FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Evening Star, Issue 25677, 28 December 1945, Page 2

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

QUESTIONS PROMPTED BY ATOMIC ENERGY Dr L; P. Jadlrs contributes the following’.to the ‘ Hibbert Journal,’ of ■which lie is the editor:— “ Whether the Tree of Knowledge has at last borne the fruit of which mankind was warned long, ago by a Voice which said, ‘ln the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.’ “ Whether the end of the present world in universal conflagration, predicted by Stoic (philosophers and hourly expected by the early Christians, has now become a contingency to be reckoned with. “Whether a safe building site for the New Jerusalem, or a firm basis for social security, can be easily found on the edge of a volcano. “ Whether the use of atomic energy in peace for endowing mankind with unlimited wealth and leisure would destroy mankind no less effectively than its use for bombing in war, and whether the moraLdestruction of the race is preferable to the physical, and less to be feared. •

“ Whether, with the possibility dawning that a single bad or mutinous man might blow up the planet by pressing a button,, means can be devised tor keeping the button permanently out of the reach of bad men and mutineers.

“ Whether it be true that, so lon# as there are in existence powerful armed forces trained to fight and in trim for making war with atomic bombs or otherwise, make war sooner or later they certainly will, all safeguards to the contrary notwithstanding “Whether the.'past record of sovereign States in their dealings one with' another, and with their own subjects, justifies the belief that their Governments, or any combination of them, would be safe guardians of atomic energy either in war or in peace. “Whether the doctrine that there is no limit to the slaughter, misery, and impoverishment that may be lawfully inflicted on a minority, provided the happiness of the majority is thereby promoted, is of God or of the devil.

“ Whether the argument that the annihilation of 100,000 Japanese by atomic bombing is _ a righteous deed because, by shortening the war it has saved the lives of 200,000 1 Americans and British, will hold good on the Day of Judgment. “ Whether every, decent American and Briton in the saved 200,000 would rather that his life had been saved in some other manner

“ Whether the belief that mankind can be delivered by improvements of the social machinery from the miseries of its servitude to other kinds of machinery is to be judged, in the light of the now discoveries, an absurd and disastrous superstition. “ Whether the age-long martyrdom of Man, now threatened with appalling intensification, is nrimarily due to his age-long neglect of the counsel of Socrates, "who went about Athens imploring the young men to despise material riches and concentrate on getting good souls. • “ Whether the threatened intensification of the martyrdom of Man can be averted otherwise than by following the said counsel.”