December 22. 1921] 



NATURE 



553 



The Message of Science.^ 

 By Sir Richard Gregory. 



T T is just forty years ago, at the York Meeting 

 *■ in 1881, that a committee was appointed "to ■ 

 arrange for a conference of delegates from scien- 

 tific societies to be held at the annual meetings of 

 the British Association, with a view to promote 

 the interests of the societies represented by in- 

 ducing them to undertake definite systematic work 

 on a uniform plan." The Association had been in 

 existence for fifty years before it thus became a 

 bond of union between local scientific societies in 

 order to secure united action with regard to com- 

 mon interests. Throughout the whole period of 

 ninety years it has been concerned with the 

 advancement and diffusion of natural knowledge 

 and its applications. The addresses and papers 

 read before the various sections have dealt with 

 new observations and developments of scientific 

 interest or practical value; and, as in scientific 

 and technical societies generally, questions of pro- 

 fessional status and emolument have rarely been 

 discussed. The port of science — whether pure or 

 applied — is free, and a modest yawl can find a 

 berth in it as readily as a splendid merchantman, 

 provided that it has a cargo to discharge. Neither 

 the turmoil of war nor the welter of social unrest 

 has prevented explorers of uncharted seas from 

 crossing the bar and bringing their argosies to 

 the quayside, where fruits and seeds, rich ores ! 

 and precious stones have been piled in profusion i 

 for the creation of wealth, the comforts of life, 

 or the purpose of death, according as they are 

 selected and used. 



All that these pioneers of science have asked 

 for is for vessels to be chartered to 

 enable them to make voyages of discovery to 

 unknown lands. Many have been private adven- 

 turers, and few have shared in the riches they 

 have brought into port. Corporations and Gov- 

 ernments are now eager to provide ships which 

 will bring them profitable freights, and to pay 

 bounties to the crews, but this service is 

 dominated by the commercial spirit which expects 

 immediate returns for investments, and mariners 

 who enter it are no longer free to sail in any direc- 

 tion they please or to enter whatever creek 

 attracts them. The purpose is to secure some- 

 thing of direct profit or use, and not that of dis- 

 covery alone, by which the greatest advances of 

 science have hitherto been achieved. 



To the man of science discoveries signify exten- 

 sions of the field of work, and he usually leaves 

 their exploitation to prospectors who follow him. 

 His motives are intellectual advancement, and not 

 the production of something from which financial 

 gain may be secured. For generations he has ; 

 worked in faith purely for the love of knowledge, ' 

 and has enriched mankind with the fruits of his 

 labours ; but this altruistic attribute is undergoing ; 



1 Abridged from the presidential address delivered to the Conference of ' 

 Delegates of Corresponding Societies of the British Association at Edin- j 

 burgh on September 8. 



NO. 2721, VOL. 108] 



a change. Scientific workers are beginning to 

 ask what the community owes to them, and what 

 use has been made of the talents entrusted to it. 

 They have created stores of wealth beyond the 

 dreams of avarice, and of power unlimited, and 

 these resources have been used to convert beauti- 

 ful countrysides into grimy centres of industrial- 

 ism, and to construct weapons of death of such 

 diabolical character that civilised man ought to 

 hang his head in shame at their use. 



Mankind has, indeed, proved itself unworthy 

 of the gifts which science has placed at its dis- 

 posal, with the result that squalid surroundings 

 and squandered life are the characteristics of 

 modern Western civilisation, instead of social con- 

 ditions and ethical ideals superior to those of any 

 other epoch. Responsibility for this does not lie 

 with scientific discoverers, but with statesmen and 

 democracy. Like the gifts of God, those of 

 science can be made either a blessing or a curse, 

 to glorify the human race or to destroy it; and 

 upon civilised man himself rests the decision as 

 to the course to follow. With science as an ally, 

 and the citadels of ignorance and self as the objec- 

 tive, he can transform the world, but if he neglects 

 the guidiance which knowledge can give, and 

 prefers to be led by the phrases of rhetoricians, 

 this planet will become a place of dust and ashes. 



Unsatisfactory social conditions are not a neces- 

 sary consequence of the advance of science, but 

 of incapacity to use it rightly. Whatever may be 

 said of captains of industry or princes of com- 

 merce, scientific men themselves cannot be 

 accused of amassing riches at the expense of 

 labour, or of having neglected to put into force 

 the laws of healthy social life. Power — financial 

 and political — has been in the hands of people 

 who know nothing of science, not even that of 

 man himself, and it is they who should be 

 arraigned at the bar of public justice for their 

 failure to use for the welfare of all the scientific 

 knowledge offered to all. Science should dis- 

 sociate itself entirely from those who have thus 

 abused its favours, and not permit the public to 

 believe it is the emblem of all that is gross and 

 material and destructive in modern civilisation. 

 There was a time when intelligent working men 

 idealised science; now they mostly regard it with 

 distrust or are unmoved by its aims, beheving it 

 to be part of a soul-destroying economic system. 

 The obligation is upon men of science to restore 

 the former feeling by removing their academic 

 robes and entering into social movements as 

 citizens whose motives are above suspicion and 

 whose knowledge is at the service of the com- 

 munity for the promotion of the greatest good. 

 The public mind has yet to understand that science 

 is the pituitar).^ body of the social organism, and 

 without it there can be no healthy growth in 

 modern life, mentally or physically. 



This conference of delegates provides the most 



