224 University of California Publications in Zoology [Vou.9 
eralizations which any science is capable of reaching never can 
be reached until the whole range of phenomena touched by such 
generalizations has been examined. I have expressed essentially 
the same conception but in a special application of it, in another 
place (1908) as follows: ‘‘No phenomenon essential to the life- 
career of any organism can be pronounced as fully explained so 
long as any other phenomenon likewise essential to that same life- 
career is entirely unknown or entirely ignored.’’ 
Brought down to an expression that fits the case in hand, this 
would say that the breadth and depth of biological philosophy 
which all biologists confidently believe possible, can never be 
obtained without the expansion of observational and experi- 
mental research to include, along with expansion in many other 
directions, just such knowledge of marine organisms as we are 
here obtaining and trying to obtain. In other words the prac- 
tical, the business question is not, ‘‘In what field can we get the 
largest, quickest returns on the money invested?’’ but ‘‘ What 
field is open to us and tillable by us that has been least cultivated 
and is least likely for various reasons to be cultivated by other 
instrumentalities?’’ Right or wrong, the course to which we are 
committed is that of turning such resources as we have to the 
supplementing of work already well in hand by other similar 
undertakings in various parts of the world. There are at least 
a half-dozen other marine biological stations in the United States, 
to say nothing of the much greater number in Europe, quite as 
well located and some of them at least much better appointed 
than is this station for the prosecution of such researches as the 
two above specified. But no other one in our country is in 
position, all things considered, to enable a biologist to carry out 
such researches as those, for instance, by Mr. Michael and Dr. 
Esterly. 
But—and here is the important practical point—does the 
policy to which the station is committed rigidly exclude pro- 
motion, especially through the direct expenditure of money, of 
work of this independent, more generally provided-for sort? By 
no means. The truth is, within limits rather readily determin- 
able in actual administration, such research may be furthered 
to a very considerable extent to the advantage of all interests 
