THE PATH OF SCIENCE 227 



to its children the conditions that it finds in society.* For 

 the first time in history, this assumption is false (compare 

 Chapter I, page 10 ff.). Moreover, since the social and eco- 

 nomic changes characteristic of the present age are produced 

 by the development of science, they increase as the develop- 

 ment of science accelerates. As Whitehead says: "Today we 

 are at the beginning of a new crisis of civilization, which gives 

 promise of producing more fundamental change than any 

 preceding advance. . . . The whole of human practical ac- 

 tivity is in process of immediate transformation by novelties 

 of organized knowledge." f This is true because the growth 

 of science is not only very rapid, but it is still accelerating. 

 The production of new science, in fact, is accelerated by the 

 science already produced; and this phenomenon is parallel 

 to that which the chemist knows as an autocatalytic reaction. 

 Autocatalytic reactions are those in which the product of 

 the reaction itself increases the rate at which the reaction 

 proceeds. If we heat guncotton, that most important ex- 

 plosive, it gives off a little nitric acid, which makes it decom- 

 pose faster, so that it gives off more nitric acid and decom- 

 poses faster and faster until finally the heat generated may 

 be sufficient to produce an explosion. Any chemical reaction 

 that produces heat will increase autocatalytically if the heat is 

 not conducted away. Such a reaction is interesting to watch. 

 We put the solvent in a vessel, add all the ingredients, and 

 perhaps warm them a little. Then, the reaction starts and 

 generates heat as it proceeds. It goes faster and faster, and 

 the solution may rise in the vessel and froth; and then, as the 

 reaction decreases and the materials are used up, the solution 

 sinks again. If there is not enough room, the vessel will boil 

 over; if there is enough room, it will undergo a complete 

 transformation into a new system. The termination of the 

 reaction is produced by the exhaustion of one of the com- 



* A. N. Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas, p. 117, New York, The Mac- 

 millan Co., 1933. 



f "Statesmanship and Specialized Learning," Proceedings of the 

 American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 75, No. 1, p. 5 (1942). 



