ATTITUDES TOWARD HUMAN NATURE 25 



nesses, but with religious and political dogmas which spoiled and 

 vitiated even the beginnings of their efforts. When, in the seven- 

 teenth century, men associated themselves in research, for free 

 communication and discussion of their findings, a great invention 

 came alive. Close on its heels was born the exact experimental 

 method. Amazing triumphs were born of that marriage which 

 swept away before it ignorance and superstition and prejudice. 

 Its children and grandchildren have flourished and grown strong 

 and mighty. They have transmuted the material conditions of 

 life. Certainly all the laurels belong to the method of absolute, 

 measured observations. 



Yet all this time the old method of inductive observation has 

 not gone dead. Most magnificent triumph of nineteenth century 

 science, the evolution theory of Charles Darwin, remains the 

 most conspicuous instance of clarification of thought in human 

 history. That work was the outcome of an attempt to relate 

 and interpret a collection of observations on species and their 

 variations, that had long lain to hand, a mixture without a 

 solvent. Darwin saw certain generalizations as solvents, and 

 behold! a clear solution out of the mud. But it was by piling 

 evidence upon evidence, co-ordinating isolated facts not directly 

 associated, that the towering structure was erected. There is no 

 prettier sample extant of the powers of the inductive method. 



Not that there are no triumphs of the quantitative method in 

 store for the biologist. Already, the materials of the Mendelians 

 have become basic parts of his structure. And today, in pursuit 

 of the solutions of hundreds of the problems of living matter, 

 chemists and physiologists are employing the most precise stand- 

 ards, units, and measures of the physical sciences. Blood chem- 

 istry of our time is a marvel, undreamed of a generation ago. 

 Also, these achievements are a perfect example of the accom- 

 plished fact contradicting a priori prediction and criticism. For 

 it was one of the accepted dogmas of the nineteenth century that 

 the phenomena of the living could never be subjected to accurate 

 quantitative analysis. 



However desirable the purely quantitative experimental 

 methods may be, they naturally need always to be preceded by 

 the qualitative studies of direct observations. Inevitably there 

 will be numberless errors, apparent and real inconsistencies and 

 contradictions, and ideas that will have to be discarded. Just 

 the same there is no other method of progress. Every bit of 

 evidence points towards the internal secretions as the holders of 



