JANUABT 27, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



127 



marily to help the original investigator, 

 though often preserved to assist his succes- 

 sors. The simplest form of record is the 

 preservation of the actual specimen. Sci- 

 entific museums are essentially storehouses 

 for such records. Most of them to be sure 

 maintain public exhibitions, which inter- 

 est, stimulate and possibly instruct the 

 public, but the precious part of their col- 

 lections comprises the objects possessed, 

 which have served for some original dis- 

 covery. Scientific museums are very mod- 

 ern, nearly all those in America have been 

 started within a few years. The Philadel- 

 phia Academy of Natural Sciences was 

 founded in 1812, the Boston Society of 

 Natural History in 1831, Agassiz's Mu- 

 seum in 1859, the National Museum in 

 "Washington in 1876,* and the Field Colum- 

 bian Museimi in 1893. A history of mu- 

 seums, dealing especially with the progress 

 of the art of caring for collections would 

 be cheering to read, for it would picture a 

 remarkable growth of the appreciation of 

 the value of objects as original records. 

 This may be illustrated by the change of 

 opinion as to "type" specimens of plants 

 and animals. The systematic zoologists 

 and botanists constantly lament that the 

 earlier authors did not preserve the actual 

 specimens from which they described new 

 species and they consider no pains too 

 great to ensure the preservation of 

 "types" of new species, which any cotem- 

 porary worker describes. In the Labora- 

 tory of Comparative Anatomy at Harvard 

 we have felt the influence of the example 

 of museums and have established a perma- 

 nent embryological research collection, a 

 sign of the times and an acknowledgment 

 of the new insistence upon the preserva- 

 tion of the original proofs of discoveries. 

 * The genesis of this museum dates back to 

 Smithson's bequest, 1826, and was in part due to 

 accumulations of materials from various govern- 

 ment expeditions before 1876. 



The progress of science is marked by the 

 advance in the art of making research rec- 

 ords. "We all admit, in other words, that 

 the progress of science depends partly on 

 the perfecting of old methods, but chiefly 

 on the invention of new ones. Despite the 

 enormous variety in their nature and aims, 

 all our technical methods have this in com- 

 mon that their real purpose is to yield us 

 records. Our microscopes, spectroscopes, 

 measuring instriiments and many another 

 apparatus have indeed their primary scope 

 in rendering possible observations, which 

 are impossible with our unaided senses. 

 They enlarge our field of enquiry and put 

 precision within our reach. Yet their use- 

 fulness is conditioned upon their enabling 

 us to make records which else would re- 

 main beyond our power. On the other 

 hand, there is a still larger class of appa- 

 ratus which are obviously designed to 

 make records. What has been said con- 

 cerning apparatus might be repeated con- 

 cerning methods. 



It is remarkable that the vast majority 

 of methods and apparatus are contrived to 

 furnish a visible result. Sight has long 

 been acknowledged by science as the su- 

 preme sense. Perhaps the philosopher was 

 right who asserted that nothing is really 

 known until it is presented in a visible 

 form. We biologists can not deplore too 

 frequently or too emphatically the great 

 mathematical delusion by which men often 

 of very great, if limited, ability have been 

 misled into becoming advocates of an erro- 

 neous conception of accuracy. Although 

 I have expressed myself on the subject be- 

 fore its importance justifies recurring to it. 

 The delusion is that no science is accurate 

 until its results can be expressed mathe- 

 matically. The error comes from the as- 

 sumption that mathematics can express 

 complex relations. Unfortunately, mathe- 

 matics have a very limited scope and are 



