UNFAIR TO BLAME SCIENCE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 58, 18 December 1940, Page 4

UNFAIR TO BLAME SCIENCE.

“To blame science for our present wars is unreasonable; as though there had been no warfare before the age of science,” said Viscount Samuel in a recent address. “Human skulls pierced in battle are among the most primeval that have been discovered. It is true that whatever the ingenuity of man invents his perversity will misuse. In Horace Walpole’s Letters, I came across this passage not long ago 5 he is speaking of balloons, then the newest invention of the day, and he writes with a shrewd foreboding:— ‘Well! I hope these new mechanic meteors will prove only playthings for the learned and the idle and not be converted into new engines of destruction to the human race, as is so often the ease of refinements or discoveries in science. The wicked wit of man always studies to apply the result of talents to enslaveing, destroying, or cheating his fellowcreatures. Could we reach the moon, we should think of reducing it to a province of some European .kingdom. As chemistry and physics and engineering advance, the perversion of their discoveries to the uses of war becomes more and more deadly. But that is not the fault of the scientist; it is the fault of the wickedness which lets war loose upon the world.”