SCIENCE AND MAN
By GORDON MILLER T is impossible to survey this great crisis of our civilisation and
I to read the continents of all shades of responsible opinion with- out feeling that the true extent of our dilemma has largely passed unnoticed. Man's intelligence, it is constantly reiterated, has far outpaced his morals. But how is the leeway to be made up? Is it just to happen fortuitously, or is some great crusade to bring about that spiritual renaissance which appears to be our salvation? Surely the lessons of history should warn us against the possibility of such quick and easy victory. Does then not the solution to the enigma lie in man's intelligence being devoted to the study of those factors which make for moral progress or moral decay? The proper study of mankind is man. It cannot be said that we have yet even seriously contemplated the task.
No better illustration of this can be found than in the confusion with which the Allies are attempting the moral rehabilitation of Germany and Japan. No one has any clear idea of how to go about the task ; our science of psychology which might be expected to offer some guidance in the matter, has little to tell us. Significantly enough, and symptomatic of the falseness of our approach to the problems of man and society, few people seem to realise that in the absence of some true understanding of group behaviour, both normal and abnormal, any decisions which may be taken regarding the German and Japanese peoples will be founded on guesswork and on the emotional and intellectual prejudices of our statesmen and military leaders.
It may well be that if some future civilisation rises on the ashes of the old, the historians of the new age will discern in the pre- occupation of our science with the physical world, and the almost complete neglect of the social sciences, the fatal error of our time. Clearly, physical science, however admirable its endless achieve- ments, cannot supply the answer to those problems which threaten to uproot our civilisation. Physical science cannot free man from the bondage of his hate, his fear, and his greed ; it cannot tell us what, if any, are the fundamental differences between nations and between individuals ; it cannot tell us how to promote a high level ot civilisation and to guard against its decay ; it cannot protect us against economic chaos, booms, slumps, and unemployment ; it cannot solve the problem of crime and other forms of anti-social behaviour. Yet when our very existence depends on the right answers forthcoming to these, and many other such questions, our best brains, far from being applied to their solution, are, in the coming years, to be devoted to a still m3re intensive study of matter, the outcome of which might feasibly be the complete disintegration of our planet.
It may be urged, however, that we have our social sciences, and that the problems of man and society are by no means uninvesti- gated. Professor McDougall, the psychologist and sociologist, urged that, failing some development in the human sciences comparable with that of the physical sciences, our civilisation could not endure: writing in 1931* at the time of the economic depression, he had this to say about the sciences of man as they were then, and as, of course, they still are: "we talk of psychology, of economics and of political science, of jurisprudence, of sociology and of many other supposed sciences ; but the simple truth is that all these fine names mark great gaps in our knowledge, or rather fields of possible sciences that as yet have hardly begun to take shape and being . . . they vaguely indicate regions of a wilderness hardly yet explored, yet regions which must be reduced to order if our civilisation is to endure." ' * World Chaos. McDougall advanced several reasons for this lack of balance in our scientific outlook. The physical sciences are, as he points out, the easier, and within the range of our mental capacities evolved in man's struggle with his material environment. Secondly, the benefits of physical science are immediate and obvious: housing, transport, wireless, clothing, and so on ; whereas the influence of the human sciences in stable government, education, finance and law arc not readily appreciated. He was also critical of the Church as adopting a reactionary attitude to any advance in our understanding of the ancient customs and beliefs of man. Here one may well dissent. It is not, perhaps, irrelevant to point out that the early Christian Church in civilising the Vandal and Goth displayed a more realistic understanding of the crude energies of primitive man than the present-day materialist in his approach to the problem of the Nazis and Japanese. In the final analysis, however, it would seem that attention has been concentrated on the study of physical phenomena because, in the narrowest sense, it has paid : economically and mili- tarily. Can we be sure that during the next twenty years physical science will continue to pay dividends, or even show a credit balance in our favour?
Failing some substantial advance in the sciences of economics, psychology, politics and biology, it is difficult to understand how the further progress of technology can be to our advantage. Rather will it, indeed, intensify the chaos in the world, and bring us all finally to complete catastrophe. Let us consider, for example, what may lie ahead if the dreams of the more optimistic are realised and atomic energy is used exclusively to satisfy the wants of man. Is it reasonable to suppose that the millennium will then have been achieved? May we not anticipate the appearance of those symp- toms which seem to attend every major increase in our productive powers: unemployment, alternating booms and slumps, grave social and political unrest. . . . The last great trade slump produced a startling diversity of economic opinion: some economists advocated an inflationary policy ; others held that deflationary methods alone would bring about a recovery of world trade. These diametrically opposed opinions, and many others, daily filled the columns of our Press during those times. Have we any reason to believe that our science of economics is any better placed to offer guidance :n the delicate matter of balancing production and consumption sheuld our productive powers rapidly increase tentold or a hundred-fold? Does anyone even realise that much economic research and study is needed before we can have confidence that out productive powers are our servants and not our masters? Furthermore, what of the psychological and social consequences of a mass increase of leisure and material prosperity? That grave evils have attended the growth in popularity of the cinema and, to a certain degree, the wireless cannot be denied. A shorter working day, a bewildering array of consumer goods, within the reach of all, television, synthetic educa- tion, boredom: what do all these things portend? The realisation of a happy Wellsian dream ; or the irrevocable decay of civilisation when hopes were highest? Only some deep understanding, hitherto denied to us, of the nature and possibilities of the energies of man can save us, no matter down what road the importunities of physical science drive us.
It is not suggested that those engaged in the study of social science are inferior in ability to the physicists, the chemists, and the engineers. Rather is it that they are too few and with inadequate opportunities for research. One has only to consider the colossal expenditure, the bewildering number of scientific workers, and the magnificent team-work which led to the production of the atomic bomb to realise what might be achieved if similar forces were set to grapple with the problems of man and society. It will, of course, be argued that there are difficulties inherent in the study of man which render failure inevitable. But it is surely a policy of despair to urge that the task is hopeless before it is undertaken. Even failure, by stressing the immensity of the problems with which we grapple, might free us from those errors occasioned by undue opti- mism and a belief in a personal erudition merely masking prejudice or pious hopes. . . . But who can set a limit to man's intelligence? Yet if he gropes in darkness in search of his soul only a miracle will save him.
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