EDITOR'SNOTE: There is so much to commend to our readers in the following essay that we feel it deserves more attention than the usual location in the Recent Books columns. The obvious first criterion for special consideration is the importance of the subject: in this case, a. most thought-provoking vohme. When the subject is treated in prose of such quality as the following, we are anxious to share it with readers of this psge who seldom find such fare set before them. The hook under discussion is "The Tao of Science," by R. G. H. Siu, published by the Technology Press of M.I.T. and John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1957 ($4.25). The author of this review is Professor Walter J. Moore of Indiana University. The quality and breadth of his scholarship are familiar to chemical educators who know his "Physical Chemistry," now in its second edition, published by PrenticeHaII, Ino. Following his doctoral work a t Princeton, Professor Moore held a Netionsl Research Council fellowship a t Citl Teoh and taught at the Catholic University of America. In 1951-52 he was a. Guggenheim and Fulhright Fellow at the University of Bristol before assuming his present position at Indiana. Kinetics and the chemistry of the solid state are his major research interests.
ITIS IMPORTANT to find a book that concerns itself with the interplay of two of the deepest problems confronting mankind: the quickened meeting of East with West and the relation of Science t o Society. The author is R. G. H. Sin and his book is called "The Tao of Science-An Essay on Western Knowledge and Eastern Wisdom." Dr. Sin is of Chinese race and American nationality, a native of Hawaii, and a P6.D. in organic chemistry from Pasadena. He has worked in pure and applied research and is now technical director of the U. S. Army Quartermaster Corps. Like the piety of the vicar in a Compton-Burnett novel, which lay so deep that it could never be expected to show on the surface, the themes considered by Dr. Sin are so important that they are never mentioned to students in our universities: What causes one piece of scientific work to be good and another better, what path should a scientist follow t o create the good work, what is the proper relation of teacher t o pupil, what are the limits of a scientist's responsibility t o political groups? These problems might be called the metaphysics, aesthetics, and ethics of the scientific lie, and perhaps the whole subject could be called metascience. The originality of Dr. Siu's approach is that he tries to show that this metascience is not only a field for rational, philosophic analysis, the method discovered by the Greeks and since pursued by Western scholars, hut also a field in which the Eastern method of contemplation of the undifferentiated world of man-in-nature may provide illumination. He thus considers the Taoist concept of "no-knowledge." No-knowledge is superrational in origin. "It is in-
digenous to all nature, hence, no-knowledge is not a projection of one's ego into nature; it is nature's ego shared by all." I n the words of T'ao Chien, "In these things there lies a deep meaning; yet when we would express it, words suddenly fail us." From this concept of nature, Dr. Siu deduces a theory of creativity. "The average scientist regards creativity as an extension of rationality. Prevailing ideas of thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, enzyme-substrate complexes and so on, are t o be thrown like baited hooks into the ocean of knowledge. If this is repeated with sufficient persistence, some hitherto unknown may be hauled in by the lucky fisherman. But such is not the way of creativity. Rational hooks do not sink in the waters of no-knowledge. To plumb the depths of no-knowledge, one must rely on his own ineffableawareness of the ineffable." The "average scientist" might object that this description does not seem to fit the empirical facts of scientific creation. Those who have had the privilege of hearing C. N. Yang talk on the problem of parity, would recognize that in this young physicist we have a living example of Eastern wisdom and Western knowledge, but nothing in his methodology suggests the stirring of mystic pools by ineffable breezes, no more than does the work of Einstein, Rutherford, or Gibbs. Although we may not agree with Dr. Siu's analysis of creativity, his remarks on the "essential ferment in education" are worth careful study. Like Oppenheimer and others, he recognizes the need for specialization, which "provides a penetrating training for the intellect and an inner devotion to the field. The
students dig exhaustively to gain a firm hold on the more fundamental roots of knowledge. General education does not elicit these surges from the depths; frequently it is superficial and windblown." The prescription for education is that "students should be weaned from the idea that there is a single, sharp resultant to a given problem. . . . The intimate grasp of the intricateness and shadings of life and its consistent expression in action form the basis for tolerance. . . . Educat,ional systems that continue to breed ignorant intolerance through the negative instrument of simplified schematic presentations are doing the students no good." Dr. Siu pleads for the "factualizing and humanizing" of events and of scientific work. Students should study the lives and times of the scientists and be taught the difficulties they had to surmount as well as their final results. So far, so good, but then another plea for the irrational supervenes. The student "should be untethered from the restrictions of verbal and written symbols." Most teachers of chemistry would agree that no special effort need be devoted to this program, a favorite remark of our students being, "I understand what I mean but I don't know how to put it into words." Whether or not this is the "wordless communion with nature" of the Buddhist masters, it would be irreverent t o inquire. I n the final part of his book Dr. Siu asks that the scientist accept the responsibility for the applications of his work. "When an atom is split and a hundred thousand lives are smothered and the world is thrown into terrible anxiety for centuries thereafter, how can the layman believe that the splitting of an atom is a great and commendable accomplishment and the resultant destructiveness a blameless inadvertence?" Yet Dr. Siu's advice to the scientist on this point is not very helpful. "They cannot he men as scientists. They must shake off their servitude to the chains of abstract and rational thought. They must control the scientific implements, put them in their proper perspective and lose them in the intimacy of their
total experience as men." We might retort that the times seem to call for more and not less rational thought. I n a world in which before long politicians of France, China, Egypt, and Argentina will be clamoring on the grounds of tribal prestige for their right to share in the poisoning of the atmosphere and earth of the planet, it would seem unwise to rely on subconscious forces to preserve the future of mankind. As an anthropologist remarked, "Primitive mentality is a fairly good description of the mental behavior of most people today except in their technical or consciously intellectual activities." Of many fine things in Dr. Siu's book, among the best are the following words, which might well be displayed in our laboratories and classrooms: "Great works emanate from dedicated sincerity. If the creator is actuated by the will to goodness he will untiringly pursue the hidden vagueness of unfinished experiments until he penetrates to the very heart of the problem. He will ferret. answers from the far reaches of his mind. Ideas dredged from the very bowels of his soul are hound to bear the stamp of originality, for no two investigators are prototypes to such depths. He will also be impelled to communicate the fullness of his findings in the clearest expression so that others will be infected with the same enthusiasm and share in their use. When the lust for discovery is inkindled by quick adulation and quick gold, there will be trolling only in shallow waters. The fishing lines of these researchers cross each other. Concepts emerge entangled and similar; readers are barraged with hollow claims of priorities and enlarged snapshots of minnows of invention. The more insincere the researcher, the more puerile the emerging science." Perhaps enough has been said to indicate that this is a deep and provocative hook. We may not agree with all of it, but all of it should he read several times. W. J. MOORE INDIANA UNIVERSITY BLOOMINGTON, INDIANA
JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION
