288 THE PRESENT IMPORTANCE OF SCIENCE 



may be looked to for guidance so far as government is the 

 administration of what has been established. But in so far 

 as government consists of problem-solving, it might better 

 be conducted by those whose business is the solution of 

 problems. The successful conduct of government in the 

 modern world, although it consists largely of the perform- 

 ance of established operations, also demands the ability to 

 grapple with new situations and to solve problems which 

 already exist. The failure to perform this second function 

 is due to the dominance in government of a mental attitude 

 which is interested in operating the machinery as it has been 

 operated, and not in the invention of new machinery or of 

 new methods of operating the old. 



Democracy can justify itself only by more effective ac- 

 complishment than in the past. Science appears to have 

 fostered the democratic ideal in the past. At the present 

 day, science, rather than legalism, offers the means of triumph 

 to democracy in the future. A time must come when the 

 scientist, and by scientist we mean the engineer, the chemist, 

 the sociologist, the economist, and the like, will be accorded 

 his rightful place in the affairs of state. 



In the foregoing discussion of science in relation to the 

 problems of society, the general applications of the scientific 

 point of view have been emphasized, rather than specific 

 applications in concrete problems. As in the ensuing dis- 

 cussion of values, it is assumed that the practical impor- 

 tance of science is familiar to all. We have emphasized the 

 influence of science upon the human mind. Its concrete 

 applications in social questions, like public health, eugenics, 

 industrial problems, divorce, the problems of sex, of popula- 

 tion, of public taste, and the like might have been considered 

 at length. But we have chosen what we regard as the under- 

 lying significance of science within the field of human 

 relationships. 



The idea at the bottom of western society seems to be that 

 man does not need to sit passively content with his lot, but 



