248 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 
source of knowledge is an acknowledgment of ignorance, and meager- 
ness of ability is to be measured by narrowness. That investigator with 
a foreshortened horizon will find everything small. 
We hear it said that in science all facts have an equal value, just 
as all links in a chain have equal importance. If this were so, then 
all problems of science should have an equal significance and it would 
make no difference what choice of problems were made. But the 
premise is wrong, because we generally recognize that some phenomena 
have very wide bearings while others do not, or at least do not in our 
present understanding of them. Thus the phenomenon of the size of 
an animal has not nearly so much significance as the phenomena of its 
rate of growth or alternation of generations. We measure the value of 
a phenomenon by the number of ideas we associate with it, that is, its 
relative degree of complexity. As in art a painting of a basket of fruit, 
no matter how excellent the technique, can not be compared in value 
with a study of a human face, so in science the discovery and descrip- 
tion of a new muscle, no matter how accurately made, can not be paral- 
leled with an investigation of the process of formation of that muscle. 
The human face and the process of differentiation call up ever-widening 
associations, while the basket of fruit and the muscle suggest a meal. 
To be sure, a master artist might make the basket of fruit appear 
celestial, and a great anatomist make the muscle seem extraordinary, 
but they would still suggest a meal, even though a meal for angels or 
heroes. Men will differ as to the relative importance of any thing, and 
we have no right to prefer our estimates to others. But it is generally 
acknowledged in science that the investigation of a process is of a 
higher order than the contemplation of one particular step, the number 
of comparisons possible being the criterion of value. ‘Thus it is certain 
that all problems are not of equal value, because they have very dif- 
ferent bearings. All need solution, they are of sufficient diversity to 
appeal to all types of mind, but a man should assure himself that his 
problem has really broad significance. And when the layman ap- 
proaches us on the manner of our work we should not tell him, as is 
often done, that he can not understand it because he is not a scientist; 
for if we can not make it intelligent to him it is clear we have no good 
comprehension of its bearings, and the fault is with us and not with 
him. Every scientific research has some connection with human inter- 
ests we should understand what the connection is; if we do not under- 
stand this we are to blame for any lack of sympathy. It is a duty of 
the investigator towards his subject to make it comprehensible to the 
layman, and when he does so his merits will be acknowledged, but not 
before. 
Like every other process, so thought needs time, and by reflection 
is meant thought pursued at leisure. When a certain result has been 
