62 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIII. No. 1360 



3,nd factory devices are most carefully 

 ■avoided. So sensitive is the investigator to 

 jthe need of giving expression to his capaci- 

 ties and of doing his work in his own way, 

 that lany one who is enough of a martinet 

 ;to insist on introducing any of the devices 

 to which I have alluded, will at once build 

 ;up a defence reaction sufficiently powerful 

 to vitiate or inhibit all the research activi- 

 ,ties of his laboratory. It is for this reason, 

 il believe, that even the vague, tentative 

 suggestions of the organizers are already 

 ^creating a resentment or at any rate a re- 

 ^stance that would surprise no one who is 

 pot bent on behaving like the proverbial 

 bull in a china shop. 



■ 3. Whatever may be the value of re- 

 search to the individual investigator, it is 

 certain that its only social value lies in the 

 ^discoveries and inventions to which it may 

 jlead. The investigative genius may be de- 

 fined as one who is in a chronic state of 

 .discovery or invention, whereEis the ordi- 

 nary investigator approximates genius more 

 pr less closely according to the frequency 

 of his creative achievements. Now such 

 (essential achievements, both chronic and 

 loeeasional, can not be included in any 

 pcheme of organization for they usually lie 

 outside the purview of the investigator 

 jhimself or depend on situations over which 

 ^e has no control. Discovery and inven- 

 (tion are in this sense fortuitous or acci- 

 jdental and also involve a time factor which 

 is equally unpredictable and unorganiz- 

 ;aMe. The investigator, if you will pardon 

 my emphatic language, can only do his 

 damnedest and hope that the new truth will 

 [deign to ascend from the subconscious or 

 jdescend from the lap of the gods. After 

 long and tedious observation or experiment 

 jand many disappointments he may or he 

 may not find the discovery or invention 

 jflashing suddenly and more or less com- 



pletely into consciousness or emerging 

 from some happy constellation of events. 

 The plant-physiologist Sachs once told me 

 that his best ideas suddenly entered his 

 jmind in the morning while he was lacing 

 his shoes or brushing his terth. I have no- 

 ticed in my own case that the few unim- 

 portant ideas that strike me as unlike those 

 which ordinarily infest my waking con- 

 sciousness emerge suddenly while I am pass- 

 ing a certain vacant lot on my morning 

 trip to my labora^tory. Not improbably my 

 single cup of breakfast coffee may be a 

 stimulus so timed that the reaction coin- 

 cides with the vacant lot. I hasten to con- 

 fess, however, that the outline of this paper 

 was not picked up in a vacant lot, as its 

 piiscellaneous contents might lead you to 

 suppose, but came to me, probably after 

 prolonged subconscious incubation, while I 

 was wondering how much coal I could save 

 by using as an "Ersatz" the literature re- 

 ceived during the past three years from 

 that noble superorganization of superor- 

 ganizers, the National Eesearch Council. 

 I 4. I have dwelt on the amateurs, because 

 they seem to me to form another insuper- 

 able obstacle to the organization of research, 

 at least in the biological field, where they 

 constitute a very large and important 

 "bloc" of investigators. "While one might 

 be pardoned for supposing that some of the 

 house-broken or domesticated investiga- 

 tors, who indulge in what is called "insti- 

 tutional" or "industrial" research might 

 be organized after a fashion, it would be 

 unpardonable to suppose that the wild, un- 

 tamable amateurs would ever submit to 

 such an indignity. These seem to be de- 

 scribed as "solitary workers" in some of 

 the literature I have received' — ^why, I can 

 not say. The amateur, as the word implies, 

 is a lover, and all the world loves a lover, 

 no matter how wild, or just because he is 



