SCIENCE SHAPING A]VIERICAN CULTURE — COMPTON 177 



the advance of scientific knowledge. Thus by learning more and 

 more about the world in which he lives, man has distinguished him- 

 self from his animal cousins. If this claim is valid, it means that 

 the primary responsibility for humanizing man lies with science, and 

 that the society in which scientific knowledge is most rapidly growing 

 is the spear point of man's advancing culture. 



Let us then examine Sarton's argument more closely. He points 

 out that each stage has been ushered in as some inquirer, more per- 

 sistent or more fortunate than his predecessors, and building on the 

 foundation of their techniques, has learned new facts regarding the 

 properties of matter, the chemistry of metals, or the laws of 

 mechanics. Thus when we speak of the stone age, the bronze age, 

 the iron age, and the machine age, we are summarizing the growth 

 of man in terms of the tools with which he does his work. Not that 

 mechanical inventions are the only ones. Language and writing 

 are among the most significant inventions of all, giving as they do 

 means of thinking more clearly, of communicating ideas, and of 

 remembering ideas with definiteness. When the invention of print- 

 ing, telegraphy, the telephone, moving pictures, and the radio are 

 added, it becomes possible for people to share thoughts widely, to 

 become quickly aware of what is happening to all mankind, and to 

 "remember" what has happened to men in the past. A great change 

 thus comes in men's attitudes toward each other. The world becomes 

 almost a conscious unit, very similar to a living organism. Thus 

 even the noimiechanical inventions have found their most effective 

 application through the aid of scientific developments. 



Hand in hand with this development of invention has gone the 

 increase in our knowledge of nature. Skillfully made lenses made 

 possible a telescope, and Jupiter was found to be a miniature solar 

 system. As high-vacuum pumps were developed, X-rays were dis- 

 covered, giving new knowledge of the structure of matter, with 

 resulting advances in metallurgy. "If I saw farther, 'twas because 

 I stood on giant shoulders," is the statement ascribed to Isaac 

 Newton, who clearly recognized the way in which one advance makes 

 possible another. 



The knowledge of nature, which from the beginning had been 

 man's gradually but accidentally increasing heritage, at length be- 

 came the conscious objective of alert minds. Three centuries ago 

 the hobby of a few amateurs, there are now in the United States 

 nearly 2,000 research laboratories, equipped with refined apparatus, 

 where men of the highest training are striving to enlarge our under- 

 standing of the world. As a result, our life differs from that of 

 two generations ago more than American life of that day differed 

 from the civilized life at the dawn of written history. 



