CYRIL GEORGE HOPKINS 



he not satisfied with mere analysis — with taking- things apart 

 simply for the sake of laying out and naming the pieces. His 

 only interest in the analysis of things was to find out how they 

 were made, by what principles they were actuated — all for 

 the sake of making use of their service and of insuring their 

 perpetuity. 



He was eminently a practical man, and he continually re- 

 fused to draw any line between science and practice. "Science 

 is truth," he often said, "and practice to be successful must 

 be based upon truth" ; and he continually insisted that no 

 basic difference existed between those forms of truth that have 

 become familiar thru long acquaintance and those newer forms 

 that are but just discovered, or even those that still remain 

 to be elucidated. 



To him, therefore, the world with all that it contains was 

 but a great assemblage of truths held together by essential 

 principles that have all the force of immutable law. Some of 

 these truths and principles lying on the surface, so to speak, 

 have long since been discovered and passed into practice; 

 others lying deeper or held in more complicated bonds, are 

 more difficult of discovery and application, requiring special 

 methods. It is the reduction of this class of knowledge that 

 is the special business of science and of the scientist. But 

 once discovered these truths are no different than are any 

 others. All truth is truth, and that is all that can be said 

 about it. 



I have said that Doctor Hopkins had a deeply analytical 

 mind. It was this that would not let him stop with the analysis 

 of corn as corn, but led him to analyze different ears to see 

 if they were all alike. Finding them different, he must needs 

 know whether that difference resided in the tip, the butt, or 

 other part, and whether the kernel might be the real unit of 

 variability. 



Finding the substantial differences to reside in the ear as 

 a whole, his mind would not rest until he determined whether 



62 



