174 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VI., No. 134. 



of our methods, by the ennoblement of our personal- 

 ities, and by these alone, can we rightly discover 

 whether or not our association is fulfilling its des- 

 tiny by advancing science in America. If, unhappily, 

 our meetings should rather tend to cultivate a love 

 for bric-a-brac in science, if the stimulation and grati- 

 fication of a quasi-animal curiosity for scientific 

 novelties be fostered, if our discussions should be- 

 come hot-beds of a more vigorous vegetation of per- 

 sonal vanity, intellectual pugnacity, lust for notori- 

 ety, literary jealousies, conceited reclamations, petty 

 ambitions, or pecuniary schemes, how is our day and 

 generation to be benefited or improved ? If our at- 

 tention become restricted to the details of the crea- 

 tion, and to the smaller manoeuvres of the forces of 

 nature; or if , on the other hand, we become habitu- 

 ated in the indulgence of vague generalizations, sug- 

 gestions of possible theories, and half-completed or 

 merely sketched and outlined hypotheses, — how are 

 we ourselves, as workers of science, to escape deterio- 

 ration ? 



I cannot shake off a suspicion that we talk and 

 write too much; that the whole world talks too much; 

 and that the golden time for silence is precisely then 

 when we come together to talk. Were each of us to 

 utter only what he absolutely knows, what he is quite 

 sure of, what he has unimpeachable facts in sufii- 

 cient number to confirm, — what a sudden illumina- 

 tion would overspread our meetings, glorifying our 

 science, and re-inspiring us all ! But I turn from the 

 Utopian fancy, and invite your attention to a very 

 different theme. 



There is a topic which I think should be frequently 

 considered by all who engage in scientific pursuits; 

 and by none so earnestly as by those who are ambi- 

 tious to reach the higher points of view, from which 

 to survey and describe those systematic combinations 

 of phenomena which are more or less panoramic : I 

 allude of course to generalizers or discoverers of 

 natural laws, and the professional teachers of such 

 laws; while those who deal in itemized science, the 

 mere observers of isolated facts, discriminating spe- 

 cimens and naming genera and species in the animal, 

 vegetable or mineral worlds, and especially such as 

 occupy themselves with geographical and geological 

 studies in detail, stand in less need of having it 

 pressed upon their attention, because in their case 

 it insists upon its own necessity. 



I allude to what is technically known among ex- 

 perts as ' dead- work.' 



This topic has to be treated in the most prosaic 

 style. To describe dead-work is to narrate all those 

 portions of our work which consume the most time, 

 give the most trouble, require the greatest patience 

 and endurance, and seem to produce the most insig- 

 nificant results. It comprises the collection, colla- 

 tion, comparison and adjustment, the elimination, 

 correction and re-selection, the calculation and rep- 

 resentation—in a word, the entire first, second, 

 and third handling of our data in any branch of 

 human learning, — wholly perfunctory, preparatory, 

 and mechanical, wholly tentative, experimental, 

 and defensive, — without which it is dangerous to 



proceed a single stage into reasoning on the unknown, 

 and futile to imagine that we can advance in science 

 ourselves, or assist in its advancement in the world. 

 It is that tedious, costly, and fatiguing process of lay- 

 ing a good foundation which no eye is ever to see, 

 for a house to be built thereon for safety and en- 

 joyment, for public uses or for monumental beauty. 

 It is the labor of a week to be paid for on Saturday 

 night. It is the slow recruiting, arming, drilling, 

 victualling, and transporting of an entire army to 

 secure victory in one short battle. It is the burden 

 of dead weight which every great discoverer has had 

 to carry for years and years, unknown to the world 

 at large, before the world was electrified by his ap- 

 pearance as its genius. Let us examine it more 

 closely : it will repay our scrutiny. Those of you who 

 have been more or less successfully at work all your 

 lives may get some satisfaction from the retrospect ; 

 and those who have commenced careers should hear 

 what dead-work means, what its uses are, how indis- 

 pensable it is, how honorable it is,, and what stores 

 of health and strength and happiness it reserves for 

 them. 



My propositions, then, are these: 1°. That, without 

 a large amount of this dead-work, there can be no dis- 

 covery of what is rightly called a scientific truth. 

 2°. That, without a large amount of dead-work on the 

 part of a teacher of science, he will fail in his efforts 

 to impart true science to his scholars. 3°. That, 

 without a large amount of dead-work, no professional 

 expert can properly serve, much less inform and com- 

 mand, his clients or employers. 4°. That nothing but 

 a habitual performance of dead-work can keep the 

 scientificvjudgment in a safe and sound condition to 

 meet emergencies, or prevent it from falling more or 

 less rapidly into decrepitude; and 5°, That in the case 

 of highly-organized thinkers, disposed or obliged to 

 exercise habitually the creative powers of the ima- 

 gination, or to exhaust the will-power in frequently 

 recurring decisions of difficult and doubtful ques- 

 tions, dead-work and plenty of it is their only sal- 

 vation; nay, the most delicious and refreshing rec- 

 reation; a panacea for disgust, discouragement and 

 care; an elixir vitae; a fountain of perpetual youth. 



In expanding these propositions, I would illustrate 

 them in some such homely ways as should make 

 them seem near and familiar principles of conduct; 

 and of course I can only do this out of the experience 

 of my own life, and from observation of what has 

 happened in the limited sphere of one department of 

 scientific inquiry; but that should suffice, seeing that 

 work is work, and science science, however various 

 may be minds and their pursuits. 



First, then, is it so that scientific truths cannot 

 be discovered without a large amount of preliminary 

 dead-work? Surely no one in this assembly doubts 

 it who has established even <me original theory for 

 himself, or won for it the suffrages of judges capable 

 of weighing evidence. Now the immense dispropor- 

 tion in numbers between theories broached and theo- 

 ries accepted is the best proof we could have, not only 

 of the value and necessity of dead- work, but of the 

 scarcity of those who depend upon it as a prepara- 



