64 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIII. No. 1360 



overspecialization in our ecclesiastical or- 

 ganizations as that with which the biologist 

 is so familiar in archaic, moribund and 

 actually extinct species. At the present 

 time the Church seems to be about as well 

 adapted to piloting the great forces which 

 are impelling society as is a two-toed sloth 

 to piloting an airplane or a manatee the 

 Twentieth Century Limited. Like the 

 Edentate and the Sirenian the Church ex- 

 hibits such feebleness of volition and mus- 

 cular tonus and such a low ebb of creative 

 energy, that one is inclined to find a modi- 

 cum of truth in the aphorism which H. G. 

 "Wells saw posted by the bolsheviki on one 

 of the houses in Moscow: "Religion is the 

 opium of the people." 



What a different picture is presented by 

 that other great field of human activity, in 

 which the instinct of workmanship and the 

 creative imagination attain their finest and 

 most unrestrained expression — the field of 

 art ! Its very life seems to depend on free- 

 dom from all imposed organization. 

 Hence its plasticity and adaptability in all 

 ages and places, its resilience and prompt 

 resurgence after periods of conventionali- 

 zation, or overspecialization. Unlike the 

 religious person who seems always to be 

 mistrusting his instincts, or the scientific 

 investigator who is so sophisticated that he 

 ignores them, the artist takes them to his 

 bosom, so to speak, and in all his works 

 tries to persuade the rest of the world to do 

 !the same. He thus becomes the ally of 

 creative Nature herself and while himself 

 capable of such control and restraint as are 

 demanded in the harmonious execution of 

 his work, quickly resents the slightest sug- 

 gestion of restraint or control from the 

 outside. This is so well known that one 

 would find it more entertaining than in- 

 forming to hear the comments of a lot of 

 painters, sculptors, composers, poets, novel- 



ists and actors — ^and especially of a lot of 

 actresses or prime donne — if some National 

 Art Council had the temerity to suggest 

 that their work could be greatly improved 

 by organization. 



I The history of science and philosophy is 

 not without significance in connection with 

 the attempts of modern organizers. It is 

 well known that both, after their twin-birth 

 and brilliant childhood among the Greeks, 

 lived through a kind of stupid Babylonian 

 captivity as hand-maidens to the Mediaeval 

 Church, which had been so successful in or- 

 ganizing itself that it naturally tried to 

 organize everything else. But science 

 turned out to be such an obstreperous and 

 incorrigible tomboy that she long since re- 

 gained her freedom, and philosophy, though 

 she had been treated with more considera- 

 tion, and may still occasionally flirt, no 

 longer, outside of our Jesuit colleges at 

 least, sits down to spoon with theology as 

 she did in the days of St. Thomas of Aquin. 

 Times have changed so greatly that at 

 present we even have eminent amateurs, 

 like the Rev. Erich Wasmann, S.J., who 

 vie with Haeckel in the boldness of their 

 evolutionary speculations. Scientific re- 

 search is no longer concerned with the 

 Church but with the two great forces 

 which are contending for the mastery of 

 the modern world, labor and capital. The 

 present plight of the Russian investigators 

 shows us, perhaps, what we may expect 

 when certain communistic ideals of labor 

 are put into practise, and Veblen's account 

 of the evolution by atrophy of the creative 

 artisan of former centuries into the modern 

 factory operative, whose life has been re- 

 duced by capital, machinery and efiiciency 

 experts to one long hideous routine in some 

 overspecialized task, shows us, perhaps, 

 what we may expect when nothing but 

 money talks. 



