"DO NOT HOLD UP SCIENCE, BUT SPEED UP MORALS"

Wanganui Chronicle, 15 September 1948, Page 5

"DO NOT HOLD UP SCIENCE, BUT SPEED UP MORALS"

Philosopher Says The Arts Have Degenerated; Guidance Needed

D . (Special N.Z.P.A. Correspondent) Received 7.20 p.m. LONDON, Sept. 14 The arts, particularly the theatre and cinema, have become non-moral, in the opinion of Viscount Samuel, president of the Royal Institute of Philosophy. Addressing the British Association at Brighton, he said:

Crime is an entertainment, murder a parlour game, adultery is taken as a matter of course; compunction and remorse have little place and religion never enters.” Viscount Samuel was talking on science and philosophy. The old cynical view that politics was nothing more than a struggle for wealth and power had gained a fresh hold, be said, and it was this negative mood that had affected the arts. "Leaders of thought must not for ever offer to the people contradictory ideas on fundamental issues," he said. 'They should come together to give the world the guidance it so urgently needs. In the long run it is ideas that rule, not things, nor yet force. Not science is to be blamed, but the treason of some among thinkers; the weakness, blunders of crimes of statesmen,, the passion of peoples. "Not science is shaken by the shock of the atom bomb. It i; philosophy and religion, because of their failure to give to modern man effective moral leadership.’’ The remedy for the world’s troubles was not to hold up science, but to speed up morals. “So far from conflicting with religion, science will strengthen it," said Viscount Samuel. “By helping to simplify, purify and enlarge our con-