A GOOD WORD FOR RATS

Grey River Argus, 21 March 1940, Page 9

A GOOD WORD FOR RATS

1 find it odd, my pibed self, that these Peace-loving rodents do not. use our rational And righteous arguments of guns and gas. For, though black rat with brown rat disagrees, And individuals quarrel in the mass, The rat is resolutely international. —From “The Writing on tne Wall, by Siegfried Sassoon;

Pure science is a delicate plant. Il has never flowered in Spain, and to day (1932) it is almost dead in J 1 Everywhere there are strong forces' working against it....1f science is to improve man as it has improved his environment, the experimental method must be applied to him. It is quite likely that the attempt to do so will rouse such fierce opposition that science will again be persecuted as it has been in the past.... If the less intelligent of our species continue to breed more rapidly the able, we shall' probably go 'he. wav of the dodo and the kiwi. Me. do not as yet know enough to avert this fate....lt is quite likely that mankind will very gradually deteuorate.... mankind will return to ba—barism, and finally become extinct. If tins happens, I venture to hope that we shall not have destroyed the rat, an animal of considerable enterprise which stands as good as chance as any other of evolving towards intelligence. . —J. B. S. Haldane, “Man’s Destiny in “The Inequality of Man.”