BIOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY 417 



The biological quality and the training of man has not undergone com- 

 parable changes. Except for medicine, we know so little about man that it 

 is still fair to ask, "Can we have a science of man?" And the question is, 

 somehow, troubling. Man's new power to control the environment has 

 not made him humble. He seeks new short cuts to happiness. The older 

 knowledge of man, heritage of ages of experience and suffering, he tends 

 to discount, because it is not based on the new scientific method, not capa- 

 ble of scientific proof. He is not likely to go back permanently to the old 

 knowledge. He is too impatient of its restraints, too admiring of the suc- 

 cess of the new type of thinking based on the scientific method. Yet with- 

 out more knowledge of himself, of his needs, his weaknesses and his pos- 

 sibilities, we may wonder whether man can safely handle the extraordinary 

 tools he has recently created. They may inflict irreparable injuries. If we 

 ask, "To what extent is a science of man possible?" perhaps we are really 

 asking to what e.xtent can we achieve a secure and permanent civilization? 



It is hardly encouraging to compare the present state of the science of 

 man with the marvelous development of the natural sciences. But the 

 picture is a more hopeful one if we make allowance for the respective ages 

 of these two fields of science. Several generations of men have been trained 

 and taught in the physical sciences. But no one of the age of forty-five or 

 more to-day could have had any serious training at college in the sciences 

 that have to do with man. They were not available for teaching twenty- 

 five years ago, which is a pretty brief span of time, even in this hurried 



age. 



Scientific work in psychology was in its infancy at the turn of the cen- 

 tury. Mendelian genetics were rediscovered in 1901. At about the same 

 time anthropologists got out of their armchairs and began collecting or- 

 dered data in the field. By 19 10, text-books were beginning to make signifi- 

 cant use of new scientific materials in these fields. By 1920, courses in 

 scientific psychology, genetics, human biology and anthropology were 

 available in most of our universities. To-day these subjects are among the 

 most popular of any that are offered. But much that is taught about man 

 and society is not science. Not enough research has been done to supply 

 the basic material needed; and, still more important, there has been too little 

 time for critical analysis, interpretation and organization of the research 

 that has been already carried out. Notwithstanding this present handicap, 

 the sciences of man have already begun to influence our thinking in a way 

 which suggests the effect that they may have in the future when they are 

 more fully developed. A few examples will make this clear. 



II 



Psychology has made important contributions to present-day points of 

 view. There are some two thousand registered psychologists in the United 

 States to-day, where they were only a few scattered individuals in 1900. 



