Science in Public Affairs 



Industrial Revolution. For the first time definite 

 encouragement was given to invention. No longer 

 necessity, but profit; was its mother. From this 

 time forward we observe the direction of inven- 

 tive energy along more or less definite channels 

 of industrial improvement. The progress of the 

 cotton and woollen industries of England during 

 the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries will 

 illustrate this new economy, exhibiting as they do 

 a fairly regular alternation of the inventive current 

 between the spinning and the weaving processes, 

 so that when one forges ahead the energy of 

 progress is directed to the more backward process. 

 The greatest of the achievements of the seven- 

 teenth and eighteenth century, the evolution of 

 the steam-engine, and the early application of 

 steam as an industrial power, were likewise only 

 rendered possible by the stimulus of the new 

 entrepreneur class, directing inventive energy to 

 the solution of each technical difficulty in the 

 order of its appearance. 



But in this period of "revolution" we trace the 

 bare beginnings of that science of invention which 

 is destined in the twentieth century to dominate the 

 "evolution" of industry. For in the eighteenth 

 and early nineteenth centuries scientific education 

 was slight and rare, and its fruits irregular ; the 

 twentieth century starts with a deep widespread 

 conviction of the mastery of man over nature 

 through the understanding of natural causation. 

 This informed faith in science is a new psychic 

 fact, a new power that will produce immense 



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