172 THE LIFE OF SCIENCE 



parable to the one considered in the previous section. Failure to 

 take both sides into account (East and West, science and learn- 

 ing) implies the same intellectual distortions and shortcomings in 

 either case. 



Contemporary science — Even as the smallest institute should 

 devote a part of its activities to the history of learning and to east- 

 ern thought lest it be unbalanced, even so provision should be 

 made from the beginning for the study of contemporary science 

 as well as of the earlier achievements. Contemporary science may 

 be understood in general as nineteenth- and twentieth-century 

 science; or more strictly as beginning in the nineties of the last 

 century. Historians of science must be trained to interpret the 

 present in terms of the past and vice-versa. However, the study of 

 contemporary science implies the use of methods of a very differ- 

 ent kind, the emphasis being necessarily laid on the selection of the 

 most significant materials, rather than a study of all the materials 

 — which would defeat its own purpose. Means must be taken to 

 analyze gradually the scientific production of our time, and to 

 prepare careful annals, without which the synthesis of later his- 

 torians will hardly be possible. In a sense this task is more urgent 

 than the others; it makes not much difference whether an ex- 

 haustive survey of fourteenth-century science is available in 1930 

 or 1950, but the philosophically- and historically-minded scientist 

 of to-day should be able to review as easily as possible the efforts 

 of his older contemporaries and to see them in their proper per- 

 spective. 



Ethical trends — The members of the Institute would not be 

 simply annalists and historians, but humanists. One of their main 

 functions would be to interpret the ethical and social implications 

 of science in all ages, and especially in our own, to integrate 

 science into general education, in a word, to "humanize" science. 

 This has been understood best by historians of medicine, and no 

 wonder, medicine being more intimately concerned than any 

 other science with every aspect of individual and social life. Thus 

 in some universities students are taught in the same courses the 



