72 THE FUTURE OF SCIENCE 



science does deny them the right or the power to 

 mould the destinies of the present or of the future. 

 But a sanctuary in which to keep alive the memory 

 of the glories of departed times is in fact the thing 

 they dread most. They claim nothing less than that 

 their decadent humanism shall continue to be in the 

 future, as it has been in the past, the sole avenue to 

 positions of lucre, honour, opportunity and influence 

 in vast fields of State service a claim that is pre- 

 posterous, and from which the present holocaust 

 became possible. 



No man can serve two masters, and, if he is a 

 man not specially endowed with moral courage or 

 special enthusiasm and talents, he will be but 

 human if he elects to serve that master with most 

 power in the State to start him on a prosperous 

 career. Science has hitherto had little or no power 

 to do that. The Civil Service is but one specially 

 notorious instance, but it must suffice. Eminent 

 scientific men have recently decided to insist, as 

 a practical step towards the accomplishment of 

 what they have been advocating for seventy years, 

 that capital importance be assigned to the natural 

 sciences in the competitive examinations for the 

 Home and Indian Civil Service. Hitherto these 

 examinations have been regulated by the desire 

 not to secure the best men, most suitably trained 

 for their work, but rather to secure men from 

 particularly favoured universities, especially from 

 Oxford. Science is not of any capital importance, 

 and a man professing a group of the natural sciences 

 as his central subject could only be successful by a 

 miracle. If you wish to laugh, you should read 

 the imaginary interview between a candidate and 

 the Civil Service Commissioners in Science Progress 

 for July 1916. Ridicule is the only weapon against 

 such folly. 



