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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVII. No. 



and they would become, if I may be per- 

 mitted to misquote a celebrated definition, 

 members of an indefinite, incoherent hetero- 

 geneity, instead of, as now, parts of a defi- 

 nite, coherent homogeneity. 



I have thus briefly sketched the history 

 of the Society of Naturalists with the ob- 

 ject of showing those among us who may 

 not be familiar with its past, how stead- 

 fastly it has clung to its original purpose 

 through all the crises which have threat- 

 ened its existence. Is not the idea for 

 which the society stands worthy of such 

 consistency? And are there not questions 

 pressing in upon us to-day which stand in 

 need of consideration by the united 

 strength of the society? 



These interrogations have been answered 

 in part by the discussion of this afternoon. 

 The undertakings of biologists are becom- 

 ing broader year by year and are more and 

 more demanding cooperation for their suc- 

 cessful completion. The time-honored dis- 

 cipline of natural history has been divided 

 into numeroTis specialties, each of which is 

 as wide as the whole field of natural history 

 as our fathers and grandfathers knew it. 

 Encyclopedists were possible in their days, 

 although even then it required an excep- 

 tional ability to be a master of the entire 

 field. But encyclopedism died in this 

 country with such men as Louis Agassiz, 

 Leidy and Cope, and we of to-day find our 

 capabilities fully tested in mastering one 

 small division of the older discipline. We 

 may comfort ourselves somewhat with the 

 thought that the limitations of to-day are 

 not due so much to differences in the men 

 as to differences in the scope of the sub- 

 jects. The lakes of our predecessors have 

 broadened to seas and the seas to oceans 

 whose farther shores axe far beyond the 

 limits of any one man's horizon, and hence 

 specialization has become a necessity, and 

 where but a few years ago we had zoolo- 

 gists, we now have systematists, anatomists, 



embryologists, cytologists, experimentalists, 

 statisticians and ecologists. But let me 

 quote the words of one of our distinguished 

 members : ' ' Union is just as essential a part 

 of the law of progress as division. If spe- 

 cialization is a necessity, so is organization. 

 But there is this difference between the 

 tendencies— that the one precedes the other 

 and comes into recognition first. Special- 

 ization has already forced its way to the 

 front, and is nearly everywhere recognized 

 as a necessity ; organization follows, but lags 

 lamentably behind the needs of the times. ' ' 

 Throughout the organic world we see con- 

 tinually contrasting forces combining to 

 produce progress. We have variation and 

 heredity, division of labor and organiza- 

 tion. Specialization is with us, and the 

 Society of Naturalists is but striving to add 

 the other factor which makes for progress 

 — cooperation. 



The necessity for cooperation in scien- 

 tific research is no new need evoked by the 

 increasing specialization of the times. 

 Even in the days of Lord Bacon it was pre- 

 sented as a desirable ideal, and nowhere 

 can we find a more definite advocacy of its 

 employment in the investigation and appli- 

 cation of scientific problems than in the 

 plan set forth in the Neio Atlantis of the 

 duties of the fellows of Solomon's house. 

 Such a complete plan is, however, imprac- 

 ticable so long as human nature remains 

 as it is. We would all be "interpreters 

 of nature" or at least "lamps." But to 

 function thus we must needs cooperate with 

 our fellows, we must meet together to tell 

 of our investigations, to learn of those of 

 others and to take coimsel with our co- 

 workers as to the further elaboration of 

 otir results. And it is this form of coop- 

 eration that the Society of Naturalists pro- 

 motes. If the society did nothing fiirther 

 than to bring us all together on occasions 

 such as the present its existence would be 

 fully justified. 



