RELATIONS OF SCIENCE TO THE PUBLIC WEAL. 243 



in the proverb of Solomon, " They that hate instruction love death." 

 In sociology, as in biology, there are three states. The first of bal- 

 ance, when things grow neither better nor worse ; the second that of 

 elaboration or evolution, as we see it when animals adapt themselves 

 to their environments ; and third, that of degeneration, when they 

 rapidly lose the ground they have made. For a nation, a state of bal- 

 ance is only possible in the early stage of its existence, but it is impos- 

 sible when its environments are constantly changing. 



The possession of the raw materials of industry and the existence 

 of a surplus population are important factors for the growth of manu- 

 factures in the early history of a nation, but afterward they are bound 

 up with another factor — the application of intellect to their develop- 

 ment. England could not be called a manufacturing nation till the 

 Elizabethan age. No doubt coal, iron, and wood were in abundance, 

 though, in the reign' of the Plantagenets, they produced little prosper- 

 ity. Wool was sent to Flanders to be manufactured, for England 

 then stood to Holland as Australia now does to Yorkshire. The politi- 

 cal crimes of Sjjain, from the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella to that 

 of Philip HI, destroyed it as a great manufacturing nation, and indi- 

 rectly led to England taking its position. Spain, through the activity 

 and science of the Arabian intellect, had acquired many important 

 industries. The IVIoors and the Moriscoes, who had been in Spain for 

 a period as long as from the Norman conquest of this country to the 

 present date, were banished, and Avith them departed the intellect of 

 Spain. Then the invasion of the Low Countries by Philip II drove 

 the Flemish manufacturers to England, while the French persecution 

 of the Huguenots added new manufacturing experience, and with them 

 came the industries of cotton, wool, and silk. Cotton mixed with 

 linen and wool became freely used, but it was only from 1738 to the 

 end of the century that the inventions of Wyatt, Arkwright, Har- 

 greaves, Compton, and Cartwright started the wonderful modern 

 development. The raw cotton was imported from India or America, 

 but that fact as regards cost was a small factor in comparison with 

 the intellect required to convert it into a utility. Science has in the 

 last hundred years altered altogether the old conditions of industrial 

 competition. She has taught the rigid metals to convey and re- 

 cord our thoughts even to the most distant lands, and, within less 

 limits, to reproduce our speech. This marvelous application of elec- 

 tricity has diminished the cares and responsibilities of governments, 

 while it has at the same time altered the whole practice of com- 

 merce. To England steam and electricity have been of incalculable 

 advantage. The ocean, which once made the country insular and iso- 

 lated, is now the very life-blood of England and of the greater Eng- 

 land beyond the seas. As in the human body the blood bathes all its 

 parts, and through its traveling corpuscles carries force to all its mem- 

 bers, so in the body politic of England and its pelasgic extensions 



