In addition to the power and facility acquired by frequent discussion with his fellows, the appreciation and support of an intelligent community, to whom the investigator may, from time to time, make known his thoughts and the results of his work, add a most effective stimulus. The greater the number of men of like minds that can be brought together and the larger the community which interests itself in what they are doing, the more rapid will be the advance and the more effective the work carried on. It is thus that London, with its munificently supported institutions, and Paris and Berlin, with their bodies of investigators supported either by the government or by various foundations, have been for more than three centuries the great centres where we find scientific activity most active and most effective. Looking at this undoubted fact, which has asserted itself through so long a period, and which asserts itself today more strongly than ever, the writer conceives that there can be no question as to one proposition. If we aim at the single object of promoting the advance of knowledge in the most effective way, and making our own country the leading one in research, our efforts should be directed towards bringing together as many scientific workers as possible at a single centre, where they can profit in the highest degree by mutual help, support, and sympathy.
In thus strongly setting forth what must seem an indisputable conclusion, the writer does not deny that there are drawbacks to such a policy, as there are to every policy that can be devised aiming at a good result. Nature offers to society no good that she does not accompany by a greater or less measure of evil The only question is whether the good outweighs the evil. In the present case, the seeming evil, whether real or not, is that of centralization. A policy tending in this direction is held to be contrary to the best interests of science in quarters entitled to so much respect that we must inquire into the soundness of the objection.
It would be idle to discuss so extreme a question as whether we shall take all the best scientific investigators of our country from their several seats of learning and attract them to some one point. We know that this cannot be done, even were it granted that success would be productive of great results. The most that can be done is to choose some existing centre of learning, population, wealth, and influence, and do what we can to foster the growth of science at that centre by attracting thither the greatest possible number of scientific investigators, especially of the younger class, and making it possible for them to pursue their researches in the most effective way. This policy would not result in the slightest harm to any institution or community situated elsewhere. It would not be even like building up a university to outrank all the others of our country; because the functions of the new institution, if such should be founded, would in its relations to the country be radically different from those of a university. Its primary object would not be the education of youth, but the increase of knowledge. So far as the interests of any community or of the world at large are concerned, it is quite indifferent where knowledge may be acquired, because, when once acquired and made public, it is free to the world. The drawbacks suffered by other centres would be no greater than those suffered by our Western cities, because all the great departments of the government are situated at a single distant point. Strong arguments could doubtless be made for locating some of these departments in the Far West, in the Mississippi Valley, or in various cities of the Atlantic coast; but every one knows that any local advantages thus gained would be of no importance compared with the loss of that administrative efficiency which is essential to the whole country.
There is, therefore, no real danger from centralization. The actual danger is rather in the opposite direction; that the sentiment against concentrating research will prove to operate too strongly. There is a feeling that it is rather better to leave every investigator where he chances to be at the moment, a feeling which sometimes finds expression in the apothegm that we cannot transplant a genius. That such a proposition should find acceptance affords a striking example of the readiness of men to accept a euphonious phrase without inquiring whether the facts support the doctrine which it enunciates. The fact is that many, perhaps the majority, of the great scientific investigators of this and of former times have done their best work through being transplanted. As soon as the enlightened monarchs of Europe felt the importance of making their capitals great centres of learning, they began to invite eminent men of other countries to their own. Lagrange was an Italian transplanted to Paris, as a member of the Academy of Sciences, after he had shown his powers in his native country. His great contemporary, Euler, was a Swiss, transplanted first to St. Petersburg, then invited by Frederick the Great to become a member of the Berlin Academy, then again attracted to St. Petersburg. Huyghens was transplanted from his native country to Paris. Agassiz was an exotic, brought among us from Switzerland, whose activity during the generation he passed among us was as great and effective as at any time of his life. On the Continent, outside of France, the most eminent professors in the universities have been and still are brought from distant points. So numerous are the cases of which these are examples that it would be more in accord with the facts to claim that it is only by transplanting a genius that we stimulate him to his best work.
Having shown that the best results can be expected only by bringing into contact as many scientific investigators as possible, the next question which arises is that of their relations to one another. It may be asked whether we shall aim at individualism or collectivism. Shall our ideal be an organized system of directors, professors, associates, assistants, fellows; or shall it be a collection of individual workers, each pursuing his own task in the way he deems best, untrammelled by authority?
The reply to this question is that there is in this special case no antagonism between the two ideas. The most effective organization will aim both at the promotion of individual effort, and at subordination and co-operation. It would be a serious error to formulate any general rule by which all cases should be governed. The experience of the past should be our guide, so far as it applies to present and future conditions; but in availing ourselves of it we must remember that conditions are constantly changing, and must adapt our policy to the problems of the future. In doing this, we shall find that different fields of research require very different policies as regards co-operation and subordination. It will be profitable to point out those special differences, because we shall thereby gain a more luminous insight into the problems which now confront the scientific investigator, and better appreciate their variety, and the necessity of different methods of dealing with them.
At one extreme, we have the field of normative science, work in which is of necessity that of the individual mind alone. This embraces pure mathematics and the methods of science in their widest range. The common interests of science require that these methods shall be worked out and formulated for the guidance of investigators generally, and this work is necessarily that of the individual brain.
At the other extreme, we have the great and growing body of sciences of observation. Through the whole nineteenth century, to say nothing of previous centuries, organizations, and even individuals, have been engaged in recording the innumerable phases of the course of nature, hoping to accumulate material that posterity shall be able to utilize for its benefit. We have observations astronomical, meteorological, magnetic, and social, accumulating in constantly increasing volume, the mass of which is so unmanageable with our present organizations that the question might well arise whether almost the whole of it will not have to be consigned to oblivion. Such a conclusion should not be entertained until we have made a vigorous effort to find what pure metal of value can be extracted from the mass of ore. To do this requires the co-operation of minds of various orders, quite akin in their relations to those necessary in a mine or great manufacturing establishment. Laborers whose duties are in a large measure matters of routine must be guided by the skill of a class higher in quality and smaller in number than their own, and these again by the technical knowledge of leaders in research. Between these extremes we have a great variety of systems of co-operation.
There is another feature of modern research the apprehension of which is necessary to the completeness of our view. A cursory survey of the field of science conveys the impression that it embraces only a constantly increasing number of disconnected specialties, in which each cultivator knows little or nothing of what is being done by others. Measured by its bulk, the published mass of scientific research is increasing in a more than geometrical ratio. Not only do the publications of nearly every scientific society increase in number and volume, but new and vigorous societies are constantly organized to add to the sum total. The stately quartos issued from the presses of the leading academies of Europe are, in most cases, to be counted by hundreds. The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society already number about two hundred volumes, and the time when the Memoirs of the French Academy of Sciences shall reach the thousand mark does not belong to the very remote future. Besides such large volumes, these and other societies publish smaller ones in a constantly growing number. In addition to the publications of learned societies, there are journals devoted to each scientific specialty, which seem to propagate their species by subdivision in much the same way as some of the lower orders of animal life. Every new publication of the kind is suggested by the wants of a body of specialists, who require a new medium for their researches and communications. The time has already come when we cannot assume that any specialist is acquainted with all that is being done even in his own line. To keep the run of this may well be beyond his own powers; more he can rarely attempt.
What is the science of the future to do when this huge mass outgrows the space that can be found for it in the libraries, and what are we to say of the value of it all? Are all these scientific researches to be classed as really valuable contributions to knowledge, or have we only a pile in which nuggets of gold are here and there to be sought for? One encouraging answer to such a question is that, taking the interests of the world as a whole, scientific investigation has paid for itself in benefits to humanity a thousand times over, and that all that is known to-day is but an insignificant fraction of what Nature has to show us. Apart from this, another feature of the science of our time demands attention. While we cannot hope that the multiplication of specialties will cease, we find that upon the process of differentiation and subdivision is now being superposed a form of evolution, tending towards the general unity of all the sciences, of which some examples may be pointed out.