548 TECHNOLOGY 



commercial methods is distinctly good as opposed to waste, being 

 quite necessary to the study of economics, which is the applica- 

 tion of philosophical and scientific principles to the conduct of 

 life a kind of final aim of the general application of science to 

 life. To know how to live and conquer our environment financially, 

 in a manner easy enough to leave some margin for intellectual 

 advancement, seems to be a necessary condition of living on a high 

 plane. True, one can have plain living and high thinking, but when 

 it comes to sordid living, when the food is perhaps too little to feed 

 the brain, or even when every scrap of energy is used up in pro- 

 viding for material wants, then indeed the wings of the imagina- 

 tion are clipped and the eagle becomes a barnyard fowl. 



If, then, this commercialism has so much that is good and neces- 

 sary, why should we look upon it as a danger? Because, like fire, 

 it is a good servant, but a bad master; because, in this world, we 

 must look upward, or with level eyes, or downward. We feel in- 

 stinctively that true scientific thought is an aspiration, that a wise 

 economy or management, a taking far-seeing advantage of cir- 

 cumstances, or any honorable making of money, especially for 

 unselfish purposes, is practical common sense, and is helpful in, 

 as it were, buying time in which we may rise to higher things. On 

 the other hand, we feel no less that if we turn the making of money 

 into a goal in itself, the road to it is beset with the pitfalls of greed, 

 selfishness, and dishonor, and that the looking at it thus, or as the 

 chief standard by which to measure values, is quite unworthy of 

 our higher nature. "What lovely puppies!" exclaimed the child. 

 "A hundred dollars' worth of dogs," remarked the lad, who was 

 trying to reach too quickly the time when the glory of dawn melts 

 into the light of common day. 



On these grounds we feel that any teaching that allows com- 

 mercialism to become too important a factor is fraught with dan- 

 ger. That we speak of it not as an evil, but as a danger, suggests 

 a reason why it is not shunned with more care. It is only a risk, 

 and I am afraid that, over-confident in the steadiness of our heads, 

 we seldom mind skirting moral precipices, but in a scientific insti- 

 tution, at least, we ought steadily to build up the invisible moral 

 ideal. 



Risk is a conception distinctly opposed to any science seeking 

 after absolute knowledge, and should be as far as possible dis- 

 couraged, whatever legitimacy there may be in it being replaced 

 by a keener foresight. If we deal with risks at all, it should be in 

 a scientific way, calculating their amount and providing for them, 

 and we should certainly practice what we preach, estimating with 

 care the danger of commercialism, and deciding whether it would 

 not be better to avoid it, lest we be confronted with the necessity 



