SCIENCE AND THE WORLD
Sir-I think Mr. Todd missed the essential purpose of Professor Polanyi’s article. What the professor meant was to give a warning, lest old mistakes should be repeated. Those of his generation, to which I belong, were so cocksure that science provided the golden key to open the treasure chamber of the future; and by science we meant the science of material things — evolution, physics, chemistry, political economy. We had the usual delusions of scientists then and now that the sum of our knowledge at that time was the sum of all knowledge. The spiritual side of things was not considered worth even slight consideration. We regarded it with the contempt that a modern impressionist has for the work of a mid-Victorian Royal Academician. What we realise now is that we were blind. For all our science and intellec. tual pride we failed to see that the logical result of our pure materialism, divorced from the things of the spirit, was what the world is suffering from now, Nazism, Fascism, Dictatorism in various forms: material progress pers haps: greater "social security" for some: greater comfort and more to eat for the lucky ones: more power in the world: but at the cost of enslavement of the souls and spirit. Our progress that we were so sure of has ended in reaction. The afterglow of our bright hopes still colours the ideas of many "progressives" now. The recent report on education here in New Zealand might have been drawn up by one of us so far as it entirely disregards spiritua) values. And I think that the weakest side of the new Russian social system has been that it concerned itself entirely with material things, and indeed went out of its way to crush and destroy all spiritual ideas. But I think there are signs that a change is in progress there, even though it at present. takes the rather dangerous form of a fervent nationalism. I hope, with Professor Polanyi, that this generation will be willing to learn from our mistakes of 50 years ago.-
K. E.
CROMPTON
MB. (Havelock
North).
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 285, 8 December 1944, Page 7
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354SCIENCE AND THE WORLD New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 285, 8 December 1944, Page 7
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