DOCUMENTATION

Many of the essentials for laying claim to a right to be numbered among the intellectual elite have been discussed above, but not all. Suppose that a savage has had from birth all the qualities which we have just reviewed, but that he is entirely ignorant of the progress of the science and industry of the civilized world. It would be extremely difficult for him to advance our knowledge, for he knows nothing about such matters. He can accomplish feats which to him seem extraordinarily difficult, such as, cutting flint or extracting iron from ores, just as his ancestors did. To us, however, he would seem ignorant and no one would dream of classing him as a great man.

No one can make innovations or improve our knowledge unless he is cognizant of actual conditions. There are several reasons why this is so. In the first place, one can obviously improve only those things which he really knows. A frequent cause of the failure of inventors is that they knowingly venture into unfamiliar fields. Bessemer, the son of a metallurgist, advanced the science of metallurgy, but made a miserable failure when he attempted to build a large telescope and also when he tried to construct a boat designed to prevent seasickness, because he knew little or nothing about the theory of optical instruments or of mechanical principles.

While serving on a commission appointed to investigate fire damp, I met a physician, intelligent, possessed of a good practice, but obsessed by the demon of invention. Much affected by an explosion in which several hundred miners had been killed, he thought it would be a good thing to send a current of air through the mine to sweep out the explosive gases and thus obviate such disasters. He disclosed his plan to an official in the Department of Public Works, and the latter warmly congratulated him on his initiative. This unfortunate encouragement led him to abandon his practice for a year and he devoted himself to the construction of a ventilating system. We were obliged to inform him that every coal mine in the world is ventilated. Furthermore, twenty kilometers from his home he could have seen in action immense installations which closely resembled the blowing apparatus which he had worked out, and this device differed but slightly from the bellows used for several thousands of years by savages for melting metals.

A second reason for being well acquainted with the field arises from the fact that all creative advances, all discoveries are, for the most part, the result of combining facts already known. The progress achieved by a single individual is, in general, extremely little, but among these short steps forward, one perhaps, like the last drop which causes the vessel to overflow, may make an invention realizable or it may alter the orientation of our scientific ideas.

Pasteur did not invent the communication of diseases, for this was known to all physicians, nor did he discover the existence of living microscopic organisms, which had been studied from the time of Spallanzani. He merely compared these two sets of phenomena and recognized their relations one to the other. Had he not known the facts, he could not have made the discovery. Likewise, Lavoisier did not invent the balance; it had often been used before. Every alchemist who extracted metals from ores had checked the efficiency of his procedures by weighing. On the other hand, all the physicists knew that gases had weight. Lavoisier simply had to combine these facts to recognize that the increase in weight of metals when calcined in the air was due to the absorption of a gas, oxygen. The time was ripe for this discovery, and Lavoisier had only to pluck the ripened fruit.

The same holds true in industry. The open hearth process of making steel resulted from a combination of Reaumur’s century-old work on the refining of cast iron and Siemens’ new method of heating. In his invention of the incandescent gas mantle, von Welsbach started with Clamond’s magnesia “basket” and perfected this device by substituting thoria for the magnesia. This linkage of known facts is so common that no industrial invention is so novel that the lawyers cannot find authorities for prior claims. For the same reason, the defamers of great scholars, great writers and great painters find great pleasure in accusing them of plagiarism. Fontaine has been reproached with having copied from Aesop, and Corneille is accused of servile imitation of Guillen de Castro.

If the popular saying, “There is nothing new under the sun,” is surely not strictly true, nevertheless it is quite accurate to state that progress due to any one man is comparatively small. Humanity moves forward at a slow pace, but the thousand-fold accumulation of short steps forward has altered the face of the world. This progressive revolution has only been possible because men have had a thorough knowledge of the accomplishments of their predecessors.

A third reason for being well versed is that accomplishment of anything new demands a knowledge of the technique of the field, and this has to be learned. If Bessemer had not been a founder in his youth he would never have invented his process of making steel. A thorough knowledge of analytical chemistry is essential to the making of chemical discoveries; success in literature is only possible to one who really knows his own language; a painter must know how to draw. This assertion may appear to be a step backward. Too many artists try to paint, knowing neither drawing nor manipulation of colors; too many scientists have no interest in methods involving actual measurements, but they are content to construct their science with pencil and paper only. These varieties of modern painting and science are very fruitful for their devotees. However, who dares to assert that the cubists and similar faddists will some day be classed as great painters or that much of our present-day theories of the constitution of matter will be highly regarded fifty years from now. In comparison, the men who discovered new laws in chemistry, electricity, optics, etc., will be just as honored thousands of years hence, as Pythagoras, Ptolemy and Archimedes now are.

This knowledge of the field, essential to any worker who hopes to advance human welfare, may be acquired through instruction furnished by schools of all grades, from the highest to the lowest, or it may be a result of observation of the facts, i. e., a fruit of the direct study of the surroundings in which we live.

No one is born with a knowledge of the outer world; this must be acquired solely from experience and toil. Certain natural endowments, memory in particular, favor the acquisition of this necessary knowledge. Many great men have had remarkable memories, Berthelot and President Poincare are outstanding instances. The former knew the titles of more than a thousand of his papers and the volume numbers of the Annales de Chimie in which they were published. It is said that Poincare needed only to write a speech once to know it by heart. He amazed his audience at the Sorbonne by his delivery of a eulogy of the scientific achievements of Berthelot. He spoke more than an hour and a quarter, using no notes or memoranda, and yet with such precision that any one might have thought him an exceptionally well-informed chemist.

The sense of observation is no less valuable; it is essential to the completion of the fragmentary knowledge acquired by the memory during the years of schooling. As we go through life, we are confronted by a multiplicity of facts which demand our attention and efforts. They are so numerous that we cannot expect to learn them from books, and, furthermore, many of them are not common knowledge and consequently cannot be found in courses of instruction. Our knowledge of the world is constantly augmented by the labor of every one of us, but the contributions are extremely unequal varying with aptitude and training. In military instruction, observation is taught by assignments in scouting. The pupil is sent to a given point and on his return he is questioned as to what he saw. Usually, he has seen nothing. He is sent back and told what to look for; the undulations of the ground, the kind of vegetation, isolated trees, hedgerows, roads, houses, the contour of the horizon, and little by little the pupil improves.

High-school exercises in science should be largely planned to develop observational powers. Actual handling of apparatus and materials lends itself excellently to this end. A student is told to heat a material, say iodine, in a test tube, or to dissolve a substance, mercuric sulphate, for instance, in water, and then asked to describe all that he has seen. After he has completed his report, the instructor should point out all that actually can be observed in the experiment.