572 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL. No. 1034 



them as the more usual type of parent- 

 hood. Its offspring have become many and 

 waxed strong. The eldest daughters have 

 begun to reproduce their kind and just to- 

 day the society rejoices in the advent of a 

 new grandchild.^ We can see long vistas 

 of new physiological associations reaching 

 out into the dim and distant future, and no 

 one can predict where this propagation of 

 societies will end. We view this with 

 equanimity so long as the new organiza- 

 tions do not become too narrow in their in- 

 terests and so long as they continue to 

 recognize the mutual benefits of regular 

 family reunions. From this year's gather- 

 ing the society notes with regret the absence 

 of some of its most fancied children. 



Through its relationship to the affiliated 

 societies the Society of Naturalists has now 

 come to represent in a general way the in- 

 terests of biological science. It is import- 

 ant that there should be some such body 

 in existence even if it were solely for the 

 maintenance of the proper relationship be- 

 tween our science and the public. 



In these days of intense practical activ- 

 ity and social unrest it is difficult to over- 

 estimate the need for the application of 

 science to every-day life and to the 

 sudden exigencies of our social organiza- 

 tion. I do not mean merely the ap- 

 plication of science to industry or to phys- 

 ical health, but rather the more general re- 

 lation of science to human aspirations and 

 to human conduct. 



Man to-day, while still retaining instincts 

 which he shares with other animals, is dis- 

 tinguished from them by the vast modifi- 

 cations which accumulated experience has 

 brought about. Social, moral and religious 

 sanctions are so interwoven with instinc- 

 tive impulses that it is all but impossible 

 to distinguish between what is nature and 



2 The American Society for Experimental 

 Pathology. 



what is nurture in our make-up. Yet this 

 is the fundamental criterion for all action 

 that seeks to improve mankind either 

 through breeding a better race or through 

 the modification of his behavior. 



Human civilization has its many visible 

 signs in the machinery it employs and in 

 the objects it collects about it. These are 

 the outward expressions of the mental and 

 moral impulses that have actuated man 

 and which we collectively call culture. 

 Many definitions of this elusive spirit have 

 been attempted, but I like best Matthew 

 Arnold's characterization, that culture has 

 its origin in the love of perfection, and in- 

 volves two main elements — the passion for 

 knowledge and the will to do good. It 

 rests upon right thinking as well as upon 

 right doing — I like this conception because 

 it recognizes culture as creative, and not 

 merely as passive appreciation. 



To give these forces [of culture] names from 

 the two races of men who have supplied the most 

 signal and splendid manifestation of them, we 

 may call them respectively the forces of Hebraism 

 and Hellenism. Hebraism and Hellenism — be- 

 tween these two points of influence moves our 

 world. At one time it feels more powerfully the 

 attraction of one of them, at another time of the 

 other; and it ought to be, though it never is, 

 evenly and happily balanced betwen them. . . . The 

 governing idea of Hellenism is spontaneity of 

 consciousness; that of Hebraism, strictness of 

 conscience.^ 



Science, like literature, art and other in- 

 struments of culture, has fallen under both 

 of these influences. Yet science in its last 

 analysis is the very embodiment of the Hel- 

 lenic spirit — the passion to know. Its great 

 intellectual achievements are the fruition 

 of this ideal. The application of these to 

 the alleviation of human misery and the 

 uplift of the world are manifestations of 

 the spirit of Hebraism. 



The commonest and the most distorted 



3 "Culture and Anarchy," pp. 110 and 113. 



