350 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLI. No. 1053 



portant questions that is expressed in the 

 national disregard for the biologic impor- 

 tance of good mental habits. We seldom 

 stay at one task long enough to develop 

 the habits essential for efficient and thor- 

 ough work, and the same amateurishness 

 characterizes our efforts whether they be 

 in the field of diplomacy, road-building or 

 in organizing a university. If we actually 

 determine to lay substantial and rational 

 foundations for peace, and not erect a tem- 

 porary structure on the shifting sands of 

 sentiment we should look below the surface 

 for evidences of actual progress towards 

 the realization of these aims ; and find them 

 expressed in such an undertaking as the 

 endowment and organization of a great 

 institute for the study of the brain and ner- 

 vous system, in increased provisions made 

 for research along similar lines in our uni- 

 versities, and in the establishment of de- 

 partments of education with a view to 

 training teachers to recognize the biologic 

 needs of human beings; as well as in all 

 those rational efforts made to extend or to 

 put into practise our knowledge of the 

 mechanisms by means of which human in- 

 dividuals adjust their lives successfully to 

 the environment in which they live. 



The folly of the mariner who goes to sea 

 without a compass is not greater than our 

 own in attempting to solve the problems 

 involving the destiny of our race without 

 any more definite knowledge than is yet 

 possessed of the functions of the brain and 

 nervous system. The optimistic views ex- 

 pressed by the eugenist in regard to the 

 intellectual progress of the human race 

 that will be brought about by selective 

 breeding will be more rapidly realized as 

 soon as we have collected sufficient data 

 concerning the functions of the nervous 

 system to determine what the desirable 

 mental mechanisms are ; as well as the na- 

 ture of the factors conditioning the trends 



of the mental life. In reading history our 

 attention is chiefly focused upon the be- 

 havior of large numbers of human beings, 

 the crowd or mob, and we forget that the 

 activities of the masses can not be inter- 

 preted intelligently until the reactions of 

 the individual have been analyzed. His- 

 tory and anthropology can only become 

 vital subjects and potent factors in direct- 

 ing the streams of civilization when inter- 

 preted by a more complete knowledge than 

 we yet possess of the intricate mechanisms 

 of the human brain. It is unnecessary to 

 call attention to the fact that the accounts 

 of man's interest in the investigation of 

 hypothetical mental qualities are volumin- 

 ous, whereas, the records of actual study 

 of the minds of living persons are compara- 

 tively few and meager. 



The progress made in the study of mental 

 phenomena has been along two general 

 lines. The different organs composing the 

 human machine and their relations to each 

 other have been made the subject of inves- 

 tigation, and in the second place by obser- 

 vation and by carefully gathering experi- 

 ence as to how the machine expresses its 

 activities as a unit in behavior and conduct, 

 a profitable and broad field of enquiry has 

 been opened up. So dominated are many 

 of us by the instinctive tendency to worship 

 at a special shrine or bow down before a 

 fetish that the absence of test-tube or 

 induction coil in studying the problems of 

 human conduct often leads to the supposi- 

 tion that the laws governing mental phe- 

 nomena are less easily recognized than those 

 conditioning the reactions taking place in 

 a beaker or registered on a kymograph 

 cylinder. 



If we turn from trying to estimate the 

 conjectural benefits that might follow the 

 extension of knowledge of the brain to find 

 some practical application for the rela- 

 tively few facts already brought to light, 



