CHEMICAL ACHIEVEMENT — PAULING 241 



and which can act as a template in the production of that enzyme 

 molecule. The power of self-duplication of the gene might well have 

 a similar explanation. In case the gene happens to be complementary 

 to itself, then it could serve directly as the pattern for itself; or it 

 might produce the same result, the manufacture of replicas of itself, 

 by working through an intermediate complementary to itself, which 

 then serves as the pattern for the new gene, complementary to the 

 intermediate and identical with the original gene. However, reliable 

 information about the detailed nature of these fundamental molecular 

 processes in biological systems must await further experimental study. 



THE FUTURE 



This discussion has been confined to the least interesting aspects 

 of the developments of chemistry in the future. These least interest- 

 ing aspects are those that can be predicted, that can be foreseen on 

 the basis of our present knowledge. They consist primarily of the 

 results of application and development of the discoveries that have 

 already been made. The great discoveries of the future — those that 

 will make the world different from the present world — are the dis- 

 coveries that no one has yet thought about, the discoveries that will 

 in fact be made as soon as the ideas underlying them take shape in 

 the mind of some imaginative scientist. Who is there among us who 

 10 years ago would have predicted that the field of nuclear structure 

 and atomic energy would develop in the way that it has? Wlio can 

 now say what the great discoveries of the next 10 years will be ? 



I have spoken of hope for the future — but the discoveries that we 

 cannot foresee may not all be obviously beneficial. Let me say, with 

 Walt Whitman, 



I know I am restless and make others so, 



I know my words are weapons full of danger, full of death, 



For I confront peace, security, and all the settled laws, to unsettle them. . . . 



And the threat of what is call'd hell is little or nothing to me, 



And the lure of what is call'd heaven is little or nothing to me ; 



Dear camerado ! I confess I have urged you onward with me, and still urge you, 



without the least idea what is our destination, 

 Or whether we shall be victorious, or utterly quell'd and defeated. 



Science cannot be stopped. Man will gather knowledge no matter 

 what the consequences — and we cannot predict what they will be. 

 Science will go on — whether we are pessimistic, or are optimistic, as 

 I am. I know that great, interesting, and valuable discoveries can 

 be made and will be made, of the sort that have been here described. 

 But I know also that still more interesting discoveries will be made 

 that I have not the imagination to describe — and I am awaiting them, 

 full of curiosity and enthusiasm. 



