of the past century of science, should have been the golden opportunity of statesmen and humanitarians and the raw material out of which the sum total of human happiness could have been augmented. Instead, it has but revealed a growing incapacity and failure on the part of the altruist to appreciate the nature and power of the new weapon that science has placed in his hands, and an ever-increasing rapacity and far-sightedness on the part of the egotist to secure it for his own ends.

For many a decade now, owing primarily and indisputably to the intellectual achievements of a comparative handful of men of communistic and cloisteral habit of thought, a steady shower of material benefits has been raining down upon humanity, and for these benefits men have fought in the traditional manner of the struggle when the fickle sunlight was the sole hazardous income of the world. The strong have fed and grown fat upon a larger and ever larger share of the manna. Initial slight differences of strength and sagacity have become so emphasised by the virile stream that the more successful are becoming monstrously so, and the unsuccessful less and less able to secure a full meal than before the shower began.

Already it savours of indelicacy and tactlessness to recall that the exploiters of all this wealth are not its creators; that the spirit of acquisitiveness which has ensured success to them, rather than to their immediate neighbours, is the antithesis of the spirit by which the wealth was won.

Amid all the sneers at the impracticability and visionary character of communist schemes, let it not be forgotten that science is a communism, neither theoretical nor on paper, but actual and in practice. The results of those who labour in the fields of knowledge for its own sake are published freely and

THE MATERIAL BASIS OF LIFE

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pooled in the general stock for the benefit of all. Common ownership of all its acquisitions is the breath of its life. Secrecy or individualism of any kind would destroy its fertility.

THE MATERIAL BASIS OF LIFE.

To the altruist, to whom wealth and human happiness are far from being synonyms, science is viewed with distrust. A phrase "like the growing materialism of the age" is a curious betrayal of a habit of thought which would be ludicrous if it were not fraught with disaster. The physical conditions of existence are more fundamental than the æsthetic, moral or intellectual. A child must be fed before it can be taught. A certain standard of living above that of animals is a preliminary condition for the development of any of the special qualities of human beings. Philosophies, codes, political systems and religions must follow the lead of science and range themselves in alliance with, rather than in defiance of, these inanimate fundamentals, or, like a machine designed in ignorance of the principles of mechanics, they constitute themselves a danger to the community. Of these elementary physical conditions, which absolutely control existence, and which take precedence over every other, mankind remained in total ignorance until they suddenly changed. Most fish probably remain utterly oblivious of the existence of water until rudely hauled into the upper air. In the essentially unchanging physical environment, in which all but the latest epoch of recorded history has been enacted, lies the probable explanation of the seeming paralysis which has overtaken the sources of constructive thought and action since science in the last century revolutionised the major physical condition of life.

The results of a sudden acquisition of wealth without effort, or with a relative minimum of effort, are proverbial, and science, that has secured wealth beyond precedent and promises wealth beyond belief, has till now been too closely pursued by the proverbial results. But is the whole accumulated wisdom of the ages really sterile and impotent before this problem of how to use wealth, of how to secure that a greater part of the sum-total of increased material resources shall be made to contribute to the sum-total of human happiness? For at present, it has not only shown itself powerless to bring about this result, but it is, an uncharitable observer might conclude, in league with the other side, and is active, so far as it is active at all, in ensuring that the improvement in material conditions shall increase the sum-total of human misery.

THE APPLICATION OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

The statesman from whom the writer has ventured to borrow the quotation at the head of this article, showed a rare insight into the character of the world movement which has followed the application of scientific discovery, and was able to penetrate beneath the superficial consequences "appropriately associated with materialism and greed." Something seriously to be ranked with religion and patriotism as an important force for raising men's lives above what is small, personal and self-centred," "a source not merely of material convenience but of spiritual elevation" was hinted at from a remote standpoint, over and beyond the nearer prospect of "smoky cities, polluted rivers and desecrated landscapes. But those who can take a nearer, narrower and less clouded view, feel as though they had "stared at the > Pacific." For, from the point of vantage attained

APPLICATION OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY 5

from the foremost outskirts of physical science, there lies in full view a realm till now untrodden by mortals even in their dreams-the promise of power to fulfil ambitions as yet latent, wealth and energy adequate to eliminate for ever the struggle for existence on its physical side, strength, at least in great measure, to make of life whatsoever we will. Even the probable route forward can be dimly made out, the way the pioneers will most likely pursue to enter the promised land. And then?

Judging from past experience, from the uses to which the enlarged opportunities and dominance already conferred by physical science have been put, is it so certain that man is ripe for such a myriadfold multiplication of his physical powers? Apart altogether from war, what would the unscientific wisdom of the age make of the golden opportunity more publicly beneficial than more millionaires and more slums? There arises the challenge: Is there a single practical branch of human thought or knowledge which has been left untouched, nay, more, which has not been altered to its very foundations, by the progress of science? The education of those to whom for the most part is entrusted the happiness and destiny of nations ceases where it should begin.

For a modern ruler the laws of the conservation and transformation of energy, whence the vivifying stream takes its source, the ways it wends its course in nature, and how, under wisdom and knowledge, it may be intertwined with human destiny, instead of careering headlong to the ocean, are a study at least as pregnant with consequences to life as any lesson taught by the long unscientific history of man. The essential public questions of the day find in such modern advances a suggestive and connected interpretation.

C

Youth ought to breathe in science with its mother tongue, in addition to the ancient wisdom of those who lived directly on sunlight. A prolonged course of pettifogging crofting fits no man to administer vast possessions. With the exception of a few, to whom it is a hobby, public men in this country are as ignorant of the meaning of science to life as the man in the street is of the Greek alphabet.

It is not difficult to comprehend the precise condition which science has introduced into human affairs, and to which every feature peculiar to the present age can be more or less directly traced. It is the effective control and utilisation of inanimate sources of energy. The power of a man to do work -one man-power-is, in its purely physical sense, now an insignificant accomplishment, and could only again justify his existence if other sources of power failed. To increase and multiply one man-power is the object of all social systems from time immemorial.

The modern Ship of State moves with an unseen power. Old salts still trim the useless sails in true maritime fashion, and there is a talk on deck of hurricanes and doldrums, maelstroms and monsoons. But those below the deck, who provide the power, know where the ship would sail to, if sail it ever had to again. Curious persons in cloisteral seclusion are experimenting with new sources of energy, which, if ever harnessed, would make coal and oil as useless as oars and sails. If they fail in their quest, or are too late, so that coal and oil, everywhere sought for, are no longer found, and the only hope of men lay in their time-honoured traps to catch the sunlight, who doubts that galley-slaves and helots would reappear in the world once more? The history of man is dominated by, and reflects, the amount of available energy. The energy available for each individual man is his income, and the philosophy which can