Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/254

248 source of knowledge is an acknowledgment of ignorance, and meagerness 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 description of a new muscle, no matter how accurately made, can not be paralleled 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 different 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 approaches 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 interests we should understand what the connection is; if we do not understand 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