VllI INTRODUCTION 



Two Other characteristics have helped us humans in our 

 special type of progress. Our chattering forefathers have 

 given us a love of talk. We are forever gabbhng; we have 

 invented great systems of language; we even pay men to 

 talk to us in groups. We store up words in scrolls and books, 

 and build huge temples called hbraries in which to hoard 

 this preserved chatter. We compel children to devote years to 

 the study of talk of previous generations. We have invented 

 devices whereby we can speak to our friends thousands of 

 miles away, and machines which record our babble and 

 reproduce it from black metal discs. This abihty to talk and 

 our devotion to it is a biological character of our species. 

 It enables us to communicate ideas as well as gossip and to 

 pass on to the whole race our accumulated research and 

 experience. 



We have also inherited a compulsion to action. We must 

 always be busy; we rush about, we build and tear down 

 and build again. We are not content simply to inquire and 

 find out everything; but we are driven to do something 

 about it all. And this again while it means a lot of aimless 

 motion also results in turning our knowledge of physics, 

 for example, into bridges and steam trains and aeroplanes, 

 and our knowledge of chemistry and medicine into pro- 

 tection of health; into prolonging and making more robust 

 our lives. 



These are simply rather picturesque aspects of our biologi- 

 cal make-up. Papers in the present volume discuss in funda- 

 mental terms various phases of the biology of man and his 

 environment. Such presentation gives an approach to 

 intelligent understanding of ourselves in our present state 

 of development and in our present world. 



Our inquiries about our bodies and habits have for many 

 years been taking new directions. From passing curiosity 

 we have turned to deep study of ourselves: our diseases 

 and how these may be cured and prevented, our intellects 

 and how from childhood they can be trained into ever more 

 masterful tools, our emotions and how they may offer increas- 

 ing pleasure and satisfaction and produce less distress and 

 conflict and distraction. Being members of a group living 

 together in a common world, we are also beginning to study 



