X University of California Publications in Zoology [Vol. 15 



But this modus operandi is not science. A little retieetion will 

 convince anyone that science affords no means exclusive of observation 

 of deciding whether particular facts of nature are or are not worth 

 observing. Searching investigation alone is capable of determining 

 what value attaches to the fact that four hundred individuals of a 

 particular .species were obtained when the temperature was 20° C and 

 only one hundred when it was 15° C. If it actually turns out to be 

 a coincidence due to random sampling, investigation alone can demon- 

 strate it. If it is important to the life of the species involved, investi- 

 gation alone can demonstrate that. Is it not unscientific to pronounce 

 any facts of nature valueless prior to their investigation? Is not the 

 examination of facts irrespective of their bearing on any dominant 

 theory a necessary step in an.y strictly scientific programme of 

 research 1 



Still, if this be granted, it is evident that no one man or institution 

 could hope to study every aspect of marine biology any more than he 

 could of general biology. Practically, it is necessary to select small 

 groups of problems. "What, then, is the likelihood that detailed hydro- 

 graphic investigations will yield profitable biological returns? 



Superficially, it looks as if undue emphasis were being placed upon 

 the environment ; as if hydrography were masquerading under the 

 name of biology. Such, indeed, is too frequently the ease in many 

 so-called ecological researches, and it is certain to be the ease unless 

 the hydrographie observations are made subordinate to the biological 

 ones. When this caution is observed, however, hydrography becomes 

 as indispensable as any recognized branch of biology itself for under- 

 standing marine organisms; for. obviously, a marine organi.sm is an 

 organism that is primarily marine. It can live only within certain 

 limits of temperature, salinity, density, and so on, of the water. To 

 im])Iy, therefore, that it is a waste of time to define these limits for 

 each species, and to determine to what particular temperatures, 

 salinities, and densities each species is best adapted, amounts to con- 

 tradicting the fact that marine organisms live. Surel.y, to learn how 

 they live and what they do is as fundamental, biologically, as to learn 

 how they are reproduced and of what they are constructed. It follows, 

 then, that when properly subordinated to biology, hydrographie 

 investigations yield as important biological returns as do investigations 

 that in themselves are biological. 



Therein lies the value of realizing that the true goal of marine 

 biology is the acquisition of full and complete knowledge of every 



