time: the refreshing river 



to be utterly bad and irredeemable, a realm of Satan, from which the 

 only escape was by means of religious exercises within the organised 

 body of christians.^ But, secondly, in every age there have been those 

 who have interpreted the Kingdom as a state of divine justice in the 

 future and in the world, to be attained by unceasing effort on the 

 part of men and women. This struggle was the outcome of their 

 thirst for social justice, and gave meaning to all martyrdoms since 

 the beginning of the world. 



In ages when ecclesiastical organisation was powerful, the visible 

 Church itself, sharing the world with the temporal emperor in a 

 condominium, could be identified with the Kingdom of God. 

 This was a third interpretation. With the reformation and the 

 splitting of the universal church into a thousand sects it lost its 

 force. 



But if the scientific worker is the modern representative of the 

 mediaeval cleric, he finds himself in a relatively much worse position. 

 Science in our time is not able to dictate its terms to capitalist "cap- 

 tains of industry" and the governing class in general; on the contrary, 

 it is in utter bondage, dependent upon their fitful and grudging 

 support, itself divided by dangerous national boundaries and sover- 

 eignties. In such a case we should expect that many scientists would 

 interpret the concept of the Kingdom (though none of them, of 

 course, would dream of referring to it under that name) as something 

 spiritual, something harm.less, something incapable of any affront to 

 a capitalist world. 



This is exactly what we find. Nothing could better illustrate the 

 point than the Huxley Memorial Lecture of A. V. Hill, in 1933, and 

 his subsequent controversy with J. B. S. Haldane — two of England's 

 most distinguished biologists.^ The discoveries of science, said Hill, 

 whatever mistakes may be made, do gradually build up a structure 

 which is approved by all sane men; in the last three hundred years, 

 the experimental method, which is universal, has produced results 

 beyond all previous human achievements. This universality of its 

 method and results gives science a unique place among the interests 

 of mankind. But "if scientific people are to be accorded the privileges 

 of immunity and tolerance by civilised societies, they must observe 



^ See Pascal, R., The Social Basis of the German Reformation: Martin Luther and His 

 Times (Watts, London, 1933). 



^ Hill, A. v., Huxley Memorial Lecture, 1933; abridged version: "International Status 

 and Obligations of Science," Nature, 1933, 132, 952. Hill, A. V., and Haldane, J. B. S., 

 Nature, 1934, 133, 65. 



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