16 MARCH 1962, Page 12

ANTHONY STORR Dr. Leavis's outburst against C. P. Snow will

surely evoke almost as many counter-attacks upon himself as would gratify him. I will there- fore confine myself to one small point. Dr. Leavis says: 'That he has really been a scientist, that science as such has ever, in any important inward way, existed for him, there is no evidence in his fiction.' This statement is demonstrably false. If I wished to prove to anyone that the pursuit of science could be an important, in- ward experience, I should ask him to read two books. One would be Bronowski's Science and Human Values; the other, The Search, by C. P. Snow. The latter contains an exciting description of the inward experience of making a creative scientific discovery. It also paints a vivid picture of the revolution in physics in the Twenties and Thirties of this century; a revolution which has altered both the inner and the outer lives of all of us. Perhaps Dr. Leavis might bring himself to read it. But I am afraid that his attitude to science must be like that of his hero, D. H. Law- Vence, who believed that all scientists were liars, that evolution was nonsense, and that the moon was `a globe of dynamic substance, like radium or phosphorus, coagulated upon a vivid pole of energy.'