Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 84.djvu/76

72 distrust of his own eyesight. Yet in years after, when all these animals have been worked into the system, and each has a little history of its own in the literature, he is apt to find that he was really too timid when he thought himself too bold. He finds, of course, that he made mistakes, but often these are not the ones he feared he might be making.

What advice should be given to one beginning research in some field of biology? If you follow the well beaten path you will not perhaps make many discoveries, but you will not get into trouble. You will at least be biologically respectable. It seems to be the common opinion of university teachers that this is the best plan, if we may judge from the published theses of their students. These studies in cytology and ecology can be worked out much as one works out a problem in mathematics, the data being given, and the result unavoidable unless some gross blunder is made. Taxonomy is often decried by these very men as mechanical, and they avoid it in planning for doctors' theses. The fact is, that it is not mechanical enough; it is too full of if s and ands, of uncertainties and pitfalls, and as a rule they can not deal successfully with it. On this account we are probably saved from a great deal of bad taxonomy, which would cause infinite trouble to later workers; while the actual output, if not especially brilliant, is at least useful.

From the standpoint of science it seems evident that too much originality should not be encouraged in the young. We need experience in order to deal with difficult matters and break new ground. The older a man gets the more right he has to be free, to depend upon his own judgments even when they run counter to all others. Unfortunately, however, the very experience which seems to justify freedom is the cause of its restriction. Habits are formed, prejudices are developed, the mind is worn into ruts. There are few who can be really original in later life. Thus in the matter of ability, based on knowledge and experience, there is a curve which ascends until the powers begin to fail; but in the matter of originality and freedom the curve soon drops downward, gradually perhaps, but steadily. Obviously, there must be an optimum point somewhere at which it is most possible to make scientific discoveries. It will differ according to the character of the individual and his particular environment; it is for the psychologists to determine for us where it is most likely to occur. Its determination, even approximately, ought to be of some consequence to us. If it is at thirty, then at thirty our brilliant young men and women ought to be most free to do as they will; most free from external difficulties and encumbrances of every sort. Arrangements have not been made to meet