CHAP. Lord Bacon's Vision of "Solomon's House'' Modern In. tion on a Scale Thinking Less Cooperative Than In shortly after the Revolution, has undoubtedly done more than any other single agency to focus choice minds upon the problems of pure knowledge. Three centuries ago, Lord Bacon in his New Atlantis imagined a great research institution which he called "Solomon's House," for which he outlined a very elaborate division of intellectual labor. Besides various groups of experimenters, he provided for three, poetically called "Lamps," who after considering the work of the experimenters, "should take care out of them to Direct New Experiments of a Higher Light, more Penetrating into Nature than the Former." Then, besides such as "do Execute the Experiments so directed, and Report upon them," there should be yet another three, known as "Interpreters of Nature," who should "raise the former Discoveries by Experiments, into Greater Observations, Axiomes, and Aphorisms." This prophecy was in a way realized in the founding in 1662 of the Royal Society of Great Britain and influenced the vast collaboration of scientific men in the French Encyclopédie of the eighteenth century. In modern science, the tendency to vaster and more sustained cooperation is pronounced. Some learned societies have embarked on undertakings which have required well-nigh a century to complete. The investigation of natural events which recur infrequently, like earthquakes and sun-spot periods, or of very slow processes like star movements, climatic alterations, land elevations or subsidences, and the evolutionary changes in organisms, call for a volume and continuity of effort far surpassing the scope and span of life of any individual inquirer. There is even an international association of academies which has helped bring about world-wide cooperation in solar research and in the anatomy of the human brain. No doubt such teamwork is more successful in providing data than in discovering new truths. The history of science shows vestigation that the guiding and fruitful ideas which contain the seeds of later developments spring up in the mind of the solitary investigator or thinker. Remember Wordsworth's lines on Isaac Newton's statue at Cambridge: The marble index of a mind forever Wandering through strange fields of thought alone. It is certain, however, that he who wrests new secrets from the Sphinx must watch the product of his co-workers everywhere and keep in constant and vital touch with everything that every creative mind the world over is doing in his field. Bound closely together by their special societies and journals, the attackers of the same problem in many lands form, as it were, a single band of treasure-seekers digging in neighboring spots for buried gold. While many may join forces in working out a group of alkaloids, investigating radioactivity, or carrying out a vast experiment in heredity, it is not so in the sphere of art. Never does the work of art bear the name of a group. Normally, the book, the poem, the play, the picture, the bust, the song, is the product of an individual. Nevertheless, in art one notices a certain development unknown in science, viz., the profession of critic. In CHAP. XXIV No Coopthe Field eration in of Art Critics Constitute a Distinct Art and Science Since the best critics of the product of scientific thought are Why other scientific workers, there is no tendency in science for production and appraisal to be segregated with different groups. art and literature, on the other hand, there is a distinct function, that of criticism, discharged by men who are not necessarily poets, but Not in playwrights, composers, painters, or sculptors. Indeed, critics are rarely creative; so that the creative spirits, resenting the critic coming between them and the public, fling the sneer: "Those who can, do; those who can't, criticize." However, in view of the output clamoring for attention, the public is obliged to choose what it shall read, or listen to, or look at, and without the critic it would be at the mercy of the megaphone and the "ad" man. Those who "know what they like" have less influence on the choices of the public than those who know why they like or dislike. Service Must Be Direct The product of the investigator runs no gauntlet of profes- Art's sional critics because, in order to fulfil its mission, it is not obliged to attract the attention of the public. A discovery about bacteria or enzymes may serve mankind just as well if it reaches only the physicians and sanitarians. Truth may minister to us at any number of removes and needs not, therefore, be apprehended by him whom it is to serve. A work of art, on the other hand, is intended to act upon us directly. The poem or picture is not a means to something beyond, but makes an immediate appeal to the human spirit. It is the inevitable rivalry of artists to attract the notice of the busy preoccupied public that calls into being the professional critics of literature, music, art, and drama. CHAP. The Char acter of a Social Structure Is Not Identical with That of the Individuals Who Constitute It Nepotism an Ancient and Long Recognized Canker of Organizations CHAPTER XXV THE DETERIORATION OF SOCIAL STRUCTURES SOCIAL structures are made up of people, yet it would be rash to assume that they can have no tendencies of their own. There are structures so badly constructed that they would fail even if manned by saints; while there are others so shrewdly put together that they would succeed even if manned by sinners. Nor should we overlook the fact that the long-lived organization which survives staff after staff and gathers tradition as an old wall gathers ivy is virtually a soul-mold. Although it takes the stamp of strong personalities, it tones down, keys up, twists about, inspires or deadens the ordinary person who becomes identified with it. Structures then will not be plastic because living beings compose them, nor healthy because their members are sound, nor serviceable because these members are busy. From being badly constituted or from wrong relations to their environment, structures are subject to diseases which hinder them from realizing the purposes they were intended to serve. PATRONAGE Someone has to pick the members of a staff, and it is not easy to prevent that one from assigning the desirable post to kinsman, or friend, or highest bidder rather than to the best-qualified applicant. Nepotism is an old abuse that now excites resentment whenever it is recognized. In China the claims of family are felt so much more keenly than any other claims that every kind of public organization is vitiated by nepotism. In the European Dark Ages the hereditary kingship superseded the elective kingship partly because it was cheaper to satiate one royal family than a series of such families. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries nepotism was the cancer in the Papal States. Each pope felt that he could trust only those utterly dependent on himself, consequently he raised his own relations to wealth and influence. Each papal clan hurried to gorge itself before the next pope СНАР. XXIV as a Arriving at the Truth How formal disputation has fallen into discredit as an instrument for ascertaining truth! Recall the breathless interest in Formal theological and metaphysical disputes in Christian Alexandria, DisputaAntioch, and Byzantium. In the Middle Ages it stood in high tion No favor, and it was not until well into the modern era that Sir Trusted Henry Wotton expressed his belief that "the itch of disputing Method of makes the scab of the churches." Once scholars could think of no better feat for the budding Doctor of Philosophy than to take an intellectual position and maintain it against all comers. Years ago in the University of Berlin I saw a youth qualify for his doctorate by defending his "thesis" against three friends, each attacking it in a speech prepared in advance by the candidate himself and gracefully surrendering after his objections had been neatly bowled over! Students Have Advanced by a Totally Method That we now see disputation as conflict rather than cooperation, The with the waste that antagonistic effort always entails, is owing, of Nature no doubt, to the triumphs of science. The students of nature have got on so wonderfully, not by wielding sharper wits than the schoolmen had, but by resorting to observation, experiment, meas- Different urement, and record. Their technique for interrogating the concrete succeeds even in the attack upon the problems of mind, government, and society, so that every year sees it carried into new fields of inquiry. Research leaves, to be sure, a place for the arena, but we realize now that full knowledge of the relevant facts is a prerequisite for profitable discussion. It is just because they were unprovided with the results of impartial, welldirected investigation that the intellectual athletes of the Middle Ages did not get far with all their clever debates and polemics. or When men of science meet; how much time is given to presenting the results of investigation, how little to discussion! Such difference of opinion as may develop touching the correct interpretation of these results is presently traced to some flaw ambiguity in the data, which can be removed by ascertaining certain facts not yet brought to light. Instead of running on without getting anywhere, discussion but points the way for a fresh. sally into the concrete. If genealogies and herd books leave students of heredity still in doubt, they devise crucial breeding experiments which will settle the question one way or another. If geologists differ as to the number of glacial periods the deposits indicate, instead of wrangling they scatter to renewed study of Their Discussions but Point the Way to Fresh Investigations to Clear up Doubtful CHAP. The Disease of Type of Betrayal of Trust tion; and in the third quarter of the nineteenth century the sacrifice of fitness in public servants to favoritism and party work reached its climax. During the last thirty-seven years, however, great progress has been made in delivering public office from subordination to private or partisan interest. Patronage has gone to such lengths in the public service because the service is sustained by taxes rather than by voluntary contributions and because no constituency is so incompetent as the general public to judge what it is getting for its money. Nevertheless, the canker may attack any structure that offers places worth having. Business enterprises, universities, churches, charities, and voluntary associations are by no means immune to it. Occasionally nepotism shows itself very clearly in the salary roll of banks and life insurance companies. Fortunately the disease is a patent one, and publicity, proper checks in the power of appointment, and scientific methods of testing qualifications and measuring performance afford the foes of patronage effective means of getting rid of it. CORRUPTION The play of private motives in its personnel may cause a social by Official structure to work quite otherwise than it was intended to work. or Func tionary Then, too, outsiders who have an interest in deflecting the servant from the path of honor study and plot how they may tempt him with the prospect of secret illicit advantage. Under the slang names of "graft" and "boodle " Americans have in recent years become familiar with the means by which their agents are seduced from their known duty. For a bribe the alderman votes to present a valuable franchise to a traction company, the supervising architect of the new city hall passes work "not up to specifications," or the police ignores the existence of outlaw vice shops. The gift of railroad passes or the promise of political aid influences the vote of the legislator. Contracts for public work are jockeyed into the hands of a favored firm instead of the lowest bidder. The purchase of supplies on the public account opens the door to jobbery. Clerks carry home office supplies as "perquisites," while inspectors are induced to shut their eyes to evils which it is their duty to report. But betrayal of the master is by no means confined to public servants. Railroad officials withhold freight cars from coal |