4 UTILITARIAN SCIENCES 



success in these directions. But even here accurate knowledge must 

 precede any success in its application, and accuracy of knowledge 

 is all that we mean by pure science. Moreover, as through the ages 

 the representatives of the philosophies of the day, the a priori ex- 

 planations of the universe, were bitterly and personally hostile to 

 all inductive conclusions based on the study of base matter, men of 

 science were forced to disguise their work under a utilitarian cloak. 

 This is more or less true even to this day, and the greatest need of 

 utilitarian science is still, as a thousand years ago, that this cloak 

 should be thrown off, and that a larger and stronger body of workers 

 in pure science should be developed to give the advance in real 

 knowledge on which the thousands of ingenious and noble applica- 

 tions to utilitarian ends must constantly depend. 



It is a fundamental law of psychology that thought tends to pass 

 over into action. Applied science is knowledge in action. It is the 

 flower of that highest philanthropy of the ages by which not even 

 thought exists for itself alone, but must find its end in the enlarge- 

 ment of human control over matter and force or the amelioration of 

 the conditions of human life. 



The development of all science has been a constant struggle, a 

 struggle of fact against philosophy, of instant impressions against 

 traditional interpretations, of truth against " make-believe." For 

 men are prone to trust a theory rather than a fact; a fact is a single 

 point of contact; a theory is a circle made of an infinite number of 

 points, none of them, however, it may be, real points of contact. 



The history of the progress of science is written in human psycho- 

 logy rather than in human records. It is the struggle of the few 

 realities or present sense-impressions against the multitude of past 

 impressions, suggestions, and explanations. I have elsewhere said 

 that the one great discovery of the nineteenth century forestalled 

 many ages before was that of the reality of external things. Men 

 have learned to trust a present fact or group of facts, however con- 

 tradictory its teachings, as opposed to tradition and philosophy. 

 From this trust in the reality of the environment of matter and force, 

 whatever these may be, the great fabric of modern science has been 

 built up. Science is human experience of contact with environment 

 tested, set in order, and expressed in terms of other human expe- 

 rience. Utilitarian science is that part of all this knowledge which 

 we can use in our lives, in our business. What is pure science to one 

 is applied science to another. The investigation of the laws of hered- 

 ity may be strictly academic to us of the university, but they are 

 utilitarian as related to the preservation of the nation or to the 

 breeding of pigs. In the warfare of science the real in act and motive 

 has been persistently substituted for the unreal. Men have slowly 

 learned that the true glory of life lies in its wise conduct, in the 



