THE NEED FOR NEW KNOWLEDGE 



on the Errors, which have been strengthened by long Prescription; 

 to restore the Truths, that have lain neglected; to push on those, 

 which are already known, to more various Uses; and to make the 

 way more passable, to what remains unreveal'd. 



The difference in emphasis between the English and the 

 American versions reflects a real difference as to the temper and 

 intention of the two cultures. In neither is there doubt that 

 new knowledge will be used; in neither is there an expression 

 of trouble as to how it should be. 



The argument that the quest for new knowledge, which is 

 basic science, is ennobling, and the argument that the quest for 

 new knowledge produces new knowledge which is useful to 

 technology and thus to practice, are disturbingly separate and 

 unrelated arguments. They come from two worlds. In Got- 

 tingen in its high days there was a story told of Hilbert, the 

 purest of mathematicians and one of the greatest. He had a 

 colleague, Klein, who regarded mathematics as built upon prac- 

 tical problems, and as appropriately disciplined by the questions 

 of natural science and technology. Klein would take some of 

 his students to the technical high school at Hanover for a joint 

 meeting, and they would talk there of their common problems. 

 One year he was ill, and asked Hilbert to go in his stead and to 

 say a few words against the then prevailing notion that basic 

 science and technology stood in a hostile relationship to one 

 another. To this Hilbert gladly agreed; but when he started 

 to speak, his audience heard him say, "One hears a good deal 

 nowadays about the hostility between science and technology. 

 But that is not true, ladies and gentlemen. That is not true at 

 all. How could it be truer They have nothing whatsoever to 

 do with each other." 



Yet science and technology are symbiotic. I suppose that 

 our concern in these meetings is that this symbiosis be benign 

 for both. They are symbiotic not only because technology would 



