"Yeah. And I'm sick of it. All your eminent predecessors rushed ahead
investigating stars and bugs and drugs and air currents and left any
inquiry into man himself to philosophers--who were usually ignorant
even of physical science--or to James and Wundt and a few trying,
solitary people. You didn't ever really apply science. Not all science
to all reality. You just promulgated pure science along exactly half of
its possible lines--and called it a job. Looking forever at the light
outside--and never at the interior dark. Justifiable in a sense. But
not bright. And not really scientific at all."
"Hear, hear!"
"If the Greeks had worked out math and aerodynamics and built flyable
air frames--without bothering to study the problem of engines, we
would regard them as remarkably skillful imbeciles. They would have
littered old Attica with the fusilages of Piper Cubs and maybe B-29's
that couldn't get off the ground. In a sense, that's what they did do:
they pushed knowledge ahead along certain lines a certain distance--and
never followed through. You goons are still doing the same half-baked
job."
"You want us to quit studying physics and start picking up stuff about
the Oedipus complex and sibling rivalry?"
"It's too late. That's the assignment for the next civilization."
He just looked at me.
After a while, I went on. "You birds say that knowledge is power--yet
all your knowledge turns into impotence when you want it used for human
harmony and peace. What is the power, then?"
"Let me guess. Instinct. You see--as an old Wylie reader--"
I heaved a cushion at him and enjoyed a little of my second cup of
coffee. "Instinct. You dumb bastards! If you were really dedicated
to science, as you say, the last war would never have happened. And
the next one wouldn't be forever imminent. You say you believe that
scientific knowledge should be free to all. Freedom of knowledge, you
say, to put it backwards, is essential to science. But every time the
nations get miffed at each other--you lice lock yourselves up in the
national labs and go to war against each other as much as any soldier.
The old herd instinct. The old ego. Intellectual fealty to scientific
principles? You have none!"
"I kind of resent that," Paul said slowly.
"You resent the accusation. We who are about to die of the fact resent
your behavior. Or should. If you pure scientists were pure guys purely
devoted to science, Hitler could never have hired a dozen of the lot of
you in Germany, or Stalin coerced six. If you had insisted on keeping
science free--the Wehrmacht could never have been armed. If you had
been scientific men, not men practicing science--even granting you
felt it necessary to wipe out the Axis--when the deed was done, you
could simply have published all the atomic facts and be damned to the
politicians and the so-called patriots. Left mankind to work out its
destinies in a climate where knowledge was still free. As it is--Russia
knows enough to wipe up America in a few more years--the patriots and
politicians are living in a fool's paradise--your _Bulletin_ sweats
monthly to explain that sinister fact--and all you gained by assenting
to the current lockup of freedom of knowledge is a bureaucratic
sweatbox to do your work in--and a terrible endless case of jitters.
You don't understand behavior well enough to predict the results of
your own. Others do. And by far the most probable result of the failure
of pure scientists to behave purely toward science will be the end of
the possibility of further top-level scientific investigation for a
century or two."
"You think I should sit down and write out all the atomic secrets I
know and print them and scatter them from a plane?"
"I do not. I think you should sit down and face the fact that science
is precisely as hypocritical as religion--essentially no different
from it--hamstrung in the opposite tendon by the same egotistical
means. Sinful--call it. Guilty. The scientist can see the lack of logic
in religion--so he rules it out. He doesn't see the import of its
universal existence. The religious man can see that physical science
offers precisely nothing of value to his inner sensibilities--but
fails to see the meaning of logic. So he neglects to learn science and
applies logic only when it flushes his toilet or eradicates his foes.
You're both apes."
Paul swallowed the last of his ice. For a moment he sat without
speaking, the reflected sunlight softening his sharp features. Then
he said, "I hate to think anybody understands anything I don't. And I
strongly suspect you do."
"I strongly know I damned well do."
There was another pause. Paul pulled his nose. He drew a breath to
speak--and gave up the impulse. His eyes turned inward. Little by
little, his limbs sagged. An expression of the utmost melancholy
passed like a shadow over his face and was followed by lines of
resolution--lines I did not like because, visible in them, was
conflict--unacknowledged discontent mixed with unknown resolve.
"I'm in a terrible mess, Phil."
"Aren't we--and so forth?"
"I want to quit."
"The Lab?"
He nodded. "There is something positively bestial--in the worst
sense--about going any further with schemes to turn physical theory
into mere implements of death."
"Instinct coming to your rescue. I thought you liked the work?"
"I did. As long as it was a series of problems. Now--it's getting to be
a cold choice of means for engineering murder. That's no fun. It's like
spending all your time figuring out how to destroy your own home--after
you've already hit on half a dozen nifty ways."
"Why not quit, then?"
"Brink--for one. I like the old guy. I'm indispensable to him--I at
least pretend. And I feel loyal."
"Talk it over with him."
"No use. He's got the idea that he's engaged in some sort of holy
mission--a personal war against all tyranny, right or left. That he,
and we, and guys like us, must keep out in front--from the weapons
standpoint--until every tyrant's done for."
"Tyranny, Paul, isn't a gent. It's something inside everybody."
He drew a long, sighing breath and abandoned the subject. Soon, he
grinned at me. "Phil, I came as near praying you'd be in town today as
I get to prayer. When the telephone operator put me through--I like to
fainted with gratitude."
"How much," I asked caustically, "do you want to borrow?" Then I
wondered if I ought to lend anybody more money.
He laughed. "Money, a guy like me can always use. Someday, though, I'll
take time out and invent a quicker way to make ice cubes, or a better
zipper, and get rich and pay you back. I keep a record of the debt on a
letter I got from Fermi--a cherished possession."