466 DISCUSSION 



both sexes. I cannot summarise what I mean better than by quoting those 

 two pregnant lines of Wordsworth's : 



' Me this unchartered freedom tires ; 

 I feel the weight of chance desires.' 



In this sphere no doubt adjustment will come in time. 



There is a notion afoot that, in the last analysis, Science is largely respons- 

 ible for the extent and persistence of much of the strain of modern life. I 

 want to say, at once, that I regard this unloading upon Science as a mere 

 pusillanimity. I hold the view that it is not too much Science, but too 

 little Science, that has helped to get us into this trouble. Or rather should 

 I say, not enough interest in Science and not enough direction given to 

 Science. What interest does the average individual really take in Science, 

 and to what extent is he prepared to encourage it ? The answer is, almost 

 nil. Which is odd when we reflect that he recognises quite fully — as how 

 can he fail to do ? — that at the present time both politics and economics — 

 and some would add even religion — regarded as systems existing for human 

 betterment, seem to have failed him, and Science alone is not bankrupt. 

 Science has, indeed, loaded man with benefits, but he has shown an indiffer- 

 ence to them, or a carelessness and a prodigality in his use of them, which 

 is quite pathetic. 



A Spanish writer says, in this connection that, speaking for himself, '. . . 

 the disproportion between the profit which the average man draws from 

 Science and the gratitude which he returns — or, rather, does not return to 

 it : this is terrifying. I can only succeed [he continues] in explaining to 

 myself this absence of adequate recognition by recalling that in Central 

 Africa the negroes also ride in motor-cars and dose themselves with aspirin.' 



Not only are we ungrateful in thought and attitude, but ungrateful in mis- 

 handling the benefits accruing from scientific endeavour. Blame Science ? 

 We need not drive a car so fast that it kills, nor make a loud speaker so loud 

 that it deafens. Science was made for man, not man for Science, and the 

 one thing that matters is control. Are we going to drive the machine or 

 are we going to let it drive us ? Mr. Wells, in one of his inimitable 

 word pictures, portrays civilisation as a high-powered motor-car gathering 

 momentum on a precipitous hill, a quaking, gibbering monkey at the 

 wheel, impotent to check its increasing speed. Not complimentary, but 

 terribly suggestive. 



And who cares about the direction along which Science produces her gifts 

 to mankind ? We have an astronomer royal, but we have no biologist royal, 

 still less a psychologist royal. Is this a survival from the days when we 

 thought the stars controlled our destinies ? But if ' the fault is not in our 

 stars but in ourselves, that we are underlings,' as I believe it is, should we 

 not ' do something ' about this ? Hygiene of the body — the idea seems, at 

 long last, to have been grasped : ' mental hygiene,' after a long and painful 

 labour, is, I think, being born : what of spiritual hygiene, the hygiene of 

 temperament ? I believe that the spirit of man is fundamentally as amen- 

 able to scientific investigation, if not to control, as is his body and his mind. 



I hope I shall not seem sententious in what I am now saying. It 

 was the most doleful of the prophets who declared that ' the heart is . . . 

 desperately wicked,' but even he was not without hope about it. After 

 all, the two essential desiderata were laid down thousands of years ago. 

 ' Know thj r self,' said one of the ancient philosophers. ' All is in this, that 

 thou govern thyself,' said another. And these two things Science can, and 

 doubtless will, eventually assist us in helping to accomplish. God may 

 ' move in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform,' but the mystery is 



