Scienter

“ To anyone who knows the business of investigation practically, Bacon's notion of establishing a company of investigators to work for 'fruits,' as if the pursuit of knowledge were a kind of mining operation and only required well-directed picks and shovels, seems very strange. [C] In science, as in art, and, as I believe, in every other sphere of human activity, there may be wisdom in a multitude of counsellors, but it is only in one or two of them. And, in scientific inquiry, at any rate, it is to that one or two that we must look for light and guidance. ”

“ And, indeed, what is a scientist? Not, certainly, he who knows how to manipulate all the instruments in the physical laboratory, or who in the laboratory of the chemist handles the various reactives with deftness and security, or who in biology knows how to make ready the specimens for the microscope. Indeed, it is often the case that an assistant has a greater dexterity in experimental technique than the master scientist himself. ”

“ That, in a few words, is, as far as investigation—by the help of one's eye and by the help of the microscope—has taken us. But now there is an observer whose methods of observation are more refined than those of men who use their eye, even though it be aided by the microscope; a man who sees indirectly further than we can see directly—that is, the chemist; and the chemist took up this question, and his discovery was not less remarkable than that of the microscopist. ”

“ Anyone conversant with a single branch of Natural Science is aware that experiment, as well as observation, is necessary. Who would expect discoveries in physics, or in chemistry, without laboratories and experiments? Do not botanists investigate the functions of plants by dissection, by microscopic and chemical investigation, and by experiment? ”

“ Drop whatever you're doing, put your heads together, and find out. Theory first, then a small-scale laboratory experiment. Then come back here on the double."
"Yes, sir," and in a few days they were back.
"Does it work?"
"In theory it should, sir, and on a laboratory scale it does." The three young men were, if possible, even stiffer than before. It was not the first time, nor would it be the last, that a Director of Research would seize credit for work which he was not capable of doing. ”

“ For have they not found fitting employment for the energies of many, who in their own departments stand in the foremost rank of scientific investigators? The scientific discoverer must ever lead the way. Applied science, coming after, takes up the thread of discovery, and once guided into a useful channel industries are created and commerce spreads. ”

“ Even in an age of specialization, the interrelation of the sciences has made it necessary for a scientist to have at least a speaking acquaintance with areas outside his own field. A chemist, for example, may find himself involved in biology; the research interests of a biologist may lead him into physics. ”

“ There is, indeed, no better example of the scientific method of research than the performances, physical and mental, of the well-equipped physician as he stands in the presence of this delicate mechanism faltering in its tasks. He summons his facts—by story, by test, by observation; frames from them, in the light of all the lore which he can muster, a clear conception, or a theory if you will, of the cause and nature of the disturbance ”

“ Yes, science to-day, at the close of this nineteenth century, in the laboratory is discovering and scientifically demonstrating the great, immutable laws upon which the inspired and illuminated ones of all ages have based all their teachings, those who by ordering their lives according to the higher laws of their being get in a moment of time, through the direct touch of inspiration, what it takes the physical investigator a whole lifetime or a series of investigators a series of lifetimes to discover and demonstrate. ”

“ The man in the street who read of his scientific explorations into the unknown—recently he had been entertaining the reading-public with accounts of his plans and preparations to ride in a rocket to the moon—had no conception of the zeal that animated him as a scientific investigator, nor knowledge of the jealous fury that would seize him whenever he was outshone by the superior success of a fellow scientist. ”

“ Nothing but good can, in my opinion, result from the incursion of the non-specialist into the realm of the specialist, provided that the former is in earnest. Over and over again the chemist has given valuable help to the physicist, and the physicist to the chemist, so closely allied are the two subjects; so also is it with physiology and anatomy, the two subjects are so interdependent that a worker in the one may give valuable aid towards the solution of some large problem which is the special territory of the other. ”

“ Most astounding it was, also, to a modern scientist, brought up in the methods and limited by the views of his age, to discover here a development in physics, beyond the dreams of the most daring investigator, that actually belonged to a primitive race, and was first practiced by them in a period and country without scientific culture. The whole affair, indeed, furnished an instance where science seemed to overstep the borderland of the miraculous. ”

“ It is this mutual dependence of biological studies which appears to me the justification of grouping together, as we do here, the study of such a number of vast subjects in a single laboratory. By that means each investigator will receive knowledge and assistance from the other; under such a system the desirable intercommunication of ideas is rendered most easy; and we are most likely to escape that narrow specialism which every laboratory in the long-run has a tendency to get into. ”

“ One of the boys will assume my duties when I pass; the other will take over a part of some branch of science that has grown too complex for one man to handle as a specialist should. In fact, he has already chosen his specialty and been accepted for it—he is to be the nine hundred and sixty-seventh of Chemistry, the student of the asymmetric carbon atom, which will thus be his specialty from this time henceforth. ”

“ The philologist and the chemist, because of the results of the researches of the one, and of the nature of the researches of the other, are the students who are best able to comprehend the discoveries of Keely. “It is the characteristic and the pride of modern science to attain its most lofty results only through the most scrupulous methods of experiment, and to arrive at the knowledge of the highest laws of nature, its hands resting on its apparatus. ”

“ We might, on the other hand, spend our whole life in a laboratory without acquiring more than a little manual and optical dexterity. We are in danger of forgetting that the training of the observational powers is simply developing another language made necessary by the expansion of medicine as a biological science. The true investigator may have but imperfectly trained senses, but he may still succeed in discovering and opening up a new country to us. With his intellectual power to grasp and arrange data, largely worked out by others perhaps, he finds his way through the unknown. ”

“ He smiled.
"The experiment is over," he said. "As to its conclusion, you, Dale, as a medical man, will be sceptical. And you"—turning to M. S.—"as a scientist you will be amazed. I, being neither physician nor scientist, am merely filled with wonder!"
He stepped to a long, square table-like structure in the center of the room. ”

“ This power to predict which characterizes science should stimulate the trained physician to urge on in every way his profession toward the scientific ideal. If the laboratory succeeds in creating a desire to aid in realizing in the student this ideal its work will be well done. This craving to place his profession on a more and more scientific basis will lead to steady intellectual growth and insight and a proper receptive attitude toward the progress of science. ”

“ SECOND EDITION.—Crown 8vo, cloth extra, with Illustrations, 6s.
Leisure-Time Studies, chiefly Biological. By ANDREW WILSON, F.R.S.E., Lecturer on Zoology and Comparative Anatomy in the Edinburgh Medicai school.
"It is well when we can take up the work of a really qualified investigator, who in the intervals of his more serious professional labours sets himself to impart knowledge in such a simple and elementary form as may attract and instruct, with no danger of misleading the tyro in natural science. ”

“ The natural-science investigator, the productive reasoner in the full sense of the word, whether he be an experimenter like Faraday, a theorist like Galileo, a calculator like Newton, finds in his world only directionless quantities which he measures, tests and arranges. It is only the quantitative that is capable of being grasped through figures, of being causally defined, of being captured in a law or formula, and when it has achieved this, pure nature-knowledge has shot its bolt. ”

“ It is surely far better to investigate things themselves.” I inquired, a little bewildered, how this was to be effected? He answered, “Through the physical sciences, and especially through chemistry;” and, raising his voice, his face flushing as he spoke, he discoursed with a degree of animation, that far outshone his zeal in defence of the Germans, of chemistry and chemical analysis. Concerning that science, then so popular, I had merely a scanty and vulgar knowledge, gathered from elementary books, and the ordinary experiments of popular lecturers. ”

“ I am dealing with a question on which minds accustomed to weigh the value of experimental evidence are alone competent to decide, and regarding which, in its present condition, minds so trained are as capable of forming an opinion as regarding the phenomena of magnetism or radiant heat. 'The germ theory of disease,' it has been said, 'appertains to the biologist and the physician.' Where, I would ask in reply, is the biologist or physician, whose researches, in connection with this subject, could for one instant be compared to those of the chemist Pasteur? ”

“ Who, then, are most conspicuous for knowing in what knowledge consists, and for the habit of requiring knowledge as a ground for thought and action, and for being ever on the alert to separate knowledge from its counterfeits? No one, I think, would hesitate in replying, those who have had some scientific training. And it is easy to see how scientific training gives this knowledge, and this habit. It makes no difference what the matter of the study be, whether the stars, or the fungi ”

“ When one looks around, and sees the almost complete lack of opportunities for the training of investigators in this rapidly growing branch of science, the importance of which to chemistry and physics is increasing every day, while the field is ripe for the harvesters, one is inclined to feel depressed with the thought of the opportunities which are being lost. ”

“ But once again always remember that not all the men who work at science are scientists. So few! The rest—secretaries, press-agents, camp-followers! To be a scientist is like being a Goethe: it is born in you. Sometimes I t’ink you have a liddle of it born in you. If you haf, there is only one t’ing—no, there is two t’ings you must do: work twice as hard as you can, and keep people from using you. I will try to protect you from Success. It is all I can do. So ... I should wish, Martin, that you will be very happy here. ”

“ Nowadays all scientific knowledge has increased so largely that specialization is inevitable, and every investigator is confined more and more not only to one department of science, but as a rule to one small portion of that department. ”

“ We see now that the practice of the experimental method endows with a new vision both the experimenter himself and, through his influence, those who are associated with him in medical science, even if these be not themselves actually engaged in experiment; a new discipline is imposed upon old faculties, as is seen as well in other sciences as in those on which medicine more directly depends. ”

“ While we trust that in time to come scientific investigation will be promoted in no mean degree by this school and its graduates, it must be confessed that at the present time its object is chiefly the preparation of young men for practical pursuits involving the applications of science. Nor can it be fairly said that this department is inferior in dignity to the pursuit of abstract science, so called. It is out of the ranks of the practical workers that those peculiarly gifted in scientific investigation are likely to arise ”

“ That's my chance to make Scholar of Medicine, Steve, if I can come up with an answer to one of the minor questions. I'll be in the clinical laboratory where the only cases present are those rare cases of Mekstrom's. The other doctors, espers every one of them, and the scholars over them, will dig the man's body right down to the last cell, looking and combing—you know some of the better espers can actually dig into the constituency of a cell?—but I'll be the doctor who can collect all their information, correlate it, and maybe come up with an answer. ”

“ It is not enough in their eyes to admit that all study of details is precious or necessary to help us to a larger and surer knowledge of the whole; that without the invaluable support and illumination of practical research and physical science, the human intellect must still as of old go limping and blinking on its way nowhither, lame of one foot at best and blind of one eye ”

“ As an evidence of his high appreciation of abstract science derived from original investigation, he left his property in trust to the National Academy of Sciences, the income to be devoted to the prosecution of researches in physical and natural science, by assisting experimenters and observers, and the publication of the results of their investigations. ”