IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 17 



PKESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 



THE SOCIAL SERVICE OF SCIENCE. 



BY WILLIAM HARMON NORTON. 



The extent to which society may may be considered as 

 an organism is still, I understand, a matter of controversy 

 with sociologists. But without awaiting its adjudication, 

 we may surely make use of a simile as ancient as that of 

 the Apostle who spoke of individual Christians as members 

 of one body, or as that of the wise old Roman, who taught 

 the mutinous plebs the parable of the body politic, all of 

 whose members were nourished by the well-fed patrician 

 belly, and consider together this evening the social func- 

 tion of science in the body social. 



It may at least supply a convenient means of classifying 

 the various services of science to the commonweal, if we 

 consider it not so much, perhaps, a distinct corporal 

 member as a growth force, ever accelerating the evolution 

 of society, providing it with means of defense, increasing 

 its muscular energy, and perfecting its systems of circula- 

 tion and communication. And if to these services we add 

 the reaction upon the social mind of the physical environ- 

 ment which science has provided, and the direct influence 

 of scientific truth, we shall then have sketched at least 

 the main functions of science in social evolution. 



Among the first services to society which our biologic 

 analogues suggest is that of defense. Under the growth 

 force of science the body social has accomplished an evolu- 

 tion similar to that which brought the vertebrates, assumed 

 to have been at first naked and defenseless, to the stage of 

 the armored fishes of the Devonian, and which in the Terti- 

 ary changed tooth to tusk, nail to claw, and frontal boss 

 to horn and antler. 



2 



