Science in Public Affairs 



so little disposition to think out and to deal 

 trenchantly with the causes of it. In a scientific 

 age our social organisation remains pre-scientific. 

 Its aims are undefined ; the relationship between 

 its different parts is left vague and loose ; conflict- 

 ing purposes and tendencies half unconsciously 

 counteract one another ; there is a welter of 

 wasteful competition tempered by good feeling ; 

 and palliatives are applied by a thousand chari- 

 table agencies running at half-power. Will this be 

 changed by the scientific movement, which in its 

 influence on thought is the outstanding character- 

 istic of modern life and the most powerful factor 

 in determining the present course of human effort ? 



II 



It will be agreed that the scientific movement, 

 in the wide sense of the words, has four chief 

 aspects. It has increased with extraordinary swift- 

 ness man's knowledge of Nature through the sys- 

 tematic application of scientific methods of inquiry 

 to the phenomena of the material world. Secondly, 

 through the practical application of parts of the 

 knowledge thus gained or deepened, it has greatly 

 changed the conditions of human life, chiefly 

 through improvements in methods of production, 

 through the increase and quickening of means of 

 communication and through the strengthening of 

 resistance to disease. Thirdly, it has led to, or 

 been accompanied by, the application of new 

 methods of inquiry and criticism to the subject- 



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