SCIENCE.

Hokitika Guardian, 12 July 1924, Page 4

SCIENCE.

BLESSING OR CURSE?

By 1 let'll I tip", m the "Evening standard."'' A few months up" I reviewed Air J. I!. S. Haldane's little hook called ••Daedalus," a dream of the plorinus possibilities which scientific invention may have in store for the melt of the future. Now we have .Mr Bertrand Bussell, the great mathematician, writing a .sequel called "Jcanis,” which draws a tar less clieerliil picture. •Whether in the end science will prove t'i have hcen a blessing or a curse lo mankind i~, to my mind, an open question.'’ A- some ni my readers may be a little ntsty in their (Ifeck mythology, I may explain that Daedalus was a preat sculptor, painter, and scientific inventor. Among other tilings, lie invented tt living machine, which posterity represented as whips pitted on to his hack. Willi this lie Hew sately !roiii Crete to Sicily, hut his son Icarit- ■•crashed" and wit- drnwticd. Hence the a ppt'"l if in ti ‘le.—* ot the titles 01 t lie two hooks. .Science, say- .Mr Bus-eil. has ittereased man’s ei.utrol over nature, and wo might, have expected that it would have increased his eomlorl alld wellbeing. 'litis would have been the result

it homo sapiens were a rational animal. lan lie is nut. In.-thirt would hate kept ns straight m a condition of :; a hie equilibrium, hilt the equilibrium Jins been upset, aiid our instincts lire our hane. We not only over-oat, like domesticated dogs, but we over-fight which is much worse.

Till-: GOLDEN AO K —AN D AFTER. Industrialism increases- the productiveness of lahoitf, and undies more luxuries possible. Our first luxury in Kitplaml was a much larger population, which actually lowered the standard ol living from what it hail heen in the eighteenth century. Then came the oildeii age when England had almost a mi limpid y of manufactures: the whole country prospered exceedingly. I'• H'cipii competition hrouplit pulilen :ipe to an end, and a fierce competition between nations lor markets and raw materials began. This necessitated huge armaments, and at last lauded the civiliv.-d world in an internecine war.

Nationalism and industrialism both encourage the growth ol organisation, which lias been made possible by science mi a real..' unknown before. The centralised great nation is the work of science: and ii- is to science that we owe the possibility of manipulating or munufaeliiriug public opinion titroiigli the Press. Kducation ha- been standardised, with the same motive and the same result. "An industrial world eaimot maintain i 1 si.-11 against internal disruptive lorees.without a pleat deal more organisation than we have at present." Minor organisations, such as tradeurn -a-, can he kept in order only In a tery powerful central authority—a milch more powcrtul central Govoru-iik-iiL than we have ttt presetil. WANINC OF LIBERTY.

Within all the groups themselves the waning of lihcrly and democracy is everywhere apparent. Alt American railroad presideiil is almost an autocrat. In I’.nliamettt the Cabinet

grows strong against the Commons, and the I’rime Alini-ter again-t the l abinet. As the struggle grows sharper, the tendency is Lo trust to the strong man. not to the ballot box - . Organisation. Imwever, Inis mostly Stopped short ul the national frontiers. The reason is. Air Bussell thinks, because rivalry is a stronger motive than lov-a oi gain. If two foot bit II team' agreed lo combine instead ol trying to defeat each other, they might score a hundred goals in an hour. but. where would be the fun I'

However Ibis may be. Liberalism, with its shibboleths ol Free I lade. Free Press, unbiassed ediu-at ion, and the like, --all-.-li.ty Lei..Mg' lo the past, of soon will do so. Russia, Hungary, Italy, Spain, and Bavaria have shown how trail democracy Inis liecome east of the Rhine it lingers only in outlying region*.” Air Russell makes the strange prophecy that ultimately a world-organi-sation may lie set up its the only alternative to mutual extermination. Their perhaps science may come in useful. Tlie emotional life may be coni rolled through the secretions of the duel less glands. By judicious injections the, State my give to the holders of power tin' disposition to command, to the) masses the disposition to obey, fit ice-1

lions producing ferocity would be reserved for time of war. Air Rus-odl is clearly in a pessimistic mood, lor, though he thinks we must choose between tt world-empire and mutual extermination, he remembers the stagnation and decay of the Roman limpin'. and doubts whether it will be worth wltiU. This bool; of prophecy is rather disjointed. The destructive properties waiting to be liberated in matter are not dwelt on alter the first few pages, and the decay of liberty need not he a preparation for a single world-state. It i> no doubt possible that mankind will end hy co-operative suicide. In

mat i a si- u'r may imagine a lulur hi-lnriau from Wains (a lar nmre likel; I>lsilift limn Mar- for ibis ptirjioscy unliug iii ilie preface in his history o (lie riiiK|iiest of mir earth hy the Veil nians: in Planet Number Three o the solar system the disappearance o the great lizards was followed by tin gradual emergence nf the Ilominidae a -pec.c- of large apes walking on tlieii hind legs. Hy means of a sltperioi brain-development, this cruel and do st met ire race established a complete ascendancy over the land-surface ol the planet, exterminating many specie' and enslaving the iv-r. Their rareet was brought to an end when they discovered, ill what they called the twentieth century, now to disrupt the atom, a discovery which they characteristically used to extirpate each other, and to reduce the earth to the desert condition in which it was found hy our first settlers. The fate of this noxious race i- often referred to by our theologians as a proof of the providential government of the universe.’’ Put on the whole 1 think that, in spite of Sir Ernest Rutherford and his collaborators. a hist man and a last woman will manage to survive, and preserve our precious race from t lie fate of the icthyosaurus and the dodo. The reflections of Mr Russell on the decay of liberty and democracy are less fanciful and more interesting. Here 1 am disposed to agree with him. I Liberalism is a luxury: it belongs to! ages of comfort and security. When j competition, either between nations or, between classes and groups in the samei nation, becomes fierce, it necessarily; goes hy the board, because it is not : the strongest form of human ns-ocia-tion. I TRADE EXrOX.S AND CONTROL. I The trade unions seem likely to kill; democracy is tin’s country ; for it is J absolutely intolerable that a group of men should have the power to levy war i on the community, depriving it of the j necessaries of life and disorgasising j its whole structure. If a democratic' Government is too weak to put down ; strikes with a firm hand, some other I form must he devised, even if we have, to take a leaf out of Lenin’s book. It i is very significant that Fascism has been accepted with comparative calm- i ness in Italy and elsewhere as the j I lesser of two evils. j When a nation is fighting for its ex-j t

istenoo demoerucy is susj-.sncba at cr.ce hy common consent. It is felt to bo a weak and incompetent government lit tt crisis. The same is likelv to he true

of nations which are trying to recover alter a great disaster. The French are believed to have bound the nations of the Little Entente to declare war if any monarchies are restored in Central Europe. Nothing more iniquitiulix call he imagined than this interference with the tight of a nation to choose its own Constitution : hut it shows how .strong is the conviction of the lending European Republic that their enemies would lie inucli more formidable if the,' leased to be democratic. A great "swing to the Right" may he confidently expected on the Continent, and Franee "ill hardly he able to prevent H . A PREDICTION ANSWERED. Air Rusell’.s last predict ion. that the world will some day be unified under one empire, perhaps, as he says, the United States, seems to me most improbable. His own illustration of the two football teams is almost a sttflicieni answer. Nothing lias heen more characteristic oi our time than the sin-eessfiil revolts of disalli'clcd provinces when the inhabitants have memories. or even legends, of independence. The ehiel exception, the lailnre of the southern States ol America to establish their independence, nlay he said to prove the rule: for there was no legendary history in this ease.

I do not see any prospect of an end to international rivalries, though we have now a new inlluence in favour ol poaie. namely, that the high-spirited and combat ivc upper classes, who made most of the wars in the past, have been almost ruined by their hist adventure. and are likely to reflect that another European war would inevitably lead to their total disappearance. The next war. if there is one, will noi l;e the Work of the lew. but of the many; and some think that the malty are more pacific than the few. I doubt it : but we must hope lor the best.