26 
IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
matters! How many physicians themselves look upon their 
profession as founded on empirical data! The failure of the 
public to recognize fundamental principles accounts largely for 
the success of many of the frauds of our day. We look upon 
professional and technical schools as places where the student 
gains skill in manipulating and proficiency in experimenting, 
and too often that is all they are. The scientist is often justly 
accused of isolating himself and his work from the sphere of 
human activity, of seeking his little bit of truth merely for the 
truth’s sake, never dreaming that his greater duty is to relate 
himself and his work to the great body of truth. No one has a 
natural monopoly on truth any more than on any other reality. 
I do not believe in a scientific Olympus where above the clouds 
and turmoil of the common place, far from the maddening 
crowd, can dwell the votaries of science indifferent to the prob- 
lems that perplex the masses. If the true aim of scientific 
study is to find the ideal adjustment of man to his environment 
our present progress in realizing that aim is altogether too 
slow and uncertain in comparison with our pretensions. We 
must make radical changes in the ways we are presenting the 
facts and methods of science to the public. 
The observing minds of to-day cannot fail to see that modern 
civilization is on the point of some great changes. The first 
half of the twentieth century will see enacted what would now 
seem subversive of the present best order of things. The 
wisdom and folly, success and disaster, attending these changes 
will depend largely on the scientific or unscientific means 
employed in attaining desired ends. It is basest folly to 
attempt to solve society’s problems with leaving out of sight 
fundamental human laws. There is no true science of sociology 
yet formulated. The dictum of the social reformer is the 
baldest empiricism. We can never get anywhere by Bellamy 
colonies and Brook Farm experiments. Why then advocate 
social schemes to which not even the angels in heaven could 
conform much less men of flesh and blood? If sociology is 
ever to be established on a rational basis it must take man as 
he is, and as he has been, a creature of bone and sinew, ever 
striving for better conditions and never presenting phenomena 
that are independent of natural laws. Sociology can be made 
a science only by laborious patient endeavor. Humanity’s 
problems cannot be solved in a day, nor a year, nor alifetime* 
No one man can solve them. The chemist, the biologist, the 
