558 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION G. 
of appreciating them—while they will tolerate or even be directly responsible for 
the running on these same streets of quite unnecessarily ugly and noisy tramcars, 
and congratulate themselves on the drawing of a paltry income from the display 
of hideous advertisements that are constantly before the eyes of the whole com- 
munity. Does it pay thus to separate esthetic from utilitarian demands and 
interests ? 
It is too much to assume that engineers could meet all the reasonable demands 
of their immediate clients without producing, at least temporarily, secondary 
effects that may be of inconvenience to some members of the community. Bacon, 
indeed, said that ‘The introduction of new Inventions seemeth to be the very 
chief of all human actions. Inventions make all men happy without either 
Injury or Damage to any one single Person,’ but Bacon was a philosopher, and 
dealt with ideals rather than with hard facts, and in his times inventors had 
not yet beguri to dominate all the elements of our physical environment. Had 
he lived to-day beside one of our country roads he might have had something to 
say, in another key, regarding motor-cars and dust; or had his lot been cast in 
the proximity of a great centre of industry he might have modified his conviction 
of the universality of the benefits conferred by the inventor. He might even 
have been disposed to agree with a literary man of to-day who is reported as 
asserting that ‘The universal and blatant intrusion of Science into our lives 
has resulted in a total disappearance of repose.’ Isolated and unqualified state- 
ments such as those I have quoted are like proverbs—you can always find two 
that are directly opposed. The truth lies about midway between these extremes, 
or rather there are aspects of the facts in regard to which one is an approach 
to the truth, and aspects in which the other has some justification. Our aim 
should be to make Bacon’s dictum have more of truth and Mr. Stephen Cole- 
ridge’s assertion have less foundation in fact. And the outlook seems to me to 
be a very hopeful one, though to be able to take an altogether favourable view 
of the tendencies of the present time, one must be an optimist of the true 
order—‘ One who can scent the harvest while the snow is on the ground.’ 
When we examine into the immediate causes of the injuries and inconveniences 
that result from our activities we find that they are due in all, or almost all, 
cases to failures rather than to successes. The more completely the engineer 
achieves the primary end of his work the less is the damage or injury that can 
be laid to his charge. If it can be shown that this is a very general law, as I 
think it can be, we may look forward to the elimination, as a direct result of 
progress in the mechanical arts, of the nuisances and inconveniences for which, 
in some measure at least, we must accept responsibility. And not only so, but 
the converse will be equally true—the more we keep in view the removal or 
avoidance of anything that can cause offence, the more rapidly we shall advance 
in the attainment of the primary ends at which we aim. Consider, by way of 
example, the nuisance to which I have referred, and of which we hear so much— 
the raising of dust by motor-cars. I shall not discuss the debated question as to 
how far the motor-car produces dust, or only distributes it, nor shall I deal in 
detail with the possible remedies. We hope to have a paper on the subject at 
this meeting from one of our leading authorities. For my present purpose it 
suffices to point out that it is no part of the function of a road surface to fritter 
itself down into dust under traffic of any kind. The ideal road would be one that 
would not wear at all, and the nearer we approach this ideal of a permanent 
road surface, the less will be the inconvenience caused, not only to those respon- 
sible for the upkeep of the road, but to the general public. And conversely, the 
more attention we give to the devising of a dustless road the more rapid will be 
our advance towards the provision of one best suited for all the purposes which a 
road is intended to serve. We had dusty roads before the motor-car came into 
being, but the demand that is being forced upon the engineer to eliminate this 
nuisance is leading to an improvement of our roads for all users. The inventors 
of the automobile will yet merit the thanks even of those who, bemoaning the 
blatant intrusion of science into our lives, may discard the railway train and the 
motor-car and take to the stage-coach of their grandfathers with a view to the 
recovery of some of the lost repose. 
Again, the combustion of fuel does little harm to anyone; it is the imper- 
fection of the combustion that is the main cause, almost the sole cause, of 
injury to health, to property, and to the amenity of populous centres. Of course 
