SCIENCE AND MAN

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 39, 15 August 1945, Page 6

SCIENCE AND MAN

HARNESSING GOOD WILL A brief review of what scientific discoveries have done for the world, and the immediate need for the har- . nessing of spiritual energy to counter- / act the inimical use of science to defeat God's ends, were the subject of an address by the Rev. P. Gladstone Hughes to some 50 pupils of Queen Margaret and Scots- Colleges at . the annual colleges service at St. John's Church. The task to get the world out of the tangle into which it had got itself demanded qualities of mind and spirit such as previous generations had never been called on to display, he said. For centuries the challenge of the world iwas "Understand me and then control me." The dawn of science brought a long succession of scientists and everybody knew something of the wonderful results. By means of the aoplication of these discoveries man gbt more and more power into his hands. "During the past week the world has been astounded by the news that science had discovered the means of releasing the energy of the atom and of using it as the most terribly destructive force. There seems to be no limit to the possibilities for good and ill in this marvellous discovery," said' Mr. Hughes. "But this must not blind us to another form of the- challenge which has been taken up in our age. 'Understand man and control him/ We all know of the horrible experiment which the, Nazis conducted. Taking power into their own hands to deal with men-as they wished, they; succeeded in poisoning the mind of a whole generation." Today the world was calling out "Understand me and control yourselves," telling us tWat only men and women of good will could survive, that others of evil will were bound to deIstroy one another. The menace was not in harnessing atomic energy but in its harnessing to the purposes of men or nations of ill will. A new power was needed to release a new atomic energy, releasing the spiritual energy in ordinary folk, first made clear to the world by Jesus Christ, who brought with Him the power to release that energy. The history of past centuries had been directed by dedicated and inspired lives, and when mankind had gone astray it was led back again by such men and, women. ■