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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL. No. 1024 



this amount appears destined to increase as 

 time goes on. We are thus confronted, in 

 America, at any rate, by a relatively new- 

 set of problems for men of science, prob- 

 lems in finance, in administration and in 

 adjustment of mutually helpful relations 

 between novel research establishments and 

 organizations already extant in the fields 

 of education and other forms of altruistic 

 effort. It is to some of the requirements 

 which these problems demand of us as 

 specialists in the domain of science that this 

 address is more particularly devoted. What 

 are the needs of the times, what are our per- 

 sonal duties and responsibilities as workers 

 in science, and how should we seek to 

 forward the improvements essential to 

 further the progress of our race ? To these 

 and to allied questions your attention is 

 henceforth invited. 



It would appear quite unnecessary be- 

 fore an audience of this kind to further de- 

 fine the meaning of the word research. But 

 it may be instructive to consider for a mo- 

 ment how far the popular mind, and how 

 far many disciplined minds, may depart 

 from the meaning we attach to the term. 

 We should never forget that the investi- 

 gator lives usually in the presence of ma- 

 jorities which do not understand him and 

 that progress is largely conditioned by 

 these majorities. Thus, to journalists and 

 to their readers it would seem that research 

 is akin to necromancy and that its results 

 are produced chiefly by witches of the male 

 sex, otherwise designated in the polite liter- 

 ature of our day as wizards. Closely akin 

 to this infantile fallacy is the more subtile 

 error entertained by a majority, perhaps, 

 of our highly educated contemporaries, that 

 the more remarkable results of research 

 are produced not by the better balanced 

 minds, but by aberrant types of mind 

 popularly designated by that word of 

 ghostly, if not ghastly, implications, 



namely, "genius." Out of these miscon- 

 ceptions, which require only the briefest 

 examination for their rejection, arise vol- 

 umes of fruitless correspondence and many 

 directly serious obstacles to progress. They 

 are evidently part of the intellectual rub- 

 bish we have inherited from the remote 

 past ; but unfortunately their obvious origin 

 does not prevent well disposed inquirers 

 from raising the questions whether research 

 establishments will undertake investiga- 

 tions which are not scientific and whether 

 they should not give special attention to 

 eccentric rather than to normal minds. A 

 clarification of ideas which will lead to a 

 dissipation of these vagaries is one of the 

 greatest needs of the day. 



A similar clarification of ideas in the 

 popular mind is essential to appreciate the 

 distinction between the usual aims of the 

 investigator and the usual aims of the in- 

 ventor. Investigation and invention are so 

 closely allied that they are often con- 

 founded with one another. Indeed, the in- 

 vestigator is often compelled to devise in- 

 ventions to promote his researches and the 

 inventor is often compelled to make investi- 

 gations in order to perfect his inventions; 

 while the secretiveness of the inventor has 

 its correlative in the desire of the investi- 

 gator to secure priority of publication, as 

 in the naming of new species. But in gen- 

 eral the objects of the investigator are 

 mainly altruistic while those of the inventor 

 are mainly egoistic-, the one seeks to give 

 freely to the world the results of his re- 

 searches, the other seeks personal benefits 

 by aid of letters-patent. It is plain, there- 

 fore, that while there is now room for con- 

 temporaneous and probably advantageous 

 public altruistic and private egoistic organ- 

 izations for the promotion of research, rela- 

 tions of complete reciprocity can not obtain 

 between them. Thus, for example, the U. S. 

 Bureau of Standards is giving the results 



