and Government.

We find that the progress of science has enormously increased man's
power over the forces of nature. Is it a good thing that man's power
over the forces of nature should be increased? That surely depends on
the manner in which this power is used, and this depends again on the
moral nature of man. When we observe, as we may truly observe,
especially at the present time, that of all the single applications
which man has made of science, the most extensive and perhaps the most
efficient is that of devising implements for destroying his brother man,
it is at least permissible to raise the question whether the progress of
science has contributed on the whole to the progress of humanity. Had it
not been for the progress of science, which has enormously increased the
wealth of the world, it is doubtful if this war, which is mainly a war
about wealth, would have taken place at all. Or if a war had broken out,
it would not have involved the appalling destruction of human life and
property we are now witnessing--such that, within a space of two years,
about six million human beings have been killed, thirty-five millions
wounded, and wealth destroyed to the extent of about fifteen thousand
millions sterling--though some say it is very much more. Science taught
us to make this wealth: science has also taught us how to destroy it.
When one thinks of how much of this is attributable to the progress of
science, I say it is _permissible to raise the question_ whether man is
a being who can safely be entrusted with that control over the forces of
nature which science gives him. What if he uses this power, as he
plainly can do, for his own undoing? To ask this, as we can hardly help
asking, is to transfer the question of scientific progress into the
sphere of morality. It is conceivable that the progress of science might
involve for us no progress at all. It might be, and some have feared
that it may become, a step towards the self-destruction of the human
race.

Take the mechanical arts. The chief effects of progress in the
mechanical arts have been an enormous increase in the material wealth
of mankind, and, partly consequent upon this, a parallel growth of
population in the industrial countries of the world. It is by no means
clear that either of these things constitutes a definite step in human
progress. Consider the growth of population--the immense increase in the
total bulk and volume of the human race. Whether t