18 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 
It is surely right, however, to claim that in passing from its 
earlier concern with dead biological products to its present concern 
with active processes within living organisms, biochemistry has 
become a true branch of progressive biology. It has opened up modes 
of thought about the physical basis of life which could scarcely be 
employed at all a generation ago. Such data and such modes of 
thought as it is now providing are pervasive, and must appear as 
aspects in all biological thought. Yet these aspects are, of course, 
only partial. Biology in all its aspects is showing rapid progress, 
and its bearing on human welfare is more and more evident. 
Unfortunately the nature of this new biological progress and its 
true significance is known to but a small section of the lay public. 
Few will doubt that popular interest in science is extending, but it is 
mainly confined to the more romantic aspects of modern astronomy 
and physics. That biological advances have made less impression 
is probably due to more than one circumstance, of which the chief, 
doubtless, is the neglect of biology in our educational system. The 
startling data of modern astronomy and physics, though of course 
only when presented in their most superficial aspects, find an easier 
approach to the uninformed mind than those of the new experimental 
biology can hope for. The primary concepts involved are para- 
doxically less familiar. Modern physical science, moreover, has been 
interpreted to the intelligent public by writers so brilliant that their 
books have had a great and stimulating influence. 
Lord Russell once ventured on the statement that in passing 
from physics to biology one is conscious of a transition from the 
cosmic to the parochial, because from a cosmic point of view life 
is a very unimportant affair. Those who know that supposed parish 
well are convinced that it is rather a metropolis entitled to much 
more attention than it sometimes obtains from authors of guide-books 
to the universe. It may be small in extent, but is the seat of all the 
most significant events. In too many current publications, pur- 
porting to summarise scientific progress, biology is left out or receives 
but scant reference. Brilliant expositions of all that may be met in 
the region where modern science touches philosophy have directed 
thought straight from the implications of modern physics to the 
nature and structure of the human mind, and even to speculation 
concerning the mind of the Deity. Yet there are aspects of bio- 
logical truth already known which are certainly germane to such 
discussions, and probably necessary for their adequacy. 
VI. 
It is, however, because of its extreme importance to social pro- 
gress that public ignorance of biology is especially to be regretted. 
Sir Henry Dale has remarked that ‘it is worth while to consider 
