IS SCIENCE NEW? 23 



The Garden of Eden with its tree of knowledge 

 of which Adam partook impiously, and was cast 

 adrift to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, 

 lest he should discover and partake of the tree of 

 life, and the whole biblical account of the fall of 

 man, though very ancient as human records go, 

 dates only from yesterday in the whole life of the race. 

 Men have lived on this planet not for thousands 

 but for millions of years past, and of all this length 

 of time myth and history record but the latest 

 moment. Did some earlier race of men actually 

 tread the road we are treading to-day and achieve 

 that emancipation from the physical struggle for 

 existence which would assuredly result from the 

 accomplishment of artificial transmutation? The 

 idea may appear a fanciful one, but it may be reason- 

 ably commended to the notice of those who have 

 made a special study of the ancient mythologies and 

 the origins of human beliefs. 



The exploiters of the wealth of the world are not 

 its creators. If they were they might have a wider 

 view than that it was created for the competitive 

 acquisition of the most rapacious, unscrupulous and 

 already too well-equipped. The actual state of the 

 world at home and abroad in regard to industry, 

 politics, social conditions and relationships is surely 

 an indictment of the rule of the possessive and 

 acquisitive more powerful than any judge could 

 frame. 



The claim is so often made that brains and 

 labour are only two of the three essentials of civilised 

 existence, and that the third, if not the greatest 

 of these, is capital, that one may well ask what is 

 meant. If capital means wealth, that is, the accumu- 

 lated resources of the world in knowledge and material 

 achievements, the statement is true. If it means 

 the ownership of wealth, without which brains, labour 



