August 21, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



255 



covery and advancement of scientific 

 knowledge, and by accepting such member- 

 ship you promise, so far as lies within your 

 power, to carry out this purpose. You will 

 note, therefore, that membership in this 

 society, providing one lives up to the trust 

 imposed on him, carries with it certain 

 responsibilities which, like the marriage 

 vows, are not to be lightly assumed. It 

 means, perhaps, in the first place that you 

 are not to make the getting of money the 

 foremost object of your life work. Now 

 this fact alone to an American in this com- 

 mercial age is a matter of grave importance 

 and one that eliminates from our member- 

 ship most of those who are actively engaged 

 in "business, with its self-seeking and 

 bargaining" in contrast to those in "the 

 world of science, with its self-renunciation 

 and mutual confidence." This is what 

 Professor Titchener calls the "vow of 

 honorable poverty" and the first one that 

 a scientific man must take. The second 

 vow is that of hard work, which is likewise 

 not an easy one, since the natural inclina- 

 tion of most men is not toward strenuous 

 exertion when it is not called for by the 

 necessities of life. There is no use in try- 

 ing to ignore the fact that in almost aU 

 cases the discovery of new facts requires 

 hard and exhausting work for which in 

 general there is no pecuniary reward that 

 ranks at all with what would be secured if 

 the same amount of energy were put forth 

 in the commercial or professional world. 

 And this fact again eliminates from the 

 ranks of the real scientific workers the large 

 majority of even college and university 

 trained young men and women. Finally, 

 Professor Titchener sets a third vow for the 

 man of science, and that is isolation, which 

 is perhaps after all, the most difficult one. 

 As he said. 



The life of the man of science must be a lonely 

 life. It is not only that we have, most of us, to do 



our scientific work, as Helmholtz said, in our spare 

 time, so that we have little leisure for the amenities 

 of the social life around us. That is something, 

 truly; but there is more than that. If we are to 

 carry science beyond her present bounds, in any 

 field of work, we must specialize. And that means 

 that we shall hardly find, away from imiversity 

 centers, even one or two of our acquaintances who 

 are in intelligent sympathy with us; we must work 

 alone. Even within a university, the number of 

 men who thoroughly understand and appreciate 

 their neighbor 's work must be very small.io 



In these days of university distractions 

 it is difficult for even the men of most abil- 

 ity in the university circle to keep their 

 leisure time for research instead of giving 

 it to the multitudinous activities that beckon 

 them away from such stern and severe 

 work. 



You are thinking, undoubtedly, that few 

 and perhaps none of the members of Sigma 

 Xi come up to this standard. It is granted 

 at once, for this difference between the 

 claims and the realities of the society has 

 long been recognized. It is, however, the 

 ideal toward which the society aims, and 

 few human organizations come up to the 

 full measure of the vision of their leaders. 

 It is very true that you can find plenty 

 of members of this society who have not 

 apparently justified their election; but it 

 is really after aU a tribute to its standing 

 that they wish to become and remain mem- 

 bers. Probably for one reason or another, 

 some good and others not, not even all of 

 you who are present to-night for the pur- 

 pose of initiation will in any considerable 

 degree attain to the ideals that have been 

 formulated for this organization. Thiss 

 mixed active and inactive membership of 

 the society for a long time disturbed the 

 speaker, as it has various others who are 

 keenly interested in the high aims of Sigma 

 Xi. In later years, however, he has come to 

 consider that it is probably inevitable to a 



16 Ihid., pp. 10-13, for the remarks concerning 

 the vows of a scientific man. 



