PURE SCIENCE AND THE IDEA OF THE HOLY 



To improve the knowledge of naturall things, and all usefull Arts, 

 Manufactures, Mechanick practises, Engynes and Inventions by 

 Experiments — not meddling with Divinity, Metaphysick, Morals, 

 Politicks, Grammar, Rhetorick or Logick." "Not meddling with 

 morals or politics," continued A. V. Hill, "such, I would urge, is 

 the normal condition of tolerance and immunity for scientific pursuits 

 in a civilised state." 



We shall see later what was the historical context out of which 

 this phrase was taken. Hill's point of view, expressed as it was, seemed 

 to many to be designed to isolate the scientific worker from the 

 outside world as much as possible. No matter what state of dire need 

 that world might be in, of wars and oppressive tyrannies, of poverty 

 side by side with the possibilities of utmost well-being, of widespread 

 mismanagement and wholesale refusal to apply the lessons of scientific 

 discovery for the benefit of mankind — the scientist should close his 

 eyes to it, and continue his "pursuits" in courteous civility to the 

 powers that be, not too closely examining their papers of ordination. 

 The very word "pursuits" recalls the ideal, now somewhat thread- 

 bare, of the scientist as country gentleman, in the manner of Charles 

 Darwin, not bound to earn any living, and existing on means not 

 clearly specified. Hill's pronouncement quickly called forth a reply 

 from the biochemist and geneticist, J. B. S. Haldane,^ who had no 

 difficulty in showing that we must distinguish between the scientist 

 as scientist and the scientist as citizen. In his technical work, ethical 

 and political considerations are no doubt irrelevant, but as a citizen 

 he has a special responsibility to work for the beneficent utilisation 

 of the discoveries of himself and his colleagues. Haldane could point 

 to many of the most distinguished Fellows of the Royal Society 

 who had taken this attitude, to Pepys and Brouncker, to Priestley 

 and Franklin, of whom it was said (and could there be a more magnifi- 

 cent epitaph ?) : 



"Eripuit caelo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis." 



He tore the lightning from the heavens, and the sceptre from the 

 hands of tyrants. J. B. S. Haldane concluded, "I do not see why a 

 man of science who 'meddles' with such matters should thereby 

 forfeit a right to tolerance, and question whether Professor Hill has 

 done a service to science in penning a sentence which might be inter- 



^ Nature, 1934, 133, 65. 



93 



