EVENING DISCOURSES. 
FIRST EVENING DISCOURSE 
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1933. 
MUST SCIENCE RUIN ECONOMIG 
PROGRESS ?? 
BY 
SIR JOSIAH STAMP, G.B.E. 
Economic progress is the orderly assimilation of innovation into the general . 
standard of life. It usually connotes a widespread sharing of new benefits, 
but is by no means inconsistent with some degree of uneven distribution 
of wealth or income, for in a non-socialistic community some disparity 
generally raises the standard of life of the mass to a point higher than it 
would be under a forced equality of distribution of wealth, the envies 
caused by disparity notwithstanding. The purely material standard in 
Great Britain was raised fourfold during the nineteenth century, and 
probably rather more in the United States. If we take into account also 
length of life and proportion of leisure, the increase is much greater. ‘The 
improvement arises only to a very small extent in changes in the average 
innate capacity of man, not co-operant with, or parasitic upon, his environ- 
ment. It is almost all due to innovation in social activity (including social 
education and the reactions of economic betterment upon physical and mental 
ability). ‘The greater part of the innovation is scientific innovation—in 
physics, engineering and public health ; but a not inconsiderable part falls 
outside these categories, and belongs to the non-physical section—better 
ideas about money, more social confidence in banking and credit, improved 
political and social security and legal frameworks for the better production 
and diffusion of wealth. The elaboration of these factors depends partly 
on intellectual prevision and invention, but mainly upon average moral 
standards and calibre of character, since many political schemes, including 
international co-operation, are impracticable only because of failings in the 
present standards of human nature. 
It is being commonly stated that scientific changes are coming so thick 
and fast, or are so radical in their nature and implications, that the other 
factors of social life, the intangibles of credit, the improvements in political 
and international organisations and ideas, are unequal to the task of ab- 
sorbing and accommodating them, or else they present new problems 
which have no counterpart. If changes in social forms and human nature 
or behaviour cannot possibly be made rapidly enough for the task, then in 
1 For further reports, see Lecture Recorder, 3, 3, Oct. 1933; Nature, 182, 3333, 
Pp- 429, Sept. 16, 1933. 
