Science and Citizenship 



guidance is the presence of an ideal and a moral 

 impulse toward it. It is the contention of this 

 paper that the ideals of science, always implicit, 

 are now actually in process of being explicitly 

 formulated, and that these ideals give promise of 

 a policy of city development. And once to see 

 and feel this movement of science is to participate 

 in it, to forward and direct it. 



II 



In a first rough approximation it may be taken 

 that the middle term between Science and Policy 

 is Potency. The conception of Potency presents 

 itself to us with a reality and a force proportional 

 to the frequency and intensity of our first-hand 

 immediate and direct contacts with nature. The 

 conception doubtless reaches a vanishing point in 

 the minds of that urban breed of domesticated 

 animals which are cut off from nature by con- 

 tinuous confinement in the cages called town 

 houses; this variety of animal degenerates into a sort 

 of subnatural species, with supernatural cravings. 

 The city in its evolution is of course a natural 

 phenomenon ; but within the city, the barriers 

 between man and nature are numerous and formi- 

 dable. Amongst the dwellers in cities, it is pro- 

 bable that the only persons who are in habitual 

 contact with nature are mothers and poets. To 

 the mother the infant is an embodiment and 

 epitome of all the potencies of nature. The baby, 

 as has been well said, is a bundle of potencies. 



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