8 PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS. 



the confines of science as delimited by the founders of the 

 Royal Society. In those far-off days science signified natural 

 philosophy, and natural philosophy was content to explore the 

 realm of what we designate to-day as physics, including her 

 handmaiden, mathematics. Since that period the double term 

 natural philosophy has been transformed into the single term 

 science, and the connotation of the latter term has been rest- 

 lessly expanded. One physical science after another was added 

 to the few which first existed, while slowly, very slowly, the 

 biological sciences vindicated their right to be classed methodo- 

 logically with the physical sciences. 



The royal domain of systematised knowledge hence assumed 

 vaster proportions. The wheel of progress did not, however, 

 come to a standstill when this stage had been reached. One 

 by one the cultural or specio-psychical sciences proved at least 

 their theoretical right to enter the charmed circle of the estab- 

 lished sciences. Economists led the way; psychologists and 

 sociologists followed ; and, in time, not one department of cul- 

 tural knowledge remained which could be justifiably regarded 

 as falling outside the coveted pale. 



Even so, however, the domain of science had to be further 

 extended. From the very dawn of systematising, the line be- 

 tween pure and applied science had proved elusive, and accord- 

 ingly it was only to be anticipated that the expansion of 

 science should tend to the development of a series of more 

 or less avowed applied sciences. Indeed, one distinguished 

 man of science after another became responsible for important 

 scientific applications to departments of practice requiring the 

 same methods of enquiry as the so-called pure sciences. The 

 introduction of gas light, and afterwards of electric lighting, 

 heating, and motor power, was an instance in point, and so 

 were the inventions and discoveries due to the need for com- 

 munal sanitation and for the prevention of infectious diseases,, 

 and previous to that the application of astronomical truths and 

 of the compass to navigation, whilst the universal employment 

 of machinery arid scientific instruments furnished the case par 

 excellence. The desire for economy in industries, and also for 

 the utilisation of waste products and the improvement of agri- 

 culture, similarly issued in applied scientific activity of prime 

 value. Naturally, once science was found to be lucrative in 

 the economic world, it was more and more wooed. Manufac- 

 turing companies employed scientific staffs for the specific pur- 

 pose of deriving the fullest benefits from science applied to 

 their sphere of activity; natural substances such as diamonds, 



