Presidential Address

The Royal Society of New Zealand holds in its title a high dignity and honour conferred by his Majesty the King: it has an equally high obligation and duty.

Implicit in this honour and duty is the recognition, in the sciences we pursue, of value to mankind, of material benefits conferred, of a means of investigation and a manner of thought, of an approach to and a discernment of truth; implicit, too, is recognition of the integrity of investigation, the critical severity of thought, and the acceptance and upholding of emergent truth, that are the marks of true science.

Science endeavours to be realistic, to accept things as they are and not just as we would wish them to be. At the moment the reality is that we are at war, and at war with a clear conscience; clear in the sense that, while acknowledging that our past misunderstandings and blunderings, even our national faults, may have contributed to the causes of conflict, we are guiltless of intent to wage war; we are clear, too, in our knoweledge that we fight to defend ourselves against the most pitiless enslavement, political, economical and spiritual, that has ever afflicted mankind.

We are justified, therefore, in finding satisfaction in the fact that the scientists of the Dominion, members of our Society ably led by a member of the Council, are playing an important and vital part in investigating a multiplicity of urgent technical problems and in designing and producing equipment essential for the war. I desire here to acknowledge the courtesy of having been invited to attend, on your behalf, the meetings of the Defence Scientific Advisory Council, a courtesy I am sure you will readily appreciate.

The background and foundation of our energy for the war are the well-being and vitality of the people; we are sustained by moral precepts, by religious beliefs, and by a devotion to the honourable cause of freedom for which we are fighting; we are sustained, too, by health of body and enlightenment of mind, by the confidence that comes from knowledge of power over the resources of Nature.

By common assent we are indebted to medical and physiological research for improved health and physical well-being, to scientifically directed agriculture and food processing for the possibility of better nutrition, and to physics and chemistry for instruments, engines, appliances and harnessed natural forces that serve our material comfort, draw us closer together and extend our knowledge.

At least it is commonly assumed that man's debt to science is recognised; it is probably more true to say that it is taken for granted, as was shrewdly commented several years ago in an Auckland newspaper's observation that whereas yesterday we were marvelling at the wonder of wireless, to-day the programmes are rotten!

We should not mind this forgetfulness of scientific achievement very much but for the opportunities the community misses through not appreciating the even greater service an understanding of science could give it.

Available knowledge is frequently not utilized, urgent enquiries are delayed or neglected, and no endeavour is made to look beyond immediate difficulties to future problems implicit in an undertaking. It has been pointed out that we already have the knowledge and

the means, if we would apply them, to control venereal disease, and to-day's news of the vigorous action being taken in Australia denotes a realisation and a determination that will assuredly achieve success. It is, however, as deplorable as it is characteristic that only a serious urgency, and not an enlightened social sense, seems to be capable of initiating action. To-day's knowledge of hormones, vitamins and trace elements, knowledge gained within the past quarter of a century, has already improved national dietary and health, but much more could be achieved by a wider national administrative and educational enterprise.

There is urgent need for the application of existing knowledge to problems of individual and community health and industrial well-being, need, even, in urgent matters, for the utilisation of incomplete knowledge so long as, recognizing that it is incomplete, we direct, investigation and research without delay towards securing the necessary information.

A striking example of the efficiency with which a national dietary problem can be attacked, and is being attacked in the urgency of war, is the production of the British standard war loaf. First prepared in accordance with the then available knowledge, it immediately became the subject of detailed research, which has not only resulted in rapid improvement of the bread itself but has also contributed notably to our knowledge of vitamins, of biochemistry and of human physiology. Equally notable have been the persistence of the attacks on the unfolding problems, and the cooperation of medical officers and laboratory research workers in checking experimental and observational data. It is not only the successful outcome of war flour investigations that should claim our interest, it is their wider implications. It has been confidently stated that there is now available sufficient knowledge, if not yet the practical means, to institute a fully adequate national dietary. The immediate social consequences of this would be tremendous, but these in their turn extend beyond greatly improved health and physique. Agriculture in Great Britain would be revolutionized; the increased demand by a well-informed public for a wide variety of protective foods would stimulate and change production, and lead to better planned and more effective methods of agriculture. Sir John Orr sees in a British food policy based on human needs “the spearhead of agricultural and economic prosperity.”

We are accustomed to the products of scientific invention creating new demands, usually for comforts and luxuries, and it is gratifying to find that scientific knowledge also creates a demand, and that realization of what could be better creates a determination that it shall be. This is a matter that touches New Zealand, affecting both our primary export industry and our agriculture for home consumption. The questions are more than scientific and technical, they are also economic and political, and it is essential that as many as possible of the inherent problems be solved by scientific investigation and thereby removed from the realm of unprogressive political dispute.

The issues we are discussing never stand alone. Solved scientfic problems immediately reveal new fields of enquiry, while social questions, whether political or scientific, are always part of a complex of interacting conditions and events. We in New Zealand can already discern ahead an array of international and internal social

problems with which we shall have to deal, and this Society must consider its role in dealing with them. War requirements have initiated research into materials, processes and technical devices to a degree, and with results, that could hardly be realized even if they were disclosed. Lord Stamp showed how seriously the impact of the rapid but steady flow of scientific invention can disrupt industry and social life, and we may expect an even more violent reaction when the new knowledge is released and applied to industry.

For example, before the war our wool-growers were apprehensive of the effect of rapidly improving artificial textile materials; during the war our sturdy wool is in high demand, but undisclosed advances in artificial textiles may prove embarrassing in the disturbed post-war period of rehabilitation. It is to be hoped that information of such a nature, with so important a bearing on post-war problems, will be as freely shared between the nations now, as is information on immediate war requirements.

Post-war rehabilitation is, however, presented to us in wider aspect than the merely economic or scientific. It is assumed, or hoped, that the united effort towards victory will create a new peace-time social unity and order. What that order may be, what its philosophy, and what its political framework, will be of profound importance; and, while appreciating that students of science may readily hold differing views on the political aspects of social order, I will risk your disagreement by putting forward a hope of my own. It is that the new order will be cultivated more than planned, that it will grow rather than be imposed, and that its cultivation, and growth, will be vitalized by a comprehension of the enduring, compensating elements of social life, order and freedom.

Society requires a measure of order to preserve the cohesion and safety of the community; it secures it through the surrender, by the individual, of some degree of his freedom and independence. Organization facilitates administration and control, but organization and control lead to a static condition in which whatever seems likely to change the organization, or to deprive the leaders of their status, is sensed as disruptive, and resisted or suppressed.

Increasing knowledge, the source of human progress, has been gained by free enquiry; new ideas arise only in free minds, and the essential task of society is to preserve unity and at the same time give free scope for intellectual enterprise and adventure. We in the United Nations feel that we have this balance, this necessary compromise, in the essential spirit of democracy, which avouches that the individual does not have his liberty of action taken from him, but willingly and intelligently surrenders it to the common good. So although we realize that this attitude is, in part, the outcome of man's intolerance of dependence and restraint, we find that it is society, more than the individual, that needs the free play of individual thought, the leadership of new ideas and of developing personality. Progress does not come from controlled uniformity but from the adventurings of free minds and the interaction of individual lives.

We therefore stress the value of the free individual to democracy more than the individual's freedom and rights in democracy. J. B. S. Haldane attributes to Spinoza the remark “Freedom is the recognition of necessity,” and it is enlightened

recognition of the necessity of social obligation and of freely offered submission and co-operation that maintains our democratic life.

The scientist feels that the community even in this “scientific age” does not really recognize the necessity of scientific approach to the techincal and social problems that confront us, and that it still remains fettered through its own misunderstanding and neglect. It is not merely that a scientific investigation should be made of this detached problem or of that, but that the scientific manner of thought and study are not even understood, that out of date knowledge is relied on, that outworn beliefs are stubbornly held, and that argument and discussion, rather than investigation and testing, are the guiding forces in administration.

Iliacos intra muros peccatur, et extra! Let us look within the citadel first.

It is probably untrue to-day to say that industrialists, administrators, and political leaders are not ready to apply the results of scientific discovery. The material results are frequently so patent, or shall we say so profitably patentable, that industry and commerce are not slow to exploit them. The weakness is that administration can readily gather the fruits of scientific discovery but will not cultivate science. A change is coming, but it is a slow growth. Industrial firms are employing research staffs, first engaged to solve immediate works problems as they arose, but now beginning to take a longer view; here, though, we begin to discern a new difficulty in the presumed right of the firm concerned to the knowledge gained. Passing by the economic and social import of this restriction, we comment only that it is opposed to the spirit of science and imposes on the industrial investigator a degree of isolation from which he and his work will suffer.

In the wider aspect of the problem we see a community that has had little scientific training, whose leaders are not yet accustomed to turn to scientists for information already available on any matter, who are less inclined to ask for an investigation or to enquire what problems needing investigation are likely to arise. Notable exceptions emphasize the need. Lord D'Abernon, called on to make recommendations to lessen drunkenness during the last war, immediately formed an advisory committee of scientists to assist the Control Board, and, on their suggestion, at once instigated research where vital information was lacking. The value of the scientific results and of the Board's recommendations was amply proved in the success of the administrative measures which followed.

I feel sure that such co-operation will become less the exception than the rule and that this system will provide one means of closer liaison between science and public administration. The present war has seen the formation of similar advisory committees; I have already mentioned my own interest, on your behalf, in one; and I have no doubt the need and value of such committees will become more generally appreciated.

Another growing means of extending scientific influence in administration is the appointment of scientists, who display ability in both administration and research, to the direction of State departments or services. Neither expectation nor experience offer any reason why skill in research should exclude administrative ability; and instances of fine public service such as that given by

the late Sir Daniel Hall are growing in number. If, therefore, we are, as I hope, to find our administrative, technical and social measures increasingly founded on the results of scientific research and if scientific method is to have a greater part in public administration, it is of paramount importance that the whole community not merely a few leaders, should be better trained in scientific understanding. This is not to suggest that we should endeavour to create a nation of scientists, but to urge that the growth and development of scientific knowledge and method should have a clearly defined place in school and university education.

“… et extra.” The imputation to scientists of indifference to the social outcome of the results of their investigations is an unreliable half truth, or quarter truth. Whether a worker is aware or unaware of the possibility of applying his discoveries industrially or socially will depend upon the nature or subject of the investigation. Some studies will have a clear bearing upon practical problems, others, remotely academic, but no less valuable, will find their outcome in the new purely scientific questions they disclose. The scientist is seldom primarily moved to his investigations by an intention to gain power and control over Nature; this is more the mark of the inventor. The scientist's chief desire is to know, a desire stimulated by wonder and curiosity, and not a desire for power, and it is not to be expected that the worker in pure science should wish to pursue his studies other than where his results guide him. He will not be easily diverted, nor should he be, for there may be a much richer harvest at the end of his path than can be gathered on the way. It is, therefore, clearly undesirable that scientists, any more than poets or artists, should endeavour to be other than they are; competence will express itself and potential genius will flourish only through the full and free expression of the individual personality.

Nevertheless, there is a task here, there is a challenge to science demanding a fuller and wiser appreciation of its gifts to show the way. The way will scarcely be found by asking every worker to attend to the social application of his particular discovery; it will be found, as it is being found, because there is a task, because there is a challenge, and because there is a deep and satisfying interest in the problems involved. It will be found through the interest and responsibility that will capture the attention and service of youth. It is clearly a matter of education, of school and university life, where interest and training will combine to point the path and equip the intending traveller. By the introduction into university courses in the sciences of some study of their history and of their social aspects and potentialities, students will begin to find their chief intellectual interests, and their life's work, in research or administration in these important new problems. Open lectures to the student body by university teachers of science would further this aim.

The function of science will not end in the investigation of social problems as they arise; the longer view, that should be the scientist's habit, will disclose a succession of problems and investigations for consideration and planning. It is here, more than in actual investigation, that the research leader will require the support of an informed and enlightened public, with leaders competent to judge the value of a proposed study and to assess

the results, leaders, and public too, prepared to accept, even to make, a scientific assessment of adopted plans and their operation.

But unaided science will not avail us here, for we shall be dealing with multiple causation and effect; with measurable effects yes, but also with judgments of immeasurable values. We shall be in the subjective sphere of opinion, which every individual considers himself entitled to make though few are trained for it. At some stage all social problems will take us beyond the scientific record of proven facts to the consideration and evaluation of contingent truth; but the capacity to make such judgments, to proceed from the proven to the most likely, will not be vitiated by scientific training; still less will it be jeopardized if social problems and evaluations are made a regular feature of instruction in scientific subjects.

It is to be hoped, however, that the problems of peace and rehabilitation will confront us long before we are ready for them, and it will be wise to prepare against this welcome unexpectedness by giving thought now to future eventualities.

We know we are by no means ready; ready neither with clearly formulated proposals, with any foreview of the wide range of problems that must be subjected to thought and detailed investigation if we are not to operate by muddle and mend, nor ready with men and women trained to discern the research needs, to plan them, and to carry them out.

There is need for a co-operative social science research organization to bring these issues clearly before the public. The problems of social science are so intricate, the factors so numerous and varied that a research institute to deal with them will need the help of students of many sciences. It must be free and independent from State politics, from industrial, commercial or any other controlling influence; it must be independent if it is to be scientific, for truth will emerge only when enquiry is free and untrammelled; it must be free, too, if it is to give confidence and assurance to the community which, rightly or wrongly, is prone to suspect social guidance from any possibly interested source; it must be free, too, if it is to win the active help of able research students concerned for scientific accuracy and jealous of their academic integrity.

The National Institute of Economic and Social Research in Britain is such an independent non-State organisation whose standing is such as to ensure sound methods and to inspire public confidence in the ability of its research workers and in the severe integrity of their results.

I recommend to your consideration that the Royal Society of New Zealand should support the formation of a Social Science Research Institute in New Zealand, and that it should invite co-operation therein from such institutions as the University, the Institute of International Affairs, the Council and Institutes of Educational Research, the Economic Societies, the Institutes of Philosophy and Psychology, the Medical Research Council, and the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.

I recommend further that, in view of the probable urgency of social problems, both now and during rehabilitation, we consider the immediate formation of a committee, representative of each of the sciences recognized as especially within our province, to ascer-