Januakt 9, 1920] 



SCIENCE 



35 



The fact remains that while the rest of man- 

 kind has gone far along the way which we (the 

 scientific men) have discovered and pointed out we 

 still remain largely isolated and intrenched in the 

 feudal towers of our individualism. Here behind 

 moat and wall we shape and fashion those intel- 

 lectual darts with which at our annual tourneys we 

 hope to pierce the haughty pride of some brother 

 baron. Yet common sense, the common good, the 

 very progress of our profession demands that we 

 abandon this ancient outworn attitude. 



And Coulter^ says : 



Our isolated, more or less competitive investiga- 

 tions have resulted in a certain amount of progress ; 

 but it has been very slow compared with what co- 

 operation would have secured. 



Nor do the advocates of organization lack 

 apparently convincing examples of success in 

 scientific cooperation. 'Not to speak of the 

 striking wartime achievements in the applica- 

 tions of chemistry, physics and engineering, 

 one may name such typical illustrations in 

 the field of agriculture as those cited by 

 Shear,^ namely, the cooperative work of sev- 

 eral bureaus of the Department of Agricul- 

 ture upon the chestnut blight problem and 

 upon the spoilage of fruits and vegetables in 

 transit and especially the work of the War 

 Board of the American Society of Phyto- 

 pathologists, while in a related field the work 

 of the Interallied Scientific Food Commission, 

 although cut short by the German collapse, 

 may also be cited. Shear speaks of this trend 

 cooperation as a " tide in the affairs of men." 



But not withstanding all these emphatic 

 dicta, may it not be well to call a moment's 

 halt to consider whither this tide is carrying 

 us and whether it really " leads on to for- 

 tune." May there not be a certain danger of 

 overlooking the significance of the individual ? 

 We must beware of being stampeded by the 

 brilliant successes of the war time into an 

 undue exaltation of the virtues of cooperation 

 and organization. Both are doubtless very 

 valuable but many of their ardent advocates 

 seem to overlook the fact that the recent highly 

 successful essays in cooperation which they 

 emphasize were chiefly directed to the solu- 



■« Science, April 18, 1919. 



5 Scientific Monthly, October, 1919, p. 342. 



tion of immediate technical problems by the 

 application of knowledge acquired largely by 

 individual research. The striking results of 

 war-time cooperation were very largely of the 

 nature of inventions rather than of discover- 

 ies. The achievements in sound-ranging, in 

 ballistics, in submarine detection, in aviation, 

 in gas warfare, in the control of plant dis- 

 eases and the like were possible only as the 

 fruition of long and patient researches into 

 the fundamental laws of physics, chemistry, 

 and biology conducted quietly by individuals 

 or by little groups without public notice or 

 applause. It is just as true to-day as it ever 

 was that the permanent and significant ad- 

 vances of science depend in the last analysis 

 on the initiative and originality of individ- 

 uals. ITothing can alter this fundamental 

 fact. 



But on the other hand the fullest recogni- 

 tion of the paramount importance of the in- 

 dividual investigator should not blind us to 

 the great significance of the experiences of 

 the last few years. Let us first consider what 

 they teach us as to the sort of problems best 

 suited for cooperative effort. What is the 

 field of cooperation as contrasted with in- 

 dividualism ? 



As just noted, the problems of war-time co- 

 operation were largely the problems of prac- 

 tise and it is these practical problems which 

 seem to offer the greatest opportunity for co- 

 operation. Such problems, however, consti- 

 tute one extreme of an intergrading series 

 whose other extreme is the problems of so- 

 called " pure " science. Using Coulter's^ 

 terminology and speaking of the former as 

 superficial and of the latter as fundamental 

 problems, it may be said that in general as 

 we pass from the superficial toward the funda- 

 mental, cooperation becomes a less and less 

 promising method for research. Usually the 

 best thing that can be done for the man of 

 scientific vision, who is capable of the most 

 fundamental kind of research, is to supply 

 him with the necessary equipment and facili- 

 ties and then let him alone. Committees and 

 cooperators are in danger of being hindrances 

 rather than helps. Comparatively few of us 



6 Science, April 18, 1919, p. 365. 



