I.— PHYSIOLOGY. 167 



to deal, for example, with the special physical chemistry of heterogeneous 

 equilibria in biological systems, with intermediary metabolism, with the 

 problems of hsemodynamics, or growth, or reproduction ? If so, how will 

 the results of their special investigations be brought to common ground 

 if no great unifying principles come to light ? Can we expect that such 

 unifying principles will appear : if they do not, will the progress of science 

 be brought to an end by the accumulation of its own products ? 



The establishment of special research professorships, however profitable . 

 in isolated cases, cannot in my opinion make good this growing specialisa- 

 tion, because it will tend to divorce research and teaching and place the 

 teaching professor on a level of real or apparent inferiority. The idolisa- 

 tion of research for the sake of the advancement it brings is another of 

 the dangers which threaten us. If there is one thing worse than ' a 

 mediocrity who does no research ' it is ' a mediocrity who does.' There 

 are at the present time a large number of junior research posts available, 

 but not enough well-trained people adequately to fill them. This is all 

 to the good provided that those who on trial show no aptitude for the 

 work can be ruthlessly eliminated. As they often cannot, there are in 

 consequence a number of young people who drift from one research scholar- 

 ship to another, perhaps not aimlessly, but with no better objective than 

 the manufacture of papers designed to justify their employment. The 

 hapless editors of each of the swelling tide of journals are coaxed, hood- 

 winked and, if necessary, bullied, to ensure that these papers see the light 

 of day. In the fullness of time the list of short-time research posts is 

 exhausted, and the young investigator must now either turn to some 

 entirely different occupation or else, as one of my friends expressed it, 

 * subside into a professorial chair ' for which, incidentally, he is probably 

 entirely unfitted. The pursuit of science is nowadays, perhaps unfortu- 

 nately, a career, and one in which moreover it pays to advertise. Science, 

 we are often told, is the cream of civilisation. If we believe this let us 

 use all our endeavours to ensure that it be not a whipped cream, specious, 

 puffed up with wind, and presenting a fictitious appearance of solidity. 



