SCIENCE AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS 279 



where become familiar with the laws under which machines 

 are set in operation. The idea of man as a controller and 

 director of natural forces and not as a worker of miracles, 

 and of nature as something which acts according to discover- 

 able laws has been the work of the thinkers. Its wide 

 acceptance has been an incident of modern industrial de- 

 velopment. This situation was mentioned in our account 

 of the practical applications of science during the closing 

 decades of the eighteenth century. Moreover, on its com- 

 mercial side, the industrial character is distinctly matter- 

 of-fact and scientific, caring mainly for results. The growth 

 of such a frame of mind exercises an important influence 

 upon the intellectual horizon. 



But with the rise of great industrial organizations during 

 recent years, the inertia, with which science has always to 

 contend, appears in a new guise. The stronger forces of 

 conservatism to-day appear, intrenched within the indus- 

 trial domain. The more extensively the older dominance 

 of Church and Government is replaced by the all-powerful 

 domination of bourgeois Industry, the more Industry be- 

 comes an obstacle to the freedom of science. In the past, 

 the scientific spirit has contended with ancient dogma in 

 the form of theology. To-day, it is being confronted with 

 the Great God Business, which, although it fosters the mate- 

 rial extensions of science, is, on the other hand opposing the 

 extension of the scientific frame of mind in the solution of 

 social problems. Just as industrialism tends to eliminate 

 war, by establishing a pax commercii, while the rivalries 

 which it engenders constitute the underlying cause for 

 modern wars, so industrialism, while fostering the spread 

 of a scientific state of mind among the toilers, shifts the au- 

 thority in society from those who dominate Church and 

 State to those who dominate Industry. It thus enthrones 

 Industry as the strongest defender of the status quo against 

 which the scientific spirit now contends. The hopeful 

 aspects of the situation are the growth of the scientific 



