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Any science evidently affects the progress of the race in 

 three ways : it trains men in methods of thought and work, 

 it furnishes a body of directly useful information, and it es- 

 tablishes a few general concepts that have great influence in 

 determining men's approach to the problems of life. 



In method the sciences are fundamentally the same, though 

 they may differ in the stage of their development. Thus today 

 biology is only entering that phase in which physics has for a 

 long time been and into which chemistry has more recently 

 entered, namely the stage of experimentation. There still re- 

 mains an inexhaustible supply of material for new descriptive 

 work, and all of the old material will have to be worked over 

 again and again with the old methods but with new points of 

 view. But in addition, we are recognizing in all fields of re- 

 search that significant advance must now come from the adop- 

 tion of the experimental method rather than from the older 

 method on either old or new material. 



It is probably a difficult matter to get an estimate of the 

 results which scientific work, whether in the schools or in the 

 shop and factory, is having in improving the habitual methods 

 of thought and action in those pursuing it. I know of no 

 reason for discouragement in this respect, though we may all 

 regret that the results are not more marked, and may welcome 

 such sympathetic criticism as Dewey has recently given in this 

 connection. (Science Jan. 28, 1910.) 



As to what biological science is doing in amassing informa- 

 tion directly useful to man, it is hopeless to attempt a cate- 

 gorical account. In agriculture, horticulture, in jilant and ani- 

 mal breeding, in relation to the cure and prevention of disease, 

 and in allied fields, biological investigation is transforming our 

 world. It is not too much to say that the advances in these 

 lines are among the most significant facts of contemporary his- 

 tory. The work centering about the subject of heredity and 

 plant and animal breeding is j)erliaj)S just now in the center 

 of interest. On the theoretical side this work lias of course 

 raised about as many questions as it has answered, but the prac- 

 tical results of the careful study of hybridization and selec- 



