THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE

Hokitika Guardian, 13 May 1929, Page 7

THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE

PROBLEMS OF MANKIND. “The scientist is perhaps only a passing phase in thei evolution of man; after unguessable years it is not imuossibie that his work will be done, and the problems of mankind will be ciimc foi; each individual the problem of best ordering his own life. Or it may ho that the programme of the scientist, although finite, will turn out to need more J.imc than - the life ol the world itself,” writes Professor P. W. Bridgman, of Harvard 'University, in “Harper’s Monthly.” “But doubtless by far llie most important effect of this revolution will not be on the scientist, but on the man in the street. The immediate effect will Im to let loose a. veritable intellectual spree of licentious and debauched thinking. This will come from the refusal to take at its true value the statement that it is meaningless to penetrate much deeper than the election, and will have the thesis that there is really a. domain beyond, only that man with his present limitations is not fitted to enter this domain. Tlie man in the street will, therefore, twist the statement that the scientist has come to the end of meaning into the statement that the scientist has penetrated as far as he can with the tools at his command, and that there is something beyond the ken of the scientist. This imagined beyond, which tlie scientist has proved he cannot penetrate, will. -become the playground of the imagination of every mystic and dreamer. Tlie existence of such a . domain will be made the basis of an orgy oF rationalising.”