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SCIENCE AND CITIZENSHIP


I

AN eminent sociologist has recently spoken of the "bankruptcy of science as to any choice of ideals of life," and again we are told that "sociology no more than mechanics or chemistry has any policy." That doubtless is the prevalent view in these reactionary times, when apostasy from science is almost a fashion. The object of this paper is to maintain the contrary view. And although the logic of its argument may be open to revision, the moral principle from which it starts will not be gainsaid. That principle is embodied in the well-established maxim, 'If a lion gets in your path, kick it." There are those who believe* that the way out of the present tangle of sectionalisms is to be found, not by turning back, but by pressing on. If science cannot direct us, we must direct science. All life is growth, and science understood as a spiritual phase of racial life, a mood of humanity, may, like other spiritual growths, be trained and guided, within limits. Here as elsewhere the essential condition of guidance is the presence of an ideal and a moral impulse toward it. It is the contention of this

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