THE NEED FOR NEW KNOWLEDGE 



was right. Yet when we look back over the history of science, 

 we see how often profound new discoveries have originated in 

 almost prospectless investigations: in measuring a little more 

 accurately, in making really sure that radium was a product of 

 the bombardment of uranium by neutrons, in uncounted in- 

 stances of the detailed and painstaking study of things pre- 

 sumed already known. 



It is this that gives to the work of science a special and 

 welcome human quality. It is often illustrated by the metaphor 

 that science is a great house, and that those who work in it lay 

 the bricks. For this work is rewarded by the presence of larger 

 wholes, in which all scientists may and do participate and share, 

 and in which the uninspired and unlucky live in the same large 

 structure as the man of genius. What the men of genius have, 

 that many of the rest of us are spared, is the terror that led 

 Columbus to write, on the first and empty page of his log, on 

 the first evening of his first voyage of discovery, 



Jesus cum Maria sit nobis in via. 



Many of the words that I have used in talking of the nobil- 

 ity of science could be used as well of the writing of poetry or 

 of music. There are quite other words, and a quite different 

 argument. New knowledge is useful. By knowing more of 

 nature and a little, pitifully little, of ourselves, we know how to 

 make things and do things which otherwise we should not have 

 known how to make or do; and by these increased abilities and 

 powers we in general offer to men a far wider range of choices 

 as to what and how they are to do, what and how they are to 

 make. This has, of course, altered the face of the earth. It has 

 altered it even in parts of the world where the search for new 

 knowledge has as yet played no major part in men's lives. It has 

 altered it even for those who care little, and know less, of the 

 new knowledge which has made the change possible. It has 



