1912] Ritter: The Marine Biological Station of San Diego 219 
and the astronomical observatory. And seemingly the labor of 
selecting and managing the proper material for study, of measur- 
ing, weighing and recording, segregating and computing data, 
will be greater than that involved in chemical and astronomical 
research in much the ratio that biology is greater in complexity 
than chemistry and astronomy. 
The important administrative question arises, How is all this 
labor to be done? Undoubtedly much of it will be rather formal 
and routine and will not demand the highest ability in either 
biology or mathematics. At the same time, certain it is that the 
best results biologically would be missed without the constant 
maintenance, and that on a high plane, of the biological stand- 
point. It seems as though the demand for mathematical clever- 
ness may be greater than the biologist is likely to possess. Sooner 
or later it will probably be found necessary for the somewhat 
mathematical biologist and the somewhat biological mathe- 
matician to join forces avowedly and regularly. Dr. Karl Pear- 
son is furnishing a splendid example of how useful to biology 
the biologically inclined mathematician may be, and at the same 
time how disastrous it would be to the science to leave the 
quantitative aspects of it to workers whose chief training was 
mathematical rather than biological. On the other hand, among 
biologists, Dr. Raymond Pearl’ particularly is showing that 
mathematics called to the service of biology and kept strictly in 
its place as an assistant, is not only enormously important, but 
for many of the deepest problems absolutely indispensable. 
Probably these same organizational and administrative diffi- 
culties have been and are being felt by all the sciences that 
have passed from the descriptive and qualitative to the exact 
and quantitative stage; and probably, too, they will seem some- 
what less formidable to biology as they are more closely ap- 
proached than they do seen at a distance—just as appears to 
have been the case with the older sciences. 
2 Pearl more than anyone else among the considerable number of biolo- 
gists who are now applying mathematics to biological problems with true 
insight and effectiveness, seems to me to deserve being mentioned because 
of his general discussions, especially that entitled ‘‘Biometrie ideas and 
methods in biology, their significance and limitations (Scientia, 10, 101-119). 
So far as I have read, nothing approaching this paper in general grasp of 
the subject has appeared. 
