POLITICS AND SCIENCE

Evening Star, Issue 19804, 1 March 1928, Page 13

POLITICS AND SCIENCE

HOW THEY DIFFER The Prime Minister, Mr Stanley Baldwin, as a Fellow of the ' al Society, attended the ’2Csth anniversary dinner of the society at the Hotel Victoria in December, says ‘ The Times,’ when the president, Sir Ernest Ruthcrford, occupied the chair. A large and distinguished company was present. The Prime Minister, proposing flic toast of “The Society,” said:—“My association with the Royal Society dates, from a recent period of my life. I do not know why yon want politicians in your midst—we live in different places—yon deal with suns and stars and electrons, and 1 deal with rates and faxes. With you space and time are,-I am told, small matters; with me they are grim realities. You arc a priesthood and you worship truth. I belong to a sect. You employ hypothesis as far as wit will carry yon, and you thou find a now one. If wo discard onr hypotheses we are not said to bo pushing forward our minds into the unknown; we are called “rats.” Yon keep silence, or most of you do. until you know the truth—that would impose a great strain on os—and when you have found iruth you try to describe it in a few words. Qnr constituents grade us according to the number of columns n.f 1 Hansard ’ that we produce, and if we keep silence- we render ousdve-s liable to a vote of censure. “ 1 remember that. Ignatius l.oyola was moved to the foundation of that great society hy meditating on the word,-, ‘What ;hall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” We who arc in politics say, ‘What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his real? ’ And f do not think we are likely to have a Loyola among ns. 1 am one of those politicians—l do not know if there bo many—who has a profound distrust ol rhetoric—l have never practised it—but who prefers in lower the temperature of political life by v.rv often putting his thoughts into 'a refrigerator.

“Thorn iirc sniiin subjects of which I have little knowledge, !mc! there may ho Home branches of study which you' follow where I may be of assistance. I know something of the value of the different kinds of gas. 1 believe yon describe- the heat of a pas as chiellv the energy of motion of its particles.' It '■ this which givefc a. pas its expansive force. If the heat is excessive the balance of the system i; seriously disturbed, and odd things happen. T understand that balance denends not only on the activity of the "particles, hut also on the density. Now, temperature and density arc things J am brought up against every day of my lifc ; If I can at any time render the society any assistance from my knowledge it is at their disposal. Ton are better prophets than we are. Yon are prophets about comets and the tides. There are those among ns who fortoll the results of the. next General Election. a holder prophecy than 1 would indulge in. They also prophesy about the direction of the flowing tide and whether it is likely to be stopped. 1 have never yet met a politician who would express in detail his prophecy as to his own eclipse. You may think, perhaps, that on an occasion like this I am treating the subject matter of ray speech with mere levity, and yet you wjll remember the story of the little juggler who had nothing to offer to his Madonna, except his own skill in tumbling, and ho turned somersaults before her, not out of any spirit of levity, hut because it was all he had to offer, and the Madonna smiled upon him. T wm unable to talk to yon in your language. I merely speak the common ■ English, and in that tongue I thank you once more frem my heart for this'very great lienor y >u ha re done to me.”