248 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1960 



I refer to such things as extrasensory perception, the significance of 

 the immortality of man, clairvoyance, and allied phenomena, and the 

 significance of the fact that our universe exhibits what we may call 

 a planned design, whether or not we are willing to admit the hazy 

 notion of a planner, or say what we mean by that postulate. 



PREDETERMINATION AND A PLANNED UNIVERSE 



Perhaps the existence of the universe as an entity with strongly 

 planned features provides the greatest argument against use of the un- 

 deniable fact that if we are willing to work hard enough and involve 

 ourselves in a sufficient complexity in mathematical expression, we can 

 possibly regard any universe as operating on a principle of predeter- 

 mination. In general, the principle invoked in such an arbitrary 

 manner may rule out many notions which seem so important in the 

 life of mankind by regarding everything as inevitable, even as in the 

 parable of the slave and his master at the beginning of this lecture 

 the theft by the slave was inevitable and the beating received for it 

 was also inevitable. If the universe were a chaotic alfair without any 

 of the properties which I have associated with the word "planned," 

 there might be some sense in falling back on predetermination, but to 

 invoke such a principle with things as they are is something like 

 asserting that a cathedral of great beauty, which I had not seen be- 

 fore, was formed by the accumulation of dust in an accidental manner 

 through the ages. 



NEW DOMAINS FOR SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION 



In discussing such matters as I am now venturing near, I think it is 

 essential to avoid all theological doctrine as a starting point. I would 

 rather see a theological doctrine emerge spontaneously as part of the 

 overall scheme of nature, than I would see the workings of nature 

 forced into a frame provided by a preconceived theological doctrine 

 as a starting point. 



In the past it has been a tradition of mankind to divide phenomena 

 into two classes, those which may be investigated, and those concern- 

 ing which we should not inquire. Between these two sets of phe- 

 nomena there has been a barrier, and to cross that barrier was a sin 

 against dogma or, in less solemn vein, a violation of sound principles 

 of research only to be undertaken by those who are a little queer. As 

 times progressed, this barrier has shifted, so that all astronomy now 

 lies on the respectable side of it, in spite of the fact that 300 years ago 

 much of it lay in the forbidden region, where also much of the embryo 

 science of chemistry was to be found. Today, chemistry is thoroughly 

 established in the unrestricted region. 



Even as many radicals become conservatives when they rise to 

 power, so the science of the materialistic age, much of which lay on the 



