156 SCIENCE AND THE HUMAN MIND 



corresponding elevation of tone or deepening of in- 

 sight in the human mind. Sometimes it looks as 

 though one effect had been an actual lowering of ideal, 

 an increase in bodily servitude and spiritual despair. 

 We have come to regard phy-.ical comfort and personal 

 security as the main object of human endeavour, and 

 have forgotten the old truth that he who would save 

 his life must be ready to lose it. 



Even on the material side, a rapid advance in the 

 means of exploiting the resources of Nature has brought 

 many perils. In the early years of the nineteenth 

 century, an enormous increase of available energy, 

 produced by the new means of drawing on the limited 

 and stored supplies in the coalfields, was brought 

 within reach by the mechanical inventions of a small 

 number of able men. This energy gave the means 

 of supporting a larger population, and at once the 

 population rose in response. But organization, social, 

 civil and religious, failed to keep pace with the in- 

 dustrial changes, and to adjust itself to the new pro- 

 portions in which the grades of this rapidly growing 

 population became divided. The tremendous increase 

 of wealth fell largely into irresponsible hands, and the 

 directing and controlling power of the State, at any 

 rate for a time, became almost indistinguishable in the 

 medley of conflicting interests. Thus it is that, as the 

 period we are now studying draws on, as a result of 

 the industrial development and the unstable social 

 conditions it created, we shall find men driven to 

 study their corporate history and their social maladies 

 by methods learned in biological and statistical 

 science, and discovering facts and formulating pro- 

 blems undreamed of by their predecessors. In this 



