382 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIX. No. 1002 



earliest recorded biological experiment. It 

 deals with the physiology of the senses and 

 reads as follows: 



By crossing the fingers a single object under 

 them appears to be two and yet we do not say 

 there are two ; for sight is more decisive than touch. 

 If, however, touch were our only sense, our judg- 

 ment would declare that the single object is two. 



Thus Aristotle employed the experimen- 

 tal method for the discovery of truth. 

 "With all this history behind us it may seem 

 strange that we have been so slow in ap- 

 preciating the significance of this method. 

 But it must be remembered that the bio- 

 logical sciences, unlike physics and chem- 

 istry, have had an enormous volume of 

 descriptive material to handle, and that it 

 was only after this task was well under 

 way that really fundamental problems 

 could be attacked. It is also to be kept in 

 mind that such sciences as chemistry and 

 physics have begun to yield only recently 

 results and methods which have been of 

 direct service to biology. Viewed from this 

 standpoint the whole course of develop- 

 ment of the methods employed in^iological 

 research is a natural one, and, though we 

 may not fully appreciate all the steps by 

 which we have reached this new road to 

 discovery, we are persuaded that the course 

 we have taken is the result of the untram- 

 meled growth of our science. 



With the acceptance of the experimental 

 method as a part of the means of biological 

 research comes the responsibility of train- 

 ing students in the new way of work. To 

 those of us whose zoological apprenticeship 

 centered round the paraffin bath and the 

 microtome, this is no simple proposition. 

 "With little physics, less chemistry, and 

 almost no mathematics -we find ourselves 

 poorly equipped to meet the new emergen- 

 cies. One of my colleagues trained in this 

 fashion seems never to appreciate the fact 

 that there is a third dimension in space, and 



in my case mathematics is metamorphosed 

 from one of the most exact forms of expres- 

 sion into one of the most inexact. Al- 

 though we may take consolation in the fact 

 that even so illustrious a physicist as Fara- 

 day was essentially unmathematical, we 

 can not look upon the deficiencies that I 

 have just pointed out without recognizing 

 that they are real shortcomings. These de- 

 fects in our early training can not be 

 ascribed to lack of reasonable foresight on 

 the part of our teachers or even to our own 

 idleness. They are the natural result of 

 the prodigious rate at which our science 

 has been growing, a rate that made it im- 

 possible for even the best informed of a 

 generation ago to predict the needs of to- 

 day. This is true not only of the present, 

 but also of the past. Darwin 's early train- 

 ing was that of a physician, and Huxley 

 actually went into medical practise. Both 

 men in their early days never entered a 

 biological laboratory, for the obvious reason 

 that no such institution existed, and both 

 regretted their educational deficiencies. 



Inadequately trained ourselves, how are 

 we to meet the problem of training others 

 in the new directions ? The situation seems 

 to include to a certain degree the impossi- 

 bility of lifting oneself by one 's boot-straps. 

 But I suggest that while tugging at the 

 straps a slight jump will lift us a little, and 

 the jump that seems to me to be advisable 

 is to recommend that our students pay 

 more attention to chemistry and physics, 

 sciences in which the experimental method 

 is well developed and which are yielding 

 results that are applicable more and more 

 to the fundamental problems of biology. 

 Such a training, when rigorously pursued 

 by a student with a clear understanding 

 of its relations to biological work, is bound 

 to be richly productive as soon as it is 

 turned in the appropriate direction. 



But physics and chemistry are, in my 



