846 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 805 



is certainly more of a man and a credit to 

 his race than were some ancient saints 

 who lived' from alms and who spent their 

 life in prayer and inaction, or who, for 

 further edification of their followers, vowed 

 never to change their clothes, nor wash 

 nor shave nor comb themselves ; he is more 

 of a blessing to his fellow men than the 

 useless drone who lives on the work of 

 others and gives nothing in return but 

 arrogant presumption based on fortune, 

 rank or title inherited from his father. 



If this be then the age of rational in- 

 dustrialism, of applied science, how then 

 is it that in some industries quality is go- 

 ing down, while prices are soaring up- 

 wards 1 



Here again it is a noteworthy fact that 

 just such commodities as are produced by 

 so-called scientific industries are sold 

 cheaper and are of better quality than 

 ever before, and this cheapening of price 

 or bettering in quality is almost propor- 

 tionate to the amount of scientific knowl- 

 edge involved in their production. Let us 

 take, for instance, the chemical and the 

 electrical industries, both based almost 

 exclusively on well-developed scientific 

 data. In both these groups of industries 

 the chemist or the physicist has had full 

 sway and the engineer has embodied their 

 work in a practical form. Free and ra- 

 tional competition based on intellectual 

 superiority has been their paramount fac- 

 tor of development. Competition based on 

 artificial privileges like labor unions, tariff 

 legislation, have played only a secondary 

 role. While flour, meat, clothing and 

 houses were considerably less expensive a 

 hundred years ago than they are now, we 

 find that acids, alkalies, salts, solvents, 

 dyes, and, in general, almost all chemicals, 

 are incomparably cheaper and of better 

 quality than they were in the good olden 

 times. 



In some cases, the changes are remark- 

 able. For instance, a ton of sulphuric acid 

 sells now at the same price as two pounds 

 of the same article were sold about a hun- 

 dred and fifty years ago. 



A similar cheapening can be found in 

 many other chemicals, although their de- 

 mand has immensely increased. Without 

 going to extreme cases, we can state that 

 there has been a steady improvement in 

 most chemical manufacturing processes 

 and that the public at large has had the 

 benefit thereof. The same can be said of 

 the electrical industry. 



Compare this with industries which are 

 still under the sway of the rule-of-thumb, 

 which means the rule of the ignorant, or 

 where competition is based on political 

 protection; you will find that just such 

 rule-of-thumb commodities where science 

 plays no role, are those for which the pub- 

 lic has to pay the highest price in return 

 for the poorest article. Married men may 

 follow this assertion from butcher's bills 

 to ladies' hats, from house rents to servant 

 girls. 



For the poor chemist, it is almost an 

 irony of fate that his science, by develop- 

 ing the "cyanide process," made gold 

 cheaper and thereby reduced considerably 

 the purchasing equivalent of his meager 

 salary. In order to get square he will have 

 to put himself now to the task of helping 

 the engineer in the cheaper production of 

 foodstuffs, or clothing, or take a hand in 

 such tax reforms which may bring about 

 a reduction of rent or may lessen other eco- 

 nomic anomalies. 



Notwithstanding all our progress, it is 

 evident that we live in a transitory stage; 

 next to enterprises and industries embody- 

 ing the highest intellectual conceptions our 

 century can offer, we find even in the most 

 advanced countries examples of conditions 



