Page:Science and Industry - Glazebrook - 1917.djvu/19

instance, of the command over the realm of matter characteristic of modern industrial enterprise is due to the pure scientific interest of individual investigators, the interest which is the pursuit of truth, subjection of the spirit to Universal law, asceticism which suppresses every impulse that might interfere with dispassionate verification. It is an obvious confusion of thought to call western civilisation materialistic because it deals with material masses. It is a creation of the human spirit. Every faculty of the spirit has gone to the making of it—desire, imagination, character, will. Because in making it the human spirit has been largely occupied with acquiring command over matter it has in many persons lost the sense of other things, has become concentrated upon some lower end, has worked for commercial gain or power for power's sake. Yet may be questioned whether our modern