BIOLOGY AND HUMAN TRENDS^ 



By Raymond Peael 

 The Johns Hopkins University 



To discuss adequately in a brief address the assigned subject, 

 Biology and the Social Consequences of Its Advances, is plainly a 

 large order, and one beset with considerable diificulties. For on the 

 one hand biology as a science is still largely in the descriptive and 

 historical phase of its development, and sociology is even more so, 

 with the consequence that an account of the significant achievements 

 of these sciences cannot be expressed in the concise and rational short- 

 hand that is so useful in physics ; and, on the other hand, to appraise 

 the theoretical consequences of scientific discoveries implies a certain 

 skill in the dangerous art of prophecy. Not having any noteworthy 

 aptitude as a prophet I can only put before you, in all modesty, the 

 views of one biologist about some of the more evident relations be- 

 tween certain well-established biological facts and principles and 

 some of the more characteristic features of the collective behavior of 

 mankind. While I cannot speak with officially sanctioned authority 

 for more than one particular biologist, it does seem absolutely cer- 

 tain that just in proportion as any of the sciences, including biology, 

 succeed in their effort to establish sound general principles and laws, 

 just in that proportion will their advances be inevitably reflected in 

 collective human behavior. The thoughts and actions of all man- 

 kind were permanently and irreversibly altered from what they 

 were before, after the Origin of Species had been published in 1859. 

 A corresponding alteration, more or less significant as the case may 

 be, occurs whenever a real discovery in science is made or a sound 

 generalization established. 



II 



In the great Symphony of Life there appear to be three, and only 

 three, main, basic biological themes, out of which come all the pleas- 

 ant or harsh, useful or harmful, simple or complex counter-melodies, 



^ Reprinted by permission from Journal of The Washington Academy of Sciences, vol. 25, 

 no. 6, June 15, 1935. 



327 



