Man Armed With Science Is Like A

Shelley And Keats Were The Last English Poets Who Were At All Up To Date In Their Chemical Knowledge.

Science Affects The Average Man And Woman In Two Ways Already. He Or She Benefits By Its Application Driving A Motor-car Or Omnibus Instead Of A Horse-drawn Vehicle, Being Treated For Disease By A Doctor Or Surgeon Rather Than A Witch, And Being Killed With An Automatic Pistol Or Shell In Place Of A Dagger Or A Battle-axe.

It Seems To Me Immensely Unlikely That Mind Is A Mere By-product Of Matter. For If My Mental Processes Are Determined Wholly By The Motions Of Atoms In My Brain I Have No Reason To Suppose That My Beliefs Are True. They May Be Sound Chemically, But That Does Not Make Them Sound Logically. And Hence I Have No Reason For Supposing My Brain To Be Composed Of Atoms.

My Practise As A Scientist Is Atheistic. That Is To Say, When I Set Up An Experiment I Assume That No God, Angel, Or Devil Is Going To Interfere With Its Course; And This Assumption Has Been Justified By Such Success As I Have Achieved In My Professional Career. I Should Therefore Be Intellectually Dishonest If I Were Not Also Atheistic In The Affairs Of The World. And I Should Be A Coward If I Did Not State My Theoretical Views In Public.

Science Is As Yet In Its Infancy, And We Can Foretell Little Of The Future Save That The Thing That Has Not Been Is The Thing That Shall Be; That No Beliefs, No Values, No Institutions Are Safe.