foundation stone for prophecy. Man has slowly and painfully acquired facility in adopting the scientific attitude of mind. Gradually he has been able to achieve this point of view in relation to the material universe. But he finds a peculiar difficulty in being scientific in the face of the animate; and the difficulty would appear to be almost insuperable in the face of mind. It is because we are living at a time when the feat is being accomplished that I feel impelled to prophesy an important revolution, a revolution beside which the Bolshevic incident, for instance, is dwarfed to almost comical insignificance.
The revolutionists are level-headed but far-seeing men of business, acting in alliance with the scientists. Here is their programme as voiced by Professor Catell in 1903.
“It is our business to make both a science and an art of human nature. As in the physical world we select first the material suited to our purpose, and turn the iron into steel, and temper the steel for a knife, so in the world of human action we must learn to select the right man, to educate him and fit him for his exact task. This indeed we try to do in all our institutions, religions, commerce, system of education, and government. But we work by rule of thumb—blind, deaf, and wasteful. The nineteenth century witnessed an extraordinary increase in our knowledge of the material world, and in our power to make it subservient to our ends; the twentieth century will probably witness a corresponding increase in our knowledge of human nature and in our power to use it for our welfare.”4
Let us note the implications of this programme. At present we have made but a few experiments and a few discoveries in industrial psychology. The future, however, is to see the principle applied to education, criminology, government, war, perhaps religion and the intimate personal life of man.