A Band Rose

8/3/2019 A Band Rose

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A Dialogue after GaBy J. 8 ,ronows

1 - A NOTE ONA i Christmas time in 1956 T h e Na-tion devoted a special i,ssue t o JBronowskis Science an d HumanVilues, an-essay which immediate-ly took, and has since held,a lead-ing place in the htellectual dialogueof our time. The issue tself was faroirersubscribed; the essay was pub-lished here in both hard cover andpaper editions CHarper Torch-books) and is even today sellingat a rate of 1,000 copies ,aweek; in England, Science an dH:uman Values has recentlybeenadded to the Penguin ibrary aftera most ,successful sale in the hard-cover edition.

THIS ISSUE That was the most tenaciousrear-guard action, writes Mr. Bro-nowski, thathas yet beenfoughtby traditional belief against the riseof science. 1 wrote my New Ilia-logue in order to make concretethe same attle,whichs beingfought- as bitterly today between#established tradition and the head-strong, creative spirit,of science.M r. Bronowski supposes that his]threecharacters they are identi-fied in a neighboring box} are at-tending an East-West conferenceon some cultural matter at Lucernein Swistzerland. Sir Edward St. Ab-lish.seniormember of the British

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ner, in the hope th,athe can appeatheir discord at east sufficientto maintain a show OE English hamonyat the congerence table. Bthis device, the author brings ntorelief an aspect of the Two Culturdebate thathasbeen little cosidered before. The protagonistslthe great schism of !this generatioare not only champions of differe(or seemingly mfferent) vduethey are also men who, by instinand training, display sharply clasing personalities Being a poet well as a scientist, Mr. Bronowsmakes vivid his insight that the rsolution of this human incompaibility is at least as vitd a good the definition of an encompassi

Meanwhile, the problem whose ldelegatmn, has invitedhismutual- ntellectual and moral program.~~ ~~ ~~~~~di*mensionsMr. Bronowski was the ly hostile junior colleagues to din-HE EDITOfirs t lto define has been impressed-evermore acutely o n the publicmind,\both hereand abroad. I t wasgiven its name, The Two Cultures,ib a celebrated monograph by C . P.iSnow, andts ,implications avebeen raced in government policy,educationalracticendnhecreative and criticaldocuments ofthe time., Accordingly, I&. Bronowslri now,,returns ,to the heme in la moresharply focused and dramatic form.The three-sided conversationherepfeseated is modeled by him o nDialogue on the Great W o r ld Sys-t e 6 ; tl work for which Galileo was

condemned by thenquisition in1633;, and which .the Holy. Office-kq$ i n the ndex-offorbidden books .fad- nother.200 yea&; ..


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THE DIALOGUESI R EDWARD: telephoned f o r thistable because I remembered the sun-set. Professor Potts, you must sithere, on my right , where he viewi s best. , . . Will you take the otherslde, Dr Harping? And move yourchair around a little, do; you mustsee theunset.That i s what Ibrought you fo r , both of you.I-TARPING:ir Edward, you said thata l l the wa y up in the train.The viewIS fine here; do I have #tocrane myneck at it all the time?Why do peo-ple with knighthoods always behaveas if they had personally arrangedthe sunset?SIR EDWARD:Come, Dr. Hasping,that Is not worthy 6f your wit. I didnoL arrange for the sun to set. ButI did personally arrange for you tobe here when i t did set.POTTS: Bravo, Sir Edward. Andthat, my dear Harping, is called ad-mmistration.SIREDWARD:ndeed it is, ProfessorPotts:dministration. And I amproud to put it to the service of thesunset. Isnt it beautlful? That glowof Bammg red on ,the mow, andthen he hard scarlet flash behindtlw peaks.HARPING : Huh!SIR DWARD:Do back me up, Potts.These literary men n o longer carefor beauty.POTTS: YOU pu t me in a false po-sition, Slr Ed wq d. Not appreciatingthe beauty of the Alps is an oldstory, you know. Samuel Butler tellsi t .SIREDWARD:Really? I didnt knaw.J . BrotLowski, Polish-born and a resi-d e n t of Exglatzd s ince 1920, is bothsciewtist a n d m a ~ z f Zetierg. H e is cli-rector of 17~cCod Research Establ ish-7rzelzt, I LUS lectured at M.I.T., is the au-Ll~or of The Colnmon Sense of Sci-c n c c . he l~ns ls o zuritterz The PoetsDefense,.William Blake: A Man With-out a Mask, m c l , a mnmber of radzoplays, a m o ng tlaenz t h e celebratedFace ,of Violence. I n the very n e a rfuture, M r . Bronowski is Tcszglaing h i sp o s t with th e N n t i o m l Coal Board tot a k e up Tesidence in L R Jolla, C a bf o m i a , a s o m of t h e f e l l o ws of t h en e w Salk Inski tate f o r BriologmdStudies.T h lZustmfions fo r tT~is s sue , EX -e l r l p l t f y i j t g f l f LeertllL- .q ~ c l ixtee1zLlt-w l t t m y weclccu_ilutioll w i t h , 8 C i C I l C Eamd the, & Z Q ~ ~ ~ ~ Z S S ,ere S L L F U E E ~ byt Y w N ew Y Q Y ~ublzc LiblkarynJ a m q Y y 8, 1964

HARPING: h Potts, not that Vietori-an chestnut.POTTS:A-friend of Butlers praisedthe scenery to a Frenchman whowas staying in the same hotel TheFrenchman shid politely, Oh, do,you like thebeauties of nature? Idetest them.SIR EDWARD: see I am n for achfflcult eveningwith the two ofyou. I brought you here to ask youto be nice to each other. I hopedyoud find some colnmon ground.HARPING: We haveommonground, Sir Edwaxd. We like beingbeastly to you.SIR EDWARD: wont listen to you,Harping. I am about to order yo ua glass of sherry. I shall order hesherry that I like; kindly have thegrace to like it too. And do n o t readme a sermon on the evils of alco-hol, either of you.HARPING:Potts, I want to ask youa questipn. If the sunset leaves youcold,why dont you say so? Whydo you need Samuel Butler d giveyou courage?POTTS:Because Samuel Butler is ahero of mine. He was full of fanciesand he quarreled with Darwin, buthe had an interesting mind.HARPING:Nothing about his storyis interesting. 3 He wasnt .even theone who, detested nature, remem-ber? It washeFrenchman. Youjust drag in Samuel Butler becauseyou want literary upport.Why?Youre supposed to be a scientist.Why this paramde of, t he well-+cad, well-thumbed liierary sources?These are tid-bits that my first-yearstudents kno,w, even if Sir Edwarddoesnt. You dont need to show of,fthat you know them too.PoTTs: Of coursenot, Harping; Idont show of. I am simply used,to quotmg my sources. If SamuelButler .made he original observa-tion; then I quote Samuel Butler.And hewas a most original ob-server, yo u must agree,HARPING:He was not. He was aneccentric,so you think he was origi-nal. ,Thatls the judgment of science.And he disliked autliority, so youquote him as an authority. Thatsthe scientific abtitude. And r e d y ,ibs so t e i r ~ y i e r b y - ike &+tillP u hmw, SamueIButIir had a pas-alld E t O L k 3 -8bQUt fn ~O!I!lSWL

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The Cast~ L R DWARDT. ABLISH repre-sents he Establishmeht : Ur-banend maddeninglytol-erant, fifty-five-plus, DeputySecretary to the Ministry ofEducation (o r theike), ac-qmred Oxford voice with Edin-burgh base.DR. AMOS HARPING representsthe iterary uries, scpcthjngbetween Scrut iny and J W m yPorter: a puritan anger, butbitter because he feels helplessin a changing t ime - bdutthirty-five, Reader in Englishat Southampton, say, Midlandvoice of preacher with cuttingedge.PROF. LIONELPOTTS,FRS, repre-sents science: a little smug, be-cause success came young, anaslow to see that there really are

, other poiits of view (and in-terests) han hat pf the m o -lecular hiologist-not yet fdrty-five, lacking the critical gift bfthe othertwo, his ense of mis-(slon as sharply positive astheirs is negative, Irish -voicesmoldering with idealism.sion for new-laid eggs. I shall avoidhaving breakfastwith you, Potts, forfear that Y O U will feel it necess-to bore me with his example in wr-der to justify your second e g g .SJR EDWARD:Hereshe, sheryy,gentlemen, an d please drink i t t en-perately. Its a triumph to get,sherqbefore dinner in .Switzerland-yes,!I know, Professor Potts, a triumphof administration.POTTS:A triumph hat I appreci-ate, Sir Edward.ST REDWARD: a m sure you wereglad of the diversion, Potts. All thesame, Ilarping, I ,dont l&k youwere fair. Why be cruel to Potksheroes? You have !your heroes t?$?,I remember; I have lleaxd you.beingvery tedious aboutD. H. Law re ye- ndatbreakfast, too. Is thereanything to choose between them?Butler the sby eccdntric of the head;and Lawrence the :stern eccentric oftheheart. Adn$t, i t ,Dr. Ha@ing;the heart has its :ukreasons toolHARPING: ir kdwpd St. Ablish, d eyou seriously suigesting, h i t , he11 cofouud slid professional crafl ,ofD. H o h 1 W e I l C C i i 5 td P, CGEI$&E~~7ii& th e diktt$a,k&Jents of -, ?a


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SIR E D W A R D : lease ,dont get up,Dr Harping; there 1s n o tram backfor some time. I am suggesting thatThe Way. of All Flesh is a novel ofthe same excellence as The WhitePeacock, certainly. But you miss mypoint if you turn t nto an argu-ment about literary merit.P O T T S :And what is your point, SirEdward?Sm EDWABD:My point, ProfessorPotts, is that you both need heroes,Dr. Harping and you. Harping has,been scoldmg you because you can-not be unconventional on your own

, two feet. You have a solemn con-vention for being unconventional-its the scientific convention.-ButHarping hashis own convention,too, for beingunconventional. Hetakes his tie off when he lectures;and I dare say you have some trickof strippieg off your white coat intimes of drama in your laboratory.You pioneers have to be so individ-ual, both of you.Harping has tolook ldte his teacher - whats hisname? - r. Leavis; and you haveto look like an Irish groom.HARPING; dont deny that, Sir Ed-ward, and its not very deep. Weall have our patterns, Of course wedo. Pottshashis kind of noncon-formity, and I have mine. And youhaire your cozy conformity - oucan dispense with heroes. But I

wasnt taxingPottswith followinga pattern; I was criticizing the par-ticular, pattern that he follows. Its

such A , literary and derivative pat-tern. @.hyl call yourself a scientist, and then fill your mind with a rag-

- bag of nineteenth-centurysenti-, ments? 1s th at , supposed to be a

union of tw o d t u r e s ? You dontknow what literature is about, Potts.Culture, indeed; all you collect is a,,stringof cultdredearls. IPOTTS: I reallx dont see your evi-dence fo r that, ,Harping. Do you al-ways get carried away by one ex-

,) ample? We were asked, both of us,if we thought the sunset beautiful.Yon dont lik& my answer. Verywell, letme hkar yours. I noticethat you have avoided sayingany-thing yourself. 130 you find the sun-set eautiful? HARPING: Y ~ U F t be serious. youdont really e xp ep me to talk aboutbeauty in sunsets, do you?PoTTs:. Why not?, .SIR EDWARD: Why not,ndeed,Dr. Harping? -Ia&ed the,question,

and certainly I expect- a seriousanswer.Here it s, he ast of thesunset glowing over the Alps. Rosered of snow on crimson and vermil-ion over gold. In ten minutes i t willbe gone; and in half an hour it wiLlbe dark, Its a symbol of our con-ference: heWestbeingdrenchedwith red andafter hat, darkness.It deserves your attention, Dr. Harp-ing, surely; I wish I could get youto give it your joint at hi ti on , bobho f , you So, in all seriousness, Ishould like to have your reflectionson he unset, Dr. Harping.HARPING:But how can you asksuch a question? It doesnt makesense. Is the sunset beautiful? Whata word to use! The sunset isnt anobject,l ikea coin, and beauty isnta value that% been stamped on it ,officially: onesunset,mint condi-tion, like a half-crown.POTTS Youre always protesting,Harping.Here you are,ull ofscorn, telling us what the sunset isnot. All right, I know what the sun-set is not. It:s not a half-crown, andI never hought it was. And I didnot ask you what the sunset is not.Just tell me what it is. Tell me ifits beautiful,nd why. IHARPING:But the question doesntmean anything; otts. Id rathernothaveused words likebeauty;but if thats the word we want touse; very well. Beauty is not a cur-rency; it cant be passed from hand,to hand at an agreed value; and itcertainly is not absolute by nature.Beauty is a personal relation; some-thing hat he unset says to me,or doesnt say; and that I can .thendiscuss with you, and shed light onfor you, land you for me, But I can-not hand it ver to you as a finishedjudgment. I can hand you a copyof T h e White Peacock, Sir Ed-ward,but I cannot hand you itsgreatness. You can arrange for me ,to see thesunset,butt you cannotarrange f o r me to see its beauty.SIR EDWARD:I understandhat,Dr.Harping, and i f I may borrowyour phrase, its not very deep, Youhave omething deeper to explainto me: w.hy what hesunset saysto you and what it says to me can-not be contained in a common de-scription. Beauty is not absolute bynature, you said - think yousaid certainly, as people do whentheywant to avoid discussion. Didyou say kertai.n$$? ~ . ._ , L

HARPING:have n o doubt I didPOTTS. e would prefer you iocept the proposition as self-evirather hanas reasonable.SIR EDWARD: do not think .tbeauty is absolute either, Dy. Hing; I have learned that its notexperience.But I should likehave he proposition discussedwould make a n interesting sesof the conference: more interestinthan all the talk about- culture democracy. How we chmew those words, culture and democracy, two fried eggs - do you prthem Western style, sunny-side or simply turned over, Eaststyle?Thatreminds me, I hordered you an horsdoeuvre. Itvery Swiss, Im afraid; i t has chein t. Waiter! We will have hors doeuvre noh, andnotherglass of sherry.Can you beaagreewith the absolute judgmof all wine tasteys, Dr. Harpthat this is a beautifd sherry?

POTTS:Harping wi tell you you do not mean the abs,olute ument, Sir Edwazd; you meanuniversaludgment And younot mean a beautiful sherry, eitkyou,mean a splendid sherry.HARPINGAll -right; Fofs, teasemuch as you like . it still is so. Thare things you can say about sunsetwhichre plain enoucrude enough, to be universal. ,,sunset is splendid,meaning (like the sherry ) it is full. of gThe sunseat is pectacular, meanthat t is more colorful than daily view of the sky. You can esay that he sunset s exhilarabecause it gives aU of us, a seof thegrandeur of nature ;whwe lack at other times. Thesestatements which are, ough,, diand,at ,;bottom, descriptive.Theare essentially statements of fwhich have as their basic poinreference the cornonplace cotions of life that we all share.SIR E D W A R D :And yet I mustnsay that the sunset is beautiful?HARPINGNo, Sir Edward,yo u mnot; you must not, if you wanuse words sensitively. Beauty is measured, like splendor, by a cparisonwith the commonplaceis-felt in each f . u by what j s m-indiyidu.d.in-hiqx,Wh6nwe Idis,. - The.NA;.


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Itnow what you mean an d I shouldlike you to t e l l me. 5Please stop for a moment. Weare to have trout and Pouilly Fum6.The service is indifferent, but thatis the penalty that we pay for beingon op of a mountain, I have ob-Eerved (is hat he neutra l word Iought .to use?)-Ihave observedthat i n , Switzerland hequality ofthe service varies inversely witht h e altitude. Is that a description, inyour philosophy, Harping,or is i ta judgment? No, I mustnt be triv-ial; I apologize ,o yo u both. Potts,you are going to explain why youcannot separate a description froma judgment.POTTS: Gladly, Sir Edward, andvery easily.Harping says that Ilook dowri a microscope and de-scribe what I see. I say that I de-scribe what I judge th,at I see.SIR EDWARD:s that an importantdifference?HARPING:,Of course it snot, SirEdward.Potts is simply using atrick of speech. What he describesis what he sees or w h t he believesthat he sees; it ha s nothing ,todowith judgment.POTTS: t ha s everything to do withjudgment. H q i n g teUs mehatthe ,sunset is red and #then asks mecontemptuously forheavelength, But I a m n o t a machine-Iuse a machine.That s, I look atthe record and ,then I judge what Issall say. Shall I giveAmos Harp-ing the wave length to a fraction ofan angstrom? And if so , what frac-tion? Or will it do to give i t to him(,andomyself) to theearestthousand? And that in itself was ajudgment, Harping-it was myjudgment d our seriousness.HARPING: otts, you astonishme.A m I to take you seriously? I talkaboutprofound and human judg-ments of natureand of art. Andyou tell me, with a straight ace,that reading a slide rule is an act ofjudgment, too, because you have tom&e#up your mind, your immenseand cosmically learned mind, whatis thenearest whole number hatyon will quote from the slide rule.How trivial-no, I beg yourpar-don, lSir Edward; you used that

J word. How say, how fundamen-tally siUy can you be, Potts?POTTSNot how silly, Harping: thequestion is, bow fundamental canJI make you be . You t-h;nk that i t is

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trivial to decide whether I shallread a slide rule to one decimalplace or to two. What does it mat-ter, you lsay; one makeswhateverapproximation is convenient. Youare mistaken-deeply ,mistaken.Every approximation in science isa judgment; it asserts hat theanaly-sis needeushed nourther.We ca n stop here, it says; what hasbeen left out is not im$ortmt. Andwhat does important mean? Itmeans that what has been put in isjudged to be relevant, andwhathas been eft out is judged not tobe relevant. Every scientific de-scription is of this kind: it putsdown what it judges to matter, andit leaves out what it judges not tomatter. And then one day a scien-tist of moredventurousmindmakes a newudgment. He de-cides to push he analysis a stepfurther. He is notcontent o ac-cept ;that only so muchmatters;andwhenhenewdetail is in-cluded, the picture of the universethat accommodates it is wholly dif-ferent,SIR EDWARD: Wholly different,Professor Potts? Is it really verydifferent? Does thepicture of .theuniverse r e d y changemuch be-cause ascientist loolrs at he nextdecimal point?POTTS: es,SirEdwartd, the pic-ture is transformed. Relativity, asan equation, is only minutely dif-ferent from Newtons physics; butas a picture of theuniverse, it isfantasticallyifferent. Wliat $dEinstein do? Very little. R e refusedto accept the udgment of others,that time is an irrelevant comtant.UARPTNG: dontelieve, ,that. Idontbelieve that Einstein discov-ered relativity hy arguingboutanotherplace of decimals. And fhedid: if the approximation of ascientist is a judgment, then I havestill to be convinced ,that it is asearching judgment-a judgmentwhich truly involves the mans per-sonality. My butchermakes a pprokmations too, every time heslaps a piece of meat on the scale.Is he a judge, too, because ispocket is involved?POTTS:A mans adherence to sci-ence, his acceptance of that pic-ture of the universe, that is the in-volvement. Science is an integratedvision, and evenwhen I quote awave length, I judge every part ofscience. I judge that the parts form

a unity. There are no acts withthat unity, n o approximations, no descriptions. Thats whycalled your istinction shalone,Harping. I assure you,microscope shows ,nothing hatmachine could turn into a desction of life. Science is not mademachines, ut by men. And men in my laboratory are as deeinvolved, are as wholly parts their o w n judgments, as any sdent of yours wha discusses Shaspeares Sonnets with you.

SIR EDWARD: I understand yPotts. You say that a scientist, owriter, cannot describe what esees withcjut editing 3t, roundingoff, interpreting t; and that evsuch nterpretation is a judgmeThe young men in your !aboratoyou say, are involved in these juments, deeply, ashuman beinBut do you think, Potts, that whthe men in your laboratory discoi s of the same depth, the same in-tellectual depthandhuman coplexity, as the Sonnets?POTTS:The men in my laboratarenot all Shalcespeares, Sir ward. And neither re Harpinstudents. You must comparewith like. The journeymen of ence, the ournalists of literatuexist in every field. What my youmen discover is no doubt aboutgood as he poetry that Harpinstudents write.Sm EDWARD: am sorry, Pottsput my question badly., I will again. Is the vision,. (I, , thinkcalled it a vision) that your yomen: have of patureeiis that of ,same intellectual depthand humcomplexity as that which the Snets present?POTTS: f course it is. The visthat science presents of the phcal world now, in the second hof the wentiethcentury, is, inintellectualepth, itsomplegty2ndarticulation, th e mostbeautf u l an dwonderhl collective wof the mind of man.HARPING:A round and noble sement. Am I supposed to be awedthehought of Professor LioPutts reverentlyontemplating,once a day or so , the nteuectudepth, complexity and articulatof molecular ljidogpl

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Sm EDWARD:Dont be childish,Ilarpmg. Do you think t i s moreawe inspiring or less idiculous tothink of Dr. Amos Harping con-templating, once an hour or so, theemotionalepth, complexity andarticulation of D. H. Lameme?We are n o t schoolboys, Harping;

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we arenot even undergraduates,Potts nd I. You cant make usblush for our souls by asking us atwhat time of day we air them.HARPING. But I do ask you, SirEdward; I ask you both.Here isPottsaradingisinehrasesabouthentellectualepth,hecomplemty, thearticulation of sci-ence.otvenis own finephrases: C . P. Snows, I think, orelse Bronowskis.Andyou are m-pressed,and I am expected to beimpressed,becauseerhephrase makers that he quotes haveshown-have ,shown what, Sir Ed-ward? Theyhaveshown that .sci-ence is an intricatendeatlyjointedonstruction. Is this sup-posed to astonish and silence me?1s this supposed to comparewiththe wealth of Shakespeare and thewarmth of LaTrence? Science isan intricate and neatly jointed con-structionontemplate that oncea day, or every other minute. Whatshare do yo u have in it7 Yes,you, Potts, or your students, or yourfellow scientists? It san edificebudt almostntirely by others,piecemeal, brick by btick, to whichyou have added nothingbut per-hapsnother brick of theamekind. This s not a vision of nature;it is a description which is present-Janzmyd 1964

ed to you ready made, and you ac-cept i t and look for another brick.D o you seriously comparehis,Potts, with the sense of communitythat m y studentsget when theydiscuss either Shakespeare or Law-rence? My students (dont sneer atthem, Sir Edward), my studentshave to make their own discoveries,have to find and share and arguetheir own meanings.What is onthe page is only thebeginning otheirunderstanding.They do notsimply accept the work of art; theyre-create it .POTTS:Amos Harping, you reallyare the most fervent, he most de-voted and the blindest man that Iknow. Your students are the salt oftheearth; do you thinkmineareless? Your students stand on tiptoeand each or he ight. Do youthink mine do less? Your studentsargue nd discover and re-createevery tittle on the page that ou readwith hem. Do you think, can youthink, that my studen,ts do less? Mystudents wrestle with me the wayyour students wrestle with yau-neither mlore nor less. My studentsdont read Charles Darwin any lesscritically thanyours read Christo-pher Marlowe, andhey dd asmuch to Darwins meaning, theyenteras avidly into his mind,asyours do. Good God, Harping, youshould come to one of my seminars.Why, my students ( m y good situ-dents) wont even believe Mendelslawswithout earching heircon-science late into the night.SIR EDWARD:You must explainthat to me,ProfessorPotts. Yourecalled a molecular biologist. I dontquite know what that is, Potts, butI imagine that it makes you a biol-og st of some kind. Well, to me,and I suspect to Harping, too, biol-ogy is still something of a n o mansland. We arent sure hat Darwinand Mendel were altogetherscien-tists, as we think of science. So willyou give us an example from phys-ics? Something simple andpracti-cal that we learned at school, youknow, like Ohms law-the currentin a wire and all that.,Are you say-ing hat yourstudentsare allowedto argue about the urrentn awire ?POTTS:Of course, Sir Edward. Whyshould , a n electric current be sa-cred? My students .argue aboutOhms law like mad-that is, iftheyre any good they do. A dull

student can take Ohms 011trust and learn it by healt: ihe cur-rent in a w i r e 1s proportional to thepotentialdifference, and inverselypraportiond to the elecnicd resist-ance. I have no doubt that Harp-ings duller tudents earn bits ofJoseph Conrad by heart,too,andmake good practicaluse of themwhen they becolne schoolmastersor reviewers. But a blightgtudentdoes not ake even Ohms law 011trust.HARPING:You mean hathe goesinto the laboratory and tests i t forhimself with a piece of wire and abattery. That is theextent of hispersonalarticipation. IPOTTS:No, Harping, it is not. Abright student wants o know whya current actsin this way. He wantsto know why, al l over the universe,currents flow like this and onlylike &is. What s the nature of acurrent,he asks, that thas hisfaithful identity-in my copperwire, in the headlights of your car,in the collision of nebulae, in SirEdwards gold pin and in a ring oflead near the absolute zero of cold?The good students put it to me thatOhms law has to agree, to link andmake sense, with what they havelearqedaboutelectrons,about he

structure of metalsand about thepictuie of the tom hat Ruther-ford created.HARPING: But what does the tu-dent get from this, Potts? What doyou and your fellow scientists gefrom t? You confirm hat he description of nature hat has beenmade by others is internallycon-sistent. 1,s that B profoundexperi-ence? Sciende is an intricateand

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becausecit. can contain and-embraceand;be mirrored in al l the pjctures-Newton's as well as Einstein's, andRhtlierford's atom as 'well as ' t hewave equation,of Dirac. Do you sup-pose +at my ,students think thatRuthqford !was a fool because theatom has turned o u t to be moresubfle than he pictured i t fifty yearsago? , .HARPING: I don't understand you,Potts. .You have a, right to be senti-mental about Rutherford yourself,OP course; youprobably rememberhim. But why bother your studentswith h i m ? They want ,tu know thefacts;, they want- to know what theatom is like, truly. Why should theybe interested +Ihe past errors oflegendary,heroes? Rutherford is jus ta piece -of history t o them, a quaintallusion- nother of your literarytags; like Samuel Butler, that is in-tended 'to make science look gentle-manly and cultured.POTTS: Rutherford is part of ,theevolution of physics, of that won-derfhl collective work, as the Eliza-bethansare part of the collectiveevolution of literature. And Ruther-ford was the greatest of l i s con-temporaries, as Shakespeare was thegreatest of the Elizabethans. ,To beignorant of what Rutherford be-lieved: s LasTuncouthas not to haveread Shakespeare. I t wouldbe un-couth 4nrmy students, and it's un-

' couth in,you, Harping-and in you,t ~ o , , ir Edward, if you claim anyshare in the , culture of England inthe twentieth, century. Good- God,how can you ask me to speak up forEngland at conferences, and quoteShakespeare,?when yo u think thatRutherford is only. a quaint figurein thehistory of science, like

' Dr. .What's-his-name in TrishanzSlLartdy? ISIR DWARD:hat is rather severe,Potts. Iowevep, 'it's what I'm hereto mark and 'consider; so you mustsay what i s in,yourmind. Is Potts'sstricture air, Harping?HARPI NG:Nq,-it is not fair, Sir Ed-ward. I t - i s a play with words, andno more-a skil+l clich6, a cli'chefrom- the weeklies and he martSunday papers, but still a clicld.There is -no' round of comparisonbetween Rutherford a i d Shake-speare. and they do not belong too u r n i l t u x ia any 4 similar sense.I-Iow calx yo u dl-atw a11 analogy be -Lb:een *kh!l, Pcvl;ts, rP;l_LImuC?l~uElliagf&r:yoQY!!m2&dati~ll d - XCWS?JatewlLi;n 4; 3964

Shakespeare did not use languagein that way; he used it to expressthe essence of human motives, toevoke them' and to command themso that Ids language in itselfcre-ated a judgment of the condition ofman. Do you dare to ascribe suchcreations of the human spilit to anyscientist, however powerful h ismind? He may ;be a master in ex-periment, an eagle in observationand subtle as a spider in spinninghis theories; but he remains earth-bound-bound t o the sunset if youlike, bound by the inhumanity ofnature. Potts, how can you call any'scientific mind, even Rutherford,a Shakespeare? That is nothing butcheap journalism.

ISIR EDWARD:on't answer him yet,Potts. I want to hearwhat you'regoing to ,say..So give m e moment,please, to ;taste the claret first. Yes,excellent, it will do very well withthe veal. I apolo8ze f o r , he laminaeof veal, gentlemen; but you knowhow the Swiss are about meat. Asmall country making money nat-u d l y likes conspicuous display,such as these acres of veal on ourplates. But the 'Swiss are too greedyto let the display go to waste; 'theyeat the meat, every crumb of i t . IfThorstein Veblen had been Swissaxd not E+ndhJav;ian, he would nothave invented those grand' themiesabout conspicuous waste.POTTS: should like to sustain-mycompaisoni Sir Edward.S ~ RDWARD: YOU must, Pstts, youmust. B ut let me remind myselffirst how we got t o it . Harping hadgranlcd you ellal scientists Ilavecause l o )'eel, t!lelr yor!~~, m u eof ufitp-.tl3@-n+ture. But: then, IIG

asked, if nature is he criterion, howcan the dscientist claim a personalvision? How can you compare thefree imagination of Shakespearewith he earth-Eound inquiries ofRutherford? Go on, Potts, I'xe foundmy place.POTTS I should like to explain (andI had better do i t in detail) why'It h k that a great scientist's pictureof nature is as truly a creation and,yes, a vision, as is Shakespeare'svision of the human state. But I willgrant Harping one thing:hatShakespeare is n o t a good subjectfor the comparison he has chal-lenged me to male. Shakespeare, isnot a good subject, not because heis Shakespeare, but because he is awriter. I would like to make thecomparison with some 'otller kind ofartist; I a sculptor, perhaps, or acomposer, or a painter-someonewho does not use words; someonewho can be appreciated in everylanguage. Will you give me a paint-er, Sir Edward? ! 1SIR EDWARD: eonard0 da Vinci.H A R P I N G : I won't agree, o Leonar-do; he was to o close to science tomake a fair comparison. If we aretq have a painter, h e must be apure painter.POTTS: Choose a pure painler,Harping.HARPING: I will choose Rembrandt.POTTS:Very well, I will compareRutherford with Rembrand,t. Theymake a very good pair. They we=both dedicated men, both absorbedin their own activity to the poht ofpassion. You recognize them atonce, these 'creative men, by theirpatience, their preoccupation, thetrphysical immersiou ' inside theIllillgs 14llcymabc. l'hdr u?lsr!c is aM'WiJI Ear theni.sm Erhwmu ; Ttu aitis lmt b&g&e

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question, Potts. You have slipped inthe word creative.I have no doubtthat *Rutherford was always busywith his work, and single-mindedlike Rembrandt. I accept your bonmot: heir work was a world forthem. Men like that are fortunate;they are happy in their work, evenin adversity-absorbed, happy andfulfilled. I accept all those words,Potts. But creative? Have you given

~ me a n y ground for the word cre-ative.POTTS:Rembrandt and Rutherfordboth made something, Sir Edward.And what they made was original.Isnt that the definitionof creation? SIR EDWARD!Naw Iln not happywith your word original. Its oonarrow for what we are iying t ograsp. No doubt Rutherford had anoriginal mind; but the mind is onlya small past of a rounded personal-ity. what I want you to tell me is quite downright: 1,sa great scientistcreative, not merely as an intellect,bu t as a man? And if yo u shift yourground t o the word original, youdo,not satisfy me; you merely makeme use your new word to ask the

old question. Is the physics of Ruth-erford original in the ame deepsense that thepaintings of Rem-brandt are original? Does the phys-ics of Rutherford express the wholeman, head and heart, in the ,samedeep sense that Ithe paintings ofRembrandt evidently look at us outof hiss whole self?POTTS: think it does, Sir Edward.Rutherfords physics is as subtlywoven together, as delicately com-pounded of both sides of him, fact

I and imagination, as, every human12

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activity is. NeitheFliis. science norany science is alI head, alI fact;and Rembrandts painqng is not illheart ither, a rainbow cloud offancies without a base of fact.HARPING:Cliches, mydearPotts,clichks. Sunday journalism.POTTS:Let me finish, Harping. Iwas talking about fact and imagi-nation, in physics and in painting.You will agree that Rernbrandt asa painter was wedded.to the facts.In one sense, his paintings are anexact description of whatbe saw.Rembrandts paintings areotphotographs, cextainly; but theyare representatibns, and they wereintended by Rembrandt (and ac-cepted by those who commissionedthem) orepresent reality. In t h i ssense, Rernbrandts paintings areevery inchas actual as Ruther-fords descriptions of his experi-ments.SIREDWARD:o o nPOTTS: ut, of course, Rutherfordsreputation was not made by his de-scription of the experiments. Itwas made, like (Rembrandts, by hisinterpretation: his interpretation ofwhat lay hidden below the surfacereality and of what the experimentor thepainting unfolded and re-vealed. One experiment, one paint-ing, pointed the way o thenext,until they wove together a networkof interpretations which made asingle image,SIR EDWARD: n image of,what?POTTS In Rembrandts self-por-traits, an image of himself. InRutherfords atomic experiments,the extraordinary and unbelievableimage of the atom asminutesolar system.SIREDWARD: nd these images arenot true?POTTS:What is truth? Is the se-quence of Rembrandts ,self-por-traits the truth about himself? Theatom is not truly a small solar sys-tem. Rembrandt and Rutherfordboth began wi,th the world of fact,Both of them put down in the firstplace what they saw; and both ofthemransferredwhat they sawinto something more delicate andmore illuminating than any mererecord of the acts.The paintersportrait and the physicists explana-tion are both rooted in reality, butthey have been transformed by thepainter or the physicist into some-thing more subtly imagined1 than

the photograpliic appearance things The portrait and he theare, both of them, at once moriginal and more personal ththe commonplace eye of the cera.SIR EDWARD: ou are now.equatoriginal and personal.POTTS:Of course-because to something in an original way, must see it in a pei.sonal way. Tis obvious about paintings. Evintelligent layman, when he loat a painting, knows that it cobines tw o elements. He knows tit s a picture of reality, andhalso knows that it is reality as man sees it.Thepainting is things: a picture and a vision. the ayman has st i l l to learn, both have still to learn, hat whais true of painting is also truephysios-that physics also, I hto repeat it, is constructedby mnot machines. Of course, physican account of physical reality. the turning points in this accothe moments of great discbveryphysics, are flashes of vision wasingle man sees a new linktween different and apparently related aspects of reality. Invisionary moment, he great sctist lays bare a new linking, a npatternamong things. And hission is as imaginative, as muccreation,as he painters visionSIR EDWARD Then why doesscientist have no difficulty in sing his vision with others?Rutherford saw with so personaeye, why were his findings accepby other scientists as soon as twere published? I seem to rember that Rutherford went to Lords; but Rembrandt died in perty. ,POTTS: There have been painwho went to the House of Lotoo, I think; nd great scienwho ied misunderstood andneglected-Mendel, fo r one.Butyouare right: the scientist can mhis vision acceptable in a more tematic way than the painter cThat s, there exists a methodhanding on the findings of phyto other people so that they usuaccept them;and there existssuch assured method in paintBut the method is only , a n exption; it has nothing to do withway the finding entered themiof the discoverer. The findingphysics as moth as in paintThe NA


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remains a personal illumination:we help every student to re-createit , but we cannot teach one studentto create t. Rutherfords model ofthe atom was not a fact simplyconcealed in nature ndwaitingfoz any Tom, Dick or Harry to fishit up. Rutherfords absurdndwonderful model of the atom wasan imaginative discovery, a highlypersonal way of seeing nature-even thoughRutherford was thenable to persuade a million otherphysicists to see nature in his way.

1 ,

SIR EDWARD:You are very per-suasive, Potts; F d of course, youare:convinckd7youmelf. ,Yet you.tillperplex me. I still donmt know howRutherfordk way of boking atthings was different from that ofother physicists whowere, I sup-pose, doing similarexperiments atthe same time Obviously, Ruther-ford was different, but was he dif-ferent as a penson? Was henotsimply cleverer?POTTS:In his criticalexperiment,Rutherford andhisstudents iredhelium particles at a thin layer ofatoms. He wasastonished to findthat some of theheliumparticlesdid not go through, but came backat an angle. Rutherford expressedhis su rp r i se by saying .that he feltas if he had fired an artillery shellat a sheet of tissuepaper,and ithad bounced off. He concluded tha tthe issuepaper must be full ofholes and lumps-and that achatom must be fill of holes andlumps. That is how Rutherfordcame to the dea, from this meta-phor, that the atom ils not an elec-tric cloud. Each atom has an innerstructure : there is an inner lumpornucleus,and hen a ring of lightelectrons.Theelectrons circle thenucleus at quite ,large distances,just as the planets circle the sun along way off. And whether hingsgo straight- throughhe atom orwhether they bounce back atstrange angles depends simply onwhether they brush throughheopen space or whether heyactu-ally hit the heavy nucleus.SIR EDWARD: understand the pic-ture, and I see how it derives fromthemetaphor. Indeed, it seems tome that ,there were ~ W QmetaphorsJanaa3Ely 4 3964

in Rutherfords mind: first the artil-lery shell, and hen he solar sys-t e m . You will say, Potts, that hemetaphors were individual to him,and thxt linking them together wasmost individual.POTTS:To anyone who knew hebluff colonial manner of Ruther-ford, the roughness and the twin-kle, the solemn sense of pulling hisown leg, everything in his discoveryof the structure of the atom is of apiece, The metaphors are as much apart of Rutherfords pemonality asthe idea of the experjment. They al lhave the thumb print of a man towhom the core of things had astrong and clearoutline - evenif it was as minute as the nucleusan d who judged things by testswhierh bad : to be equally clear andstrong.Everything here is as indi-vidual and as human as Rembrandt.Do you remember hepictures ofhis mistrese that Rembmndt paint-ed as an old man and that n o onewould buy? They have the same ob-stinateangle of feelings,oughand tender at he same time, thatRutherford hador is mistress,nature.SIR EDWARD: n short, ProfessorPotts?-POTTS:n short, a rich, broad bodyof science is like a rich, broad bodyof painting-and of poetry, too,though I have preferred not to dis-cuss that. It springs from the visionof a rich,broadperson,head andheart together, andheurfacefacts deepened and transfigured bythe creative metaphors of the imag-ination. In short,SirEdward, if Ihave togiveyou a single answerto t h e question,%hatmakes agreat scientist?, then I say that heis madeas every creative man ismade, painter or novelist, musicianor poet. A, man can only createsomething of which he hasa vision.Rutherord was as much a vision-a r y as was Rembrandt, or Beetho-ven or 8hakespeare. And that hasalready been said by a poet. WilliamBlake said, as if he were speakingabout science : What is now provedwas once only imagind.HARPING: f course; the ag from .B1,ake.No lyrical account of scienceis now complete without a quuta-tion from William Blake. And whenRutherfords vision of thetomhlrns out to be a hallucinztion,when the picture is provecl-wxong,

1

does Blake have 2- Wise saw 01that, too?POTTS:Yes, he does, Harping.Blake knew that human kn0wledgegoes forward by an endlese\ marchof false steps. He said :To be an Error and to be Cast outis a part of Gods design. $,SIR EDWARD: I must stop Y W ,Potts. I ordered a dish that wi114w,ait, and I see it approaching. Acheese souffle: ibis is somethingthat he Swiss do very well. I willgive you the irst helping,Potts,and you are to make no sound fora whne but the ound of eating.You have done very well. You havemade-me see into agreat discov-ery; yo u havemademe a t c h theundertones in it, and now I knowwhat you mean when you call i t awork of creation. He has .been veryenlightening,Harpillg, dont , youagree?HARPING: es, Sir Edward, I agree.He has pu t his case well, a nd hehas made me weigh things hat Iheld tooEightly before. I shall notforget what you have said, Potts; Ishall think about it.,SIR EDWARD:But, my dear Harp-ing, but-do I hea r a but in yourvoice? What is your but? Youhave almost got as far as sayingyes t o Potts;heremust be abut o hold it down. ,HARPING:Of course there is, SirEdward; a large but, a %ut aslargeas life. My but is, havent


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we losl sight of Me? It is very fineto praise the v;ision,sof Rutherfordand Einstein, and to trace the per-sonality in their discoveries. Buthow 'does the discovery enter, not, their lives, ,but ours? How does thevision express itself in the realitmof the huAan conmtion now?

SIR EDWARD:Yes, Dr. Harping?' HARPING:In the hydrogen bomb,Sir Edward. That is how Einstein'sinsightand Rutherford's metaphorenter the life of modern man: notas a Rembrandt,but as a bomb.The atom may have symbolized theunity of nature to them; to us, thevery word is a threat to tear natureapart.Sciencemayhavebeen adream of life to them; to us, whobreathe the reality, it is the threatof death.

SIR EDWARD:O h come, Harping,that's l'ather hard. We have enough

HbV?

of the hydrogen bomb at he coli-ference. Must you $rag it in here?Surely our tdlc this evening 1s out-side pohtics; I'd rather not turn itinto 3. Trafalgax Square sit-down, Idon't think he hydrogen bomb isin place here. IIiABPING: But it i s in place, SirEdward; it's squarely in place here.You call the bigbombs a piece ofpolitics, and that reassures you.You can hen hut your mind tothem a q l write off as cranks thosewho won't shut theu minds. You'vemissed thepoint, Sir Edward; hepoint OP the pickets an d ' the sil-down squatlers andhe eardedcranks. The hydrogen bom l~ s not' A piece OF politics to ll1em. 11 is tilezynstzous &lax uf m invdriqnthat ,his rhouiterl &d aouiited,14"

since the dky they *ere born.SIR EDWARD; don't follow you,Harping.HA R PI N G: People are protestingagainst he nvasion of their lives,not by this death-dealing machineor that, hut by the machine itself-by the mach%le 'as a f o r m ofspiritual death. Do you really thinkin Whitehall, Sir Edward, that allthose sandaled men and homespunwomen aremarching rom Alder-maston because they ate afraid todie in a sizzling ,sunset flash? NO;they are protesting, aggnst the me-chanics of all that is h'appening tolife; against the domination of lifeby mechanics. They are not afraid,that mankind will pefish; they areafraid that humanity li as perishedalready un d d the big wheel of sci-entific progress. Potts, I ill giveyou a quotation f j o n i Blake, too:take i t to, heart, +nd you, SirEdward , , ,A Mkchine is notaMan nor a WorkIt is destructive ,o f Humanityandthe word Machination,SIR EDWARD: ery well, Harping, Iwill withdraw my remarkboutpolitics. I accept that you at east( I will not include the max-chers)-' I accept that you are 'objecting tothe mechanization o f ,peace as wellas of war. ,Yet, I still ask, i s thatrelevant to our 'discussion th2s eve-ning?The #sun is down and the Istarsareup; he atomic processesof natureflashand glitter in thesky, a fusion and profusion, inhonor of EinsteinandRutherford.Is it right to blame them f o r thetechnical uses and abuses to whichtheir discoveries have been put byothers? After all, we didn't askPotts to defend technical civiliza-,tion. We asked bim to give us anexposition of science as an imagi-native culture.

~ HARPING: Whom else shall weblame? I am sure Emstein was agood man, Sir Edward, just as I'msure Christ was a good man. But i fyou lived underhenquisition,yo u would not be content wlth thethought that ,Christ did not plan i t .I Live under the shadow of destmc-tion: physical destmction and spir-itual estruction by the materialdomination 01 science. I ,am notco1lte11,twith ihq thuugllt tl!& E h -S L E ~ ~id rlGt p l h ~At. YOU :spolcejust 110w of 'acierice +a a cd&e;

\

of art;of Art ;

Potts is fond of speaking that way.A culture is madeup, ntimatelymade up, of two related parts: anactivity and a vision-a way of do-ing thingsand a way of thinkingand feelingabout them. I do notlike to stand by and see our scien-tificivfization do things inhu-manly simply 'because Potts tellsme hat great scientists have a vi-,sion.

POTTS:And what would you like toHARPING:I would like to destroythe idol of technical advance. Iwould like to get r id of the pre-occupation with productivity, withmaterialtandmds, with hygieneand technology 'and progress. Iwould like, human ;beings o stopworshiping themachine. Do youknow what all this talk about a scl-entificculture does to the arts? Itmakes an archltect famous becausehe says that a house ,shodd be amachlne f o r living. I do hot wantto give my mind to living; I wantto give i t to life. And I do not wanta machine house; I want a home.POTTS: ven if home is a slumHarping? Even i f hygiene andprogress are to get the bedbugs outof the woodwork? You talk as i fmaterial standards were somethingvulgar t ha t' the poor ought tobeashamed to enjoy, like sex andcheese soufflk. Do you really wantme t o be ashamed of the help thatscience has given in feeding peopleand housing them and giving t h e mtransport and print and sanitation?Do you think people would be bet-ter if they were less healtlly?HARPING:They would be better ifthey thought less about theirhealth. And they would certainly bebetter if they thought ,less bouttheir wealthPOTTS: ou forgetwhat thinkinghas done o r people; thinking abouttheir health, ,and heir station andthkir ambmons and gifts. This sthe drive behind he mater ial. advance, this is why people strugglef o r the ,comforts that you affect t odespise: because they waht to leadfuller lives, to become individualsnot just bccnuse they wa l l to haver ime. What was your father,, H a y

do, Haping? 1

more, but because tl_leyLWal!t o being? - - - II 1 ' Tht?.*NA%I


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LIARPINC.: ^Why should you want'iolcnow? He was a tailor. What wasyours?PDTTS: ine was a groom. Heredly was an- Irish groom. Do youthink that the sons of the tailor andthe groomwould- have gone 40Cambridge a hundred years ago?Or that, even now in Mexico, you-would be a critic and I a biologist?Don't belittle our induswid civili-zation, Harping. It has many aber-rations, all the way from bombs tostomach ulcers. But it does onethingbetter than any other civili-zation has done it: it gives youngmen the chance to make. the mostof their talents.

HARPING:You are always thinkingabout people's talents. I am think-ing about their lives--their per-sonal relations, their loves and re-jections, theirommunityiththemselves and with others. Theseare he values that industrial soci-ety destroys, an d n their place itputs nothing: a blank, a mass en-tertainment which demands neithertheirattentionnor heirparticipa-tion, ,a television screen which"grimaces so inanely thrat it wouldbe betterblank.Whitewash yourbrainblanker than blank. My fa-ther was not prosperous enough togo to public'entertainments,andwould notave hadhe leisure ifhe had been. He didn't see cowboyfilms or play bingo, he didn't have' a betting shop around he cornerand he didn't fill in the pools. Andif these constitute he otal benefitof3prosperity and leisure, .thenI willsay , as Dr. Leavis says: the felicityit represents cannot be regarded bya fully human mind as a matter forhappy contemplation.

POTTS:My dearHarping, rubbish1How can you be sa ignorant of thelives of your contempomries? As ifworking. men did nothing but drinkand bet and wait -fQr you to tellAnd how solicitous .you reortheir leisure! Isyours so well spent?Is yours, Sir Edward? No one everseems to have any trouble with hisown leisure. It is only other people'sleisure that is a social problem: Thefact is, Amos Harping, you are aPuritan. ..Yqu cannot bear to haveother peopk enjoy themselves- in

themwhat too yith their leisure.

J C T ~ ~ L P ~;. 1964

any way but yours. That iswhatyo u find distasteful, that is whatoutrages yon about the success oftechnology. It makes it tou easy forpeople to be Well off, well fed, justwell. Your soul is still in the age offamine; yo u haw not come to termswith the prospect of plenty. You be-lieve that the values of life comefromdenial, not acceptance. 'Andwhen YOU see other people idle,how mealy-mouthed you become-Like a bishop, or like 'Sir Edcward St.Ablishj writing to T h e T i m e s aboutthe welfare tate! Did you reallyhear your quotation? "The felicityit represents cannot be regarded bya fully human mind as a matter f o rhappy contemplation." What is afully human mind, Harping?HARP&: It is a mind that does notlull itself with your ready-made'optimism, like a liberal weekly. Itdoes not ake he ulture of theSunday papers, even the high-browSundayapers, to representhebest that is thought and known inour time.POTTS: Do stop these evasions,Harping. And stop naggingat theSunday papers.They do a' simplejob. they takehe lace of theSunday sermon and th'e Bible read-ing, and they do it well. A n d theirstyle is better than yours. I askedyou a question in your own words :What is a fully human mind? Giveme a positive answer, not a nega-tive one.HARPING: t is a mind which is oc-cupied with 'the human sta te, as anindividual in a living community.It sees its life and its work in rela-tion to those of its neighbors, as anexchangeamong equals. It isnotconcerned to keep 'up with theJoneses in jobs or cars or washingmachines. That may seem a prirni-tive life to you, 'Po t t s . Yet, if I havelearnednything from my stu-dents, anything from my academicfellows and, yes, from my master,it is that his primitive life s agood life. Potts, Sir Edward-I willask you both the question !that Dr.Learis asks: Who will assert thatthe, average member ,of a modemsociety is more fully human, ormore alive, than a Bushman, anIndianpeasant. or a member ofone of those poignantly survivingprimitive peoples with their niarvel-ous art and skills and vital ntelli-gence? -: " r .

POTTS:Who 'will assel't, Z U h f L t ? ~ Iassert i t , ~ m o s arping. I assertthat the average man who droveou r train up here is more humanan d more alive than any of yourpoignant primitive people. Theskills of the B u s h a n , t h e vitd in-telligence of the hdian peasant?You are tipsy with sentiment, Hwp-ing, or yo u would not corrlpare themwiththe man who Teads y6~1rproofs. TheBushmanand he Pn-clian peasant have failed n culture:in making a picture of the universerich enough, subtlenough; onethat they can work withand livebybeyond the level of the SoneAge. They Iiave failed because theydid not create a mature view of na-ture, and of m m , too,' Harping.My God, you talk, you dare to talk,of their marvelous art. Since whenhave you been an (admirer of Bush-man art, Harping?HARPING: hat's a pointless ques-tion, Potts. I have always admired it.POTTC: Then'-why.did you give meRembrandt' when- asked you: for aPainter? Why d o you, Dr. AmosHarping, ecture t o , your students

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,about GeorgeEliot and n o t about1Indian folk poetry? Because ouknow that Rembrandt is a morematureartist han a n y Bushman,and George Eliot than ny folksmger. I don't understand you,Harping. How can you be so blindto the evidence of your own prac-tice? You try to enrich the emotionalappreciation of , your students-how? By discussing Shakebpearewith them; and Joseph Conrad andD . H. Lawrence. How does it hap-pen that Shakespeare w,as not born117 the bush?-or Conrad or Law-rence? Every work that you presentto your students as masterly, asprofound an d sensitive, was pro-duced m a society ,with a highstandard of technical sophistica-t i on .SIR E D W A R D .ay that again, Potts.That is a new thought to me,' andan interesting one.POTTS:Yet, surely it should be avery immediate thought, Sir Ed-ward. Here is Amos Harpingpreaching to us hat the greatestworlts of man express his toncernwith' his own life and condition,with his own humanity. And thatconcern and thsat hum,anity, he tellsus, are eroded by the advancing tideof technical civilizatlon. Indeed,' ir;a heady moment he says that mod-ern man is ess fully human, on theaverage, than he poignantly sur-vivmg primitive peoples. Very mov-ing! Hltler used to say it, too, andcall it "Blood and Soil." But do the,great works of men come from thepoignant primitive peoples? Dothey even come from the poorwhites of Tennessee, f rom the stonyh l d s of Spain, or from the starve-ling Bsheries of Sardinia? Of coumen o t . Dr. Harping lectures on noneof' these. Then where were thesearchjng analyses of thehumanC:ondition made? Where were thebooks written that most deeply ex-press and explore the humanity ofma n? In the Athens of Sophocles,in the Florence of Dante, , i n theEngland of Shakespeare. Yet thesewere not simple, ascetic societies;on the contrary, they were the.mosthighly developed technical and n-,dustrial societies in history, That iswhere the humanind realized i t -self most fully: in the cities that

' stand ,at the peak of technicalachievemenl in their time, That isW!EEreat L W I ~ !lower, larpinlg,TVhateVr YU U EdY S;";y about the16

Iaverage man. The evidence isthere, in the books you recommendtoyour students or their humaninsight. , 'HARPING: he evidence is a 'trick,Potts; y ou , ead It falsely. It s amere trick to say that Athens andRenaissance Italy ,and ElizabethanEngland were technically advancedThey were not deFcated to the wor-ship of gadgets. They were. n o ts1a;veso the technological searchfor hygiene and personal comfort.POTTS:Archimedes was' having abath when the idea of specific grav-ity came to him. That was, in Syra-cuse, a colony of Greece. If Archi-medes had been born in the cultureof Tibet instead of Greece, he wouldno doubt have heen just as shiningand incisive a mind. But he wouldnever have jumped out of his bathand shouted "Eureka," because hewould not have had a bath.

SIR EDWARD: s hat very subtle,Potts? SurelyArchimedes in -Tibetwould have failed to mmalte his dis-covery fo r deeper reasons. He wouldhave been thwarted by the lack ofunderstanding, by the emotionalhostility of his surrounding civiliza-tion.POTTS:Of course, Sir Edward:hewould have been 'thwarted by Dr.Harping. And Harping is againstbaths. You have justheardhim;they represent slavery o the ech-nological search . for hygiene andpersonal comfort. The emotionalhostility to science is $1 of a piece.Harping's puritanism is the samehere and in Tibet; and it hates thematerial bath and the vision of theatom, both together.HARPING: refuse to discuss bathsin Tibet, about which none of usknows anything. And I refuse to bedrawn away from my point. Potts'sreasonjng is smply false. Yes,greakr works: werc produced inGxeece. ill11 hr coIo1Lies Uld rn

Rellaissance Italy and in Ehzabetlian England than elsewhere. B uthese places, these islands in history, were not techlfical societies inour sense. They were civilized cultures, , they were not industriatreadmills as our society is. Byyour evidence, Potts, our societyought to he producing its Sophocles and Dante andShakespeax;where are they? O r are you gom gto claim D. H. Lawrence, because;he was born in industrial Nottingham ndhatedt? All our' scientific, hygienic, technological society did for Lawrence was t o houndhim to death.POTTS: ou talk asif Lawrence hadbeen persecuted by a conspiracy ophyslclsts. The peoplewho persecuted Lawrence were the same people who abused Einstein: not physicists but Philistines Lawrencwas driven out by the Establishment, by people like Sir'Edwarhere-let's face it.' And people h kSir Edward are ustas hostile tnew science as they are to newart. As a matter of fact, Philistinelike Sir Edward are hostile to ankind of science; and you ought tbe ashamed to join with themHasping.HARPING: am not o b the side othestaljlishqent. Good God,h,ave fought Sir Edward and thPhilistmes all my life.POTTS:All the same, Harping, thranks of the Philistines are full oliterary critics, and they are not fuof scientists. Perhlaps that is thstrength of science, and its inspiration to theyoung: that those whare dedicated to it ami themselvecreators of science-modest creators, b u t creators. There mare no criic s , i n science, n o high priests whonly expound and g,uard the gohead. I am embarrassed byyourform of priesthood, Harping. Thgodsyou guard are aIways deadeven D. H. Lawrence. I wish I haheard you once praise a llvinwriter. Don'tyou have any livinpoets or novelists at your univesity? ,HARPING:That is aashionableheresy: that a literary teachought to qualify as a poet, or,commercial novelist. I don't share SIREDWABDThen you must n o 1 bsurprised, Dr. Harping, i f fo r o mwe ,Philistines 4d e ;iviflz Fqbts.t l i l l l ; k i t yo u t v o d d h'ive.$kei!

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be a poet, but you have not enough I l ind , the shapes of atoms and the conquering the world. in spite OSjoy and zest and confidence. You great plays and the Socratic dia- me? Why ase yo^^ concluerlng theare a self-defeated man,Harping: logues. You are the one who divides young, in spite of D r. I-larlsing?the kind whom John Dryden meant hfe intoittle pieces, H,arping- POTTS: ecause ours is a vision andwhen he said, "The corruption of a each piece as big 'as the bite of one a n , activity together,SirEdward.poet is thegeneration of a critic." critic. But the creative drive, the That is how Harping defined a com-POTTS Don't abuseHarping,8Sir h a t to make and discover, the itch plete culture, and it is : science is aEdward. It was 1 V&O rollnded of Origina%J- hat gets a whole complete culture. We as e tI1e vision-'you, not he. age by the scruf 01 the neck, and aries of action; we cue inspired -withsITt ~~~~,: I know th,ht, P ~ ~ & , ~ -hen art and science and technology change. We think the paslt preservessor potts, but I haven't go t to the go forward headlong, higgledy-pig- itsell in the future of itself, the wagbottom of yo u yet , I don't thk& I gledy, as confused as Leonardo da Isaac Newton i s changed and stillshall.But here is still the ssue Vinci and as universal as Aristotle. preserved in Albert; Einstein. We arethat I want #to see settled: some- YO U know vely well, Harping, hat heculture 01 livingchange.thing that you said hatstmckme Marlowe didn't spend his timewith SIR EDWARD: And is that enough,as quite fresh. You saidhatheiterary critics; he pentt with Professor P,,tts? I belong to thegreat works of art of theast were and scientists and ad- Es&&shment,hichmeans, youalways created by people , t h high venturers Galileo's fatherwas a say, that all my ife I have believedtechnical tandards of living. H'arp- musician7 but he did not at thatradition is enough. well, sup-ing says they were not. his' 'On for UP science- In pose 1 am wrong. But does it fo1-those ages, the great ages, echnical lo w thatchange is enough? An yis *Ong* The well-being and art and science ereand so they can be today ifeat ges Of ar t the West were change?in ItdJ' in the Renais- we le,t them. We havecreative men POTTS:No, SirEdward, n o t ally

s a n c e y the Of in art as well, ,Ihave no doubt, if change.hfat we arehanging isthe Restoration- Those we l e t thembreathe-3 we open the division \Of life.We art3 lTKik.illgwere the places th'ai; were tech- theirminds to world, not tile a Unity-Zl COmpkte CUltUre, a llnilyiive- mostexcitedby *e adventurechange you, sir Edwmd; you are a / molecular biblogist is.He is r~of progress And people lived better the past.there,atebetter,hadbetter tools man whounravels the secrets oflife by 'using he tools of physics.than anywhere else in thehen- SIR EDWARD: Oh what nonsense' He shqws-we have sho,wn-thatknown world. POTTSBut Harping has o business the structures of biology become in-HARPING:,et I say that these were to play Ithe obscurantist.. When Gali- teuigible when we treat hem,notnot technical societies, machine so - le0 wrote his "Dialogue on the Great as strings of mysteries, butscieties, in the modem sense: World Systems," theChurch broke strings of molecules. Those are thePOTTS:You are wrong,Harping;him: hat was you, Sir Edward, your ch$anges n the picture of the ,worldyou sentimentalize the past - he Establishment- hey called it the, ha,t we drive for. That s he unl-Elizabethan past as much as the Inquisition in 1633. What side were versa1 unity in which we believe IBushmanpast. You think hat*a you on, Dr. Amos Harping?wrote poem once about art nnclRenaissanceater wheel washarm- ' science and thenity of i l l :hings.ing and a dynamo is not, ust be-causehe wa!ter wheel wasade of SIR EDWARD: You ought to ask Dr.wood. And you really thinkhathe Harping. But I will listen anyway.

andnically most advanced, most world of the Bushm,an. I shall never O u t O f variety. I ' d ell YO U what

May I recite it, Sir Edward?

silver mines Of Greece were more SIR EDWARD: Gentlemen, gentle- POTTS:more than a mine men, I have quite forgotten mys@f. I, having built a house, rejecttoday* are wrong*Those people I ordered wild straw;berries as a The eud of eye ahdntellect,m'ade a high standard Of living fo r "bonne bouche," and the last drops And find in my experience proofof the PouiJly Fume to spill over One plelasure runs from root to roof,s wewith the best that man had brandy. How an evening sfips by. arches'then invented.H A R P I N G : They' didn't Play bingo last train. 1.t has been a wonderfularches.

for working hard and them. And coffee,and aglass of One thrust dong a streamlineWe have hirty minutes before the The sudden star, the budding

andead c o m i c strips.POTTS:Didn't they Hmping? Howd o yo u know?The evidence is thatthey did wlmtever gave them pleas-Lire and hat everything in life gavethem pleasure. Are the mystic num-bers sf Pythagurasdifferent frombingo? Are the dirty pictures 'on theGreeE, vasesdifferent from ours?Those people saw ifeasone, hewhole of intellectual life-numbersan& pictures; -the lover sand TheJmtuunPy 4;1964

evening-I beg your pardon, Harp-ing; a splendid evening. Thank youbothLet us 'give the ast of it t othe stars, and the strawberries, andthe brandy.All but one minute', PEO-fessor Potts. I cannot go back to theconferencewithout aslung a, one-minute question. ,Potts, I still don'tknow what a molecular biologist is,and now I never shall. D'on't tell me.But tell me this: why are you s c i ptists so successftd? Why are you

Theforce that makes the winter ,Its feathered hexagons of snow,And drives the bee to match atTheir calculated honeycomb, IIs abacus and rose combined.An icy sweeltness fills my mind,A sense that under thing and wingLies, taut yet living, coil'ed, the

grow

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A Band Rose

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