I have said that the frontier problems in science are interesting; and that this is true not only of the events that take place when different bodies meet, but in another and more general sense. The most interesting and fruitful problems are those which deal with the borderland between two sciences, when the difficulties of the one are enlightened by the experience of the other, or when the same problem is looked at from two different sides. Let me only quote as an illustration the work connected with osmosis, which attracted first the botanists and then the physical chemists, and remind you of the enormous importance which it has assumed by their combined efforts. I think it will be found that these problems of crystal growth are of this borderland nature. And such problems can only be satisfactorily attacked by those who are more than mere specialists and can be led by the experience or the analogies of other sciences.
I said that I should like to regard this lecture as an attempt to justify the value of analogy. We poor specialists grope within the confines of our own science, and what little advance we make is made in part by the light we borrow from the other sciences. In these days of increasing specialization what we need is to interest in our own problems, not only those who are tilling the same fields with ourselves, but even more, those who live on the other side of the fence which surrounds us: to call to them across the frontier, to seek their advice and assistance and the benefit of their experience.
This is one of the great advantages of a University, that workers and thinkers in different subjects are brought together and can make their difficulties known to each other. The connecting links between them are the analogies which they perceive and which excite an interest that they would not otherwise feel in each other’s work.
This is the reason why I have endeavoured to set before you a very special problem in a very elementary way and as far as possible without using technical terms. It is with the hope of attracting the interest of workers in other subjects to this fascinating problem of crystal growth which, from the time of Boyle to that of Ruskin, and more especially, as I have shown you, in recent years, has engaged the attention of Oxford students of crystals.
Transcriber’s note:
Page 8, ‘allum’ changed to ‘alum,’ “corpuscles of nitre, alum, vitriol,”