232 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



now its small resources are being devoted to certain aspects of the mode 

 of life of organisms in nature ; to the nature and relationships of natural 

 races; and to the influence of natural environments upon organisms, 

 particularly as to the heritability of such influences. No other subjects 

 are, in the belief of the management, of greater moment to present-day 

 biology, and various circumstances make their study by the institution 

 peculiarly practicable. But the managing board have no delusions as to 

 the uniquely " burning " character of the questions under investigation, 

 or as to its having reached the threshold of the Ultimate Mystery of 

 Life and Death. Its profound belief in the importance of biologic truth 

 to the welfare of humankind is of such sort that it knows that many 

 other problems being studied by many other men and other institutions 

 are no less vital than those engaging its efforts*; and that problems of 

 to-morrow, next year, next decade, next century, while different from 

 those of to-day, will be no less numerous and no less insistent than those 

 of to-day. It holds every item of positive knowledge of the living world 

 essential to the scientific interpretation of that world; that such inter- 

 pretation alone can beget a right attitude toward that world; and that 

 ttie high level of man's development which we call civilization is wholly 

 dependent upon a right attitude on the part of the largest number 

 possible of the community toward all things that live. 



