20 THE CONTROL OF LIFE 



second-class and third-class new knowledge, some 

 democratisation or socialisation of their activities might 

 be useful, especially if it came about voluntarily, not 

 coercively. We cannot believe that every investment 

 of scientific time and ingenuity is equally likely to yield 

 interest affecting man's estate. Some is only quantita- 

 tively, not qualitatively new. It would be no tjrranny 

 to ask that an investigator, faced by equally attractive 

 theoretical problems, should give the preference to those 

 holding some promise of benefit to mankind. The 

 democratic check on luxurious specialism would not 

 be unjust which pressed a consideration of Spencer's 

 epigram — " Science is for life, not life for Science." 

 (3) It is possible to make a bogey of the danger of socialis- 

 ing scientific inquiry. One may be too jealous for the 

 safety of the ark, it is not so capsisable. Bacon was 

 right : " This is that which will indeed dignify and 

 exalt knowledge if contemplation and action be more 

 nearly and strictly conjoined and united together than 

 they have been." No small part of Science, even of 

 geometry and astronomy, sprang from tackling practical 

 problems, and this may be expected to continue. In 

 his interesting Janus and Vesta (1916), Mr. Benchara 

 Branford writes : " Science ultimately sprang, and is 

 continually springing from the desires and efforts of 

 men to increase their skill in their occupations by 

 understanding the eternal principles that underlie all 

 dealings of man with Nature and of man with his fellow- 

 men." There is an unceasing reciprocal relationship : 

 occupations produce and stimulate science ; science 



