508 THE OUTLOOK 



the "sordid" processes of the factory may well seem to many a far 

 from desirable outcome. The scientific investigator, however, like the 

 follower of a religious order, stays not to inquire whether this or that 

 particular consequence of his faith be immediately good or bad in 

 its transient outcome. We cling to the faith that the comprehension 

 of nature will yield ultimate fruits of unalloyed good. The forward 

 march of that comprehension cannot be stayed for the loss of this or 

 that implement of our intellectual youth which must, albeit with 

 poignant regret, be discarded by the way. The ultimate triumph of 

 spiritual over material interests, values, and motives, which is the goal 

 of our understanding, will yield us pleasures upon another plane, as 

 incomprehensible to us, perhaps, as ours are to the primitive savage. 

 Furthermore if the factory is "sordid," that is, after all, not the fault 

 of the knowledge that rendered manufacture possible, but of the de- 

 crepit ideals and stunted imagination of those who utilize our knowledge. 

 The social evils which menace civilization in our day are the indirect 

 outcome it is true of the advances of scientific knowledge, but the 

 responsibility for them rests upon the whole of humanity; they are 

 the visible expression of defective ideals, defective understandings and 

 defective information; they are not of the essence of knowledge, nor 

 does the guilt of their production oppress the soul of the pure seeker 

 after knowledge. An ape knows not how to use fire nor the savage how 

 to use edged tools. Both may hurt themselves with these things, but 

 does it follow then that they are bad or that knowledge of them should 

 be eschewed? 



Perhaps, after all, the substitution of the factory for the farm may 

 restore, rather than detract from the value of the country to man. 

 Regret it as we may, and long before the factory-synthesis of food- 

 stuffs has begun to be a measurable item in our commerce, the attrac- 

 tivenesss of agriculture as a career is diminishing and has already 

 fallen far below its ancient standard. The restoration of our country- 

 side to untamed nature may serve us after all in good stead, and set 

 free for us the means of enjoying some of the pleasures of primitive 

 man once more, of regaining some of the youth of the world with the 

 intellectual heritage and the securities of an old and complex civil- 

 ization. 



Returning, for the moment, to more immediately realizable possi- 

 bilities, the utilization of the various products and constituents of 

 living matter, apart from the foodstuffs, is as yet in its infancy. The 

 value of materials arises out of their peculiar suitability for the purposes 

 of man, on the one hand, and their rarity on the other, and the desires 

 and purposes of man are so multifarious in their variety that it may 

 be said that any material possessed of unique physical characteristics 

 will ultimately be found of peculiar utility in satisfying some one or 

 other of our needs. Now among the products of vegetable and animal 

 life, there are numerous substances which are distinguished by their 

 possession of unique physical characteristics. The peculiar properties 



