Closing statement

Abstract

During the past two days we have seen how well the study of human population combines the interests of the founders both of modern demography and of the Royal Society. We have had abundant evidence that the study of population organizes the materials of the natural and social sciences in ways that give them both scientific and practical significance. The programme, I suspect, would have given our predecessors satisfaction, for the organizers of this Society, and of its daughter organizations around the world, were not just detached scholars of academic halls. Nature was to be studied for its beauty, of course, but also for the service of man. The practical implications of science for society, the economy, and the body politic were not considered inappropriate for the inner temple of science. They were drawn without apology; occasionally they were even correctly drawn. Perhaps I am overimpressed by the pragmatic stream in the Royal Society’s early work because I am most familiar with Franklin's interests. Both in this Society, and in its daughter organization, The American Philosophical Society, * his emphasis was always on careful observation, limited generalization, and practical application. The dividing line in the early histories of both our societies was not that between the natural and the social sciences, or between science and action. If there was a division it was between science and a system-building kind of social philosophy.