THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 March 1922, Page 12

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

Mankind has Proved Itself Unworthy of the Gifts Which Science has Placed at its Disposal. London, Jan. 6.

“The port of science—whether pure or applied—is free, and a modest yawl can find a berth in it as readily as a splendid merchantman, provided that it has a cargo to discharge. Neither the turmoil of war nor the welter of social unrest has prevented explorers of uncharted seas from crossing the bar and bringing their argosies to the quayside, where fruits and seeds, rich ores and precious stones have been piled in profusion for the creation of wealth* the comforts of life, or the purpose of death, according as they are selected and used. “All that these pioneers of science have asked for is for vessels to be chartered to enable them to make voyages of discovery to unknown lands. Many have been private adventurers, and few have shared in the riches they have brought into port.” —Sir Richard Gregory, in Nature. THE SCIENTIFIC PIONEER. Sir Richard Gregory publishes a fascinating paper in Nature on “The Message of Science,” which he gave to the Corresponding Societies of the British Association. “To the man of science, discoveries signify extensions of the field of work, and he usually leaves their exploitation .to prospectors who follow him,” says’Sir Richard. “His motives are intellectual advancement, and not the production of something from which financial gain may be secured. “For generations he has worked in faith purely for the love of knowledge, and has enriched mankind with the fruits of his labors; but this altruistic attribute is undergoing a change. Scientific workers are beginning to ask what the community owes to them, and what use has been macle of the talents entrusted to it. They have created stores of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, and of power unlimited, and these resources have been used to convert beautiful countrysides into grimy centres of industrialism, and to construct weapons of death of such diabolical character that civilised man ought to hang his head in shame at their use. THE CHOICE. “Mankind has, indeed, proved itself unworthy of the gifts which science has placed at its disposal, with the result that squalid surroundings and squandered life are the characteristics of modern Western civilisation, instead of social conditions and ethical ideals superior to those of any other epoch. Responsibility for this does not lie with scientific discoverers, but with statesmen and democracy. Like the gifts of God, those of science can be made either a blessing or a curse, to glorify the human race or to destroy it; and upon civilised man himself rests the decision as to the course to follow. With science as an ally, and the citadels of ignorancee and self as the objective, he can transform the world, but if he neglects the guidance which knowledge can give, and prefers to be led by the phrases of rhetoricians, this planet will become a place of dust and ashes. INCAPACITY TO USE. Unsatisfactory social conditions are not a necessary consequence of the advance of science, but of incapacity to use it rightly. Whatever may be said of captains of industry or princes of commerce, scientific men themselves cannot be accused of amassing riches at the expense of labor, or of having neglected to put into force the laws of healthy social life. Power—financial and political—has been in the hands of people who know nothing of science, not even that of man himself, and it is they who should be arraigned at the bar of public justice for their failure to use for the welfare of all the scientific knowledge offered to all. “There was a time when intelligent working men idealised science; now they mostly regard it with distrust or are unmoved by its aims, believing it to be part of a soul-destroying economic system. The obligation is upon men of science to restore the former feeling by removing their academic robes and entering into social movements as citizens whose motives are above suspicion and whose knowledge is at the service of the community for the promotion of the greatest good. The public mind has yet to understand that science is the pituitary body of the social organism, and without it there' can be no healthy growth in modern life, mentally or physically. A SCIENCE CRUSADE.

“The time has come for a crusade which will plant the flag of scientific truth in a bold position in every province of the modern world. If you believe in the cause of disciplined reason you will respond to the call and help to lift civilised man out of the morass in which he is now struggling, and set him on sound ground with his face toward the light. “It is not by discoveries alone, and the records of them in volumes rarely consulted, that science is advanced, but by the diffusion of knowledge and the direction of men’s minds and actions through it. In these democratic days no one accepts as a working social ideal Aristotle’s view of a small and highly cultivated aristocracy pursuing the arts and sciences in secluded groves and maintained by manual workers excluded from citizenship.

“Artisans to-day have quite as much leisure as members of professional classes, and science can assist in encouraging the worthy employment of it. This end can be attained by co-opera-tive action between local scientific societies and representative organisations of labor. There should be close association and a common fellowship, and no suggestion of superior philosophers descending from the clouds to dispense gifts to plebeian assemblies. It should also always be remembered that a cause must have a soul as well as a body. The function of a mission-hall is different from that of a cinema-house or other place of entertainment, and manifestations of the spirit of science are more uplifting than the most instructive descriptive lectures. SCIENCE NEEDS CHAMPIONS. “Science needs champions and advocates in addition to actual makers of new knowledge and exponents of it. There are now more "workers in scientific fields than at any other time, yet relatively less is done to create enthusiasm for their labor and regard for its results than was accomplished fifty years £go. Every social or religious movement passes through like stages, from that of fervent belief to formal ritual. “Kingsley long ago expressed the democratic basis upon which thia fellowship is founded; and when he delivered his message artisans were crowding in

thousands in Manchester and other populous places to lectures by readers in the scientific world of that time. Labor then welcomed science as its ally in the struggle for civil rights and spiritual liberty. That battle has been fought and won, and subjects in bitter dispute fifty years ago now repose in the limbo of forgotten things. SCIENCE IS FREE.

“There is no longer a conflict between religion and science, and labor can assert its claims in the market-place or council-house without fear of repression. Science is likewise free to pursue its own researches and apply jts own principles and methods within the realm of observable phenomena, and it does not desire to usurp the functions of faith in sacred dogmas to be perpetually retained and infallibly declared.. The Royal Society of London was founded for the extension of natural knowledge in contra -distinction to 'the supernatural, ,and it is content to leave other philosophers to describe the world beyond the domain of observation and experiment. “When, however, phenomena belonging to the natural world ire made subjects of supernatural revelation or uncritical inquiry, science has the right to present an attitude of suspicion towards them. Its only interest in mysteries is to dfeeover the natural meaning of them. TO COUNTERACT PRIMITIVE IDEAS. “There is abundant need for the use of the intellectual enlightenment which science can supply to counteract the ever-present tendency of humanity to revert to primitive ideas. Fifty years of compulsory education are but a moment in the history of man’s development, and their influence is as nothing in comparison with instincts derived from our early ancestors and traditions of more recent times grafted upon them. So little is know’n of science that to . most people old women’s tales or the unsupported words of a casual onlooker I are as credible as the statements and conclusions of the most careful observers. SCIENCE AND IMAGINATION. “Never let it be acknowledged that science destroys imagination, for the reverse is the truth. ‘The gods are dead,’ said W. E. Henley, “ ‘the world, a world of prose, Full-crammed with facts, in science swathed and sheeted, Nods in a stertorous after-dinner doze! Plangent and sad, in every wind that blows Who will may hear the sorry words repeated: “The gods are dead.’’ ’ “It is true that the old idols of wood and stone are gone, but far nobler conceptions have taken their place. The universe no longer consists of a few thousand lamps lit nightly by angel torches, but millions of suns moving in the infinite azure, into which the mind of man is continually penetrating further. Astronomy shows that realms of celestial light exist where darkness was supposed to prevail, while scientific imagination enables obscure stars to be found which can never be brought within the sense of human vision, the invisible lattice work of crystals to be discerned, and the movements of constituent particles of atoms to be determined as accurately as those of planets around the sun. CHILDREN OF LIGHT. “The greatest advances of science are made by the disciplined use of imagination; but in field the picture conceived is always presented to Nature for approval or rejection, and her decision upon it is final. “In contemporary art, literature, and drama imagination may be dead, but not in science, which can provide hundreds of arresting ideas awaiting beautiful expression by pen and pencil. It has been said that the purpose of poetry is not truth, but pleasure; yet, even if this definition be accepted, we submit that insight into the mysteries of Nature should exalt, rather than repress, the poetic spirit, and be used to enrich verse, as it was by some of the world’s greatest poets—Lucretius, Dante, Milton, Goethe, Tennyson, and Browning. “With one or two brilliant exceptions, popular writers of the present day are completely oblivious to ihe knowledge gained by scientific sti .. and unmoved by the message which science is alone able to give. Unbounded riches have been placed before them, yet they .continue to rake the muck-heap of animal passions and stir the froth of sloppy sentiment for themes of composition. Not by their works shall we become ‘children of light,’ but by the indomitable spirit of /nan ever straining upwards to reach, the stars.”