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BLACKPOOL: 1936 



THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 



THE IMPACT OF SCIENCE 

 UPON SOCIETY 



BY 



Sir JOSIAH STAMP, G.C.B., G.B.E., LL.D., Sc.D., D.Sc, F.B.A. 



PRESIDENT OF THE ASSOCIATION. 



During the past year we have had to mourn the loss of our Patron, 

 King George V, but to rejoice in the honour done us by His Majesty 

 King Edward VIII, himself our most illustrious past President, 

 in taking that office. 



Since the beginning of this century the British Association has, 

 till now, added only one new place of meeting in this country to 

 its list. Blackpool can certainly do for science in the North all that 

 Bournemouth achieved in the South : give our record new vigour 

 and itself a new friend. 



The reactions of society to science have haunted our presidential 

 addresses with various misgivings for some years past. In his 

 great centenary address General Smuts, answering the question 

 ' What sort of a world picture is science leading to ? ' declared that 

 one of the great tasks before the human race is to link up science 

 with ethical values and thus to remove grave dangers threatening 

 our future. For rapid scientific advance confronts a stationary 

 ethical development, and science itself must find its most difficult 

 task in closing a gap which threatens disruption of our civilisation, 

 and must become the most effective drive towards ethical values. 

 In the following year a great Engineer spoke as a disillusioned man, 

 who watched the sweeping pageant of discovery and invention in 

 which he used to take unbounded delight, and concluded by de- 

 ploring the risk of losing that inestimable blessing, the necessity 



