This picture of the status of scientific work on the primates, although not overdrawn, will doubtless surprise many readers, and even the biologist may find himself wondering why we are so ignorant concerning the lives of the organisms most nearly akin to us, and naturally of deepest interest to us.  The reasons are not far to seek.  Most scientific investigators are forced by circumstances to work with organisms which are readily obtained and easily kept.  The primates have neither of these advantages, for many, if not most of them, are expensive to get and either difficult or expensive to keep in good condition.  Clearly, then, our ignorance is due not to lack of appreciation of the scientific value of primate research but instead to its difficultness and costliness.

Strangely enough, the practical importance of knowledge of the primates has seldom been dwelt upon even by those biologists who are especially interested in it.  It is, therefore, appropriate to emphasize the strictly human value of the work for which I am seeking provision.

During the past few years it has been abundantly and convincingly demonstrated that knowledge of other organisms may aid directly in the solution of many of the problems of experimental medicine, of physiology, genetics, psychology, sociology, and economics.  In the light of these results, it is obviously desirable that all studies of infrahuman organisms, but especially those of the various primates, should be made to contribute to the solution of our human problems.

To me it seems that thoroughgoing knowledge of the lives of the infrahuman primates would inevitably make for human betterment.  Through the science of genetics, as advanced by experimental studies of the monkeys and anthropoid apes, practical eugenic procedures should be more safely based and our ability to predict organic phenomena greatly increased.  Similarly, intensive knowledge of the diseases of the other primates in their relations to human diseases should contribute importantly to human welfare.  And finally, our careful studies of the fundamental instincts, forms of habit formation, and social relations in the monkeys and apes should lead to radical improvements in our educational methods as well as in other forms of social service.

Along theoretical lines, no less than practical, systematic research with the primates should rapidly justify itself, for upon its results must rest the most significant historical or genetic biological descriptions.  It is beyond doubt that genetic psychology can best be advanced to-day by such work, and what is obviously true of this science is not less true of all the biological sciences which take account of the developmental or genetic relations of their events.

In view of the probable values of increasingly complete accounts of primate life, it seems far from extravagant to insist that the securing of adequate provision for systematic and long continued research is the most important task for our generation of biologists and the one which we shall be least excusable for neglecting.  Indeed, when one stops to reflect concerning the situation, it seems almost incredible that the task has not been accomplished.