January 21, 1921] 



SCIENCE 



61 



rt;heiiiselves hy long processes of interplay, 

 •mutual adjustment and coordination, but 

 pven regulation of them ab extra is exceed- 

 ingly difficult. In this matter the experi- 

 ence of the race in its age-long endeavors 

 :to regulate and organize such powerful 

 drives as the sexual and parental instincts 

 should be sufficiently illuminating, and the 

 instincts of the typical inventor and discov- 

 prer seem to be every bit as imperative. 

 :The impossibility of organizing even a small 

 body of investigators can be easily tested. 

 Such bodies exist in our large universities, 

 yery small in comparison with the total 

 number of investigators in the country, but 

 large enough, if organized, to determine 

 :and control the whole policy of their re- 

 spective institutions. But if any investi- 

 gator attempts to organize such a body for 

 puch a purpose or for any other of mutual 

 (■advantage, he will at once find his efforts 

 frustrated or, at any rate circumvented, by 

 'fi lot of individuals, turgid with peculiar 

 jnstincts, emotions and purely personal 

 (interests and as blind to their collective 

 interests as an equal number of soft-shell 

 clams. Furthermore, it is important to 

 note that the difficulties of organizing are 

 greatly increased by the skeptical and crit- 

 ical attitude of mind which the investigator 

 js bound to cultivate and the defective de- 

 yelopment of certain dispositions in his 

 constitution, such as the gregarious instinct 

 ■^nd the instinct of self-abasement and sus- 

 ceptibility to suggestion, propaganda and 

 leadership, which render other men so 

 prone or at least so accessible to social, re- 

 ■^igious and political organization. 

 ; 2. Attempts at organizing investigators 

 must fail because their highly specialized 

 activities depend to such a great extent on 

 (their peculiar native aptitudes or capaci- 

 ties. The organizers are willing to admit 

 that they are baffled by the geniuses, but 



these are dismissed as very rare birds, not- 

 withstanding the fact that their influence 

 on the trend of scientific research is out of 

 all proportion to their numbers. The great 

 jnajority of investigators appear on super- 

 ficial acquaintance to be such commonplace, 

 unassuming specimens of humanity that it 

 would seem that they and society in gen- 

 eral could only be greatly benefited by 

 having their problems "assigned" and 

 their investigative efforts directed, con- 

 trolled and organized. This notion seems 

 ;to me to be due to a singularly defective 

 insight into the peculiar psychology of in- 

 vestigators. No one who has had long and 

 intimate relations with these men can fail 

 to be impressed with the extraordinary di- 

 versity of their aptitudes, -and nothing is 

 more evident than that these aptitudes must 

 be permitted to express themselves not only 

 ;with the greatest freedom, but even in the 

 most whimsically personal manner. Nor can 

 any one who is running a laboratory fail 

 to notice that he can secure the fullest en- 

 thusiasm, devotion and team-play from all 

 his men only on the condition that all con- 

 siderations are absolutely subordinated to 

 the ideals of research. He knows that 

 some investigators can do their work best 

 with a slow, uniform and apparently never- 

 tiring motion, others with a ravenous, 

 carnivore-like onrush, accompanied by an 

 expenditure of vitality so magnificent that 

 ithey have to loaf for a considerable period 

 before they can store sufficient energy for 

 another onslaught on their problem, and 

 that there are many others whose investi- 

 gative activities are of an intermediate and 

 more evenly rhythmical type. Yet men of 

 such diverse aptitudes and habits of work" 

 pan be easily induced to live in harmony 

 iand accomplish much valuable work if any 

 suggestion of such things as punctuality, 

 punching time-clocks and other efficiency 



