6 The Higher Usefulness of Science 



ishness and an ungrudgingness that could not have 

 been imagined a few months ago, has anything to say 

 for the "practical" as a controlling motive in our lives ? 

 It actually seems that the broader the guiding theory 

 the idea and the ideal the stronger its impulsion to 

 activity! What broader and in many respects more 

 imperfectly defined idea can you think of than "the 

 world for democracy"? Yet somehow we are all cer- 

 tain it is a worthy, a noble idea so worthy and so 

 noble that we are glad to have it completely dominate 

 our practical lives. 



Theories are beyond question superlatively influen- 

 tial things among civilized men. And it matters little 

 how broad and vague they are so long as we are con- 

 vinced that they deeply concern our personal welfare 

 and the welfare of our kind. In support of theories 

 so appraised we are willing, finally, to give our lives 

 and our consuming intellectual labor also, to gaining 

 an understanding of them if only we are convinced of 

 their human worth. Can we become as thoroughly 

 convinced of the value of theories of life formulated 

 by accurate, patient, dry science, as we are of the 

 value of corresponding theories formulated by the- 

 ology, or of the value of theories of national life for- 

 mulated from political experience? If so, we will make 

 sacrifices for those theories sacrifices in the way of 

 time and mental effort to understand them. 



On considerations of this sort I base my hope that 

 the ideas set forth in these essays and in other writings 



