Here is a false concept often heard from the
lips of the newly graduated: “Everything
of major importance in the various areas of
science has already been clarified. What difference
does it make if I add some minor detail or
gather up what is left in some field where
more diligent observers have already collected
the abundant, ripe grain. Science won’t
change its perspective because of my work,
and my name will never emerge from obscurity.”
This article is excerpted from Santiago Ramón
y Cajal’s book Advice for a Young Investigator,
translated by Neely Swanson and Larry W. Swanson.
PIN IT
This is often indolence masquerading as modesty.
However, it is also expressed by worthy young
men reflecting on the first pangs of dismay
experienced when undertaking some major project.
This superficial concept of science must be
eradicated by the young investigator who does
not wish to fail, hopelessly overcome by the
struggle developing in his mind between the
utilitarian suggestions that are part and
parcel of his ethical environment (which may
soon convert him to an ordinary and financially
successful general practitioner), and those
nobler impulses of duty and loyalty urging
him on to achievement and honor.
Wanting to earn the trust placed in him by
his mentors, the inexperienced observer hopes
to discover a new lode at the earth’s surface,
where easy exploration will build his reputation
quickly. Unfortunately, with his first excursions
into the literature hardly begun, he is shocked
to find that the metal lies deep within the
ground — surface deposits have been virtually
exhausted by observers fortunate enough to
arrive earlier and exercise their simple right
of eminent domain.
It is nevertheless true that if we arrived
on the scene too late for certain problems,
we were also born too early to help solve
others. Within a century we shall come, by
the natural course of events, to monopolize
science, plunder its major assets, and harvest
its vast fields of data.
It is a wonderful and fortunate thing for
a scientist to be born during a great decisive
moments in the history of ideas, when much
of what has been done in the past is invalidated.
Yet we must recognize that there are times
when, on the heels of a chance discovery or
the development of an important new technique,
magnificent scientific discoveries occur one
after another as if by spontaneous generation.
This happened during the Renaissance when
Descartes, Pascal, Galileo, Bacon, Boyle,
Newton, our own Sanchez, and others revealed
clearly the errors of the ancients and spread
the belief that the Greeks, far from exhausting
the field of science, had scarcely taken the
first steps in understanding the universe.
It is a wonderful and fortunate thing for
a scientist to be born during one of these
great decisive moments in the history of ideas,
when much of what has been done in the past
is invalidated. Under these circumstances,
it could not be easier to choose a fertile
area of investigation.
However, let us not exaggerate the importance
of such events. Instead, bear in mind that
even in our own time science is often built
on the ruins of theories once thought to be
indestructible. It is important to realize
that if certain areas of science appear to
be quite mature, others are in the process
of development, and yet others remain to be
born. Especially in biology, where immense
amounts of work have been carried out during
the last century, the most essential problems
remain unsolved — the origin of life, the
problems of heredity and development, the
structure and chemical composition of the
cell, and so on.
It is fair to say that, in general, no problems
have been exhausted; instead, men have been
exhausted by the problems. Soil that appears
impoverished to one researcher reveals its
fertility to another. Fresh talent approaching
the analysis of a problem without prejudice
will always see new possibilities — some
aspect not considered by those who believe
that a subject is fully understood. Our knowledge
is so fragmentary that unexpected findings
appear in even the most fully explored topics.
Who, a few short years ago, would have suspected
that light and heat still held scientific
secrets in reserve? Nevertheless, we now have
argon in the atmosphere, the x-rays of Roentgen,
and the radium of the Curies, all of which
illustrate the inadequacy of our former methods,
and the prematurity of our former syntheses.
It is fair to say that, in general, no problems
have been exhausted; instead, men have been
exhausted by the problems.
The best application of the following beautiful
dictum of Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire is in biology:
“The infinite is always before us.” And
the same applies to Carnoy’s no less graphic
thought: “Science is a perpetual creative
process.” Not everyone is destined to venture
into the forest and by sheer determination
carve out a serviceable road. However, even
the most humble among us can take advantage
of the path opened by genius and by traveling
along it extract one or another secret from
the unknown.
If the beginner is willing to accept the role
of gathering details that escaped the wise
discoverer, he can be assured that those searching
for minutiae eventually acquire an analytical
sense so discriminating, and powers of observation
so keen, that they are able to solve important
problems successfully.
So many apparently trivial observations have
led investigators with a thorough knowledge
of methods to great scientific conquests!
Furthermore, we must bear in mind that because
science relentlessly differentiates, the minutiae
of today often become important principles
tomorrow.
It is also essential to remember that our
appreciation of what is important and what
is minor, what is great and what is small,
is based on false wisdom, on a true anthropomorphic
error. Superior and inferior do not exist
in nature, nor do primary and secondary relationships.
The hierarchies that our minds take pleasure
in assigning to natural phenomena arise from
the fact that instead of considering things
individually, and how they are interrelated,
we view them strictly from the perspective
of their usefulness or the pleasure they give
us. In the chain of life all links are equally
valuable because all prove equally necessary.
Things that we see from a distance or do not
know how to evaluate are considered small.
Even assuming the perspective of human egotism,
think how many issues of profound importance
to humanity lie within the protoplasm of the
simplest microbe! Nothing seems more important
in bacteriology than a knowledge of infectious
bacteria, and nothing more secondary than
the inoffensive microbes that grow abundantly
in decomposing organic material. Nevertheless,
if these humble fungi — whose mission is
to return to the general circulation of matter
those substances incorporated by the higher
plants and animals — were to disappear,
humans could not inhabit the planet.
The far-reaching importance of attention to
detail in technical methodology is perhaps
demonstrated more clearly in biology than
in any other sphere. To cite but one example,
recall that Koch, the great German bacteriologist,
thought of adding a little alkali to a basic
aniline dye, and this allowed him to stain
and thus discover the tubercle bacillus — revealing
the etiology of a disease that had until then
remained uncontrolled by the wisdom of the
most illustrious pathologists.
Problems that appear small are large problems
that are not understood.
Even the most prominent of the great geniuses
have demonstrated a lack of intellectual perspective
in the appraisal of scientific insights. Today,
we can find many seeds of great discoveries
that were mentioned as curiosities of little
importance in the writings of the ancients,
and even in those of the wise men of the Renaissance.
Lost in the pages of a confused theological
treatise (Christianismi restitutio) are three
apparently disdainful lines written by Servetus
referring to the pulmonary circulation, which
now constitute his major claim to fame. The
Aragonese philosopher would be surprised indeed
if he were to rise from the dead today. He
would find his laborious metaphysical disquisitions
totally forgotten, whereas the observation
he used simply to argue for the residence
of the soul in the blood is widely praised!
Or again, it has been inferred from a passage
of Seneca’s that the ancients knew the magnifying
powers of a crystal sphere filled with water.
Who would have suspected that in this phenomenon
of magnification, disregarded for centuries,
slumbered the embryo of two powerful analytical
instruments, the microscope and telescope
— and two equally great sciences, biology
and astronomy!
