24 IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



development of principles recognized by them as essential 

 or fundamental, and the practical value of the results 

 achieved by them, are reviewed or scanned, comparisons 

 being made in these respects with the activity of those 

 engaged in other and related departments of study, should 

 result in considerable gain to all concerned. It should 

 bring them together in mutual appreciation, and promote 

 co-operation and sympathy. And if such an inquiry is 

 carried out faithfully and thoroughly, it may be the means 

 of preventing such waste of energy as surely takes place 

 many a time because investigators lack knowledge of fail- 

 ure or success that ha-; attended the employment of this 

 or that method in other helds of work. 



A conscious and consistent method of attack upon the 

 problems presented in the study of any part or phase of 

 nature's plan and operations, and the presence of a body 

 of formulated principles and laws, which do not deny the 

 regular operations of man's intelligence or the truthful 

 action of his senses, may be taken as criteria by which 

 any department of knowledge may be judged to have 

 established itself as a science, or to have entered upon the 

 beginning of its career as one. Judged on this basis 

 physics certainly is one of the pioneer departments of 

 science, and on this basis none can claim a higher and 

 more honorable antiquity. 



It appears that the earliest development of science was 

 along physical rather than biological lines. Yet it would 

 seem reasonable to expect that a systematic or exact study 

 of the plants and animals, especially such as were essential 

 to his very existence, would mark the first important step 

 in man's entrance upon the condition known as civilized. 

 This was probably the case; but it seems that this study 

 was not carried beyond the requirements of immediate 

 needs. Perhaps biological study was early tabooed, as too 

 practical, and therefore vulgar. Man early became inter- 

 ested in the things farthest out of his reach; and astronomy 

 perhaps must be considered the first branch of human 

 research, if research is a proper term to apply to the 



