26 IOWA ACADEMY OP SCIENCES. 



matters! How many physicians themselves look upon their 

 profession as founded on empirical data! The failure of the 

 public to recognize fundamental principles accounts largely for 

 the success of many of the frauds of our day. We look upon 

 professional and technical schools as places where the student 

 gains skill in manipulating and proficiency in experimenting, 

 and too often that is all they are. The scientist is often justly 

 accused of isolating himself and his work from the sphere of 

 human activity, of seeking his little bit of truth merely for the 

 truth's sake, never dreamicg that his greater duty is to relate 

 himself and his work to the great body of truth. No one has a 

 natural monopoly on truth any more than on any other reality. 

 I do not believe in a scientific Olympus where above the clouds 

 and turmoil of the common place, far from the maddening 

 crowd, can dwell the votaries of science indifferent to the prob- 

 lems that perplex the masses. If the true aim of scientific 

 study is to find the ideal adjustment of man to his environment 

 our present progress in reahzlrig that aim is altogether too 

 slow arid uncertain in comparison with our pretensions. We 

 must make radical changes in the ways we are presenting the 

 facts and methods of science to the public. 



The observing minds of to-day cannot fail to see that modern 

 civilization is on the point of some great changes. The first 

 half of the twentieth century will see enacted what would now 

 seem subversive of the present best order of things. The 

 wisdom and folly, success and disaster, attending these changes 

 will depend largely on the scientific or unscientific means 

 employed in attaining desired ends. It is basest folly to 

 attempt to solve society's problems with leaving out of sight 

 fundamental human laws. There is no true science of sociology 

 yet formulated. The dictum of the social reformer is the 

 baldest empiricism. We can never get anywhere by Bellamy 

 colonies and Brook Farm experiments. Why then advocate 

 social schemes to which not even the angels in heaven could 

 conform much less men of tlesh and blood? If sociology is. 

 ever to be established on a rational basis it must take man as 

 he is, and as he has been, a creature of bone and sinew, ever 

 striving for better conditions and never presenting phenomena 

 that are independent of natural laws. Sociology can be made 

 a science only by laborious patient endeavor. Humanity's 

 problems cannot be solved in a day, nor a year, nor a lifetime- 

 No one man can solve them. The chemist, the biologist, the 



