March 24, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



441 



seen how futile is the attempt of material- 

 ism to find the "cause" of life in any one 

 set of material elements, and how equally 

 futile is the attempt of vitalism to find the 

 significance of the whole in some intangible 

 "force." Both fail to see that any set of 

 processes taken as a whole and in its or- 

 ganic relation to the rest of the universe is 

 its own fijial and only adequate explana- 

 tion. Each attributes to natural objects 

 qualities which no single object or set of 

 objects possesses — qualities which afiiord a 

 complete "explanation" of another object. 

 Both attempt to explain everything in 

 terms of "something else," and this in 

 essence amounts to a denial of the reality 

 of the organic beings which we actually 

 see and deal with. 



Wm. B. Ritter 

 La Jolla, Cal. 



INVESTIGATIONS OF THE CABNEGIE 

 INSTITUTION^ 



Work in the ten specially organized de- 

 partments of research in the institution 

 has gone forward during the year with in- 

 creasing vigor and with increasing pro- 

 ductivity. All of these novel establish- 

 ments may be said to have now passed the 

 preliminary stages of organization, equip- 

 ment and tentative experience, so that 

 henceforth their eff'orts and resources may 

 be still more effectively directed and ap- 

 plied. Most of the departments have been 

 strengthened during the year by additions 

 to the staffs of investigators and by acces- 

 sions to equipment and other facilities, 

 some of which latter have come through 

 the generosity of friends, who have thus 

 shown their appreciation of departmental 

 researches. 



But while the existing status of depart- 

 mental affairs is in general highly satisfac- 

 tory, it appears essential to again call 



'From the report of the president. 



attention to the fact that with present in- 

 come and current economic conditions no 

 further expansion of departmental appro- 

 priations can be expected. It may be 

 necessary, on the contrary, to curtail re- 

 search in the departments in order to 

 keep the aggregate expense of the institu- 

 tion within income. It need not follow, 

 however, that this prospective diminution 

 in financial outlay will cause a correspond- 

 ing diminution of productivity, for work 

 of investigation, like work along other 

 novel lines, is usually most costly in the 

 preliminary stages. 



Referring to the current "Year Book" 

 for interesting and instructive details in 

 the reports of the directore of departments, 

 some of the salient features of their activ- 

 ities are summarized in the following para- 

 graphs. 



It is a maximum in the pursuit of phys- 

 ical science to proceed from the simpler to 

 the more complex in any attempt to dis- 

 cover the relation among observed facts. 

 In accordance with this maxim, the head- 

 quarters of the Department of Botanical 

 Research are located in a desert area where 

 the facts of plant life are exhibited, in 

 general, in their simplest, though often 

 extreme and highly specialized, relations.. 

 But even under these favorable conditions 

 plant life presents problems whose solu- 

 tion requires aid from many sciences other 

 than those which are commonly held to 

 make up biology, and especially from 

 chemistry, physics and meteorology. Thus 

 the researches of this department call for 

 much collaboration and for a wide range of 

 observation, experiment and determinate 

 analysis. 



During the year the director of the de- 

 partment has continued his investigations 

 on the water-balance of succulent plants, 

 on the conditions of vegetable parasitism, 

 on the variability in plant species induced 



