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PERTH, REDNZSDAY,OCTOBER 10, IN&
NO, 9,2OL
SEVENTYSECOND YEAR.
PRWZ THREEPENCE.
—Atomic Bomb Exposed Modern Science-Worship No Control Possible Without Moral Sanctions Church is Friend -of Science; Enemy of Arrogance "Like Apes Who Stole Jove's Thunder" By ADAM MARSH. The atomic bombs loosed upon Japan did more than destroy Hiroshima and blast a great part of Nagasaki. They blew to pieces the pretensions of material science. They exposed in the very pitilessness and ugliness of the shock the falseness of the god the modern world has too long and too blindly worshipped. In the blazing and catastrophic flash of their detonations they made the world con,,IOU., ;at last, that it had been putting its trust in a monster that can be reck lessly irresponsible as it is presumptuous. There can be little doubt about the basic reaction to the new " wonder." The predominant feeling throughout civilisation has been horror and appre hension. This is evident even among those whu eulogise the bomb, for they too are plainly hard put to conceal under a cloud of soporific words their instinctive dismay. It could not be otherwise. They are merely voicing a universal sense of outraged humanity too profound, too genuine, and too universal to be ignored. Let Loose With Blind Recklessness. Even more than the vastness of the destructive powers let loose, the blind recklessness of the act has appalled mankind. The bomb has been launched with the vaguest knowledge of what its ultimate repercussions will be. "A weapon far from complete . a new tool of unimaginable destructive power potentially destructive beyond the wildest imagination," so says the U.S. War Department, and indicates that affrighting as the future possibilities of such a weapon may be, only the future can, say what they will be. Thus science, Iwhich has been promising modern man lordship of the whole world and all the glories thereof, has in fact handed hire instead the prospect of unlimited violent and unguessed at death; or, as the U.S. War Department grt acefully suggests, "civilisation will have the means to commit suicide at will."
It is useless for our Progressives to protest—as some, appalled 'by this fine flower of their progress have—that the thing will have to be controlled; that it is only a weapon to prevent wars, and, of course, there will be safeguards. This is mere wishful thinking. The whole history of war inventions shows the fhtuity of such a hope. Once a weapon has been launched it is beyond control. As 'a writer in the "Daily Telegraph" points out, when Nobel produced dynamite and Maxim his machine-gun, both proclaimed that their inventions would curb and even end near. Nevertheless the world went on to the rocket gun and the atom. Flying, the submarine, the tank—all were goinf; to make future wars less possible, but all have only been the forerunners of their increase and terror. In plain, grim fact, how can we control war weapons when modern science itself rejects control? Material science, which has exalted itself into the faith of the future, which has, for many, replaced religion,refuses to be bound by any moral sanctions. It holds that to make discoveries, to add to the sum of the world's knowledge, is its sole end and law; any question of those discoveries being good or evil is quite outside "the province of the ohysicist as a physicist," as a scientist has put it. church a Friend to True Science. I must here repeat what I have said before, that Catholics are not hostile to science or scientists. Our Church has been the mother of learning and discovery through the ages, and has never been anything but a friend to true science. Like others, we glory in and cnjov the benefit of the great discoveries by which noble minds have enriched our civilisation. What we cannot accept is the new arrogance of material science; the science whose evangels have taught the ignorant to look up to it as the sole hope of the future of man; the science that boasts that it can answer every question, solve all riddles by material means alone: the science that trot only re.
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of moral character ought not to be jects religious and moral controls but entrusted with .any more power; he disdains them. It is this science— will only destroy himself by it:' chich isn't always that of the greatest The moral check taught by Christian scientists—that, pursuing its ends tradition was in control in all these without check or responsibility, has cases. It is, indeed, the only true brought not hope of human happiness safeguard. Right morals alone can to the world but this prospect of ever enable men to be aware of what is accumulating terror. evil and what is good ,and so stifle That fact has been recognised not what is evil before it is launched on to by Catholics alone; scientists themsela world only too ready to make use ves have warned the world of this deof it. It was this indifference to good stroving tendency. The late Dr. or evil that created the moral atmosAlfred Hussel Wallace, a friend of Dar. phere that brought Nazism into the ,vin and a savant of the same major world. Their New Order *as but stamp, asked by Sir James Marchant the full round fruit of the New Science what was wrong with the world, answered: " Man's scientific discoveries without spiritual principles. Have we won the war if we let those prinhave outstripped his moral developciples flourish? , ment"; while the non-Christian Georges The Lesson it Should Drive Home. Clemenceau also put his finger on the There can, in fact, be few grounds ' same menace; " Development of science for hope until the old principles and has outrun the development of the moral values are restored, so that mind," he declared . " We are like apes man, more concerned with good and who stole Jove's thunder." evil than with reckless application of Religion Has Shown the Way. discoveries, will automatically reject The materialist will ask what posinventions with evil possibilities as a sible control could religion or morals Christan learns to reject other unhave on these inventions. And we worthy temptations. answer : It not only could but it has That is certainly the lesson that the already shown the way. Commenting atomic bomb should drive home to us on the atomic bomb, the " Osservatore with its own atomic force, for it is a Romani" told how Leonardo da Vinci lesson we may not, dare not, overlook had suppressed his invention of the even amid the rejoicings of peace. For submarine because, governed by Chrisindeed, as part producer of that peace tian moral values, he realised the (Iwhich we will not deny), science cat abuses it might im put to. In the stake its claim to carry on and even same way the British Government re-rttc' an invention of poison gas as a expand its terrors for the sake of the future of mankind. So we will have a weapon during the Napoleonic wars. peace not of good will but one imposAgain of the atomic bomb itself, Dr. ed and maintained by violence and Russell Wallace said: " if Icould stumhorror and any terrorist nation will l:le upon the way to release and conknow how to turn that to its advanttrol atomic energy, I would die with age. the secret. Man at his present stage
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