Icarus : $b or, The future of scienceRussell, Bertrand
Philosophy
Icarus : $b or, The future of science
Russell, Bertrand
Civilization; Science; Science and state
Political controversies, as Mr. Graham Wallas has pointed out, ought
to be conducted in quantitative terms. If sociology were one of the
sciences that had affected social institutions (which it is not), this
would be the case. The dispute between anarchism and bureaucracy at
present tends to take the form of one side maintaining that we want
no organization, while the other maintains that we want as much as
possible. A person imbued with the scientific spirit would hardly even
examine these extreme positions. Some people think that we keep our
rooms too hot for health, others that we keep them too cold. If this
were a political question, one party would maintain that the best
temperature is the absolute zero, the other that it is the melting
point of iron. Those who maintained any intermediate position would be
abused as timorous time-servers, concealed agents of the other side,
men who ruined the enthusiasm of a sacred cause by tepid appeals to
mere reason. Any man who had the courage to say that our rooms ought to
be neither very hot nor very cold would be abused by both parties, and
probably shot in No Man’s Land. Possibly some day politics may become
more rational, but so far there is not the faintest indication of a
change in this direction.
To a rational mind, the question is not: Do we want organization or do
we not? The question is: How much organization do we want, and where
and when and of what kind? In spite of a temperamental leaning to
anarchism, I am persuaded that an industrial world cannot maintain
itself against internal disruptive forces without a great deal
more organization than we have at present. It is not the amount of
organization, but its kind and its purposes, that cause our troubles.
But before tackling this question, let us pause for a moment to ask
ourselves what is the measure of the intensity of organization in a
given community.
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