BIOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS 



evade reality by indulging in happy daydreams. Of course 

 they must! No one would think of robbing them of such 

 a refuge. They will always have avenues of escape into the 

 unreal; for who would banish literature, drama, art, and 

 music from the world? What the scientist objects to, and 

 what proper instruction can prevent in persons of normal 

 mentality, is the tendency to believe that these make-be- 

 lieve worlds are tangible realities. "I believe that an artist, 

 fashioning his imaginary worlds out of his own agony and 

 ecstasy, is a benefactor to all of us," remarks Mencken, 

 "but that the worst error we can commit is to mistake 

 his imaginary worlds for the real one." 



I have endeavored to describe the methods and ideals of 

 science, to show its unity of purpose, to demonstrate its 

 efficacy in the solution of the more intensely human prob- 

 lems. My aim was to emphasize the fact that biological 

 questions must be approached in the same spirit as other 

 questions, even when human behavior is the issue; for man 

 can be studied quite as objectively, quite as satisfactorily, 

 as any other phenomenon of nature. The physical sciences 

 have given us no mean conception of the affairs of the 

 material world; biology must give us the power to under- 

 stand ourselves and to control our destinies. In the follow- 

 ing pages, my colleagues and I will attempt to offer the 

 reader a glimpse of the present status of certain subdivisions 

 of the sciences dealing with life. Obviously the accounts 

 presented will be incomplete, owing to spatial limitations, 

 and hence will give no adequate idea of biological progress. 

 Ineffectual as they may be, however, they will show that 

 the biologist has gone far. As an augury of greater things 

 to come, therefore, I wish to devote a few pages to the 

 history of biology, in order to draw attention to the extra- 

 ordinary rapidity with which biological discoveries have 

 been made in recent years. Biology is still an infant whose 

 precocious efforts should lead us to expect great per- 



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