If the other conditions that we have postulated
can be realized, it seems almost certain that there
must be less illness than there is at present. Population
will no longer be congested in slums; children will
have far more of fresh air and open country; the
hours of work will be only such as are wholesome, not
excessive and exhausting as they are at present.
As for the progress of science, that depends very
largely upon the degree of intellectual liberty existing
in the new society. If all science is organized and
supervised by the State, it will rapidly become
stereotyped and dead. Fundamental advances will not be
made, because, until they have been made, they will
seem too doubtful to warrant the expenditure of
public money upon them. Authority will be in the
hands of the old, especially of men who have achieved
scientific eminence; such men will be hostile to those
among the young who do not flatter them by agreeing
with their theories. Under a bureaucratic State
Socialism it is to be feared that science would soon
cease to be progressive and acquired a medieval respect
for authority.
But under a freer system, which would enable all
kinds of groups to employ as many men of science as
they chose, and would allow the ``vagabond's wage''
to those who desired to pursue some study so new as
to be wholly unrecognized, there is every reason to
think that science would flourish as it has never done
hitherto.
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