"The invention of the method of invention was the greatest
invention of the 19th century," for it provides the means of constant progress and reconstruction. What was earlier a sporadic
and personal attitude "has become an organized social effect which
moves mankind more profoundly than anything else in human affairs." As Pasteur once said: "In our century science is the soul
of the prosperity of nations and the living source of all progress.
Undoubtedly the tiring discussions of politics seem to be our guide—empty appearances! What really leads us forward is a few scientific discoveries and their application."
Today the world is being transformed so rapidly by science that the next few years may add enormously to knowledge and insight even though we can never precisely forsee the next important discovery or advance. Progress has become conscious, and men base their hopes less on inventions already enjoyed than on those they expect in the future.
From the outset of the 19th century men, in their new liberty, devoted themselves to the pursuit of wealth and were quick to see the practical applications of the new knowledge. More and more Nature rather than Providence seemed to be the immediate source of power and the control and exploitation of Nature through increasing knowledge of her ways has been the most conspicuous feature in the history of our civilization during the last 125 years. All recognize that, in its material aspects, this civilization today is technological, characterized by power-driven machines that have revolutionized the manner of human life. The general picture, from Watt's steam engine down to the automobile, vacuum cleaner and electric dishwasher is familiar to all. Most of what we regard as necessities and luxuries of modern civilizations have come through the application of science to everyday problems. The luxury of today becomes the necessity of tomorrow. Progress is continuous, and haphazard methods have been abolished.
Practical recognition is now widely given to the fact that science is continuous with technology and begets modern industry. The value of science in modern industry, commerce, medicine and agriculture is so generally appreciated that all large industrial organizations maintain their own research laboratories with their own staffs of highly trained investigators. There are more than 1500 such industrial laboratories in America, spending $300,000,000 annually and employing 40,000 research men, and many of these do research in pure science rather than directly upon problems of application.
The distinction between pure science and applied is wholly illusory. But motives of the scientist are intellectual advancement and not the making of something from which financial profit may be expected; and most of the investigations upon which modern industry has been built would have been abandoned at the outset if the standard of immediate practical value had been applied to them. Gladstone, on seeing one of Faraday's famous experiments terminate in an effect which to the non-scientific mind was very uninspiring, asked what possible use his discovery could be, "Why,
