12 THE NEW PHILOSOPHY 



universities and remained so until only two or three generations ago. 

 The scientists, in large part, were amateurs, supported from private for- 

 tunes or earning their way in other callings. Newton hardly had enough 

 to live on at Cambridge; he had to pay for all of his instruments, for 

 his chemicals, and his materials out of his own pocket. The fellows of 

 the Royal Society taxed themselves by very large fees and dues to pay 

 the cost of their own publications and the expense of their secretaries, 

 their libraries, and their museums. In the last half of the eighteenth 

 century there was probably more good science in the home of Henry 

 Cavendish than in all the colleges of England, and the private libraries 

 of Cavendish and of Joseph Banks, located in then* town houses near 

 Soho Square, far exceeded all other British resources of the day. Only 

 since the World War has the British government offered liberal aid to 

 the New Philosophy. Science in England has not been a spoiled child. 

 It has fought its way through and made its own career. It is not sur- 

 prising, therefore, that it has had a virility and a character of its own. 

 There have been compensations in its career of self-support. 



I have now given a certain picture of the rise of the new philosophy. 

 Although I have spoken particularly of the intellectual revolution in 

 England, the view has hot been a partial one as far as mere scientific 

 advance is concerned. But during all this time, Britannia had been 

 ruling the world, while other countries, for the most part, had stayed at 

 home. There has been a difference in results, and there has also been a 

 difference in the use of intellectual materials. England did not lose 

 out in the power that came from the new learning, although England's 

 great universities only slowly gave recognition to it. In the main they 

 have devoted their efforts to training men in human and spiritual 

 things, primarily for leadership in public life. The first job of the new 

 learning has been the conquest of the physical world. Its spiritual con- 

 tributions, although real, have not been so obvious. Three centuries 

 ago man still lived in awe of nature, just as he had been living from the 

 day of his creation. He had been limited and ruled by nature as a slave 

 is limited and ruled everywhere he stood in dread of nature and with- 

 out mastery over her. Fate represented the great tragic element in life, 

 just as it did in the Greek drama. The New Philosophy has brought 

 about a reversal in the relation of man and nature. For the first time in 

 human history, the question is no longer how nature can be prevented 

 from overcoming man; it now is to what lengths may man go in sub- 

 duing nature. He believes he has won the mastery not complete, it is 

 true,but with the balance of control in his favor. This consciousness of 

 power has changed human outlook. Man now doubts the necessity of 

 many of the hardships of life formerly regarded as inevitable. It is not 

 enough that the fear of the Black Death, or dread of lightning, or of the 

 perils of the sea, should vanish. It is now believed that many of the 



