THE HIGHER USEFULNESS OF SCIENCE* 



I. The Moral Accountability of Science 



IT appears that science must have to face the charge 

 of being positively hostile to man's highest wel- 

 fare. While the great war is the prime immediate 

 incitement to the charge, not the war alone but what 

 may be called the Great Western Conflict, one aspect 

 of which is the war, is the real ground of the indict- 

 ment. Another aspect of the conflict, the economic, is 

 probably affecting human life more profoundly on the 

 whole than is the military aspect. So greatly has the 

 economic conflict, especially the labor-versus-capital 

 part of it, gained in intensity of late years that now, 

 when the military conflict is superposed upon the 



* A paper, somewhat modified, read to a seminar of research 

 men, the staff of the Citrus Experiment Station, Department of 

 Agriculture, University of California, at Riverside, California, 

 December 12, 1916. 



It is worth noting that a general treatment of some scientific 

 subject of general human interest was specially requested. This 

 is notable as evidence that scientific specialists are not, after all, 

 so narrow in their interests as they are often reputed to be. In- 

 deed I am quite sure a change is coming over the face of science 

 in this regard. 



The paper has not been published before. 



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