Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/771

Rh economies or provided by new and increased taxes? And if the latter policy is favored, its advocates will do well to remember, that any taxes that tend to obstruct the export of the surplus products of the country will not long be tolerated.



HE primal motive of science is to regulate the conduct of life. This is in a sense its ultimate end, for it is the first and the last function of the senses and the intellect. If science has any message to man, it is expressed in these words of Huxley: "There can be no alleviation of the sufferings of mankind except in absolute veracity of thought and action and a resolute facing of the world as it is, with all the garment of make-believe thrown off."

"Still, men and nations reap as they have strewn." The history of human thought is filled with the rise of philosophic doctrines, laws, and generalizations not drawn from human experience and not sanctioned by science. The attempt to use these ideas as a basis of human action has been one of the most fruitful sources of human misery. It is true that wrong information may sometimes become the basis of right action, as falsehood may secure obedience to a natural law which might otherwise be violated. But in the long run men and nations pay dearly for every illusion they cherish. For every sick man healed at Denver or Lourdes, ten well men will be made sick. Faith cures and patent medicines feed on the same victims. For every Schlatter who is worshiped as a saint, some equally harmless lunatic will be burned as a witch.

And now a word as to the positive side of scientific belief.