Aldous Huxley* (1894-1963)
“There are certain values
which we feel to be absolute. Truth is one of them. We have an immediate
conviction of its high, its supreme importance. Science is the organized search
for truth and, as such, must be looked upon as an end in itself, requiring no
further justification than its own existence. But truth about the nature of
things gives us, when discovered, a certain control over those things. Science
is power as well as truth. Besides being an end in itself, it is a means to
other ends. Science as an end in itself directly concerns only scientific
workers and philosophers. As a means, it concerns every member of a civilized
community. I propose to discuss here science as a means to ulterior ends – ends
which may be summed up in the single vague and comprehensive word, “Civilization”.
Our civilization, as each
of us is uncomfortably aware, is passing through a time of crisis. Why should
this be? What are the causes of our present troubles? Most of them are due, in
the last resort, to the fact that science has been applied to human affairs,
but not applied adequately or consistently.
In the past, man’s worst
enemy was nature. He lived under the continual threat of famine and
pestilence; a wet Summer could bring death to whole nations, and every winter a
menace. Mountains stood like a barrier between people and people; a sea was
less a highway than an impassable division.
Today, nature, though
still an enemy, is an enemy almost completely conquered. Modern transportation
has made the resources of the entire planet accessible to all its inhabitants.
Modern medicine and sanitation allow dense populations to cover the ground
without risk pestilence. True, we are still at the mercy of the more violent
natural convulsions. Against earthquake, flood and hurricane, man has, as yet
devised no adequate protection. But these major cataclysms are rare. At most
times, nature is no longer formidable; she has been subdued…”
*Aldous Leonard Huxley (26
July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. He was
nominated for the Nobel Prize
in Literature.
