Lord Kelvin's dictum on the importance of measurement in science is frequently quoted (and more frequently misquoted). One version is to be found on the faqade of the University of Chicago's Social Science Research Building. An impromptu excursion into the history and uses of this inscription sheds light on the roles of measurement and quotation in scholarship.
The power of simple phrases, aphorisms, slogans, dicta-their ability to summarize, epitomize, exemplify, or even create complex programs of research or action-has long been recognized in politics. That they may play a similar role in the social sciences is also coming to be known. Those of economics are perhaps most numerous: there we find Adam Smith's "invisible hand" and the anonymous "There's no such thing as a free lunch." Less well known, but no less forceful, is W. I. Thomas's "If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences'' from sociology. Social anthropologists have captured an entire methodological approach in the term "thick description," as adapted by Clifford Geertz from the philosopher Gilbert Ryle. Political scientists must come to grips with the aphorism Goethe attributed to Napoleon, "Politics is fate," even though they cannot accept it. Sigmund Freud's "Anatomy is destiny," a conscious variation on Napoleon's statement, has resonated far beyond the confines of psychoanalysis. And Robert K. Merton's "self-fulfilling prophecy" was never intended to be the popular phrase it has become. But if the power of the phrases is well known, and the ideas behind them are constantly subject to intense research, the travels and adventures of the phrases themselves are seldom the object of close scrutiny. (One of us, Merton, has previously violated this rule of silence with the book On the Shoulders of Giunrs,' an inquiry in the sociology of knowledge launched from Isaac Newton's famous aphorism.)
The inherent difficulties in such an undertaking, and the surprises and rewards that it may hold, recently came home to us by our investigation of a remarkable statement that has been attributed to the great British physicist Lord Kelvin. The story is intricate, and we shall let it unfold as it happened, drawing upon surviving documents as necessary, or even more frequently.
ROBERT K. MERTON. a sociologist.