BIOLOGY AND HUMAN TRENDS — PEARL 343 



in the not very distant future, and particularly in the direction of the 

 greater release and more effective control of the energies and poten- 

 tialities of man (and of other living things at will). In recent years 

 the investigations and deductions of the psychiatrists, endocrinolo- 

 gists, and psychobiologists have thrown a beginning glimmer of real 

 light upon the underlying biological bases of the activities and con- 

 duct of living things, and especially of man. We are beginning to 

 understand in some detail and particularity how conduct, normal 

 and abnormal, moral and immoral, is the expression of " animal 

 drives " or urges — themselves resultants of subtle chemical and 

 physiological changes in the body — rather than of either free will or 

 terrestrial and heavenly precepts. It does not seem extravagant to 

 expect that as this understanding broadens and deepens ways may be 

 found to bring it about that men will act somewhat more intelligently 

 and less harmfully in politics, business, society, religion, and else- 

 where generally, than they sometimes have in the past. The ever 

 widening and deepening flow of biological knowledge is plainly 

 furnishing a solid, scientific groundwork for a philosophy of life 

 based on releases, in contradistinction to the philosophy of life based 

 upon inhibitions and prohibitions that has so long held us enthralled. 

 I am not unaware that current political philosophies in various parts 

 of the world look backward in this regard, and insist on more pro- 

 hibitions and regimentations. But they are going against biology, 

 and if I read the history of evolution aright, biology will win. 

 Nature is never in a hurry. 



This current trend of biology of which we have just been speaking 

 has many different aspects. There are some who will recall the wide- 

 spread interest and discussion stirred up many years ago by an essay 

 of the late William James entitled " The Energies of Men." It 

 dealt with the release of normally untapped and unsuspected poten- 

 tialities of men under certain conditions, sometimes those of shock 

 and stress, sometimes under the impulsion of the will. Examples 

 were given of men who, though enfeebled by poor health, performed 

 feats of strength and endurance that would tax the finest athlete, 

 when they encountered conditions that imperatively demanded such a 

 performance. 



We are working in the laboratory on another angle of the same 

 general problem. We have experimented with seedlings, grown 

 under very exactly controlled conditions such that all the matter 

 and energy for growth and living (save for water and oxygen) come 

 from the nutritive materials stored in the cotyledons of the seed 

 planted, which themselves are an integral part of the plant. Under 

 these experimental conditions the seedling goes through a complete 

 life cycle of germination, growth, adulthood, senescence, and eventual 

 death. This life cycle corresponds quantitatively very closely to the 



