Aspects of science

It is not an unfair judgment, we think, that decides, on a survey of contemporary intellectual activities, to grant science the first place. Whether we consider the quality of the work which is being done, its importance to mankind, or the spirit in which the work is done, we think science earns that place. Our age is a scientific age to an extent which is certainly not generally realised. Contemporary scientific work is of a quality fully comparable with that of the greatest periods of its history; it is inevitable that our age should emerge, in the history of the future, as an age of science. It has, indeed, already established a perspective which leads to a revaluation of the Victorian age. There have already been many writers who have thought that age more memorable for its science than for its other achievements, that its significance to humanity lay more in the work of Darwin, Faraday, and Maxwell than in that of Tennyson and Matthew Arnold, or even in that of Mr. Gladstone, but the perspective we have now obtained puts the matter almost beyond doubt. With most of us our outlook is the result of a decrepit tradition. Our orientation towards life, so far as we are conscious of having one, is based upon the values we attribute to the various objects of our thoughts, and these values are determined partly by our instinctive desires and partly by the suggestions of our education—using the term “education” to include all converse with the minds of our fellows. Education, so defined, is the result very largely of a long and widespread tradition, a general tradition of European culture. It is a curious fact that, although the history of science goes as far back as the history of the arts, science is not an integral part of this, nevertheless, very catholic culture. There are periods, it is true, when some scientific theory is sufficiently dramatic, or appears sufficiently pertinent to man’s destiny, to secure general attention; Newton’s theory of gravitation, Darwin’s theory of evolution, and Einstein’s theory of relativity have each given rise to such a period. Einstein’s theory, we are informed, is now the favourite topic of enlightened conversation in Parisian salons, as Newton’s theory once was. Some of this interest, no doubt, is the product of disinterested curiosity, and in that respect is vastly different from the once general interest in Darwin’s theory. But we fear that many of those who are curious about Einstein’s theory would, if they understood it, find it uninteresting. We dare not interpret this curiosity as a sign that people are beginning to be as naturally interested in science as they are in literature, for instance.

Nevertheless, we believe that the old culture is moribund in the sense that its particular scale of values is undergoing revision. Science is becoming less an affair for specialists; it is acquiring a “human” value. An increasing number of people are beginning to realise that a great science, such as Physics, may offer objects for contemplation which are as delicate, as subtle, as exquisitely harmonious as the dreams of Plato—and much better founded. And in relation to man, his present state and possible future, science alone, to those who are not satisfied with less than verifiable knowledge, speaks with the accent of authority. The great constructions of science are grandiose without being chimerical; they are beautiful but not deceiving. Indeed, one sometimes has the feeling that it is only in science, nowadays, that one still meets with the spirit of adventure, the sense of boundless and glorious possibilities, with an exultant hope. Our poets and men of letters generally are extraordinarily tame and disillusioned creatures compared with our romantic and daring men of science. It is refreshing to turn from the lamentations of our literary men to such a book as the Space, Time, Matter of Hermann Weyl, if only for the fervour, the immense enthusiasm with which that highly accomplished mathematician writes. Einstein is his Columbus, with the difference that his America has indicated the existence of yet vaster continents. And this enthusiasm is justified by its fruits; it has inspired Herr Weyl to make what is unquestionably the greatest advance on Einstein’s own work which has yet been made. It is not in Physics alone that we find this note. To the biologists, also, the world has become young again. Should our ignorant and unimaginative politicians, and our still more ignorant and unimaginative business men, succeed in turning the whole heroic effort and age-long struggle which has produced our present culture to a mockery, they will put an end to a curiously interesting and promising transition age, to an age which is at once fin de siècle and at the morning of a glorious renaissance. But if they do not succeed, if the ordinary man shows himself even a little worthy of the immense travail of his species, then we prophesy that science will become an integral part of the culture of the future. The new physics, the new biology, the new psychology, will be too obviously pertinent to all man’s chief preoccupations for us to be able to pretend that the present narrowly conceived humaniora furnish a liberal education. We even believe that if the old arts are to become youthful again, it must be by a transfusion of blood. It will not be sufficient that the philosophy and literature of the future should “accommodate” themselves to the scientific outlook; they must be inspired by it.

Meanwhile, scientific men must be charitable; they must believe the best. If science is to become an integral part of culture, scientific men must help to make this possible. We believe that much of the present interest in science is genuine; that it springs from a serious attempt on the part of many people to find out what science can tell them about themselves and the Universe they live in. Science is not hunted purely for its dividend-earning capacities or for its power of providing new thrills. Einstein, we understand, is suspicious of the popular interest his theory has evoked; “a mere fashion,” he says. And doubtless his suspicion is largely justified. But we believe there is more in it than that—that there are many who, besides valuing the delightful dreams of the poets and philosophers, have an affection for knowledge. And when they find that the constructions of science are not one whit less delightful than the dreams of the poets, this affection may give rise to a permanent attachment. And with these new objects of interest will come a change in values. Men will learn to differentiate in their beliefs between those which are mere indulgences of emotion and those which correspond to objective truth. This is the path by which the mind becomes mature. It may not be, in all stages, a pleasant process, but it leads to increased freedom and increased power. The impossible will no longer be attempted, but the region of the possible will be seen to be vastly greater. Man will see in what directions he can shape his destiny, and he will be able to enter on the task with a rational hope. All his courage and endurance will have a chance of victorious achievement; he will know that he is not engaged in a forlorn hope; the world will become young again.