94 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LI. No. 1309 



initiated in man a veritable intellectual muta- 

 tion, wMcli is now rapidly expressing itself in 

 new pliases of social action, and in the emerg- 

 ence, like the parts of a growing embryo, of 

 new types of social architecture. It is our 

 duty to interpret this concept, and to see to 

 it that its real significance is understood, and 

 rightly used in social growth. 



The social metamorphosis which historians 

 call the renaissance was largely due to organic 

 improvements in the system of educational 

 circulation and the transmission of mental 

 possessions from man to man. Learning was 

 democratized by translating the bible and the 

 classics into the vernacular, and by this better- 

 ment in transmission across time and space, 

 the profits of a dead past were made to flow 

 more freely into a living futiire, making those 

 profits in some measure the mental heritage of 

 the common i)eople, and their enduring germ- 

 inal possessions for self-constructive purposes. 



In this accelerated social growth, the base 

 line for the orientation of human conduct, 

 and for the measurement of right and wrong, 

 good and evil, was the bible, the classics, and 

 the divine right of civic and religious leader- 

 ship. The power and stability of these ex- 

 ternal directive agencies was universally ac- 

 knowledged, the source of their authority un- 

 questioned, and like radiant beams, their 

 trophic influence was formally expressed in 

 the prevailing architectonics of social pro- 

 cedure. 



We are now witnessing, incident to a new 

 birth of social vision, a new social convulsion, 

 much more significant than that of the middle 

 ages, in which science, and especially bio- 

 logical science, unconsciously played, and is 

 stiU playing, a very important part. For when 

 we recognized a new source of authority in 

 lawful nature-action and in evolution, the old 

 base line for the measurements of human con- 

 duct vanished, and many of the old bonds of 

 social allegiance were destroyed; and now we 

 are asked: "What shall be the new compulsion 

 to constructive social action, and on what au- 

 thority can we stay the march of anarchy? 



And you, as biologists and American men 

 of science, can not shirk the grave responsi- 

 bilities of social leadership now thrust upon 



you, for it requires little gift of prophecy to 

 forsee that America is destined quickly to 

 become the world's chief center of biological 

 learning, as she is to-day the center of the 

 broadest sympathy with human life and 

 nature. 



Perhaps it may clarify our vision if we 

 first ask, not what biology is, but what science, 

 as a whole, does, and what she tries to do. 

 It will little help us to enumerate all the 

 sciences, or be told there is " pure " science 

 and applied science; science experimental, 

 and descriptive. Behind and beyond all these 

 varied aspects of science there must be com- 

 mon motives, and common purposes in the 

 scientists, if we are rightly to include them 

 as intelligent beings in the same class. 



Let us therefore precipitate and remove 

 these adjective purities and impurities, and 

 you will then agree with me, I believe, that 

 there still remain in science several over- 

 lapping functions and purxwses. First to ex- 

 plore and to chronicle. To that end, she aims 

 to discover what things are contained in 

 nature, where they are, what they do, what 

 the order is, step by step, of their coming in, 

 their growing up, their going out. And then to 

 memorize, to conserve her mental possessions, 

 to register, in convenient and enduring sym- 

 bols the result of her explorations, for future 

 usage. Second, to compare and explain. To 

 that end, she aims to discover why things are 

 as they are, in what respects they differ, in 

 what they agree, how one thing influences an- 

 other, constructively, or destructively, and to 

 distinguish the right ways of doing things 

 from wrong ways. Her third function is to 

 do things rightly. In that respect, she is 

 artistic, architectural. To that end, by con- 

 forming her ways of doing things to nature's 

 ways, she aims to create, and to conserve, and 

 to use her records and her knowledge of right 

 and wrong profitably. 



Thus three qualifying motives pervade sci- 

 ence: the acquisitive, the ethical and the 

 moral. She seeks knowledge through experi- 

 ence, wisdom through understanding, and 

 profit through obedience. One purpose is 

 self-constructive, or egotistic, the other, self- 



