THE CREATION OF KNOWLEDGE 57 



A parallel to the normal attitude of the world 

 towards science and its application, respectively, 

 may be found in its attitude towards the musical 

 performer and the musical composer. The musical 

 world will go wild with enthusiasm over the perfect 

 rendering 1 of any of its favourite compositions, and 

 will shower upon the skilled artists wealth and 

 honour. But the man who created the music, an 

 infinitely rarer kind of genius, probably had difficulty 

 in obtaining a bare livelihood by his art, and would 

 have just as much difficulty, if he lived now, as he 

 would have had in past times. 



Science in the capacity of the creator of know- 

 ledge is esteemed as little by the world as creative 

 work in art, literature or music. Not that it is not 

 appreciated in theory, but the appreciation so lags 

 behind the accomplishment that the creator has 

 ample time to die of starvation. Yet this is the 

 science from which fundamentally all the benefits 

 of modern civilisation are derived. This is the 

 science that has made it possible for us to-day to 

 afford to wage war on a thousand-fold more ex- 

 travagant scale than ever before in history. This 

 is the science that is to pay the bill if it can be paid 

 without a general depression in the standard of 

 living below the level of decency for the many, and 

 which alone, after the unparalleled waste of the past 

 two years, given fair play, can hope to keep the wolf 

 from the door. If one judged from history solely, 

 bad times must follow the present orgy as night 

 follows day. The only question is whether science, 

 which in the past century is estimated to have 

 increased the wealth of the world a thousand-fold, 

 will not also make each million of debt now incurred 

 bear no more heavily than each thousand did upon 

 our unsophisticated ancestors. 



