October 21, 1921] 



SCIENCE 



2 1921 



^65 



search for tlie Philosopher's Stone and the 

 Elixir of life retarded rather than furthered 

 its progress, for the element of secrecy was 

 all important upon such a quest, and science 

 can not forge ahead under such a handicap. 

 The scientist who prosecutes his studies from 

 a selfish motive may personally succeed, but 

 he can never hope to be listed among those 

 names which are revered in later generations. 

 When we think of the illustrious names which 

 stand out in scientific history there is a 

 remarkable unanimity in the fact that almost 

 without exception they were pushing forward 

 the field of knowledge purely for the joy that 

 it gave them and not for fame or pecuniary 

 reward. 



The first great class of men to whom 

 science owes an incalculable debt are the 

 " naturalists "- — men like Linnaeus, Darwin, 

 the Agassizes, Humboldt, who were at home in 

 almost any field, and who have recorded 

 observations on almost every subject. Dr. 

 Woodward, former president of the Carnegie 

 Institution of Washington, once said that 

 science must pass through five stages: 



1. The bug hunting, rock naming stage, i.e., 



the observational stage. 



2. The classification stage in which existing 



knowledge is put in order. 



3. The experimental stage in which new con- 



ditions are imposed and new facts 

 gained. 



4. The theorizing stage in which the results 



of observation and experimentation 

 are drawn together in the form of laws, 

 and lastly 



5. The mathematical stage — the expression of 



these laws of nature in mathematical 

 formulfe. 



The naturalists belonged largely to the 

 first and second of these stages. To them 

 we owe a considerable part of our present 

 knowledge of the nature of the earth and its 

 flora and fauna. 



We can all appreciate the relative simplicity 

 of the science of their time if we contemplate 

 what they were able to do. Is there any one 

 among you who would be willing to act as 



n^^V' 



geologist, rQ.in^#l5)igJat,w(b<5ft&S,isf, zoologist, 

 meteorologist, atLthropologist, archseologist, 

 etc., on an expedition into an unknown land 

 and who would guarantee that on the com- 

 pletion of the expedition you would undertake 

 to write up the scientific results in such a 

 form that the work would be a classic in all 

 respects? I dare say not, and yet that was 

 what the naturalists did. Science was in its 

 infancy — almost every observation was new — - 

 and a genius could be authority in many 

 fields. The day of the naturalist, in the 

 sense that I am using it, has passed. Science 

 is too complex. 



We then pass to the experimental stage. 

 Only a few years ago this was a new field 

 of work. We began to tear down, to dissect, 

 to study, to build up, and how much we have 

 accomplished. In 1828 Wohler prepared urea, 

 the first " organic " compound to be artificial- 

 ly synthesized. The " organic " compounds 

 were supposed to be created only by " organ- 

 ized " life. Since that time at least 150,000 

 organic compounds have been synthesized in- 

 cluding the alizarine, which wiped out the 

 cultivation of the madder in France, indigo, 

 which threatened for a time to bring starva- 

 tion to thousands in India because of the 

 destruction of the indigo plantations, and 

 even the " purple of Tyre," secreted by a 

 mollusc, and which dyed the royal robes of 

 ancient Asia Minor, has yielded its secret to 

 the chemist, 1.5 grams of 6.6 di brom indigo 

 being obtained from 12,000 shellfish. It can 

 now be purchased in pound lots from chemi- 

 cal firms. 



During this period of evolution science be- 

 came more complex. The field of knowledge 

 in which one could become proficient became 

 more narrow. We have scientists who were 

 authority only on chemistry, or on zoology, or 

 on physics, or on botany, etc., but each had a 

 very wide and complete knowledge of his 

 chosen branch. To be sure when a professor 

 was apiwinted to a chair in a university dur- 

 ing this period he might be expected to 

 lecture in a related or nearly related field. 

 For example, the chemist might be expected 

 to lecture on geology, mineralogy or crystal- 



