604 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LI. No. 1329 



Is science capable of transplantation and 

 cultivation under artificial conditions? If so, 

 the product will differ from the original in 

 kind as well as in degree quite as much as 

 the highly specialized animals and plants of 

 the farm do from their undomesticated proto- 

 types. If so, its nature will have shown a 

 plasticity to be looked for in nature hardly 

 elsewhere than in the outgrowth of human 

 intelligence. 



Transplantation is actually at work. The 

 investigating manpower of the world is being 

 registered with startling rapidity, preliminary 

 to preferred enrollment or selective conscrip- 

 tion. There is scarcely a person here present 

 who will not feel its force within a few years 

 if the signs of the times are to be trusted. 

 To the organizer, it promises new and en- 

 larged opportunity for leadership. To the 

 drudge it holds opiwrtunity for the kind of 

 shoulder-to-shoulder effort before which moun- 

 tains crumble and the bowels of the earth 

 yield up their secrets; but the drudge by birth 

 is a rara avis among men moved by the real 

 spirit of investigation, and the drudge from 

 necessity is neither a happy nor always a 

 profitable artefact. 



That the new order will survive is almost 

 certain. That its survival will be through 

 artificial rather than natural selection is 

 probable. That it will be a survival of the 

 imlike is self-evident. 



That waifs and escapes from it will be 

 foxmd outside the cultivated fields is to be 

 expected. Whether these shall profit the 

 gleaner like strays of wheat, or foul the 

 fleece like the carrots of the roadside, or 

 prove all but baneful like the reverting pars- 

 nip, remains to be proved. In any event, if 

 not destroyed, they may be coiuited on 

 through the centuries to furnish vestiges of 

 the old and primitive stock as rudiments for 

 a new start when, if ever, the cultivation of 

 research is abandoned — provided that the 

 present cultivation is not so intensive as to 

 destroy them utterly. 



In the primitive desultory gratification of 

 human interest in human environment lies 

 the essence of investigation for investigation's 



own sake. The amateur in science has en- 

 tered, occupied uncontested the center, and is 

 passing from the scene. 



The largest creel of fish may be secured by 

 seining or dynamiting or drugging the pool; 

 and the largest bag of birds, by the skilful 

 use of a net on a drizzly day. The market, 

 unless glutted, will pay for the haul. But the 

 sportsman does not wish to become a pot- 

 hunter, and the naturalist knows that game 

 must be protected to a reasonable extent if 

 fishing and hunting are to continue and if 

 sportsmanship is to endure. Forest and mine 

 are most attractively exploited by organized 

 onslaughts that take what it pays to take and 

 sometimes leave a wake of destruction behind. 

 The profit of the day is great, the rapid 

 material progress to which it contributes is 

 held to justify the attack : but what of the 

 future ? 



Organization of attacks on the secrets of 

 nature differ from organization of attacks on 

 the material products of nature in this very 

 essential respect, that the former do not 

 destroy but rather bring the world's material 

 resources to miore effective and economic 

 utilization. But is such purposeful organi- 

 zation likely to hamper or put an end to im- 

 organized though purposeful and intelligent 

 investigation? Is the seiner likely to foul the 

 pool or barricade it against the sportsman? 



Organization backed by a probable profit 

 and loss sheet and a program for each enter- 

 prise — once called a proposition, and now a 

 project — enlists capital in business. Such 

 organization and reinforcement are enlisting 

 already, for research, capital looking to ulti- 

 mate return, and also impersonal endowment 

 because of the established repute of science as 

 conducing to the general welfare of man. 



To the investigator, investigation may be- 

 come a renumerative profession when he 

 bears his alloted share in cooperative effort. 

 For the most part, up to the present he has 

 paid amply for the privilege of doing such 

 work; and to enjoy the privilege of doing it 

 even on these terms he has rather gratefully 

 if sometimes complainingly sold his services 



