THE MATERIAL BASIS OF LIFE 3 



pooled in the general stock for the benefit of all. 

 Common ownership of all its acquisitions is the 

 breath of its life. Secrecy or individualism of any 

 kind would destroy its fertility. 



THE MATERIAL BASIS OF LIFE. 



To the altruist, to whom wealth and human 

 happiness are far from being synonyms, science is 

 viewed with distrust. A phrase "like the growing 

 materialism of the age" is a curious betrayal of a 

 habit of thought which would be ludicrous if it were 

 not fraught with disaster. The physical conditions 

 of existence are more fundamental than the aesthetic, 

 moral or intellectual. A child must be fed before it 

 can be taught. A certain standard of living above 

 that of animals is a preliminary condition for the 

 development of any of the special qualities of human 

 beings. Philosophies, codes, political systems and 

 religions must follow the lead of science and range 

 themselves in alliance with, rather than in defiance 

 of, these inanimate fundamentals, or, like a machine 

 designed in ignorance of the principles of mechanics, 

 they constitute themselves a danger to the com- 

 munity. Of these elementary physical conditions, 

 which absolutely control existence, and which take 

 precedence over every other, mankind remained in 

 total ignorance until they suddenly changed. Most 

 fish probably remain utterly oblivious of the existence 

 of water until rudely hauled into the upper air. In 

 the essentially unchanging physical environment, in 

 which all but the latest epoch of recorded history has 

 been enacted, lies the probable explanation of the 

 seeming paralysis which has overtaken the sources 

 of constructive thought and action since science in 

 the last century revolutionised the major physical 

 condition of life. 



