September S, 1922] 



SCIENCE 



267 



Research in science has suffered severely, 

 both within and without the university, by rea- 

 son of failure to recognize the magnitude of 

 the field in which it operates and the inter- 

 relation of the elements comprised in it. The 

 researcher must, by definition, be a specialist, 

 in that he should understand more fully than 

 any other person the height or depth or 

 breadth of a particular element or law of na- 

 ture. Nan'ow specialization is often consid- 

 ered to represent research, and contraction of 

 the limits of investigation is not infrequently 

 desirable. But the greatest specialist does not 

 merely go up high or down deep. He sees 

 from these advantageous positions the real 

 significance of his explorations. If he pro- 

 ceeds far in any direction without interpreting 

 what is learned in terms intelligible to others, 

 the journey has been merely a personal ex- 

 cursion and not a contributing voyage of dis- 

 covery. 



I oome therefore to speak particularly of 

 the need for contact between research and 

 culture, in order that the broader human re- 

 lation of culture and scholarship may bring 

 to research a better power of expression and 

 a deeper interest in its ultimate significance, 

 thus making more useful the fruits of dis- 

 covery. Research may profit greatly by con- 

 tact with every human interest involved within 

 the wide comprehension of culture. Much of 

 the material uncovered by constructive work 

 in science has not reached utility or become 

 real contribution to humanity by reason of 

 the view that investigation is complete with- 

 out interpretation, or that it is an end in it- 

 self without regard to human use or mean- 

 ing. 



Science and research have missed great op- 

 portunities because of aloofness from the 

 more strictly humanistic aspects of investi- 

 gation extending into the realm of culture. 

 Problems of research have so multiplied with- 

 in the field of natural science that there has 

 perhaps been good reason for our failure to 

 discover that the most complicated, and there- 

 fore in many ways the most attractive prob- 

 lems possible to the investigator are above 

 and beyond those which have mainly engaged 

 our attention. Important as are the nature 

 of matter, chemical affinity and organic evo- 



lution, some of the greatest fields for dis- 

 covery still relate to the fundamental under- 

 standing of human behavior and cultural in- 

 terests, both in the individual and in the group 

 sense. With adequate cooperation between the 

 scientific investigator and the humanist re- 

 search should advance rapidly in the study 

 of man and his cultural expression. Investi- 

 gation of the physical basis of mental action 

 may never produce such results as have recent- 

 ly revolutionized natural science. On the 

 other hand, it may be that human research will 

 go farther beyond our present knowledge than 

 radioactivity has carried us forward in 

 physics. Are we to believe that man, prob- 

 ably the most complicated of all objects or 

 instruments in the universe, may be neglected 

 as the object of research by reason of his high 

 level of development? Is it not clear that 

 added knowledge, such as should be secured 

 by united effort of the scientific investigator 

 and the humanist, would give further control 

 of our powers and greater satisfaction in their 

 use? 



It is with the hesitation of one known as a 

 representative of the scientific school that I 

 touch upon the other phase of the problem, 

 namely, the possible contribution of research 

 to culture and scholarship. If I were to indi- 

 cate what might from my point of view seem a 

 dangerous element in scholarly and cultural 

 studies as contrasted with the situation in sci- 

 ence and research, it would be to suggest that 

 there is not in any branch of knowledge a fin- 

 ished chapter or a closed book, and that there 

 is no field in which the principle of growth and 

 progress may not be expressed profitably 

 through constructive work. Culture must in 

 some measure stand for conservatism and pre- 

 cedents. Theology tends by definition to be 

 one of the most rigid of all phases of human 

 thought, but scholarship stands next in rigor- 

 ous adherence to standard. , This condition is 

 natural. Even the normal instability of evo- 

 lution shows generally a stately and unhurried 

 movement which illustrates the idea of stand- 

 ards in rate of change. The researcher states, 

 "There is more unknown than known"; the 

 scholar says, "We have before us only the 

 known and must therefore base our practical 

 lives upon it." 



