The Dominion. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1928. “OVER THE HILL”

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 291, 8 September 1928, Page 8

The Dominion. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1928. “OVER THE HILL”

The inspirational quality of the inaugural address delivered at the annual meetings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science has attracted to these utterances a vast world audience. This year’s presidential address, delivered by Sir William Bragg. Professor of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge, is no exception to the general standard of excellence achieved by his predecessors. The keynote was research. "It is a most remarkable fact,” said Sir William Bragg, “that the most active industries are founded on recent scientific research.” From this observation the speaker developed his argument on lines which have become more or less familiar. Then he came to an interesting point. Referring to the Bishop Of Ripon’s suggestion at the 1927 meeting of the Association, that science might take a ten years’ holiday, he said: “We cannot prevent interested men making inquiry. No one knows what is over the hill. The vanguard will march on without any thought of what is before it. Therefore, if the march of science is to be conducted in an effective, orderly way, there must always be a number of laboratories where scientific research may be conducted with no immediate thought of possible applications.” One imagines that the episcopal suggestion for a scientific recess of a decade was prompted by the apprehension that in the remarkable acceleration of discovery and invention during recent years, humanity was in danger of losing its spiritual perspective. In other .words, science was outpacing the process of adjustment necessary to bring spiritual beliefs into harmony with the implied assertions of its discoveries. The Bishop of Ripon was in no better, case than King Canute when the latter discovered that he could not command the' tide. Scientific.research is founded upon the inveterate curiosity of mankind. Always it is stimulated by the desire to find out why this is thus. Why did Newton’s apple fall from the tree? Why did the lid of James Watts’s kettle jump up and down when the water boiled ? Each discovery provides a jumping-off place for another quest. We have progressed from Watts’s kettle to steam engines on sea and land, to oil engines, the internal combustion motor, and so on up into the air. What will be the next step? Experience has shown that there is no last word in scientific research. Progress, simply expressed, is merely the outcome of human curiosity to find out what lies round the corner or over the hill. Less than a hundred years ago there were no telephones, no motorcars, no electric lights, no gramophones, no railways, no steamships. That is not a very long period in the history of the world—a bare microscopical speck. Yet what a record of achievement. With it all, the ethical forces which animate the philosophy of mankind have wonderfully survived. A lie is as much a lie to-day as it was a hundred years ago. It is as wrong to steal, to kill, to nourish hatreds. That many men’s attitude to religious dogma may have undergone a change may be true, but the logic and force of the Christian ethic are still strong and clear. Christianity has nothing to fear from the researches of science. Organised religion, however, must be prepared for a reorientation of its attitude to latter-day life. Metaphorically speaking, it must distinguish between the magicians whom it used to burn and the scientist whom it should salute.