Science and Civilization

Abstract

RATHER more than nine centuries ago, Avicenna bestowed the title of “The Remedy” upon his great treatise on natural philosophy. It is not difficult to appreciate the meaning which lay behind the choice of this unexpected name: natural philosophy, or simply science as we prefer to call it now, was in Avicenna's opinion the cure for the manifold ills of mankind and a tonic to brace humanity for the future. The natural supplement to this opinion is Comte's statement Savoir afin de prévoir, which is the motto of the present book. It is now three years since “Science and Civilization” was first published, and because, amid the flood of ephemeral literature which issues from the innumerable presses of the world, those books which are of lasting value run a grave risk of being swept away, we are grateful to Oxford for this new and cheaper edition. The essays which Mr. F. S. Marvin has here edited are, indeed, so valuable and so inspiring that we could have wished for an even less expensive edition: six shillings, though a modest price for a book in these days, is still too much to allow of that wide diffusion which all of us would like to see in the present instance.

Science and Civilization.

Essays Arranged and Edited by F. S. Marvin. (The Unity Series, 6.) Pp. 350. (London: Oxford University Press, 1926.) 6s. net.