Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 51; Lectures.djvu/110

100 professorships have multiplied, societies have become more numerous, journals are endowed, institutes of research established, the Nobel prizes founded, and a livelihood is provided for large number of workers. The number of working scientists, if not their quality, has enormously increased. An army has been organized and disciplined, and an amount of work which can scarcely be imagined has been produced. Scientific literature has now become a flood that has to be canalized with the help of special journals of various descriptions devoted solely to its review, description, and orderly classification, in order that it may be utilized at all. The forward march of science has now become inevitable, like that of civilization itself. This vast army of workers are engaged, with no stake in the outcome, with no concern for the influence of their work upon church or state or any other human institution or interest, according to known and tried and proved rules, by description, measurement, experiment, and mathematical analysis, in multiplying our reliable, positive knowledge of the world around us. Year by year this knowledge grows, by leaps and bounds when commanded by genius, slowly and painfully at the hands of most men, but steadily and surely always.

SCIENCE AND THE STATE

One of the principal results of the extension of science is its incorporation with the state. Astronomers royal have existed for three centuries, but to-day we have Departments of Agriculture with many scientific bureaus, and we badly need Departments of Public Health. Moreover, the vast increase of knowledge of a highly technical character has made it impossible for the executive, the legislative, and the judicial departments of government even to have an intelligent opinion regarding much with which they must deal. Hence the expert is acquiring an importance which is scarcely guessed even by most thoughtful persons, and government by expert commissions and expert advisers of the legislature and the judiciary appear to be inevitable features of the future state.