THE NEED FOR NEW KNOWLEDGE 



probably not change at the rate at which our technical society 

 is changing, or in any way match the growth in our knowledge 

 of nature. I have not been able to conceive, nor have I heard, 

 of any development of national or international institutions 

 which is at the same time adequate to meet these new problems 

 and which yet has any touch at all of human or historical plau- 

 sibility. Thus, as we all know, we live very close to the edge of 

 disaster. 



I believe most simply in the nobility of this great effort to 

 understand nature, and what we can of ourselves, that is 

 science. I hope, less simply, that it may yet be a brave and 

 worthy chapter of man's history to cope, with a full awareness 

 of the frailty of his institutions, of his society, and of himself, 

 with the new problems and new choices that this knowledge 

 has opened. For if we do not treasure the great inheritance on 

 which all our work and life are based, and understand the 

 radical novelty and the gravity of the situation in which we 

 find ourselves, there will be few of our children to ask again 

 of the need for new knowledge. 



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