p. 16 | The Study of Man

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 4, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 49.

The Study of Man

There is considerable agitation just now over the establishment of a national bureau for the special study of man. A circular, making a plea for this, has the following:—

The greatest of all studies is that of man himself as he is to-day. A scientific investigation of man must be based primarily upon the individual, who is the unit of the social organism.

If we are ever to have sufficient definite knowledge of living human beings that may become a science, it can only be done by the careful study of large numbers of individuals. The more thorough the study and the larger the number, the more useful such investigation can be made to society.

The study of man, to be of most utility, must be directed first to the causes of crime, pauperism, alcoholism, and other forms of abnormality.

As in machinery we must first repair the little wheels out of gear, so in society we must first study the criminal, crank, insane, inebriate, or pauper who can seriously injure both individual and community.

The most rigid and best method of study of both children and adults is that of the laboratory, with instruments of precision in connection with sociological data.

A scientist not believing more, could plan for no more than what is here included; but he would never arrive at anything like an exact science concerning man. He would gather very many interesting facts, in general and detail, regarding heredity and environment, etc.; he would demonstrate many facts which man already knows; he would by instruments of precision tell us the amount of pain which could be borne by individuals, the strength and relative strength of each organ, and many other interesting things; but, after all, he could not evolve by any of these studies a knowledge of man or find the causes of degeneracy. He looks for knowledge at the wrong source; he begins at the wrong end.

The important thing above all for man to know is God. It was a great burden of Christ’s prayer that His children might know God and Jesus Christ whom He sent. John 17:3. It is eternal life to know Him. But of man it is said: “The heart is ‘deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?—I the Lord.” Only God can know man. It is only through God that we can learn man. The Bible reveals the science of man, but only through the knowledge of God.

To know man aright we must not begin at the lowest. To know a forest we would not study the dry, dead trunks or stumps. To know the fruit of an apple-tree we would not seek out rotten specimens. Even so to know man we must begin our study with the subject as he came from the hands of God. All below that are perversions caused by sin, the cause of all the wickedness, woe, and want of this world. The most important thing is to know God.