THE APPLICATIONS OF SCIENCE 163 



" scientific " management of industry. 1 Such objections 

 are altogether unjust ; science gives to mankind a greater 

 power of control over his environment. He may use that 

 control for good or for ill ; and if he uses it for ill, the fault 

 lies in that part of human nature which is most remote 

 from science ; it lies in the free exercise of will. To deny 

 knowledge for fear it may be misused is to repeat the 

 errors of the mediaeval church ; thus to deprive men of 

 the power to do evil is to deprive them of the yet greater 

 power to do good. For precisely the same knowledge 

 that has made Europe a desert has given the power to 

 restore her former fertility ; and the increase of individual 

 productive power which may be used to rivet more closely 

 the chains of wage-slavery might also give to the worker 

 that leisure from material production which alone can 

 give freedom to the slave. 



Men of science themselves are largely to blame for the 

 confusion against which this protest is directed. They 

 are so accustomed to having to force their conclusions on 

 an ignorant and reluctant world, that they are apt to 

 overstep the limits of their special sphere ; they some- 

 times forget that they cease to be experts when they 

 leave their laboratories, and that in deciding questions 

 foreign to science, they have no more (but, of course, 

 no less) claim to attention than anyone else. Like the 

 members of any other trade or profession, they are apt 

 to be affected in their social and political views by the 

 work which is their main occupation, and to lay special 

 stress on the evils which come immediately under their 

 notice. 2 In this respect it is useless to expect them to 



1 We need not discuss here whether the methods of factory control 

 to which objection is taken have really any claim to be scientific in our 

 sense ; whether, that is to say, they are the outcome of such investiga- 

 tion as has been described in the earlier chapters. 



2 I am tempted to describe what are the social and political views 

 which the study and practice of science tends to inculcate. But this 

 is a matter in which the spectator sees most of the game ; if I made 

 the attempt, I should probably be led astray by my own particular 

 opinions. 



