356 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



mightiest, as well as the most monstrous, of the culture forms that have 

 yet influenced the race. No language rolls the " r " sufficiently to pro- 

 nounce " war " as it should be pronounced. 



These old forces of civilization — war, religion, poetry — have been 

 harmonious coworkers ; only a few unpleasant incidents to record in the 

 happy family. Whether war for religion's sake, or religion in the cause 

 of war, or poetry in praise of war and its heroes, or poetry in the service 

 of religion, the forces have not often pulled against each other, but, in 

 the main, together, and the paths in the various fields have not been 

 divergent, but convergent. Homer, Achilles, Moses, David, Cassar, 

 Mohamet, Charlemagne, Dante, Shakespeare are all artists upon the 

 same canvas. 



In a large sense, science and industrialism are not two forces, but a 

 single force. Industrialism is merely science in action, or militant 

 science. But in reality this distinction is a large one. To make indus- 

 trialism from science, one must add other elements — such, for example, 

 as ambition for power, a greed for exploitation, or a lust for money, or 

 any combination of these. Of course industrialism could not have 

 developed except from the soil of science. 



The brief history of industrialism is interesting. I shall divide it 

 into three periods. In the beginning the exploitation of labor was, 

 perhaps, the dominant quality. Now the exploitation of labor was 

 nothing new in the world, for it dates back to the time of the first slave. 

 What I mean is that after a long period of partial emancipation in 

 which the common man had gained a certain power of individual asser- 

 tion and independent existence, industrialism came along and built up 

 the necessary great groups of dependent industrial workers. The ex- 

 ploitation of labor was on a new scale and done almost consciously as in 

 slavery. Then, as industrialism grew and science pointed out more and 

 more what the new movement really meant, the exploitation of labor 

 became more nearly secondary to the exploitation of nature or of nat- 

 ural resources. To take in private possession and hold against the 

 people the natural wealth of a country was, perhaps, not altogether a 

 new thing, but the machines, the processes, the transportation, the 

 organization, the communication that science developed made the ex- 

 ploitation possible and abundantly worth while. Next there entered 

 the third and greatest period, namely, the period characterized by the 

 exploitation of the middle classes. Now here is one of the greatest 

 discoveries of our times. The so-called middle classes are almost solely 

 the product of industrialism. The modern industries of a country and 

 the commerce resulting therefrom are the only forces that have any- 

 where built up a large middle class. The best ways to tap the savings 

 of this class, although just discovered, are now pretty well worked out. 

 The American industrial trust, the German syndicate, the new-style 



