Mathematical philosophy, a study of fate and freedom; lectures for educated laymen, by Cassius J. Keyser.

SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING 453
the engineering speculations of Leonardo da Vinci, especially the famous books recently produced by "wizard"
apostles of "efficiency"; and that he has been thus led
to reflect a good deal upon the opportunities, the functions and the obligations of engineering, rightly conceived,
in the great affairs of our human world. There is, moreover, the general consideration that a layman, viewing
a profession from the outside, seeking thus to ascertain
its proper relations to the common weal, may bring to the
task a certain freedom, which, were he a member of the
profession, he might have lost. "Men trained in a profession," said Professor David Swing, "come by degrees
into the profession's channel, and flow only in one direction, and always between the same banks. The master
of a learned profession at last becomes its slave. He who
follows faithfully any calling wears at last a soul of
that calling's shape. You remember the death scene of
the poor old schoolmaster. He had assembled the boys
and girls in the winter mornings and had dismissed them
winter evenings after sundown, and had done this for
fifty long years. One winter morning he did not appear.
Death had struck his old and feeble pulse; but, dying,
his mind followed its beautiful but narrow river-bed, and
his last words were: 'It is growing dark-the school is
dismissed-let the girls pass out first.' Finally, it is not
my intention to deal with the technique of engineering nor
with that of any branch thereof, but rather with its general aspects, with what is essentially common to its
branches, with the science viewed as a whole. I shall
not be so much concerned with the present status of the
science as with its potence and promise. Of individual
engineers the ideals may be high or low, worthy or un