The Spirit of Research

The Spirit of Research By J. E. Greaves, \Professor of Bacteriology and Physiological Chemistry. Utah Agricultural College Toward the close of the sixteenth century a mere youth seated in the cathedral of his native city of Pisa was attracted by the swinging of a lamp suspended from the ceiling by a chain. He noticed that, no matter how much the range of the oscillations might vary, their time was constant. He verified this first impression by counting his pulse the only available time piece. Later we find him climbing the spiral staircase of the leaning tower of Pisa until he reaches the gallery. A great crowd watches as he releases two balls from their place on the balcony. It is observed that although one weighs one hundred times as much as does the other they travel togeth- er in their decent through the air. Still later we see him old in body, broken in heart, imprisoned and facing the tortures of the inquisition; yet with a clear eye and a firm exemplifica- tion of the spirit of research, Galileo rises from his knees be- fore the ten cardinals at Rome and lisps, "And yet, it moves." Long before the Chemist of Heidelberg invented the Bunsen burner a discussion arose as to whether the temperature of a candle is higher in the center of the flame or at a short distance from its apex. Inslead of indulging in theory it is stated that a small boy drew the candle toward himself and thrust his finger into the middle of the flame where he kept it for some seconds. He then placed it a little above the flame but was in- stantly compelled to withdraw it. He thus solved the problem in a manner which delights the investigator whose everlasting query is, "Why not make the experiment?" Some ten years later we find this same youth a helper in the office of a country doctor where he overhears the remark from a country girl, "I cannot take small-pox for I have had cow-pox." The next twenty-six years of his life is a single- handed struggle without money and even in the face of bitter opposition to prove the truth or falseness of the belief of that country girl. But at the close of the eighteenth century he gave to the world a preventative for that awful plague of which it has been written, "In those stricken days if a messenger had come from heaven, and standing on earth's highest hill had clarioned to all mortals, 'From the long roll of human evils I shall remove

422 IMPROVEMENT ERA one diease; which shall it be?' one universal voice would have ascended in answer, the desire of kings blending with the pray- ers of peasants, the cultured accent of the scholar mingled with the cry of the man of the street: 'small-pox!"" Jenner a humble village doctor conquered this monster with a bit of virus on the point of an ivory lancet. Both Galileo and Jenner had the true spirit of research. And what is the characteristic of such a spirit? Foremost in the mind of such a worker is the desire for truth. "I want the truth" is his constant watchword. It guides the astronomer, as he sweeps the heavens with his telescope. It is the guiding star of the biologist as he lingers over his microscope. It is the golden rule of the chemist as he scrutinizes the reactions of his test tube, and it should be the most cherished guide of the teacher as he imparts his knowledge to the eager child. The investigator learns to reverence truth, for he soon discovers that every act has a consequence and every sin a penalty. Some truths, when first discovered and viewed apart from the rest of nature, may appear crude or even ugly, but when contemplated within their scheme of creation they blend in with the background and lose their frightfulness, and so the investigator learns and imparts to others. "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." In his search for truth he learns the value of accuracy. Lord Raleigh weighed nitrogen prepared from the atmosphere and that prepared from pure chemicals. The latter weighed one- sixth of a grain less than did the former. The search for this minute discrepancy revealed a new element, argon. There- fore, the investigator realizes that what may appear trivial may be of the most importance. The search for the origin of life gave us the law underlying bacteriology, surgery, and preventive medicine. The investigator sets sail into the realm of the unknown with hope at the helm and truth at the prow. But even hope and the longing for truth will come to naught unless guided by the unbiased mind. It is easier for a camel to pass through the needle's eye than it is to enter the kingdom of an investi- gator without openmindedness. I do not refer to that open- mindedednes which paralyzes activity but to a condition of mind which may be accurately described as thoughtful doubt- ing. It is just at this point that the parent and teacher appears to err greatest. They too often create an atmosphere around them which implies, "I cannot err, you must take my word as final." How distinctly I remember an explanation that was given

THE SPIRIT OF RESEARCH 423 by the professor in a class in chemistry at college. I doubted the reasoning at that time, but dared not tell the professor that I thought he was wrong. I memorized the work as given, and some years later I reproduced it in an eastern university. I shall never forget the thoughts that surged through my mind when informed that I was wrong. Was it possible that my former teacher knew no better? Or could I have misunderstood him? In either case how much of the information which he imparted to mq must I discount? Oh! If he had only let me have told him that I was a "doubting Thomas," and let him rectify the mistake! Is it not better that our students or our children tell us that they think we are mistaken than to wait and tell others that we lied or were ignorant of the truth in the 'matter? Hence, this honest doubting is a right which the investigator claims until he has examined all of the evidence. "He should be a man willing to listen to every sug- gestion, but determined to judge for himself. He should not be biased by appearance; ha\ing no favorite hypothesis; be of no school; and in doctrine have no human master. He should not be a respecter of persons, but of things. Truth should be his primary object. If to these qualities be added industry, he may indeed hope to walk within the veil of .the temple of nature." In trying to wring from nature her secrets he soon learns the joy of contesting with a friend who knows no trifling, is sincere, serious and stern, and is always in the right and the er. rors and mistakes are invariably ours. His gospel becomes the gospel of work but interwoven with that work is a reverence which is beautifully epxressed in the words of Agassiz: "The study of nature is an intercourse with the highest mind. You should never trifle with nature. At the lowest, her works are the works of the highest powers, the highest something in whatever we may look at it. The laboratory of Natural History is a sanctuary where nothing profane should be tolerated. I feel less agony at improprieties in churches than in a scientific laboratory." The investigator should seek the reason why. To be able to reproduce the words of others or to shuffle mathematical symbols rapidly may be creditable, but it is not to be compared to the application of learned principles to new conditions and the uncovering of new truths. After the planet Uranus had been discovered, in 1781, by Sir William Herschel, astronomers calculated the path in which it moved and predicted the position it should occupy from time to time. However, the planet was found not to travel on sched-

424 IMPROVEMENT ERA ule. Astronomers undertook to find the reason why with the result that they disco\ered the planet Neptune. Imagination is another essential attribute of the investigator which makes for progress. "With accurate experiment and ob- servation to work upon, imagination becomes the architect of physical theory. Newton's passage from a falling apple to a fall- ing moon was an act of the prepared imagination. Out of the facts of chemistry the constructive imagination of Dalton formed the atomic theory. Davy was richly endowed with the imagi- native faculty, while with Faraday its exercise was incessant, preceding, accompanying, and guiding all his experiments." A child often imagines the stars to be windows in the heavens and their twinkling the fluttering of angels' wings; whereas, the astronomers' and geologists' imaginations produce from the leaves of nature the origin and history of the universe. Marconi had an imagination in which he saw messages of warning, sorrow and salutation, go flashing through space, and today, from the distance out of the fog as if from another world to the listening ears on sea and shore comes the signal, Save Our Ship. But was his imagination great enough to see the thankful mothers and innocent children who are thus being saved from a watery grave! The joy which comes from such discovery is beyond de- scription. Pasteur danced around the laboratory embracing his instructor after the discovery of the relationship between crystalline structure and optical rotary power. Newton as he neared the end of a long investigation, and could see the dawn of the great truth, was so overcome with joy that he had to ask a friend to finish the calculation. The investigator may become old in body, wrecked by pain and disease, but he is always young in spirit and never tires of life. This is well illustrated by the answer of Joseph Leidy when asked by Dr. Mitchell if he were never tired of life. "Tired!" he said. "Not so long as there is an undescribed intestinal worm or the riddle of a fossil bone, or a rhizopod new to me." In the research work one learns that "As we advance into the unknown, as we get a clearer vision of the harmony and the grandeur of the living; as we conquer peak after peak, we see in front of us regions full of interest and beauty, but we do not see our goal, we do not see the horizon; in the distance towers still higher peaks, which will yield to those who ascend them still wider prospects, and deep in the feeling, the truth of which is emphasized by every advance in science, that "Great are the Works of the Lord." Logan, Utah