NATURE’S MARVELS

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 October 1932, Page 3

NATURE’S MARVELS

MAN UNFITTED TO COMMAND

YORK, September 1.

Is mail fitted for the command of Nature won for him by men of science and invention —the physicists, the engineers, and the electricians ? This was the question raised by Sir Alfred Ewing to-night in his address as President of the British Association. The answer he - gave was that man is not so preared, and he confessed to alarm as to where pro 1 - gress may lead mankind. Sir Alfred began his address with a survey of the advance in working out the mysteries of the atom. “The atom,” Sir Alfred said, “seemingly inert, is mighty in being a magazine of energy which, for the most part, it locks safely away. “This is fortunate, for if tho secret were discovered of letting loose the atomic store we should invite dissolution at the hands of any fool or knave. “And it is also fortunate that in the furnace of the sun, at teihperatures far higher than those of our hottest terrestrial inferno, the stored energy of the atom is drawn upon, as we believe and has been drawn upon for ages, to keep up that blessed radiation which makes man’s life possible, and is the source of all his power.”

Sir Alfred passed' Wii to discuss the “miracle of broadcasting,” with its magic box, for which mankind was indebted to the discoveries of electrical engineers. He said: “I don’t know any product of engineering more efficient than that magic box. It needs no attention; it is always ready for service; and when you tire of it you have only to switch it off.

“Do you ever reflect, when you pick and choose among the multitude of airs and voices, or shut out all from your solitii of thought, that they are still them,. physically present, individual, distinct, crowding yet not interfering, besetting you though you do not perceive them, silent until you determine that one or another shall catch your ear? Go where you will, to the ocean or the wilderness of the Pole, you cannot escape that vast company of attendants; they come to you, unheard, unseen, from every quarter of the globe with a swiftness no other messengers approach. “Is any fairy tale so strange as that reality? In all the wizardry of science surely there is nothing more wonderful than this.” As a result of the development of electrical communication the whole world had now been made practically instant in its interchange of thought. Calamity might fall on one and be already old before others knew of it to offer help.

“Through this physical linkage, which annihilates both space and time there is opened a possibility of quick discussion, common resolution, simultaneous action. Can you imagine any practical gift of science more indispensable as a step towards establishing the sense of international brotherhood which we how consciously lack and wistfully desire ? “Should that aspiration ever become more than a dream we shall indeed have cause to bless the creators of electrical communication, to praise them and magnify them for ever.. “I think we may regard the whole art of electrical communication as an unqualified blessing, which even the folly of nations cannot pervert; in that regard it differs conspicuously from some other inventions. ALARM FOR FUTURE “In the present-day thinkers’ attitude towards what is called mechanical progress we are conscious of a changed spirit. Admiration is tempered by criticism; complacency has given way to doubt: doubt is passing into alarm. There is a sense of perplexity and frustration, as in one Who has gone a long way and finds he has taken the wrong turning.

“An old exponent of applied mechanics may be forgiven if he expresses something of the disillusion with which, now standing aside, he watches the sweeping pageant of discovery and invention in which he used to take unbounded delight. It is impossible not to ask, Whither does this tremendous procession tend? What, after all, is its goal ? What its probable influence upon the future of the human race ?

“The cornucopia of the engineer has been shaken over all the earth, scattering everywhere an endowment of previously unpossessed and unimagined capacities and powers. Beyond question many of these gifts are benefits to man. making life fuller, wider, healthier, richer in comforts and interests, and in such happiness as material things can promote. “But we are acutely aware that the engineer’s gifts have been and may be grievously abused. “Man was ethically unprepared for so great a bounty. In the slow evolution of morals he is still unfit for the tremendous responsibility it entails. The command of Nature has been put into his hands before he knows how to command himself.

“I need not dwell on consequent dangers which now press themselves insistently on our attention. We are learning that in the affairs of nations, as of individuals, there must, for the sake of amity, be some sacrifice of freedom. Accepted predilections as to national sovereignty have to be abandoned if the world is to keep the peace and allow civilisation to survive.

“Geologists tell us that in the story of evolution they can trace the records of extinct species which perished through the very amplitude and efficiency of their personal apparatus for attack and defence. This carries a lesson for consideration at Geneva. LOST JOYS OF WORK “But there is another aspect, of the mechanisation of life which is perhaps less familiar, on which I venture in conclusion a very tew words. “More and more does mechanical production take the place of human effort, not. only in manufactures but in all our tasks, even the primitive tusk of tilling the ground. So man finds this, that while he is enriched with a multitude of possessions and possibilities beyond his dreams, he is in great: measure deprived of one inestimable blessing, the necessity of toil.

“We invent the machinery of massproduction, and for the sake of cheapening the unit we develop output on a gigantic scale. Almost automatically the machine delivers a stream of articles in the creation of which the workman has had little part. “He has lost the joy of craftsmanship, the old satisfaction in something accomplished through the conscientious exercise of care and skill. In many cases unemployment is thrust

upon him, an unemployment that is more saddening than any drudgery.

. “And the world finds itself glutted with competitive commodities, produced in a quantity too great to bo absorbed. “We must admit that there is a sinister side even to the peaceful activities of those who in good faith and with the best intentions make it their business to adapt the resources, of nature to the use and convenience of man. “Where shall we look for a remedy? I cannot tell. “Some may envisage a distant Utopia in which there will be a perfect adjustment of labour and the fruits of labour, a fair spreading of employment and of wages and of all the commodities that machines produce. Even so the question will remain. “How is man to spend the leisure ho has won by handing over nearly all his burden to an untiring mechanical slave ? “Dare he hope for such spiritual betterment as will qualify him to use it. well ?

“God grant, ho may strive for that and attain it. It is only by seeking he will find. I cannit tbink that, man is destined to atrophy and cease through cultivating what after all is one of his most God-like facilities, the creative ingenuity of the engineer.”