THE PATH OF SCIENCE 231 



Studies made by the Western Electric Company in their fac- 

 tories. Whitehead points out that any group in society en- 

 deavors to insure its own survival, and that if changes are to 

 be acceptable they must originate within the group, prefer- 

 ably as from the established leader of the group. Thus the 

 conservative forces of society can be overcome by evolution 

 from within but they will oppose changes from without. The 

 trade union movements or the co-operative movements are 

 based upon the support of the individual members, many of 

 whom have been active in their development. In the same 

 way, a new religion makes rapid headway as a spontaneous 

 movement among the people, only to be resisted to the death 

 when its followers attempt to impose it upon others. Modern 

 society, however, has an economy based upon machine in- 

 dustry, and this industry is engaged in continual never-ending 

 change controlled by relatively logical, scientific thinking. 

 The result has been an increasing clash between the con- 

 servative instincts of the various groups of society and the 

 interests of the industrial leaders whose operations imperil 

 the continuance of those social groups. 



As Whitehead says, it is impossible to resist the changes pro- 

 duced by the impact of technology even if such a resistance 

 were desirable. "So the next stage in the progress of an in- 

 dustrial society is surely to increase the range of systematic 

 thinking to include not only the technological processes but 

 also the social processes which hold men together." * 



Twenty-five years ago, scientists were believed by the lay 

 public to be impractical, absent-minded people devoid of 

 administrative ability or common sense. Today public opin- 

 ion has swung to the opposite extreme, and it is even urged 

 that men trained in the methods of scientific research should 

 enter political life and endeavor to obtain a controlling posi- 

 tion in the administration of the commonwealth. As Bernal 

 says, "This solution suffers from two radical objections: first, 

 that no one can think of any way of transferring control into 



* T. N. Whitehead, loc. cit., p. 84, 



