THE ORGANIC AND THE INORGANIC 313 



energy contained in the coal and oil accumulated in the 

 rocks of the earth. The progress of civilisation has been 

 a progress rendered possible by discovery and invention, 

 and by the application of the knowledge so obtained 

 to the practical things of human life, but in this specu- 

 lation and its application two different things are 

 indicated. For the scientific man and the philosopher 

 the reduction of the apparent chaos of nature to law 

 and regularity is the beginning and end of his mental 

 activity; but the object of the "entrepreneur" or 

 " organiser " or the " captain of industry " has been 

 to employ these results of thought to the irresponsible 

 exploitation and the selfish depletion of natural sources 

 of energy. Just as the bison and other animals have 

 disappeared or are disappearing before the hunter and 

 fisherman, so the stores of coal and oil are disappearing 

 before the activities of commerce. It has been said that 

 the triumphs of industrialism are only the triumphs 

 of the scientific childhood of our race. Human effort 

 has so far only contributed to the general dissipation 

 of natural energy. 



Yet just as man, the hunter, has been succeeded by 

 man, the agriculturalist, so this irresponsible depletion 

 of natural wealth must be succeeded by the endeavour 

 to retard, and not to accelerate, the degradation of 

 energy. Plants and animals which were simply killed 

 by primitive man are now sown and harvested, or 

 cultivated and bred ; so that the energy of solar radia- 

 tion, which formerly ran to waste, so to speak, is now 

 being fixed by the metabolic activity of the green plants 

 of our crops and harvests. Rainfall and winds, tides 

 and rivers, all represent energy primarily derived from 

 solar radiation and from the orbital and rotatory 

 motions of the earth and moon. This energy even now 

 is almost entirely dissipated as waste, irrecoverable, 



