14 THE PATH OF SCIENCE 



ditions from those that have gone before is the rate at which 

 the change is occurring. Earlier changes in the social struc- 

 ture, such as those that occurred at the end of the Roman 

 Empire, were extremely slow in comparison with the changes 

 that we have seen in our own lifetimes. At the present time, 

 the rate of change is greater than any in the previous ex- 

 perience of man, and it appears to be still accelerating. The 

 rate is, indeed, so great that it is often said that the world is 

 passing through a social revolution. On this point, one may 

 agree with Cabot that the word "revolution" is too strong. 

 Revolution suggests an explosion, and such an explosion may 

 occur; indeed, the German and Japanese attacks might be 

 considered explosions. But apart from these aggressive ac- 

 tions, which are not necessarily due to the social changes, 

 what is occurring is not social revolution but social evolution 

 at a very rapid pace. 



An important contribution to the study of the situation 

 was made by the late Lord Stamp in his book The Science of 

 Social Adjustment, the first chapter of which is entitled "The 

 Impact of Science upon Society." * Stainp points out that 

 the specific phenomenon that we have to investigate is what 

 occurs at the point of impact, where the new discoveries and 

 inventions affect our social life, and here the rate of change 

 is of primary importance. In his book he discusses as an 

 economist such matters as the obsolescence of machinery, 

 the displacement of labor, the changes in industry and in 

 the population. 



Many of the most important changes produced by science 

 are not generally recognized as such. Everybody realizes 

 that the introduction of the railroad train, the automobile, 

 and the airplane have changed social conditions; but by far 

 the most important factors in the changes that are occurring 

 in society arise from the prolongation of human life. Not 

 a generation ago, life expectation at birth was forty years; 

 today it is sixty. This produces a change in the distribution 



* Sir Josiah Stamp, The Science of Social Adjustment, London, Mac- 

 millan and Co., 1937. 



