In all arts dealing entirely or mainly with inorganic matter science occupies a seat of high authority, because of the high relative uniformity of this matter and the comparative regularity of its behaviour.In physics or in inorganic chemistry the individual differences or eccentricities of the material are so trivial that they can usually be disregarded, and history repeats itself with so much regularity that quantitative laws apply.
The passage from the inorganic to the organic involves, as we recognise, a double assertion of the qualitative: first, in respect of the unity and uniqueness of the organic structure, and secondly, by reason of the novelty that attends each act of organic change, vital movement, assimilation, growth, reproduction or decay.The uniqueness of the individual organism and the novelty of each of its changes are an assertion of the qualitative nature of the subject-matter.So far as this qualitative nature prevails and counts for 'conduct,' scientific analysis is impotent for interpretation and advice.When organic matter attains the character of consciousness and the still higher character of self-consciousness, the qualitative considerations reach a maximum, and the interpretation and directive power of science a minimum.But that minimum must not be disparaged.It is not inconsiderable.
The assistance which scientific laws can render to the finest arts of human conduct is very important and is capable of constant augmentation.For so far as human nature is uniform and stable among the units which constitute the life whose conduct and welfare are in question, the interpretation and direction of science has validity.To this extent a utilitarian calculus, based upon analysis of past experience, can aid the statesman or the philanthropist in working out his design.In the region of industry the extent of this scientific service will be even greater than in the arts of conduct whose material is more exclusively organic or psychical.For industry, considered as an art of human welfare, will consist largely in the orderly and progressive adaptation of inorganic matter, or of organic matter whose organic differences can be ignored, to the satisfaction of those needs of mankind in which men are similar.That is to say, in industry there exists and will remain a great deal of work and of consumption which is essentially of a uniform or routine character, requiring to be done by measured rules, and depending for its utility upon the exclusion of all individuality or quality.This applies, not only to those industrial processes which we term strictly mechanical, but to a great many others where quality is a matter of comparative indifference.In the progressive economy of human welfare mechanical or routine production will even frequently displace an art in which quality was once displayed.So home-baking, into which no small degree of culinary skill could go, has given way to machine-baking in which the element of personal skill plays a diminished part, and on which the individual taste of the consumer exerts little directive influence.This may be taken as a typical example of the displacement of qualitative art by quantitative mechanism.It is, of course, of very wide extension, being, in fact, commensurate with the application of scientific methods in the world of industry.Indeed, the sciences of chemistry and physics, botany and biology, are everywhere invading the 'arts' of industry and imposing 'rules' upon industrial processes.
Even more significant is the application of the still infantile science of psychology to the arts of business organisation and enterprise and of marketing.How can psychology assist in the delicate art of recommending goods to possible purchasers? Only on the supposition that there is sufficient uniformity and stability in human nature to enable the measured rules of past experiment upon other men to hold of this man.Only so far as men are really the same sort of stuff, or so far as any differences are measurable and calculable.Novelty alone can baffle applied science.
If it were true, as some appear to think, that machinery and routine method were destined continually to absorb a larger and larger proportion of human work, and to direct a larger and larger share of human life, economic science with its quantitative calculus would acquire a continual increase of exactitude, and a growing capacity for direction in the art of social conduct.But if, as seems more reasonable, progressive industry must serve to feed a richer liberty and novelty of individual and social life, the domain of quantitative calculus, though absolutely enlarging, may be relatively shrinking.
