666 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



and vaccination are immoral. Now what is the truth — as any man of science 

 capable of considering a problem in its entirety will easily see? Suppose that A 

 and B are engaged in a contest, either in sport or in a duel, and suppose that 

 before the contest they had agreed upon certain rules which should be maintained 

 during the contest. If A infringes one of these rules, as, for instance, by drawing 

 a pistol when it was arranged that the contest should be one of fists only, what 

 is B then entitled to do ? If the " ring " is kept by onlookers who are capable 

 of enforcing the original conditions, B will at once appeal to them, and if they 

 think that A broke the convention they will punish him and B will be considered 

 the victor. 



Suppose, however, that there is no one to keep the ring (and the neutral 

 nations have signally failed to do so in the present war), then if A breaks the rules 

 B has the right of retaliation given to him from immemorial times, and by the 

 universal consent of humanity. That is, he may employ against A, without blame, 

 exactly the same trick as that which A attempted against him. He, too, may draw 

 his revolver or strike under the belt ; and the guilt will rest, not in any way upon the 

 retaliator, but upon that one of the combatants who first infringes the pre-ordained 

 rules of the combat. And this is, without a shadow of doubt, a just law. For 

 what else is B to do ? If he does not retaliate, A will simply repeat the same foul 

 stroke, and in a serious combat B may thus lose the fight altogether. Of course, 

 it does not follow that B is always obliged to retaliate in kind. We simply state 

 that he has the right to do so. Were it otherwise the villain would be rewarded 

 for his villainy, and the magnanimous would perish. It is a law of nature — and a 

 just law. Those who do not possess sufficient imagination or capacity for reasoning 

 to see this clear truth, and yet who write to the papers endeavouring to tie the 

 hands of the authorities in a war of life and death, are, in our opinion, worthy of 

 censure. Whether it is good strategy or not to retaliate is another question which 

 must be decided by the authorities themselves ; but about the right to retaliate 

 against an enemy which has infringed every rule of honourable combat there is no 

 question at all. The whole law of punishment for crime and misdemeanour 

 depends upon the Lex Talionis ; and one might as well argue that the State has 

 no right to hang a murderer or to imprison a thief. 



The Neglect of Science 



On February 2 a very important Memorandum appeared in the press, signed 

 by a number of leading men of science and educationists, including Sir Clifford 

 Allbutt, the Earl of Berkeley, Sir William Crookes, Sir E. Ray Lankester, Sir 

 Henry Morris, Sir William Osier, Sir Charles Parsons, Sir William Ramsay, Lord 

 Raleigh, Sir Ronald Ross, Dr. Shipley, Sir Edward Thorpe, Sir William Tilden, 

 and Sir John Williams. The Memorandum complained of "a lack of knowledge 

 on the part of our legislators and administrative officials of what is called ' science ' 

 or • physical science.' . . . Not only are our highest Ministers of State ignorant 

 of science, but the same defect runs through almost all the Public Departments 

 of the Civil Service. It is nearly universal in the House of Commons, and is 

 shared by the general public, including a large proportion of those engaged in 

 industrial and commercial enterprise." The Memorandum cites cases in which 

 this ignorance has been harmful to the nation during the course of the war, and 

 attributes it to the "vested interests" in education which tend to oppose the 

 teaching of science in the schools and universities. For example, " At Cambridge 

 but four colleges are presided over by men of scientific training ; at Oxford not 



