It is not an unfair judgment, we think, that decides, on a survey
of contemporary intellectual activities, to grant science the first
place. Whether we consider the quality of the work which is being
done, its importance to mankind, or the spirit in which the work is
done, we think science earns that place. Our age is a scientific age
to an extent which is certainly not generally realised. Contemporary
scientific work is of a quality fully comparable with that of the
greatest periods of its history; it is inevitable that our age should
emerge, in the history of the future, as an age of science. It has,
indeed, already established a perspective which leads to a revaluation
of the Victorian age. There have already been many writers who have
thought that age more memorable for its science than for its other
achievements, that its significance to humanity lay more in the work
of Darwin, Faraday, and Maxwell than in that of Tennyson and Matthew
Arnold, or even in that of Mr. Gladstone, but the perspective we have
now obtained puts the matter almost beyond doubt. With most of us our
outlook is the result of a decrepit tradition. Our orientation towards
life, so far as we are conscious of having one, is based upon the
values we attribute to the various objects of our thoughts, and these
values are determined partly by our instinctive desires and partly by
the suggestions of our education--using the term “education” to include
all converse with the minds of our fellows. Education, so defined, is
the result very largely of a long and widespread tradition, a general
tradition of European culture. It is a curious fact that, although
the history of science goes as far back as the history of the arts,
science is not an integral part of this, nevertheless, very catholic
culture. There are periods, it is true, when some scientific theory
is sufficiently dramatic, or appears sufficiently pertinent to man’s
destiny, to secure general attention; Newton’s theory of gravitation,
Darwin’s theory of evolution, and Einstein’s theory of relativity have
each given rise to such a period. Einstein’s theory, we are informed,
is now the favourite topic of enlightened conversation in Parisian
salons, as Newton’s theory once was. Some of this interest, no doubt,
is the product of disinterested curiosity, and in that respect is
vastly different from the once general interest in Darwin’s theory.
But we fear that many of those who are curious about Einstein’s theory
would, if they understood it, find it uninteresting. We dare not
interpret this curiosity as a sign that people are beginning to be
as naturally interested in science as they are in literature, for
instance.
Nevertheless, we believe that the old culture is moribund in the sense
that its particular scale of values is undergoing revision. Science
is becoming less an affair for specialists; it is acquiring a “human”
value. An increasing number of people are beginning to realise that a
great science, such as Physics, may offer objects for contemplation
which are as delicate, as subtle, as exquisitely harmonious as the
dreams of Plato--and much better founded. And in relation to man, his
present state and possible future, science alone, to those who are not
satisfied with less than verifiable knowledge, speaks with the accent
of authority. The great constructions of science are grandiose without
being chimerical; they are beautiful but not deceiving. Indeed, one
sometimes has the feeling that it is only in science, nowadays, that
one still meets with the spirit of adventure, the sense of boundless
and glorious possibilities, with an exultant hope. Our poets and
men of letters generally are extraordinarily tame and disillusioned
creatures compared with our romantic and daring men of science. It is
refreshing to turn from the lamentations of our literary men to such
a book as the _Space, Time, Matter_ of Hermann Weyl, if only for
the fervour, the immense enthusiasm with which that highly accomplished
mathematician writes. Einstein is his Columbus, with the difference
that his America has indicated the existence of yet vaster continents.
And this enthusiasm is justified by its fruits; it has inspired Herr
Weyl to make what is unquestionably the greatest advance on Einstein’s
own work which has yet been made. It is not in Physics alone that we
find this note. To the biologists, also, the world has become young
again. Should our ignorant and unimaginative politicians, and our
still more ignorant and unimaginative business men, succeed in turning
the whole heroic effort and age-long struggle which has produced our
present culture to a mockery, they will put an end to a curiously
interesting and promising transition age, to an age which is at once
_fin de siècle_ and at the morning of a glorious renaissance.
But if they do not succeed, if the ordinary man shows himself even a
little worthy of the immense travail of his species, then we prophesy
that science will become an integral part of the culture of the future.
The new physics, the new biology, the new psychology, will be too
obviously pertinent to all man’s chief preoccupations for us to be
able to pretend that the present narrowly conceived _humaniora_
furnish a liberal education. We even believe that if the old arts are
to become youthful again, it must be by a transfusion of blood. It will
not be sufficient that the philosophy and literature of the future
should “accommodate” themselves to the scientific outlook; they must be
inspired by it.
Meanwhile, scientific men must be charitable; they must believe the
best. If science is to become an integral part of culture, scientific
men must help to make this possible. We believe that much of the
present interest in science is genuine; that it springs from a serious
attempt on the part of many people to find out what science can tell
them about themselves and the Universe they live in. Science is not
hunted purely for its dividend-earning capacities or for its power of
providing new thrills. Einstein, we understand, is suspicious of the
popular interest his theory has evoked; “a mere fashion,” he says. And
doubtless his suspicion is largely justified. But we believe there is
more in it than that--that there are many who, besides valuing the
delightful dreams of the poets and philosophers, have an affection for
_knowledge_. And when they find that the constructions of science
are not one whit less delightful than the dreams of the poets, this
affection may give rise to a permanent attachment. And with these new
objects of interest will come a change in values. Men will learn to
differentiate in their beliefs between those which are mere indulgences
of emotion and those which correspond to objective truth. This is the
path by which the mind becomes mature. It may not be, in all stages,
a pleasant process, but it leads to increased freedom and increased
power. The impossible will no longer be attempted, but the region of
the possible will be seen to be vastly greater. Man will see in what
directions he can shape his destiny, and he will be able to enter on
the task with a rational hope. All his courage and endurance will have
a chance of victorious achievement; he will know that he is not engaged
in a forlorn hope; the world will become young again.