The Place of Science in Modern Civilisation, and Other Essays

These essays are here reprinted from various periodicals, running over a period of about twenty years. The selection is due to Messrs. Leon Ardzrooni, Wesley C. Mitchell and Walter W. Stewart.

It is unlikely that more than a few public libraries possess files so complete as to give access to all of these essays, and even if the magazines were readily obtainable at libraries they would almost certainly have to be read in those institutions. The nature of the material, its timeliness (Mr. Veblen deals with ideas in such a manner as to give the date of composition a secondary importance), and the fact that it would otherwise be lost to all save diligent excavators, explain its preservation in this form.

The courtesy of the periodicals in which the papers first appeared, in permitting their reproduction, is gratefully acknowledged.

CONTENTS

PAGE THE PLACE OF SCIENCE IN MODERN CIVILISATION 1 THE EVOLUTION OF THE SCIENTIFIC POINT OF VIEW 32 WHY IS ECONOMICS NOT AN EVOLUTIONARY SCIENCE? 56 THE PRECONCEPTIONS OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE. I. 82 " " " " " II. 114 " " " " " III. 148 PROFESSOR CLARK'S ECONOMICS 180 THE LIMITATIONS OF MARGINAL UTILITY 231 GUSTAV SCHMOLLER'S ECONOMICS 252 INDUSTRIAL AND PECUNIARY EMPLOYMENTS 279 ON THE NATURE OF CAPITAL. I. 324 " " " " " II. 352 SOME NEGLECTED POINTS IN THE THEORY OF SOCIALISM 387 THE SOCIALIST ECONOMICS OF KARL MARX. I. 409 " " " " " " II. 431 THE MUTATION THEORY AND THE BLOND RACE 457 THE BLOND RACE AND THE ARYAN CULTURE 477 AN EARLY EXPERIMENT IN TRUSTS 497

THE PLACE OF SCIENCE IN MODERN CIVILISATION[1]

It is commonly held that modern Christendom is superior to any and all other systems of civilised life. Other ages and other cultural regions are by contrast spoken of as lower, or more archaic, or less mature. The claim is that the modern culture is superior on the whole, not that it is the best or highest in all respects and at every point. It has, in fact, not an all-around superiority, but a superiority within a closely limited range of intellectual activities, while outside this range many other civilisations surpass that of the modern occidental peoples. But the peculiar excellence of the modern culture is of such a nature as to give it a decisive practical advantage over all other cultural schemes that have gone before or that have come into competition with it. It has proved itself fit to survive in a struggle for existence as against those civilisations which differ from it in respect of its distinctive traits.

Modern civilisation is peculiarly matter-of-fact. It contains many elements that are not of this character, but these other elements do not belong exclusively or characteristically to it. The modern civilised peoples are in a peculiar degree capable of an impersonal, dispassionate insight into the material facts with which mankind has to deal. The apex of cultural growth is at this point. Compared with this trait the rest of what is comprised in the cultural scheme is adventitious, or at the best it is a by-product of this hard-headed apprehension of facts. This quality may be a matter of habit or of racial endowment, or it may be an outcome of both; but whatever be the explanation of its prevalence, the immediate consequence is much the same for the growth of civilisation. A civilisation which is dominated by this matter-of-fact insight must prevail against any cultural scheme that lacks this element. This characteristic of western civilisation comes to a head in modern science, and it finds its highest material expression in the technology of the machine industry. In these things modern culture is creative and self-sufficient; and these being given, the rest of what may seem characteristic in western civilisation follows by easy consequence. The cultural structure clusters about this body of matter-of-fact knowledge as its substantial core. Whatever is not consonant with these opaque creations of science is an intrusive feature in the modern scheme, borrowed or standing over from the barbarian past.