Septembee 29, 1922] 



SCIENCE 



355 



combining individuals into a muiti-individtial 

 organization, a social organism sui-ely new in 

 the history of .the world. This biological trend 

 and process is constructing a social organism 

 the cohesion of which- depends mainly on a 

 property developed so specifically in man as to 

 be, broadly speaking, his alone, namely, a mind 

 actuated by instincts but instrumented with 

 reason. Man, often Nature's rebel, as Sir Eay 

 Lankester has luminously said, can, viewing 

 this great supra-individual process, shape his 

 courses conformably with it even as an in- 

 dividual, feeling that in this case to rebel would 

 be to 'sink lower rather than to continue his 

 own evolution upward. 



C. S. Sherrington 



CAN WASTE OF MENTAL EFFORT 

 BE AVOIDED 



One of the most startling phenomena in the 

 history of science and invention is the lack of 

 economy of mental effort. As a rule the great 

 discoveries in science have not been made once, 

 but have been repeated several times. It is as 

 though engineers had built several Panama 

 canals when only one was needed, thereby pro- 

 ducing financial waste. At the recent deatli of 

 Alexander Graham Bell the daily press reminds 

 us that he invented the telephone. But he was 

 not the only one who accomplished this. On 

 the very day that Bell patented his telephone, 

 Elisha Gray applied for a patent for an instru- 

 ment of similar kind. At an earlier date 

 Phillip Eeis sent a speaking machine to tlie 

 emperor of Eussia. The same is true in the 

 invention of the telegraph. No historian of 

 science can give Samuel Moi'se exclusive credit. 

 Before him, Joseph Henry at Albany, by the 

 attraction of an electromagnet, produced audi- 

 ble signals at a distance. Gauss and Weber 

 sent messages by an electromagnetic device over 

 wii-es connecting the Observatory and Physical 

 Cabinet at Gottingen. The mental effort of 

 inventing the telegraph and telephone was 

 made, not once, but several times. 



These are only two of the numerous illus- 

 trations which might be given of duplication 

 in applied science. In pure science the situa- 

 tion is even worse. Waste of eifort through 



repetition occurred in the discovery of the laws 

 of gases. Ohm's law in electricity, the principle 

 of the conservation of energy, logarithms,, de- 

 terminants, J. W. Gibb's equilibrium of chem- 

 ical systems and Mendel's law. The full ac- 

 counts of reproduction of scientific discovery 

 and invention would fill a large book. The 

 waste of gray matter has resembled the prodi- 

 gality of the pine-tree which produces millions 

 of pollen particles for every new plant that is 

 actually started. 



It may be argued that the waste occurs only 

 in the records of centuries which are passed, 

 that the number of scientific journals has now 

 increased so greatly that scientific results can 

 be published promptly. As a matter of fact, 

 the greater number of journals has not brought 

 effective relief. The danger of unnecess'ary 

 repetition is still with us. Not only is the 

 army of scientific workers tremendously aug- 

 mented, so that even now the editorial desks 

 are overloaded with able manuscripts and pub- 

 lication is not so prompt as some suppose, but 

 the long list of scientific journals has greatly 

 augmented the labor on the part of any one 

 worker to ascertain what new results have been 

 reached in his particular field of activity. 

 Paradoxical as it may seem, the publications 

 themselves, by their great mass, clog the work- 

 er's efforts to find what he desires. 



It is still true that investigators are fre- 

 quently unacquainted with results already 

 reached by others. And so it frequently hap- 

 pens that the 'best brains are exercised to the 

 utmost in discovering things already discovered 

 by others. Creative genius is rarfe. There are 

 in a generation few cubic decimeters of brains 

 in a nation, capable of materially advancing 

 science, and yet history shows that in the past 

 a large part of these precious cubic decimeters 

 of gray matter has been expended upon need- 

 less repetition. 



Is it not possible to imjirove on the present 

 wasteful methods of conducting research? 

 There is indeed need of persistence in the en- 

 deavor that 



No subtle, bright ajid novel thought 



In this wide world shall coma to naught; 



No germ of purest ray serene 



Shall sciiLtillate by us unseen. 



