The enlarging concept of engineering

IN proportion as the concept of “laws of nature” grows larger to include individual human behavior and group action, the engineer is called upon to apply his time-tested methods to broader problems of state and country. The usual definition of engineering, as the science and art of applying laws of nature to human needs, still holds; only the laws of nature cannot be limited any longer to those of levers and expanding steam. Sales engineering and works management have been the two windows through which the mechanistically minded engineer has been made to see broader aspects of his profession, involving fickle human will, prejudices, and emotional response. It is true that these propensities cannot yet be predicted with the same accuracy as the strength of a beam or the behavior of an electric generator, but the engineer has always included a lot of intuitive art (horse sense) as a part of his professional make-up anyway. As the laws of human behavior become better known we may expect an ever increasing influence of properly trained engineers upon our political, economic, and social life.