Maech 2, 1917] 



SCIENCE 



205 



work themselves out is impossible to pre- 

 dict except in general terms. It may be 

 safely inferred, however, from the history 

 of similar developments, that this one will 

 proceed much more slowly and with much 

 more difficulty than many enthusiastic op- 

 timists anticipate. Evolution is, in gen- 

 eral, a secular process and goes on with a 

 leisurely disregard of individuals. It may 

 be safely inferred also that many of the 

 numerous fallacies which have beset the in- 

 stitution during the brief interval of its 

 existence will recur again and again in the 

 rise of similar organizations, while fallacies 

 of a more troublesome type are likely to 

 beset the introduction of the methods and 

 the results of research in governmental af- 

 fairs. It is in the latter affairs that the most 

 stubborn opposition to progress is usually 

 met, since there exist, as a rule, in such af- 

 fairs no adequately developed relations of 

 reciprocity between those best qualified to 

 suggest and to formulate improvements and 

 those who control the machinery for their 

 applications. Such improvements can be 

 secured only by overcoming a stolid adher- 

 ence to precedent as well as the reluctance 

 of rational conservatism. Thus it happens 

 in governmental affairs that the most in- 

 congruous ideas often coexist, as is well 

 shown by the contemporary adoption of the 

 most advanced principles of sanitation in 

 certain European countries which are still 

 dominated by medieval theories of the func- 

 tions of a state. To cite another illustra- 

 tion readily understood and verifiable, it 

 is an anomalous fact that the United 

 States government exacts no professional 

 requirements for the direction of its highly 

 technical affairs except in a single branch 

 of its service, namely, the legal. And in 

 line with this glaring national deficiency it 

 is notorious that the fiat of an executive 

 can make an astronomer, a geodesist, or a 

 biologist out of a man whose works are un- 

 known in the annals of the science of which 



he becomes the ex-officio representative. 

 "We hear much also in these days of the 

 "mobilization of genius" in the interests 

 of national preparedness for commercial 

 and industrial competition, if not for the 

 more serious exigencies of national defense ; 

 but it is to be feared that this mobilization 

 means fruitless attempts to utilize aberrant 

 types of mind, or perhaps the employment 

 of men of talent under the direction of 

 those whose competency for leadership is 

 admitted, if at all, only in quite other fields 

 of activity than those here considered. In 

 the meantime, it is plain enough, in the 

 light of current events, that any nation 

 whose governors mistake necromancy for 

 science, confound invention with investiga- 

 tion, or fail to utilize effectively available 

 and advancing knowledge, is in danger of 

 humiliation in peaceful international com- 

 petition if not in danger of extinction in 

 international conflict. 



Much, perhaps too much, has been said 

 in preceding reports concerning the max- 

 ims and the principles which should be ob- 

 served on the administrative side in the 

 conduct of research. To a great extent 

 these maxims and principles are the same 

 as those developed in the common experi- 

 ence of the race; but to a greater extent 

 they are derived from the more concrete 

 and the more sharply defined experience 

 developed in the evolution of the older sci- 

 ences. All experience teaches that effective 

 research depends on painstaking labor, 

 arduously, patiently and persistently ap- 

 plied ; while all science teaches that re- 

 search is effective only in those regions 

 wherein something like demonstration can 

 be attained. If investigations can not be 

 well done they are of little worth ; if noth- 

 ing can be proved they are of still less 

 worth, or at best only of negative value. 

 But obvious as these truisms are when 

 stated by themselves, they have been con- 



