taken to the 

 field, the pond, the sea, the island, where the forms selected for study can be 

 kept under natural conditions, and where the work can be continued from year 

 to year without interruption. 



