Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/174

168 causes and methods of evolution. Our research museum has assumed the rôle of recorder of faunal conditions as they are in this age. I reiterate, for emphasis, that I believe its greatest ultimate value will not, therefore, be fully realized until a later period.

But to return to our immediate activities and their justification: The mass of information already at hand brings us face to face with numerous problems of distribution and variation. As our field work is carried on, we learn more and more in detail of the extent of the range of each species of animal, and we are able to recognize more clearly the correlated factors. We are able with more accuracy to define the characters of the local races or subspecies. The study of these "small species" I believe is leading to a better understanding of the relationships of animals and the causes of evolution than if we ignored the slight varieties and contented ourselves with dealing systematically only with the species differentiated so far as to be distinguishable at a glance.

Systematists, either as members of our museum staff or students from elsewhere, who make use of our material, are putting on published record the more important facts of distribution and variation as they come to light. All of this activity leads to the more thorough knowledge of animals necessary for any sort of wider generalization. Our institution is a repository of facts; and no matter what may be said to the contrary by those who undervalue the efforts of the hoarder of facts, it must always be the mass of carefully ascertained facts upon which the valid generalization rests. I have lately learned from no less than three zoologists of prominence that the published scientific paper which does not include some induction or generalization is not worth while. The result, it seems to me, of such a sentiment as this, which is being promulgated among the younger students, is to encourage premature conclusions. The object, in the view of the young research student, becomes the discovery of generalizations, and he is liable to be content with a wholly insufficient basis of facts. We can not expect satisfactory inductions from scanty data any sooner than from inaccurate data. At the same time I do realize that the ultimate value of the facts lies in their service as indicators of general truths. The amassing of detailed facts in any field of science is certainly a commendable pursuit; and if generalizations of wide application are early indicated, so much the better. Our research museum is a repository of facts.

There is a more widely-appreciated function of our institution which is already asserting itself as an important one in the research museum's activities, especially in its connection with a state university: People want to know whether or not a reptile is poisonous; whether or not a bird is beneficial or injurious; whether or not a