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Science
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Scientific Ethics ARCHIBALD V.
HILL
F o r e i g n Secretary, R o y a l Society, Professor of Physcology a n d Biophysics, University College, L o n d o n C a n i t be t h a t t h e speed a n d i n t e n s i t y of scientific discovery, a n d its technical application, w i t h o u t sufficient e t h i c a l restraint, have n o w r e a c h e d t h e l i m i t h e y e m d w h i c h m a n — w h o i s really j u s t t h e s a m e i n p h y s i c a l , m e n t a l , a n d e m o t i o n a l r n a l t e - u p a s t h o u s a n d s of years ago will h e u n a b l e t o absorb and c o n t r o l t h e m ?
* S C I E N T I F I C discovery a n d its technical application m a k e u p a kind of self-propag a t i n g process, each new gain supplying t h e m e a n s or t h e impulse t o t h e n e x t one. A chain reaction m a y peter o u t because each element is too weak t o excite a n equal o n e t o follow it, or because its scale is too small. Or it m a y grow indefinitely in speed a n d intensity, because its scale is sufficiently large a n d each element on the average is strong and quick enough t o s t a r t off a greater successor. Or it m a y be subject t o inherent or intelligent control b y which t h e action of each element in exciting t h e next one is kept within the limits of s t a b l e operation. Scientific discovery in t h e p a s t has sometimes flared u p locally a n d t h e n died down a g a i n : t a k i n g a world view, its average t r e n d for several centuries has been a general gradual rise; but t h e process has never y e t r u n a w a y with itself. Today, however, w h e n the pursuit of science is world-wide, when communication is rapid a n d when individual comfort a n d wellbeing and national wealth, prestige, and security a r e involved, t h e r e a r e obvious signs of a change i n t h e motive, tempo, a n d character of scientific advance. Will t h e products of h u m a n reason, ingenuity, a n d skill, a c c u m u l a t i n g w i t h ever-growing speed, combine with h u m a n irresponsibility t o set u p a final grand explosion in which civilization will perish? T h a t is one of the major problems, perh a p s t h e greatest problem, of t o d a y . History can show m a n y examples of regional civilizations which grew and flourished, a n d t h e n somehow became unstable and disappeared; paleontology, of biological species which prospered for a t i m e a n d t h e n died out. T h e r e is a strong tendency i n t h e h u m a n mind, particularly in England a n d America, t o reflect complacently, " A h , yes, b u t those things never h a p p e n t o u s . " P e r h a p s t h e last few years m a y have t a u g h t some of us a V O L U M E
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lesson: they very nearly did happen t o us. I t is n o t necessary t h a t our civilization, or indeed t h a t the h u m a n race itself should survive. T h e conditions of survival of m a n as a biological species, a n d of his civilization, involve a totally new factor i n biology, the use of organized reason and accumulated knowledge. T h a t m a d e t h e various civilizations possible, i t s perversion helped t o bring them t o an end, as i t might bring m a n himself. Optimists genially suppose t h a t such reason a n d knowledge inevitably increase h u m a n progress and t h e stability of h u m a n affairs. If those were used simply for the common welfare, t o assist i n t h e common struggle against t h e forces of n a t u r e , undoubtedly they would. I t is too easy, however, t o employ them in exactly the contrary way, in order to gain t e m p o r a r y advantage of wealth or power, b y causing damage or disorder elsewhere. I t is all t o o easy t o use reason and knowledge to produce and propagate unreason and mistrust: to employ their resources n o t for maintaining law b u t for organizing lawlessness, for increasing and not decreasing t h e entropy of h u m a n society. This idea of inevitable progress is one of the m o s t dangerous of illusions, founded a s it is o n a romantic disregard for facts. W h a t is inevitable rather is general breakdown and disorder— unless decent h o n e s t m e n in all countries work together all t h e t i m e t o preserve and improve our c o m m o n inheritance of civilization. T h e dominating factor in human relations is t h e b a l a n c e at any time between reason a n d emotion. I n the past, in spite of frequent disturbances, the general course of history was tolerably stable: reason played, for good or for ill, only a minor p a r t : if men were not very reasonable, a t least t h e y could not pervert knowledge for producing general disorder and destruction. B u t biological systems, like those of inorganic n a t u r e , m a y h a v e MAY
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more t h a n one position of equilibrium and w e like t o fancy t h a t another stable state exists t o w a r d s which we are gradually moving. T h a t state, we imagine, is one in which reason will play a more substantial p a r t , no longer chiefly the handmaiden of emotion and prejudice, or t h e conscript of exploitation a n d t y r a n n y . B u t how are w e to g e t there? C a n gradual progress achieve i t ? O r is a supreme effort required now? I t is in -the n a t u r e of things t h a t between t w o positions of equilibrium there lies an energy b a r r i e r , or a region of instability. T h e chief difficulty is t h a t so long as unreason in the m a i n determines h u m a n cond u c t it will seek t o use reason a s its tool: a n d t h e m o r e potent t h e reason, if employed for unreasonable purposes, t h e greater t h e d a m a g e it can do. Reason in fact c a n n o t help u s over the barrier unless i t pulls i n t h e right direction, not t h e wrong. T h e energy available i n h u m a n society for social betterment a n d normal a n d intellectual change varies from time t o time : Ln conditions of long stability i t is low, in t h e ferment of today it is momentarily h i g h . I t might b e great enough now, if rightly directed, t o get m a n k i n d over t h e h u m p betwen Reason and Unreason. I n the uniqueness of t h e present opport u n i t y lies its urgency : unless we seize it, i t m a y n o t come again until after a fresh disaster, w o r s e even t h a n t h a t of recent years. I n d e e d another such disaster, if reason growing in material power b u t n o t i n moral direction compromises with u n reason, m a y leave civilization in ruins with t h e b a n d i t s a n d international gangsters on top. This is a n a g e of scientific discovery a n d technical achievement and we are. here t o d a y t o celebrate t h e life and work of George Westinghouse, a pioneer in their application t o h u m a n comfort a n d security. Westinghouse was possessed n o t only of superlative ingenuity a n d skill in 1343
engineering and invention but of remarkable ftrision and courage in their application. Perhaps equally important in the development of his great enterprises "was his «onsideration and respect for human labor and those who worked for him. He wasiiin fact an outstanding examples of ieadisjrship in the movement of the last hunlbred years which has given us today sucl vast opportunities—if only we can take them—for the betterment and broadening of human life. We do right to honor his naemory. But in spite of past achievemeitfc and present opportunity it is no>t all lovclly in the garden, and world events parliÂicularly since 1933 have for ceci on scientific men many questions which in then- final analysis are ethical, not s
