Abstract
WE are not of those who believe that the quality of the scientific work produced by any country as a whole, is dependent to any great extent on the facilities afforded for special study, though the amount yielded in any special direction varies directly as the opportunities and encouragement which are offered. All experience goes to show that the ability of the individual is a constant quantity, and that whatever direction his mind takes, as the result of the circumstances in which he is situated, he is sure to rise to a certain standard of ex. cellence in the quality of his productions, and no higher; in other words, the same facts put before two men of different mental powers will be employed in producing results of different quality, dependent on those powers. The backward state of physiology, and it may be said, of biology generally in comparison with the more exact sciences, has recently become so conspicuous, that attempts are being made by many of the leading scientific men to attract into these comparatively untrodden paths some of those able minds which would otherwise have devoted their best energies to the mastery and further elucidation of points in a subject such as mathematics which may be almost said to have reached the limit of human mental power, as far as the methods at present at its disposal are concerned. In biology and physiology, however, the case is very different; their students may be said to be suffering from a glut of facts and disconnected minor theories, which want the assistance of some master minds to weed and connect them, so that the road may be made more easy for other less giited workers. That such is the case is rendered evident by the undecided and tentative way in which most biological problems are on all sides discussed. Opinions the most opposite are held on fundamental points by partisans of different schools, and discussion becomes more a question of which side can be most subtle in its language or most dogmatic in its statements, rather than which is the true exponent of the subject under consideration. In such cases the precise statement of the problem by a master-mind would set the question at rest once and for all.
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Physiology at Cambridge . Nature 9, 297–298 (1874). https://doi.org/10.1038/009297a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/009297a0