538 REPORT— 1901. 



liable. To secure homogeneity in the work it is necessary to bind the associating 

 individuals by certain rules, and we run some risk of checking that originality 

 which is almost vital in scientific work. There is scarcely any scientific operation 

 so mechanical that it may be safely left in entire charge of those without originality 

 and the liberty to use it. Quite recently a scheme of co-operation has been 

 adopted in the preparation of the nautical almanacs of the difl'erent nations. It 

 is thought that certain calculations to be performed are so well settled that inde- 

 pendent calculation is a needless waste of labour, and thus certain sections of, say, 

 the American Nautical Almanac and our own will be henceforth identically the 

 same, printed from the same manuscript computations. I cannot but regard the 

 project with some alarm. The risks against which we are guarded by independent 

 computation may be small, but I cannot believe them to be evanescent, and 1 

 attach some value to the healthy stimulus of comparison (or we may perhaps .say 

 competition) even for nautical almanacs. Differences revealed by such com- 

 parisons in the past have often been traced to causes which were by no means 

 obvious or unworthy of attention. 



But without laying too much stress on this case, which is obviously an 

 extreme one, we can, I think, well understand how the taking part in a co-operative 

 scheme may lower the tone of scientific work. There is a very real possibility of 

 replacing the alert spirit of investigation by a mere mechanical regularity ; nay, 

 even of making one who should be an astronomer into a mere drudge. This has 

 at times been the declared method of great astronomers with their subordinates ; 

 they have professed themselves quite able to do all the thinking required, and 

 looked for the help, not of intelligent assistants, but of mere drudges. This was 

 Pond's view, and more or less that of Airy in his early years at Greenwich : and I 

 need not stop to point out the errors into which it led them, and from which we 

 are still struggling to free ourselves. There are, I am happy to think, few who 

 would now deliberately advocate it, and we need not waste words in trying to 

 convince these. But if we acknowledge the crushing out of intelligent independ- 

 ence in subordinates to be a mistake, how much greater is the evil if it spreads 

 through the whole staff of an observatory', including the Director himself? And this 

 is at least a possible result of co-operation. We can only too easily imagine a 

 scheme of work in which the rules are laid down so completely and so stringently 

 by the central body that nothing is left to the initiative or originality 

 of the individual observatories; and the Director of such a one might find 

 himself with nothing to do but see that the rules were adhered to. If the 

 work were at the same time planned to extend over a period of ten or 

 twenty years,^ as is quite possible in Astronomy, we can well understand 

 that his efficiency as an intelligent scientific worker might become 

 seriously affected. We must not shut our eyes to this danger. Astronomical 

 work is terribly liable to settle down into routine as we all know ; and the exist- 

 ence of so many small observatories where nothing is done beyond routine 

 observations with the transit circle is not a credit to us. It is reassuring to find 

 that many of them are ready to use opportunities which present themselves. 

 For instance, when the Eros work was planned, fifty observatories responded to 

 the call for volunteers. But is there not even here another point of view? 

 What were all these observatories doing before, that they are able so readily to 

 take up a new project ? Some of them we know had enough on hand already, 

 and only added the Eros work with reluctance; but it is to be feared that others 

 hailed it as a welcome opportunity to do something of some use, not having been 

 able to think of anything for themselves. This thinking of what one's work is to 

 be is, of course, the hardest part of research — devising something to do that shall 

 be a real step in advance. Some fortunate men find it comparatively simple, but 

 to the majority it is a labour and toil, and only through much tribulation do they 

 enter their kingdom— their own domain in which they recognise their own true 

 work. It is much easier for such to turn aside and follow some king who has 

 come to his crown more easily ; to take a share in a great piece of work organised 

 by some master-mind. But is not this a serious loss to them and to science ? 

 May not schemes of co-operation kill the originality of the humbler workers by 

 removing the incentive to independent thought ? 



