6 SCIENCE AND LIFE 



Youth ought to breathe in science with its mother 

 tongue, in addition to the ancient wisdom of those 

 who lived directly on sunlight. A prolonged course 

 of pettifogging crofting fits no man to administer 

 vast possessions. With the exception of a few, to 

 whom it is a hobby, public men in this country are 

 as ignorant of the meaning of science to life as the 

 man in the street is of the Greek alphabet. 



It is not difficult to comprehend the precise con- 

 dition which science has introduced into human 

 affairs, and to which every feature peculiar to the 

 present age can be more or less directly traced. It 

 is the effective control and utilisation of inanimate 

 sources of energy. The power of a man to do work 

 one man-power is, in its purely physical sense, 

 now an insignificant accomplishment, and could only 

 again justify his existence if other sources of power 

 failed. To increase and multiply one man-power is 

 the object of all social systems from time immemorial. 



The modern Ship of State moves with an unseen 

 power. Old salts still trim the useless sails in true 

 maritime fashion, and there is a talk on deck of 

 hurricanes and doldrums, maelstroms and monsoons. 

 But those below the deck, who provide the power, 

 know where the ship would sail to, if sail it ever had 

 to again. Curious persons in cloisteral seclusion are 

 experimenting with new sources of energy, which, if 

 ever harnessed, would make coal and oil as useless 

 as oars and sails. If they fail in their quest, or are 

 too late, so that coal and oil, everywhere sought for, 

 are no longer found, and the only hope of men lay in 

 their time-honoured traps to catch the sunlight, who 

 doubts that galley-slaves and helots would reappear 

 in the world once more? The history of man is 

 dominated by, and reflects, the amount of available 

 energy. The energy available for each individual 

 man is his income, and the philosophy which can 



