234 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 196 



his master's possessions. For this sin, the noble made preparations to 

 chastise his slave. However, the slave, being of a wily and ingenious 

 disposition, said : "My master, you must know that I am not responsible 

 for this sin which I have committed ; for according to the philosophy 

 to which you subscribe, it was preordained that I should steal this, 

 your possession." However, the master replied: "Yes, my slave, that 

 is indeed true ; but by the same token, it was also preordained that I 

 should beat you for your offense." I commend tliis principle to those 

 who have charge of the destiny of youthful delinquents. 



Anyone who subscribes to the principle of predetermination, and 

 who is confronted with a situation in which a system suddenly departs 

 from the course predicted for it by the laws assumed, would have but 

 two views of the matter open to him. He could deny the truth of the 

 laws, or he could regard the occurrence as a miracle. This is, indeed, 

 no more than a crystallization of the meaning of the word "miracle." 



THE SCIENCE OF TODAY 



THE MIRACLE OF ATOMIC SCIENCE 



Now, in opening up the boxes of which I have spoken earlier, it was 

 found that those things therein which were pertinent to the structures 

 of atoms and molecules do not behave according to the principle of 

 predetermination. They do not behave according to that smooth 

 running of things which science had come to idealize. Every change 

 which the atom experiences is a sudden one, with no clear-cut relation 

 to the past, and no promise as to the future. Every change is a miracle 

 in the sense in which I have sought to define that word. Moreover, it 

 seemed, to most physicists, impossible to devise any laws consistent 

 with the facts and according to which changes in atoms and in the 

 realms immediately dominated by atoms occurred in any strictly pre- 

 dictable manner. The best that could be done was to invoke the con- 

 cept of averages and to devise laws which told the chance that any 

 particular occurrence would happen under certain assigned conditions. 

 The laws were analogous to those which the insurance specialist uses 

 when he predicts the fraction of all the people over, say, 50 years 

 of age who will die in the next year. He cannot predict what will 

 happen to any individual, but he can predict with considerable cer- 

 tainty what will happen to groups of individuals. In a sense, we 

 may say that the whole quantum theory of today is a crystallization 

 of the best laws which man has been able to devise for describing 

 the nature of miraculous happenings. Of course, you may well say 

 that if the insurance man should consult the physician of each indi- 

 vidual and should order continual tests to be made of the state of 

 health of each individual, then he could approximate with some cer- 

 tainty to accurate predictions as regards the individuals. You may 



