Science and Industry 



is the general character of the scientific economy 

 of the twentieth century. 



I have said little about the contribution of science 

 to business method. Yet not the least contribution 

 to modern industry consists in the standardisation 

 of business methods. In the United States this 

 work of planning the structure of a business with 

 reference to its productive work, its supply of 

 materials and power, the size and nature of its 

 market, &c., is already recognised as the basis of 

 a profession different from that of the actual con- 

 duct of a business, and the business standardiser 

 has become a specialist summoned as confidential 

 adviser by the foremost manufacturing or com- 

 mercial firms. A modern business, planned and 

 conducted in this scientific spirit, both in its pro- 

 ductive and its financial sides, differs as widely 

 from the ancient empirical type as the modern 

 turbine steamship from the old sailing vessel. 



To many I shall seem to have presented an 

 unduly optimist appreciation of the present and 

 possible services of science to industry. They 

 will be inclined, and justly, to question the all- 

 sufficiency of the development of the physical 

 sciences for industrial progress, even when har- 

 nessed to the triumphal car of profit-seeking entre- 

 preneurs of the modern scientific order. And it is 

 true that no mere reliance on the omnipotence of 

 the physical sciences under the conduct of skilled 

 profit-mongers can secure the rich harvest which 

 has been described. 



Industry, like every other human activity, is a 

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