scepticism on the part of foreign judges than their achievements in
other departments of cultural activity. There is one obvious reason for
this difference. When our letters, our art, our music are criticized
with disdainfully faint commendation, it is because they have failed to
attain the higher reaches of creative effort. Supreme accomplishment in
art certainly presupposes a graduated series of lesser strivings, yet
from what might be called the consumer’s angle, mediocrity is worthless
and incapable of giving inspiration to genius. But in science it is
otherwise. Here every bit of sound work--however commonplace--counts as
a contribution to the stock of knowledge; and, what is more, on labours
of this lesser order the superior mind is frequently dependent for its
own syntheses. A combination of intelligence, technical efficiency,
and application may not by itself suffice to read the riddles of
the universe; but, to change the metaphor, it may well provide the
foundation for the epoch-makers’ structure. So while it is derogatory
to American literature to be considered a mere reflection of English
letters, it is no reflection on American scientists that they have
gone to Europe to acquire that craftsmanship which is an indispensable
prerequisite to fruitful research. And when we find Alexander von
Humboldt praising in conversation with Silliman the geographical
results of Maury and Frémont, there is no reason to suspect him of
perfunctory politeness to a transatlantic visitor; the veteran scholar
might well rejoice in the ever widening application of methods he had
himself aided in perfecting.
Thus even seventy years ago and more the United States had by honest,
painstaking labour made worthwhile additions to human knowledge and
these contributions have naturally multiplied a hundredfold with the
lapse of years. Yet it would be quite misleading to make it appear
as if the total represented merely a vast accumulation of uninspired
routine jobs. Some years ago, to be sure, an American writer rather
sensationally voiced his discontent with the paucity of celebrated
_savants_ among our countrymen. But he forgot that in science fame
is a very inadequate index of merit. The precise contribution made
by one man’s individual ability is one of the most tantalizingly
difficult things to determine--so much so that scholars are still
debating in what measure Galileo’s predecessors paved the way for
his discoveries in dynamics. For a layman, then, to appraise the
relative significance of this or that intellectual worthy on the basis
of current gossip is rather absurd. Certainly the lack of a popular
reputation is a poor reason for denying greatness to a contemporary or
even near-contemporary scientific thinker. Two remarkable instances at
once come to mind of Americans who have won the highest distinction
abroad yet remain unknown by name to many of their most cultivated
compatriots. Who has ever heard of Willard Gibbs? Yet he was the
recipient of the Copley medal, British learning’s highest honour, and
his phase rule is said to mark an epoch in the progress of physical
chemistry. Again, prior to the Nobel prize award, who outside academic
bowers had ever heard of the crucial experiment by which a Chicago
physicist showed, to quote Poincaré, “that the physical procedures are
powerless to put in evidence absolute motion”? Michelson’s name is
linked with all the recent speculations on relativity, and he shares
with Einstein the fate of finding himself famous one fine morning
through the force of purely external circumstances.
In even the briefest and most random enumeration of towering native
sons it is impossible to ignore the name of William James. Here for
once the suffrage of town and gown, of domestic and alien judges,
is unanimous. Naturally James can never mean quite the same to the
European world that he means to us, because in the United States he
is far more than a great psychologist, philosopher, or literary man.
Owing to our peculiar spiritual history, he occupies in our milieu an
altogether unique position. His is the solitary example of an American
pre-eminent in a branch of science who at the same time succeeded in
deeply affecting the cultural life of a whole generation. Further, he
is probably the only one of our genuinely original men to be thoroughly
saturated with the essense of old world civilization. On the other
side of the Atlantic, of course, neither of these characteristics
would confer a patent of distinction. Foreign judgment of James’s
psychological achievement was consequently not coloured by external
considerations, and it is all the more remarkable that the “Principles
of Psychology” was so widely and by such competent critics acclaimed as
a synthesis of the first order.
Without attempting to exhaust the roster of great names, I must
mention Simon Newcomb and his fellow-astronomer, George W. Hill, both
Copley medallists. Newcomb, in particular, stood out as the foremost
representative of his science in this country, honoured here and abroad
alike for his abstruse original researches into the motion of the
moon and the planetary system and for his effective popularization.
Henry Augustus Rowland, the physicist, was another of our outstanding
men--one, incidentally, whose measure was taken in Europe long before
his greatness dawned upon his colleagues at home. He is celebrated,
among other things, for perfecting an instrument of precision and for
a new and more accurate determination of the mechanical equivalent of
heat. Among geologists Grove Karl Gilbert, famous for his exploration
of Lake Bonneville--the major forerunner of Great Salt Lake--and his
investigations of mountain structure, stands forth as one of our
pre-eminent savants. Even those who, like the present writer, enjoyed
merely casual contact with that grand old man could not fail to gain
the impression that now they knew what a great scientist looked like
in the flesh and to feel that such a one would be a fit member of any
intellectual galaxy anywhere.
If from single individuals we turn to consider currents of scientific
thought, the United States again stands the trial with flying colours.
It can hardly be denied that in a number of branches our countrymen
are marching in the vanguard. “Experimental biology,” said a German
zoologist some time before the War, “is pre-eminently an American
science.” Certainly one need merely glance at German or British
manuals to learn how deeply interpretations of basic evolutionary
phenomena have been affected by the work of Professor T. H. Morgan
and his followers. In psychology it is true that no one wears the
mantle of William James, but there is effective advancement along
a number of distinct lines. Thorndike’s tests marked an era in the
annals of animal psychology, supplanting with a saner technique the
slovenly work of earlier investigators. Experimental investigation of
mental phenomena generally, of individual variability and behaviour in
particular, flourishes in a number of academic centres. In anthropology
the writings of Lewis H. Morgan have proved a tremendous stimulus to
sociological speculation the world over and still retain their hold
on many European thinkers. They were not, in my opinion, the product
of a great intellect and the scheme of evolution traced by Morgan is
doomed to abandonment. Yet his theories have suggested a vast amount
of thought and to his lasting credit it must be said that he opened
up an entirely new and fruitful field of recondite research through
his painstaking accumulation and discussion of primitive kinship
terminologies.
More recently the anthropological school headed by Professor Boas has
led to a transvaluation of theoretical values in the study of cultural
development, supplanting with a sounder historical insight the cruder
evolutionary speculation of the past. Above all, its founder has
succeeded in perfecting the methodology of every division of the vast
subject, and remains probably the only anthropologist in the world who
has both directly and indirectly furthered ethnological, linguistic,
somatological and archæological investigation. Finally, the active part
played by pathologists like Dr. Simon Flexner in the experimental study
of disease is too well known to require more than brief mention.
Either in its individual or collective results, American research is
thus very far from being a negligible factor in the scientific life of
the world. Nevertheless, the medal has a reverse side, and he would be
a bold optimist who should sincerely voice complete contentment either
with the status of science in the cultural polity of the nation or with
the work achieved by the average American investigator. Let us, then,
try to face the less flattering facts in the case.
The fundamental difficulty can be briefly summarized by applying
the sociologist’s concept of maladjustment. American science,
notwithstanding its notable achievements, is not an organic product of
our soil; it is an epiphenomenon, a hothouse growth. It is still the
prerogative of a caste, not a treasure in which the nation glories.
We have at best only a nascent class of cultivated laymen who relish
scientific books requiring concentrated thought or supplying large
bodies of fact. This is shown most clearly by the rarity of articles
of this type even in our serious magazines. Our physicians, lawyers,
clergymen and journalists--in short, our educated classes--do not
encourage the publication of reading-matter which is issued in Europe
as a profitable business venture. It is hard to conceive of a book
like Mach’s “Analyse der Empfindungen” running through eight editions
in the United States. Conversely, it is not strange that hardly any of
our first-rate men find it an alluring task to seek an understanding
with a larger audience. Newcomb and James are of course remarkable
exceptions, but they _are_ exceptions. Here again the contrast
with European conditions is glaring. Not to mention the classic
popularizers of the past, England, e.g., can boast even to-day of such
men as Pearson, Soddy, Joly, Hinks--all of them competent or even
distinguished in their professional work yet at the same time skilful
interpreters of their field to a wider public. But for a healthy
cultural life a rapport of this sort between creator and appreciator is
an indispensable prerequisite, and it is not a whit less important in
science than in music or poetry.
The estrangement of science from its social environment has produced
anomalies almost inconceivable in the riper civilizations of the Old
World. Either the scientist loses contact with his surroundings or
in the struggle for survival he adapts himself by a surrender of his
individuality, that is, by more or less disingenuously parading as
a lowbrow and representing himself as a dispenser of worldly goods.
It is quite true that, historically, empirical knowledge linked with
practical needs is earlier than rational science; it is also true that
applied and pure science can be and have been mutual benefactors.
This lesson is an important one and in a country with a scholastic
tradition like Germany it was one that men like Mach and Ostwald did
well to emphasize. But in an age and country where philosophers pique
themselves on ignoring philosophical problems and psychologists have
become experts in advertising technique, the emphasis ought surely to
be in quite the opposite direction, and that, even if one inclines in
general to a utilitarian point of view. For nothing is more certain
than that a penny-wise Gradgrind policy is a pound-foolish one. A
friend teaching in one of our engineering colleges tells me that owing
to the “practical” training received there the graduates are indeed
able to apply formulæ by rote but flounder helplessly when confronted
by a new situation, which drives them to seek counsel with the despised
and underpaid “theoretical” professor. The plea for pure science
offered by Rowland in 1883 is not yet altogether antiquated in 1921:
“To have the applications of a science, the science itself must exist
... we have taken the science of the Old World, and applied it to all
our uses, accepting it like the rain of heaven, without asking whence
it came, or even acknowledging the debt of gratitude we owe to the
great and unselfish workers who have given it to us.... To a civilized
nation of the present day, the applications of science are a necessity,
and our country has hitherto succeeded in this line, only for the
reason that there are certain countries in the world where pure science
has been and is cultivated, and where the study of nature is considered
a noble pursuit.”
The Bœotian disdain for research as a desirable pursuit is naturally
reflected in the mediocre encouragement doled out to investigators, who
are obliged to do their work by hook or by crook and to raise funds
by the undignified cajolery of wealthy patrons and a disingenuous
_argumentum ad hominem_. Heaven forbid that money be appropriated to
attack a problem which, in the opinion of the best experts, calls
for solution; effort must rather be diverted to please an ignorant
benefactor bent on establishing a pet theory or fired with the zeal to
astound the world by a sensational discovery.
Another aspect of scientific life in the United States that reflects
the general cultural conditions is the stress placed on organization
and administration as opposed to individual effort. It is quite true
that for the prosecution of elaborate investigations careful allotment
of individual tasks contributory to the general end is important and
sometimes even indispensable. But some of the greatest work in the
history of science has been achieved without regard for the principles
of business efficiency; and whatever advantage may accrue in the future
from administrative devices is negligible in comparison with the
creative thought of scientific men. These, and only these, can lend
value to the machinery of organization, which independently of them
must remain a soulless instrument. The overweighting of efficiency
schemes as compared to creative personalities is only a symptom of a
general maladjustment. Intimately related with this feature is that
cynical flouting of intellectual values that appears in the customary
attitude of trustees and university presidents towards those who
shed lustre on our academic life. The professional pre-eminence of a
scientist may be admitted by the administrative officials but it is
regarded as irrelevant since the standard of values accepted by them is
only remotely, if at all, connected with originality or learning.
There are, of course, scientists to whom deference is paid even by
trustees, nay, by the wives of trustees; but it will be usually found
that they are men of independent means or social prestige. It is, in
other words, their wealth and position, not their creative work, that
raises them above their fellows. One of the most lamentable results
of this contempt for higher values is the failure to provide for
ample leisure that might be devoted to research. The majority of our
scientists, like those abroad, gain a livelihood by teaching, but few
foreign observers fail to be shocked by the way the energies of their
American colleagues are frittered away on administrative routine and
elementary instruction till neither time nor strength remains for
the advancement of knowledge. But even this does not tell the whole
story, for we must remember that the younger scientists are as a rule
miserably underpaid and are obliged to eke out a living by popular
writing or lecturing, so that research becomes a sheer impossibility.
If Ostwald and Cattell are right in associating the highest
productivity with the earlier years of maturity, the tragic effects of
such conditions as I have just described are manifest.
In justice, however, mention must be made of a number of institutions
permitting scientific work without imposing any obligation to teach
or onerous administrative duties. The U. S. Geological Survey, the
Carnegie Institution, the Rockefeller Institute may serve as examples.
We must likewise remember that different individuals react quite
differently to the necessity for teaching. Some of the most noted
investigators--Rowland, for instance--find a moderate amount of
lecturing positively stimulating. In a utopian republic of learning
such individual variations would be carefully considered in the
allotment of tasks. The association of the Lick Observatory with the
University of California seems to approximate to ideal conditions,
inasmuch as its highly trained astronomers are relieved of all academic
duties but enjoy the privilege of lecturing to the students when the
spirit moves them.
To return to the main question, the maladjustment between the specific
scientific phase of our civilization and the general cultural life
produces certain effects even more serious than those due to penury,
administrative tyranny, and popular indifference, for they are
less potent and do not so readily evoke defence-mechanisms on the
victims’ part. There is, first of all, a curtailment of potential
scientific achievement through the general deficiencies of the cultural
environment.
Much has been said by both propagandists and detractors of German
scholarship about the effects of intensive specialization. But an
important feature commonly ignored in this connection is that in the
country of its origin specialization is a concomitant and successor
of a liberal education. Whatever strictures may be levelled at the
traditional form of this preparatory training--and I have seen it
criticized as severely by German writers as by any--the fact remains
that the German university student has a broad cultural background such
as his American counterpart too frequently lacks; and what is true of
Germany holds with minor qualifications for other European countries.
A trivial example will serve to illustrate the possible advantages
of a cultural foundation for very specialized research. Music is
notoriously one of the salient features of German culture, not merely
because Germany has produced great composers but because of the wide
appreciation and quite general study of music. Artistically the
knowledge of the piano or violin acquired by the average child in
the typical German home may count for naught, yet in at least two
branches of inquiry it may assume importance. The psychological aspect
of acoustics is likely to attract and to be fruitfully cultivated by
those conversant with musical technique, and they alone will be capable
of grappling with the comparative problems presented by the study
of primitive music--problems that would never occur to the average
Anglo-Saxon field ethnologist, yet to which the German would apply his
knowledge as spontaneously as he applies the multiplication table to a
practical matter of everyday purchase.
As a matter of fact, all the phenomena of the universe are interrelated
and, accordingly, the most important advances may be expected from a
revelation of the less patent connections. For this purpose a diversity
of interests with corresponding variety of information may be not only
a favourable condition but a prerequisite. Helmholtz may have made an
indifferent physician; but because he combined a medical practitioner’s
knowledge with that of a physicist he was enabled to devise the
ophthalmoscope. So it may be that not one out of ten thousand men
who might apply themselves to higher mathematics would ever be able
to advance mathematical theory, but it is certainly true that the
manipulatory skill acquired would stand them in good stead not only in
the exact sciences but in biology, psychology, and anthropometry, in
all of which the theory of probability can be effectively applied to
the phenomenon of variability.
I do not mean to assert that the average European student is an
Admirable Crichton utilizing with multidexterity the most diverse
methods of research and groups of fact. But I am convinced that
many European workers produce more valuable work than equally able
Americans for the sole reason that the European’s social heritage
provides him with agencies ready-made for detecting correlations that
must inevitably elude a vision narrower because deprived of the same
artificial aid. The remedy lies in enriching the cultural atmosphere
and in insisting on a broad educational training over and above that
devoted to the specialist’s craftsmanship.
Important, however, as variety of information and interests doubtless
are, one factor must take precedence in the scientist’s equipment--the
spirit in which he approaches his scientific work as a whole. In
this respect the point that would probably strike most European or,
at all events, Continental scientists is the rarity in America of
philosophical inquiries into the foundations of one’s scientific
position. The contrast with German culture is of course sharp, and in
many Teutonic works the national bent for epistemological discussion is
undoubtedly carried to a point where it ceases to be palatable to those
not to the manner born. Yet this tendency has a salutary effect in
stimulating that contempt for mere authority which is indispensable for
scientific progress. What our average American student should acquire
above all is a stout faith in the virtues of _reasoned nonconformism_,
and in this phrase adjective and noun are equally significant. On
one hand, we must condemn the blind deference with which too many of
our investigators accept the judgments of acknowledged greatness.
What can be more ridiculous, e.g., than to make dogmas of the _obiter
dicta_ of a man like William James, the chief lesson of whose life is
a resentment of academic traditionalism? Or, what shall we think of
a celebrated biologist who decides the problem of Lamarckianism by
a careful weighing not of arguments but of authorities? No one can
approve of the grim ferocity, reminiscent of the literary feuds of
Alexander Pope, with which German savants sometimes debate problems of
theoretic interest. Yet even such billingsgate as Dührring levelled at
Helmholtz is preferable to obsequious discipleship. It testifies, at
all events, to the glorious belief that in the republic of learning
fame and position count for naught, that the most illustrious scientist
shall not be free from the criticism of the meanest _Privatdozent_,
But the nonconformism should be rational. It is infantile to cling to
leading-strings but it is no less childish to thrust out one’s tongue
at doctrines that happen to disagree with those of one’s own clique.
Indeed, frequently both forms of puerility are combined: it is easy to
sneer with James at Wundt or to assault the selectionists under cover
of De Vries’s mutationism. A mature thinker will forego the short and
easy but misleading road. Following Fechner, he will be cautious in his
belief but equally cautious in his disbelief.
It is only such spiritual freedom that makes the insistence on academic
freedom a matter worth fighting for. After all, what is the use of
a man’s teaching what he pleases, if he quite sincerely retails
the current folk-lore? In one of the most remarkable chapters of
the “Mechanik” Ernst Mach points out that the detriment to natural
philosophy due to the political power of the Church is easily
exaggerated. Science was retarded primarily not because scientists were
driven by outward compulsion to spread such and such views but because
they uncritically swallowed the cud of folk-belief. _Voilà l’ennemi!_
In the insidious influence of group opinions, whether countenanced by
Church, State or a scientific hierarchy, lies the basic peril. The
philosophic habit of unremitting criticism of one’s basic assumptions
is naturally repugnant to a young and naïve culture, and it cannot be
expected to spring up spontaneously and flower luxuriantly in science
while other departments of life fail to yield it nurture. Every phase
of our civilization must be saturated with that spirit of positive
scepticism which Goethe and Huxley taught before science can reap a
full harvest in her own field. But her votaries, looking back upon
the history of science, may well be emboldened to lead in the battle,
and if the pioneers in the movement should fail they may well console
themselves with Milton’s hero: “... and that strife was not inglorious,
though the event was dire!”
ROBERT H. LOWIE
PHILOSOPHY