SECTION 23. GENERALISATION. 333 



generally of a love of the good and the beautiful; (a) the 

 determination of a hygienic mode of living, and (b) the eradi- 

 cation of infectious diseases in children, adults, domestic animals, 

 and- cultivated plants; the scientific exploitation of agriculture 

 and of the products of the soil generally; the placing of in- 

 dustry, commerce, and home management, and the processes 

 involved in them, on a strictly scientific basis; the conservation of 

 natural utilities and beauties ; the relatively inexpensive supply 

 of an abundance of energy and its virtually complete and useful 

 absorption ; the full ascertainment and control of meteorological 

 conditions on land, sea, and air ; the causes and the prevention 

 of poverty; the re-organisation of (a) communities and states 

 and (b) governance on a truly democratic foundation; the 

 scientific basis, end, and methods of home, school, and vocational 

 education, and the effective training of teachers; the averting 

 of (a) floods, (b) conflagrations, (c) storms (especially at sea), 

 (rf) volcanic outbreaks, and (e) earthquakes; and, generally, 

 the systematic application of the sciences to the arts, of the 

 arts to the sciences, and of -both to life and men's highest 

 aspirations. If many of the tasks, or part tasks, 'here proposed 

 are naturally far too ambitious for the life-work of a solitary 

 individual, there is added reason why there should be extensive 

 collaboration, to the extent even of companies of scholars con- 

 certedly, or well-equipped national or international institutions, 

 concentrating on a problem (see Conclusion 12); and if, because 

 of inherent difficulties, partial success alone is obtainable, the 

 ideal of aiming, as a rule, at the establishment of momentous 

 general facts is none the less worthy of adoption. 



Oh, if we draw a circle premature, 



Heedless of far gain, 

 Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure 



Bad is our bargain ! 



(Browning, A Grammarian's Funeral.) 



On the practical side our age is already keenly alive to the 

 need of bold conceptions. One of the demands is for the pro- 

 duction at the pits' mouth of sufficient electricity to satisfy 

 the industrial and domestic requirements of the whole country. 

 Apart fronr the patent economic advantages of this scheme, 

 the change would mean the break-up of the ugly centres 

 grouped around the coal districts, the even scattering of in- 

 dustrial activity to every part of the land, and the laying of 

 the horrid smoke-fiend. With the same general- end in view 

 of organising and developing the power supply on a nation- 

 wide basis, vast hydrographic surveys are being undertaken, 

 which will, at least in certain countries, end in radically trans- 

 forming the face of industry by making it dependent on hydro- 

 electricity and independent of foreign fuel or of coal-mining. 

 So, too, there is every prospect of motor-road traffic, preceded 

 by roadbuilding on a stupendous scale, becoming a serious 



