20 THE WORKING FAITH OF 



all its powers into the field ; and yet we commit the charge 

 of this most complex and delicate structure in the world, 

 this force that makes most momentously for man's weal 

 or woe and is most within his power to make or mar, 

 into the hands of men whose natural gifts of mind and 

 heart may indeed be great, but who have no other resource 

 or trust than common usage and tradition, and no guide 

 save generous sentiment and honest purpose, and the 

 perilous contingency of uninstructed thought. 



In our dealings with our physical environment we act 

 otherwise. We do not look for the discoveries that change 

 the conditions of our outer life to mere good-will and 

 commonsense, indispensable as these always are. We seek 

 and we secure more. No labour of research is too severe, 

 no training is too prolonged, no equipment is too costly, 

 no endowment is too generous, no inquiry is too remote 

 from all visible practical purposes provided only that 

 they are concerned with natural objects. And this is well : 

 no national investment has brought a greater return than 

 that which flows from what we have sunk in the sciences. 

 But the study of the spiritual, mind-made environment 

 which we call " Society," and which is the inmost content 

 as well as the supreme outer condition of man's rational 

 life where is it methodically pursued? It is less in 

 evidence in our universities than the study of algae or 

 protozoa. 



Were it not well that where there are so many " sitting 

 by their studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new 

 notions and ideas," there should be some striving to com- 

 prehend actual living society? The study of the history 

 of the past is valuable, we need its light ; the discovery 

 of economic laws is desirable, for man is a maker and 



