He did not see that
the new science was for a long time to be worked in the interest
of old ends of human exploitation. He thought that it would
rapidly give man new ends. Instead, it put at the disposal of a
class the means to secure their old ends of aggrandizement at the
expense of another class. The industrial revolution followed, as
he foresaw, upon a revolution in scientific method. But it is
taking the revolution many centuries to produce a new mind.
Feudalism was doomed by the applications of the new science, for
they transferred power from the landed nobility to the
manufacturing centers. But capitalism rather than a social
humanism took its place. Production and commerce were carried on
as if the new science had no moral lesson, but only technical
lessons as to economies in production and utilization of saving
in self-interest. Naturally, this application of physical
science (which was the most conspicuously perceptible one)
strengthened the claims of professed humanists that science was
materialistic in its tendencies. It left a void as to man's
distinctively human interests which go beyond making, saving, and
expending money; and languages and literature put in their claim
to represent the moral and ideal interests of humanity.
(d) Moreover, the philosophy which professed itself based upon
science, which gave itself out as the accredited representative
of the net significance of science, was either dualistic in
character, marked by a sharp division between mind
(characterizing man) and matter, constituting nature; or else it
was openly mechanical, reducing the signal features of human life
to illusion.
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