14 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 340. 



mere passive receptivity ; it is invention, 

 not mere discovery ; and what so many are 

 pleased to call the real life, subjective as 

 this is, the real life of a person, a society, or 

 a race, is as important to it, as much a 

 warrant of its conclusions, as any object, 

 however mathematically describable, with 

 which science was ever concerned. True 

 science, I say, is no mere knowledge of an 

 outer world ; it is invention, the invention 

 of a tool, the making of a great machine, 

 with use of which human life is to become 

 more vital or more efifective, more nearly 

 adequate to the world in which man finds 

 himself ; it is what a biologist might call 

 an instrument of adaptation to environ- 

 ment. Sometimes this instrument takes 

 visible, wholly material form ; sometimes it 

 appears as method in the practical arts ; 

 sometimes it is only an atmosphere or 

 point of view, a habit of mind ; but, what- 

 ever it is, it is useful, incalculably useful, 

 audits invention is science's chief justifi- 

 cation. 



This, objects somebody, is sentiment, 

 and sentiment of the sort that destroys 

 science, making serious accurate science 

 impossible. I can not possibly agree. Is 

 a man less interested in having a proper 

 edge on his razor because eventually" he 

 must use it on himself? Nothing but the 

 truth can ever set anybody free. But, all 

 question of sentiment or of sharp razors or 

 of a truth that liberates aside, the consist- 

 ent evolutionist is obliged to take the view of 

 science that is here asserted, just as in gen- 

 eral he is obliged to think of consciousness 

 as one of the positive conditions of organic 

 development. To be an evolutionist and 

 at the same time to think of consciousness 

 as only an external ornament of life, per- 

 haps a result without being a condition of 

 development, or of science as solely for its 

 own sake, would be nothing more nor less 

 than to stultify one's self completely. For 

 the historian, too, whether evolutionist or 



not, whose chief business is to remind us that 

 the present is not all, the prevailing devo- 

 tion to science for its own sake, which also 

 in other times has possessed the minds and 

 hearts of men, can be at best only a passing 

 phenomenon. And then, apart from the 

 standpoints of evolution and history, human 

 society is sure sooner or later to resent 

 what I venture to call the aristocratic tem- 

 per that pure objective science is all too 

 likely to acquire from the exclusiveness of 

 its ritual or technique or say from its aca- 

 demic dress. Aristocratic temper, what- 

 ever its direction, is unquestionably as de- 

 sirable in social life as it is inevitable ; it is 

 incident to the development of all institu- 

 tions, political, ecclesiastical, industrial or 

 educational ; but the resentment which it 

 is sure to awaken is not one whit less ser- 

 viceable to society, insuring, as it does, 

 among other things the ' extension ' of 

 science, the translation of science into life. 

 So for a time pure science may lord it 

 over applied science, the perfecting of 

 science as a tool being the absorbing inter- 

 est, and inferior men or at least so-called 

 inferior men may be the unfortunate repre- 

 sentatives of science in industry and the 

 arts generally, but in our own day applied 

 science has begun to assume its proper 

 place of honor, and those engaged in it are 

 even often recognized as * research men,' 

 and in general the use of any tool, which 

 men devise, with never mind how much 

 cloistered seclusion and esthetic fervor, is 

 as necessary as the making. The true 

 scientist, accordingly, can only welcome 

 enthusiastically the many indications in 

 recent times of an offensive and defensive 

 alliance between science and industry, see- 

 ing in these a conclusive answer to those 

 who have raised the cry of science's bank- 

 ruptcy. Furthermore, the conflict between 

 pure science, science as technique and ap- 

 plied science is one in nature, and I think 

 also in time, with that between ecclesias- 



