206 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LVI, No. 1443 



or t]ie blow-pipe and research with the written 

 word or philosophic logic as its instrument. 

 That factor is the record of what has been 

 known and spread abroad by pre\'ious in- 

 quirers. The processes of human inquiry de- 

 pend fundamentally on memory — and in the 

 case of the pursuit of knowledge in our own 

 day on the record in print of what the race 

 has done or thought or attempted. It makes 

 little difference whether the inquiry be into 

 the morphology of the early Italic dialects of 

 the Latin tongue, or into the function of the 

 ductless glands of guinea pigs — the essential 

 processes are alike these: observation . and the 

 gathering of data by experiment or by com- 

 pilation; a study of the previous work done 

 in the same field with a critical examination . 

 both of processes and results ; a synthesis from 

 one's own observations and from the recorded 

 observation of others; and finally such reflec- 

 tion (or theorizing) on the results as may lead 

 to correlation of this piece of investigation 

 with the sum of human knowledge, perhaps 

 (occasionally) in a way to affect human activ- 

 ity. The so-called "book sciences" employ 

 methods in no way essentially different from 

 those long approved in the so-called "natural 

 sciences." All of them alike depend on care- 

 ful study of previous work as an initial step 

 and on the publication of results as a final 

 process. No facile popular division can sep- 

 arate "book-knowledge" from "experimental 

 research." Experiment without "book- knowl- 

 edge" is generally not research in the true 

 sense, even though it occasionally leads an 

 Edison into discoveries of untold value to the 

 world. 



There is, notwithstanding, a justification for 

 this distinction popular among college students. 

 The manner of teaching the natural sciences 

 has been completely revolutionized in the last 

 forty years. Every one knows that subjects 

 formerly taught from text-books are now 

 taught chiefly in laboratories. Emphasis is 

 now laid on accurate observation, correct 

 inference from observation, ability to report 

 the sum of observation succinctly and truth- 

 fully. An equipment elaborate in itself, im-- 

 pressive in amount and cost, is properly 

 thought needful to the task of teaching the 

 natural sciences. Each student is considered 



(I suppose) an embryo Pasteur or Rowland, 

 and is laboriously inducted into scientific meth- 

 ods by requiring him to develop manual dex- 

 terity in the use of instruments, and training 

 him to produce neat and correct note-books. 

 Naturally the mass of students is found in the 

 elementary courses. It is only the smaller 

 number resulting from a process of natural 

 (or at least academic) selection which ever 

 gets to the "journal club" stage, and becomes 

 personally aware of the existence of the enor- 

 mous and multifarious record of scientific 

 knowledge. That the method of teaching 

 should of itself infiuence the student's concep- 

 tion of the suibject-matter of instruction is 

 both natural and ine^atable. That undue 

 weight should be given by their elders to man- 

 ner and form of presentation is quite another 

 matter. It is, however, impossible to escape 

 the conclusion that many a scientist thinks 

 that he is freed by the very nature of his work 

 from a supposed taint of bookishness. He 

 gives thanks that he is not as other men, as 

 these historians and jihilologians — or even this 

 librarian. 



Thei'e is a real danger lurking in this atti- 

 tude; and we are not without evidence that 

 (whether from this source or more subtle 

 workings of the laws of auto'-suggestion) this 

 tendency to pride himself on being strictly a 

 scientific and not a book man has bi'ed a 

 habitual attitude of neglect of the record side 

 of scientific inquiry which has already been 

 disastrous in too many instances. The con- 

 viction that apparatus and laboratories are 

 essential — a perfectly sound and indeed a fun- 

 damental thesis — has somehow led to the no- 

 tion that they and they alone constitute the 

 requirements not only of instruction, but of re- 

 search as well. This tendency — and I do not 

 exaggerate it in the least — has made too many 

 folk unmindful of the long history of science, 

 has bred an attitude which can best be de- 

 scribed as almost wholly lacking in the historic 

 sense. And without a sense of the historic 

 setting of his work, a man is almost as hope- 

 less as is the man who lacks a sense of humor! 

 You can not argue with one or the other! In 

 fact I dare go farther and affirm that only by 

 the combinations of the historical and the ex- 

 perimental methods can any work of first-rate 



