THE INSTRUMENTS AND METHODS OF 
RESEARCH. 
BY 
L. A. Bauer. 
(Address of the retiring President, delivered before the Society, Saturday 
evening, December 5, 1908. ) 
TV ere I to accuse you of forgetfulness, of shortness of mem- 
ory, or possessed of that quality apt to prove troublesome 
to others, though characterized by the oldest of our past 
presidents, in his delightful “Reminiscences of an Astrono- 
mer,''' as a valuable quality — absent-mindedness — I dare say 
you would not be much offended, though possibly a trifle 
annoyed. But were I to accuse you of narrow-mindedness 
I might meet with a different reception. To none of us 
would it matter much to be called sliort-memoried or absent- 
minded, but to be termed narrow-minded arouses our resent- 
ment immediately. But are we not all necessarily so, more 
or less, according to the circumstances in which we find 
ourselves ? 
Mind the Chief Instrument of Research. 
I believe it was the mathematical physicist Stokes who said 
we must not forget that the chief instrument of investiga- 
tion — the mind — is itself the object of research. To the 
Mind, then, we should devote our first and chief attention 
in the discussion of the subject set for this evening. How 
to reduce and check as far as possible this natural tendency 
of all of us to narrow-mindedness in one or more directions, 
or how, realizing its necessary existence, to make due allow- 
ance for it in the formulation of conclusions which, though 
16— Bull. Phil. Soc., Wash., Vol. 15. (103) 
