Science in Public Affairs 



psycho-physical process, and the effective control 

 and direction of the psychical side requires as close 

 an application of science as those of the physical 

 side. Psychically interpreted, industry consists in 

 the growth and management of ideas and feelings 

 relating to the production and distribution of wealth. 

 Industry involves certain costs or efforts in them- 

 selves regarded as undesirable, which are incurred 

 in order to procure utilities or satisfactions. In 

 the psychical calculus of industry we are therefore 

 concerned with the minimisation of costs and the 

 maximisation of utilities. Now while the physical 

 sciences applicable to the material arts of industry 

 have yielded immense gains in reducing the quan- 

 tity of human energy involved in a given output 

 of commodities, and in discovering and producing 

 new sorts of commodities, it is notoriously true 

 that these productive powers, placed at the disposal 

 of man by modern science, are very incompletely 

 utilised. Wherever the best-developed machinery 

 and power are widely applied to industry the re- 

 current phenomenon of over-production appears ; 

 in all the most advanced staple industries it is 

 found to be impossible to keep the whole pro- 

 ductive power in full employment, because it is 

 impossible to sell the whole of what could be pro- 

 duced at a remunerative price. The general know- 

 ledge of this fact prevents or retards the adoption 

 of the technically best methods of production over 

 large fields of industry. This radical difficulty of 

 finding full, regular, and remunerative markets for 

 the largest possible product, though most fully 



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