Jasuauy 11, 1895.] 



SCIE.\'CE. 



39 



The Society, on motion of Professor 15iini- 

 pns, appropriated a sum not to exceed §130 

 to equip the American tabU^ at the Xaples 

 Station witli proper microtomes, and a com- 

 mittee of three was appointed to attend to 

 this nuitter. 



Professor J. S. Kingsley detaih'd a • l)il)- 

 liographieal project ' originating with Pro- 

 fessor (i. W. Fiehl of Brown University. 

 Tliis i)ropo.ses to put into tlio hands of 

 workers in zooh)gy a bibliography of cur- 

 rent literature, in such a form as to be 

 readily accessible, the latter to be readilj- 

 combined with the earlier, and to present 

 the matter both as to subjects and as to 

 authors. By a vote of the Society, a com- 

 mittee of five was appointed to consider 

 this ' project ' and to report in print both 

 in Science and in The American Xattind- 

 iW. 



President (iilman. in a very pleasant and 

 cordial way. then welcomed the memljers 

 of the visiting societies to Baltimore, speak- 

 ing on behalf of the authorities of the Johns 

 Hopkins University and of the citizens of 

 Baltimore. 



Pr(>sideut Minot chose for the subject of 

 his address 'The Work of the XafKralid in the 

 U'orl'L' The object of the naturalist is to 

 discover the truth about nature and to pub- 

 lish the results of his work to the world. 

 The conditions of success are readily to be 

 observed. First and foremo.st is truth. The 

 naturalist's first business is to get at the 

 truth, and the obstacles which stand most 

 prominently in liis way are : ( 1 ) the limita- 

 tions of his own abilities, and (2) the limi- 

 tations of accessories for carrying on his 

 work. The naturalist must observe, experi- 

 ment and reason, and his training must 

 necessarily be along these lines. Experi- 

 mentation is necessarily more diHicult than 

 observation, for in the former case the 

 naturalist asks why, not how. The gi-eat 

 work of the future, as is already being 

 shown, is to be done by the experimenters. 



Oui- notion of ca\isation is still in a very 

 rudimentary condition. 



Again, the reasoning faculty is one of our 

 weakest points. The naturalist must learn 

 to carefully distinguish between discussion 

 and controversy, and while being led and 

 taught to indulge freelj- in the former witli 

 all the intelligence at his command, he must 

 also be taught to avoid the latter. 



The naturalist is naturally exposed to 

 many evils, such as this matter of contro- 

 versy, which tend to cause liim to depart 

 from his proper mission, viz.. of getting at 

 the truth. He is especially likely to be led 

 astray by impatience to get results. Pre- 

 liminary communications are a very great 

 as well as a very i)revalent e\il. The opin- 

 ion of the sjtcaker was very pronouncedly 

 adverse to this form of publication. The 

 greed for priority leads many even lin" 

 workers far asti-ay. 



The tendency to speculate is a third evil, 

 and this has perhaps reached its culmina- 

 tion in tlie doctrines of Weismann. An- 

 other evil is the one which leads us to ac- 

 cept too readily simple and well tini.shed 

 conceptions. Herljert SjK'ncer furnishes us 

 with an illustrious example of the effects of 

 this. 



In the matter of publication, four classes 

 may be distinguished: (1.) Original Memoirs; 

 (2. ) Handbooks; (3.) Text Books ; (4.) Bihlio- 

 graphies. The last three are important 

 both in form and in the matter. The first 

 are like digestive organs. It is theii' func- 

 tion to assimilate crude facts and render 

 them digestible. Advice to prune and di- 

 gest such matter for publication is much 

 needed. Details not bearing directly uj^on 

 the subject sliould be carefully excluded. 

 Most original papers could be • boiled 

 down ' to one half, and some even to one 

 tenth of the amount that is i-eally published. 

 The English wiite best and this may be 

 owing to the example of Huxley. The 

 Ciermans and .\mericans who cojiy after 



