SS4 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY
of medicdne or agriculture. But it is difficult to obtain money for the inyestigation of recondite phenomena in physics or chemistry or for such subjects, for example, as the psychology of insects. Yet if per- chance the strategist of investigation were to survey the whole field of scientific knowledge as one might survey a map he would inevitably find that all subjects of investigation are closely interwoven and mutually interdependent Slowness of advance in one direction cripples advance in another, lack of knowledge in some at first sight imrelated field pro- hibits the fruition of research elsewhere.
Then, again, apparent value is not in the least identical with the real or ultimate value of investigation. To the man in the street it may appear that the study of fertilizers or of soils, of minerals or of dyes affords at the present time the fields of prime importance. With- out in the least detracting from the proximate and ultimate value of such researches, the biochemist, looking a few decades farther ahead, can see in the study of the phenomena of fermentation, of enzyme ac- tion, the germ of a future discovery, the artificial photosynthesis of carbohydrates, which will accomplish nothing less than an industrial revolution and sweep aside at one stroke the economic problems of im- memorial centuries. Yet with such a possibility lying dormant in the subject, where do we find an elaborately equipped institution for the scientific investigation of enzymes, whei« leading investigators in the field are congregated and all the resources of modern physics, chem- istry and biochemistry backed by the necessary equipment are brought to bear upon this field, fraught with such vital significance to man? If there exists indeed such an institute then I am ignorant of its whereabouts and of the names of the members constituting its staff. The field is not one which has appealed to patrons, the word fermenta- tion reveals to them only the manufacture of beer, which is not the most inspiring of our industries. But the strategist of investigation would place his finger upon this spot in the terrain of scientific con- quest and order up reinforcements to support the thinly scattered and iU-equipped forces which at present represent the sum total of human endeavor to enter into possession of this new world which lies before us.
Another subject which will doubtless greatly interest the future Parliament of Science will be that of the geographical distribution of investigation. Here, too, our absolute dependence upon patronage has unfavorably influenced the development of our institution. At present an enormous proportion of organized investigation is being conducted in the viciniiy of the large centers of population in Europe and North America. That is partly because of the natural tendency of investi- gators to congregate in the neighborhood of the patron who endows their labors, and partiy owing to the fact that in the absence of any Parliament of Science or analogous deliberative body to discuss such
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