Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/182

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176
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sided specialist. Many a man attempting research has come short of really advancing knowledge on account of his prejudices. Darwin was a typical example of a philosophically whole man; whatever personal opinions he may have had, they were never allowed to prejudice any hypothesis he was examining, nor to interfere with conclusions toward which the observed facts logically led him.

Faraday was another such man. He wrote the following words early in his scientific career-and his life work was an expression of their truth:

The philosopher should be a man willing to listen to every suggestion, but determined to judge for himself. He should not be governed by appearances, have no favorite hypothesis, be of no school, and in doctrine have no master. He should not be a respecter of persons, but of things. Truth should be his primary object. If to these qualities he added industry, he may indeed hope to walk within the veil of the temple of nature.

Again he wrote:

We may be sure of facts, but our interpretation of facts we should doubt. He is the wisest philosopher who holds his theory with some doubt; who is able to proportion his judgment and confidence to the value of the evidence set before him, taking a fact for a fact and a supposition for a supposition. (Gladstone's, 'Life of Mr. Faraday,' pp. 93 and 94.)

Sixth, research must be protected from interference. I take this expression from the game of football; the man who runs with the ball requires the protection of all the rest of the team. So research can not be carried on to successful issue, except by a man who is permitted to devote the best that is in him to the problem of research, and to do so he must have the way opened for him. Many may help to give him the opportunity, but the one thing essential is that he be left free and unimpeded to pursue the problem, wherever it leads him. Time and occasion and money must be at his disposal to such extent as his problem demands.

Research work must be regarded as the very flower of a university system, and should not be lightly valued or carelessly managed. Only men thoroughly fitted by the training of study and the training of investigation, and the training of mental discipline, should be allowed the privilege of entering upon research in our universities; but whenever the proper man is found, the providing of a way for his pursuit of research work, in the field for which he is best fitted, becomes a contribution direct to the progress of science in the world, of which any university may be proud. The university may well scrutinize with consummate care the qualities demanded for research, provide rigidly for the discrimination of those qualities wherever they are highly developed, and may wisely provide with liberality for the true man of research when he is discovered and is properly trained for his work. But in