Mabch 6, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



375 



necessary to await the coming of a leader 

 in order to effect organization through 

 which it may be reached. The cry for a 

 king is answered, in the proverb of our 

 profession, by misfortune. Our tastes and 

 institutions are democratic. Our greatest 

 achievement of cooperative scientific organ- 

 ization promises to come through the meth- 

 ods that we know and like. Initiative lies 

 at the door of a few universities whose 

 graduate departments are the home of the 

 larger part of the biological research of 

 the day. We really can not be so poor in 

 men as not to be able to find an executive 

 of ability and tact, if we desire him and 

 search for him. Not impossibly, when 

 found, he may prove to be so conscientious 

 in "pottering" over his new task that his 

 own hand will lose its cunning in technique, 

 and opportunity for mental concentration 

 in his own chosen field may be sacrificed 

 to the new duty. If so, and the duty be 

 performed, need we begrudge him the 

 recognition that, if successful, he must win 

 as the coordinator of our research? 



The decision to form an effective re- 

 search organization must be made by us if 

 it is to be made ; action on such a decision 

 is equally ours; responsibility for coopera- 

 tive success must depend in equal measure 

 on investigators and executive. There is 

 no strong reason to doubt that such success 

 is attainable ; but the purest spirit of demo- 

 cratic government, dominated by that love 

 of advanced scholarship which makes and 

 marks the investigator, seems essential for 

 its permanence. 



"William Trelease 



From the history of biology, it wovild be 

 easy to show that the idea of cooperation 

 had not been always with us. Indeed, so 

 late as the founding of the Naples Station, 

 when Dohrn sought the approval and sup- 

 port of the venerable Bulenberg, that 

 worthy refused to aid him, on the ground 



that Dohrn 's plan would exhaust all zoo- 

 logical problems within twenty years. 



Eulenberg's fears have proved unwar- 

 ranted, and we no longer regard the supply 

 of problems as dangerously limited ; in fact, 

 it is the very opposite condition that is most 

 in evidence. The attempt has been made 

 to meet this superabundance of opportuni- 

 ties by an increasing division of labor, and 

 it is pleasant to note that the workings of 

 specialization in the field of biology, im- 

 press us with the fact that specialization 

 and cooperation are but two aspects of the 

 same process. 



This idea is so familiar, however, that 

 I do not need to expand it, yet despite the 

 general acceptance of the broad fact, the 

 intimate nature of the relation between 

 cooperation and specialization is often 

 rather vaguely felt, and the present discus- 

 sion should assist us to intensify our con- 

 sciousness of this intimacy, and so make 

 clearer how we may, and ought to act. 



In its immediate and simple form, coop- 

 eration hardly requires to be discussed. 

 We are familiar with such examples of 

 cooperative work as Keibel's "Normen- 

 tafeln," or the biological investigations 

 undertaken in behalf of the alcohol com- 

 mission. Matters like these arrange them- 

 selves. On the other hand, even without 

 previous agreement, we get similar and in 

 some ways better results, when a number 

 of investigators independently direct their 

 attention to the same problem, as has oc- 

 curred in the stiidy of Mendelian inherit- 

 ance, or of the auto-regeneration of nerve 

 fibers. 



In attempting combinations for the solu- 

 tion of large problems it must be kept in 

 mind that any arrangement which sup- 

 presses or eliminates the pleasures and 

 excitements of the hunt for truth, or which 

 cramps the cooperator, is in so far faulty. 

 •Against this we must be always on guard, 

 for it is agreed, I believe, that the solution 



