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'!'......---... _ ·~ CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON 

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ADVANCE MATTER FOR RELEASE IN A.M.'S, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1954 

·Address by Vannevar Bush 

President, Carnegie Institution of Washington 

before the 

American Association for the Advancement of Science 

as recipient of the 

William Procter Prize 

awarded by the 

Scientific Research Society of America 

Auditorium; ~~eeler Hall 

Berkeley, California 

December JO, 1954 

SCIENCE AND PROGRESS? 

Every man is entitled at one time in his career to declare 

himself regarding the idea of progress. It is an idea that in some 

of its aspects has been earnestly discussed by many men for over 

three centuries. And as usual in the case of debated subjects, the 

dispute turns largely on the matter of definitions. What is progress? How can it be measured? Is it a historical fact? If we have 

progressed, are we bound to continue progressing in the future? 

When we speak of progress, we may have in mind several different 

conceptions of the word. Bury in his olassic Idea of Progress 

traces the chang~s in its content and emphasis through the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. The idea is not an 

old one as ideas go. It had no place in the thinking of antiquity. 

Some ancient Greek and Roman writers h.eld with Hesiod that the 

course of history was one of slow but steady decline from a longpast Golden Age. The Hebrew tradition of the Fall reflects a 

similar point of view. Other~ among the Greeks and R~mans believed 

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that human history and the future of mankind followed a cyclical pattern, making no significant progress in any constant direction. Cities 

and empires were known to have risen and declined. Science and philosophy had flourished and faded, and flourished and faded again. 

Through most of the Middle Ages the conditions of life were depressing; and men turned for their hope away from the disappointments 

and uncertainties of earthly existence, to dwell on a roseate dream 

of life after death. Material improvements were sought and achieved, 

but their achievement was slow and unimpressive. Knowledge was looked 

upon as something revealed to men of great faith, tn be learned by the 

study of accepted texts--the scriptures, the church fathers, Aristotle, 

the schoolmen. It was a revolutionary suggestion of Roger Bacon, and 

one that had no great influence in his time, that the phenomena of 

n~ture should be studied by first-hand observation rather than through 

received authority. 

The Renaissance brought a spirit of renewed earthly joy and 

enthusiasm, which at first drew its inspiration from the great men of 

~ntiquity but gradually turned its eye to the present and the future 

and became in the Age of Enlightenment a spirit of hopeful expectancy. 

Francis Bacon, noting the dramatic achievements of a few centuries--

gunpowder, the printing press, the mariner's compass--regarded science 

and all intellectual effort as a utility, justified only as it cont:.~j_buted to "the endowment of human life with new inventions and 

riches •••• " He saw no limit to the possibilities of science and 

f11lly expected those possibilities to be realized. But he did not 

regard their fulfillment as inevitable or assured by the laws of 

'!"lature. 

Eighteenth-century philosophers commonly accepted progress as the 

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normal course of history without making a particular point of the idea 

until the Marquis de Condorcet, in the midst of the French Revolution, 

wrote his ~~ric.al Vie":!_of the Progress of the Human Mind, explicitly 

setting forth the idea that human progress is continuous and will go on 

until human perfection is achieved. This became the common attitude of 

t~cughtful people in the early years of the nineteenth century. It 

nms through the thinking of most of the Romantic and early Victorian 

poets, the scientists, and the philosophers. It drew strength from 

the rationalists, deists, Unitarians, and Universalists, who reacted 

with confidence in the· perfectibility of man against the dour fatalism 

of the Calvinistic teaching that man is essentially corrupt and b~yond 

redemption except through the unpredictable, seemingly capricious, 

grace of God. 

As the nineteenth century advanced, the idea was elaborated and 

bolstered with new evidence and arguments. The innumerable advances 

of science and invention, the overthrow of despots and growth of constitutional liberty throughout Western Europe and America, the adoption 

of humanitarian reforms--all could be pointed to as visible evidence 

that progress was a fact. And the principle of biological evolution 

(both Lamarckian and Darwinian) provided an argument of analogy that 

made progress seem very much like something founded in the nature of 

things. Darwin voiced the idea temperately in the following words: 

As all the living forms of life are the lineal descendants of those which lived long before the Silurian epoch: we 

may feel certain that the ordinary succession by generation 

has never once been broken, and that no cataclysm has d8SOlated the whole world. Hence we may look with some confidence 

to a secure future cf equally inappreciahle lengtho And as 

natural selection w1Jrks e.olely by and for the good of each 

beiug, all corporeal and mental environments will tend to 

progress towards perfection. 

Even before the publication of the Origin of Species, Herbert 

Spencer had used the evolutionary analogy in his Social Statics, and 

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in the course ~f the next three decades he carried the argument much 

farther than his scientific contemporaries were willing to do. He 

held that "Nature in its infinite complexity is ever growing to a new 

development" and further that "The ultimate development of the ideal 

man is logically certain--as certain as any conclusion in which we 

place the most implicit faith; for instance, that all men will die." 

The human progress that he envisioned was in all phases: in the minds 

and bodies of men, who, according to Spencer, would continue their 

biological change ever toward higher forms; in knowledge; in material 

facilities and conveniences; and in political and social structures. 

He regarded it not as conditional upon the deliberate efforts of men, 

but rather as an inevitable law of nature. Men's conscious actions 

might contribute to it, but those conscious actions would be only a 

secondary result of man's own progressive improvement. 

The assumption of Darwin and Spencer that all evolution must be 

progress was of course only an assumption. But it was generally 

accepted by most of their contemporaries despite the criticism of 

Huxley in his later years. In the generally hopeful temper of the late 

nineteenth century the whole Spencerian dogma was eagerly taken up, with 

or without its claims of reason, by all classes of people in England 

nnd the United States. The prevailing mood of our society before the 

fi.:-st World War was one of complacent expectation that all things 

·\,•ould improve perpetually. Retrogression, at least, was unthinkable. 

But the first World War shook our optimism, the depression shook 

~-t further, and the second War nearly destroyed it. Now, though we 

m2y still hope that our race will go forward in progress, we are confronted with facts that take all the former exuberance out of our hope, 

~educing it almost to a wish of despair. This is especially so with 

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regard to moral and political affairs. For who can have confidence in 

humanity's future when he looks at events of the past twenty years? 

Belsen and Buchenwald were poor exhibits of humanitarian progress by 

any standards recognized in the nineteenth century. And it is difficult to see much to choose between the erratic tyranny of the Czars 

and the systematic tyranny of the present Russian government, with its 

purges and brainwashings. Our wonted spirit of optimism has given way 

largely to a spirit of gloom, and some among us seem to be gradually 

moving toward a definite philosophy of pessimism. 

In these circumstances it is perhaps well that we should look 

more closely at the idea of progress, take stock of the realities, 

and formulate a reasoned position as free as possible from both 

despair and wishful thinking. 

Let me begin by distinguishing some of the elements of progress 

that we are considering. How can the fact of progress be judged or 

recognized? What does the word mean before it is expanded into 

Bury's "idea of progress"? As it is used in this phras~ and as I am 

using it, the word carries a connotation not only of movement or even 

of movement in a constant direction, but of movement in a direction 

that is intrinsically good or desirable. Its meaning cannot be derived from experience or reason; for it is based solely on a dogmatic 

ethical assumption as to what constitutes the good or desirable, 

toward which all actions and all change ought to be directed. 

Attempts have been made to define the word in such a way as to 

escape the element of dogma and give it a semblance of universality. 

But all such attempts have inevitably failed. Many writers have 

already pointed out that the measures of progress popularly applied 

to biological evolution are essentially arbitrary. Man may, indeed, 

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have evolved from the primordial ooze, and this may be accepted as 

good if we assume that it is good to have complex life on earth, but 

this again is an arbitrary assumption. How many other species have 

evolved to a certain level of adaptation in relation to a given environment, only to fail of adaptation to a superseding environment? 

Why cannot the same fate be in store for human kind? We may grant 

that the evolution of man has been a local triumph in the universe, 

and yet doubt whether his further evolution is bound to lead to further 

triumph. We may say that evolution follows a pattern that tends always 

toward heterogeneity and complexity, and complexity may for a time 

have survival value. But in the long run how can we be sure that complexity will not prove fatal? Survival value cannot be appraised before the millennium, and therefore to define progress in relation to 

it is meaningless. 

I shall be dogmatic at this point and state some of the stancards 

of value that I have accepted for judging progress. I have nothing 

new to add, I can merely reiterate what has been said many times, and, 

having done so, add my comments on its meaning for the great problems 

we now face. I believe that it is good for mankind to gain knowledge 

and understanding without regard.for their utility in relation to 

other ends. I also believe that it is good that our knowledge, for 

whatever reason acquired, should be used to improve man's health and 

increase his comfort and happiness. And from these primary standards 

I derive certain secondary values. It is good to preserve the individual freedom of all men; for free men alone can think freely or freely acquire knowledge; and freedom is a part of the comfort and happiness toward which we legitimately aspire. It is good also to have 

peace, provided it is not bought at the price of greater values, for 

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peace in ideal circumstances contributes to our comfort and happiness 

and in some degree to our freedom. But on the secondary level of 

values we must often make difficult choices. We must sometimes 

forego a measure of our earne~ comfort and happiness in order to 

avoid losing all of it. We must make sacrifices to sustain and 

defend the freedom of our institutions, the right to continue our 

experiment in democratic government and refine its underlying 

principles. We must sometimes even be willing to go to war for 

these reasons.· 

There is a risk in the pursuit of knowledge that must not be 

blinked at. In our partial knowledge and limited wisdom we can 

encompass our own destruction without meaning to do so. Fear of 

such self destruction underlies all our thoughts and acts today, 

and with reason. But this fear often becomes distorted, being centered almost wholly on A bombs and H bombs because of their spectacular nature. There are other weapons that could prove just as 

deadly. Had there been no A bombs or H bombs, the danger would not 

be notably less. For if the nations of the earth continue to devote 

a large part of their productive efforts to the building of weapons, 

and to marshal for the purpose all the potentialities of science, 

engineering, and industry, they can create the means, whether of one 

sort or of another, which when fully exploited will be capable of 

erasing whole populations. Without the A bomb, chemical warfare, as 

it was developed, though held in reserve, during the last world war, 

could have a terrible effect. Biological warfare could be far more 

terrible. New diseases created for the purpose and introduced among 

an unprotected population by an attacker who had acquired immunity 

to them could bring back the horror of the great plagues that once 

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swept over the earth. The deliberate blighting of crops and herds 

could produce unprecedented famine. And as we now advance in finding chemotherapeutic means for the treatment of mental disorders and 

drugs that exert cont~ol over human emotions, these very means, in the 

hands of ruthless dictators, may constitute one of the greatest 

threats of all• 

Some people in their unbalanced fear accuse the physicists of 

having brought the world to its present plight through the development of A bombs and H bombs. It is believed by some that physicists 

have a conviction of guilt, and some physicists by their own utterances have given grounds for this belief. But the guilt, if it is to 

be so regarded, must be shared by many who were cot directly involved 

in developing the bombs. Every step in the advance of our knowledge 

that preceded the discovery of ways to release atomic energy contributed to the final result. If the result was a crime, then Newton 

must be counted as one of the arch criminals and Einstein as an 

accomplice. Nor should the scientists of the free world be held 

peculiarly responsible; for the general course of science has 

rendered the result inevitable; our scientists merely hastened the 

time a little and made it possible for us to determine the place and 

circumstances of the first release of atomic energyo We are fortunate 

that they were the first to succeed. For their success gave a temporary advantage to the free self-governing peoples of the world. 

Had Hitler 9 s scientists solved the problem of exploding an atomic 

bomb early in the war, we might now all be under the Nazi's heel, 

with exterrni~ation camps ready to dispose of any group or nation 

that rebelled. Had the Russians found the solution at the end of 

the war, while we were still unarmed with atomic weapons, the sweep 

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of their armies would not have stopped in the Balkans, the Baltic, 

and Czechoslovakia; and we should now face a huge totalitarian state 

bent on world conquest with all the industrial power of Europe at 

its command. 

We sometimes hear that the natural sciences in general have 

outrun the social sciences and that the balance must be restored if we 

are to cope with our great new danger. It is too late in the day for 

any such remedy. We should indeed give every practicable support to 

social science and hope that some day it will produce answers to many 

of our human dilemmas. But the test is upon us now and will not wait. 

We must grapple with it, using the systems ~f social relation that we 

have and such wisdom as we can muster. Whether we come through the 

ordeal will depend upon whetrer we are sufficiently mature to map out 

a wise path and adhere to it. Looking for easy ways, mysterious 

formulas, or scapegoats will not help. 

The dogmas that I have stated are not presumptuous ones. They 

are dogmas of humility. They do not pretend that we know all the 

answers. On the contrary, they recognize that we are still comparatively ignorant and very much confused. In our scientific 

endeavors we have correlated some of our simpler experiences, and 

this has led us into contradiction and confusion. We have hardly 

begun to correlate those experiences that involve the emotions. We 

see but through a glass darkly. Yet the race is young. In a thousand years we may understand more and be able to substitute dogmas 

that are more satisfying t~ our souls than the simple ones I have 

been propounding. Perhaps, indeed, in a thousand years men will 

abandon hope entirely. But let us not now, in blind anticipation of 

what they may then think, abandon hope for them. 

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We know vastly more than our ancestors did of what nature's 

forces can do, but we can hardly claim to have achieved any true or 

profound understanding as yet. Our theoretical explanations of observed phenomena have changed completely in the past three thousand 

years. How can we say whether they have advanced or not, since they 

are not measurable by any ultimate standards? They can be judged only 

according to the degree to which they seem to be consistent with our 

accumulated experience and the range of experience which they encompass. We place increasing emphasis upon the pragmatic test of whether 

our theories work, and are little concerned with whether they express 

an absolute truth, or whether there is such a thing as truth to be 

expressed. The corpuscular theory of light served for a time until 

new observations seemed to require its abandonment in favor of the 

concept of waves passing through ether. Now we have revived the 

corpuscle under the new name of quantun,and find it useful as a means 

of rationalizing certain phenomena that could not be rationalized under 

the wave theory. We use both theories without attempting to reconcile 

them with each other. When we deal with the nucleus of the atom we 

work with a bizarre formula and care little whether it has a model 

to go with it. 

Professor Dingle aptly states the case regarding theory in his 

essay "Some Reflections on the History of Science": 

Amid all the changes of theories and pictures and conceptions, the relations remain and steadily accumulate. 

Franklin found that lightning was a manifestation of the 

electric ether revealed in laboratory experiments. The 

electric ether has disappeared, and other theories of 

electricity have in turn succeeded it and disappeared also, 

but the relation between lightning and laboratory sparks 

remains. Maxwell established a relation between light· and 

electromagnetic oscillations. His ether also has gone, but 

the relation stays. All permanent advances in science are 

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discoveries of relations between phenomena, and the factor 

in science that shows a steady uninterupt;ed · growth is the 

extent of the field of related observations. World-pictures 

are indispensable for progress but even the most satisfying has no hope of immortality. 

We have progressed in our scientific knowledge and have the 

power to progress further. But I see no law of nature that makes 

such further progress inevitable. For the present we are limited 

only by our will to go ahead and our ability to preserve a world 

environment in which the search is possible. There probably are 

inherent limitations to our human mental capacities and to our conceptions of science that will eventually impede our further conceptual 

. progress. We have come generally to question whether there can be 

any scientific certainty. 

There never was, indeed, any true basis for certainty; but when 

we were in a more optimistic mood we sometimes allowed ourselves to 

suppose that there was. The present tendency of scientists to 

~mphasize uncertainty is symptomatic of the times; it is perhaps 

their subconscious reaction as their former roseate vision of endless 

progress is dimmed by the louring aspect of the present state of 

world affairs. The great generalizations of Heisenberg and G~del 

have but stated the fact more explicitly and completely than it had 

been stated before, and led us to see more clearly some of its implications. The inductive method of science, from which have emerged 

its great triumphs, can yield only a strong probability of truth in 

a restricted area. No matter how many confirmatory experiments may 

be made, or how closely they are in accord with a hypothesis, there 

is no guarantee that the next similar experiment will not contradict 

it, and no basis for its extrapolation into regions where test is 

impossible. Man may find order among his experiences and in so doing 

gain control over nature for his own ends, but he cannot in this way 

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acquire certaintye Even the deductive method is severely limited, 

as G6del has shown. No system, logically based on a set of premises, 

can be demonstrated to be free from contradition without stepping 

eutside of that system • . As we, then, accumulate generalizations t.., bind together the 

facts of experience into useful formulations, as we establish hypotheses and test them by experience, are we indeed coming closer to 

reality? We cannot know. We can gain mastery over the course of 

events and thus control our subsequent experience with a high probability of success. But we cannot say that we have arrived at truth 

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with any more assurance than when we specify truth by dogma, without 

all the paraphernalia of experiment, logic, and mathematics. Thus 

science is; in these days, becoming mbre humble in its assertions. 

We may feel that the ordering of our observations of the 

heavens by Newton gives us a grasp of the swinging of the planets 

about the sun that is closer ~o reality than the system of Ptolemy 

with its spheres, deferents, and epicycles, even if the latter 

were refined to be in full accord with observation, as it could be. 

We may feel that, having added Einstein's refinements, we are still 

closer to reality. But this is a feeling only, a faith if you will; 

and what constitutes the truth is not demonstrable by logic of any 

sort. 

Yet there is more than mere utility in the endeavor to systematize the evidence of our senses, and this we may forget when the 

limitations of science are emphasized. The extension of our observations into space, the translation of our bindings into cosmological . hypotheses, is pursued with intensity and satisfaction; and the 

motivation is not to learn a bit more about the nucleus of the atom 

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just to make more powerful bombs or even to provide a new source of 

energy so that civilization may continue after it has exhausted its 

oil and coal. The musings and speculations of one who thinks in 

terms of receding galaxies or of primordial explosions are far different in content, though perhaps not in nature, from the ponderings 

of the peasant who sees the stars glued to a celestial sphere rotating 

over his head. Are they better or of a higher order? Have they a 

possibility of coming nearer to grasping eternal truths? This too we 

cannot know. We have only the evidence of a powerful, inner urge to 

pursue the path of inquiry, to learn more in the sense of extending 

and systematizing our observations and experiments over a wider field, 

to grasp more in the sense of §reater generalizations--not so that we 

may be more prosperous, but so that our spirits may have a freer rein 

in those aspirations which transcend the mere mechanisms of existence. 

The limitations upon our understanding have not yet, at any rate, 

begun to cramp our progress. Who can say that they are not themselves merely the expression of the limited view that we have thus 

far attained? We have not reached the boundaries of our finite 

capabilities, we have only proved for a time that the assumption of 

our fathers that they are boundless is probably false. vie must go 

on until we can go no farther, for it is not in our inquisitive 

nature to abandon the quest for knowledge merely because we are told 

that we shall never know all that can conceivably be known or know 

anything with certainty. Must every adventurer be assured success 

before he will take a step forward? We are all born to die, and yet 

we spend every waking hour of our lives in striving as if we were 

to live forever. We may observe historically that man 9 s,progress 

has been intermittent and has alternated with retrogression; but 

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observing this we do not sink back from effort in despair; it is not 

in our nature to do so. And the search for knowledge and truth has 

its daily rewards unrelated to any ultimate achievements. 

Without any presupposition, then, of the inevitability of 

progress, we may reasonably expect each day to learn more and accomplish something in a material way that will add to the comfort or 

convenience of our living. These same material accomplishments will 

bring us new and more terrible instruments of death. But this fact 

will not deter us from further scientific inquiry. Our simple survival is not worth so much that it is to be purchased at the cost of 

intellectual stultification. Nor would the suppression of dangerous 

inquiry save us. Although the achievements of science may, indeed, 

throw us back into barbarism, the abandonment of our search for 

knowledge and material betterment would only make vegetables of us. 

There is no certainty in either science or progess. The science 

and technology that have carried us so far toward physical comfort 

and prosperity may blow us back with an atom blast to barbarism--to 

wars and pestilence; to a world in which the pressure of population 

on primitive resources is controlled only by recurrent war and famine; 

to a world that offers only a tinsel glory for a few built on a pyramid of misery for the many. The application of science to warfare may 

put an end to the surge of scientific progress that began with Galileo. 

We may, indeed, throw ourselves into a war of extermination. Or, in 

an excess of caution, we may throw away our dearest freedoms in false 

and narrowly conceived measures of defense. Either way we lose utterly. The way to peace and continued progress is not clear. But 

neither confusion nor pessimism will justify inaction while there is 

so much that can and ought to be done. We can strive to work our way 

out of the confusion and not be panicked by it into rigid immobility. 

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We need not be dismayed by the uncertainty of the outcome. We can 

gamble cheerfully on the course suggested by our best judgment today, 

and play the next turn according to our better--or perhaps only different--judgment of tomorrow. And there is a chance that we may continue our achievements in the realm of physical well-being and escape 

the worst dangers that we now so vividly see. We may reach the end of 

the wars that have been a scourge to man ever since he began to make 

tools. 

In world affairs, as nearly as I can judge, we are headed for the 

moment toward a stalemate; ·and this is probably the best situation that 

can now be hoped for. The world will remain for a time evenly divided, 

its halves poised for mutual annihilation. Secondary wars will continue with restricted means, as in Korea and Indo-China. The great 

bombing fleets will be held in leash. Always present will be the 

danger of their being unleashed by some mad action or by simple accident. Our nerves will become increasingly taut, and we shall be 

tempted to seek the delusive relief offered by totalitarian government, authoritarianism, obscurantism, thought control. We shall be 

ever threatened by the panic of fear. It is not a pleasant outlook. 

But I see no better one in the near offing. 

We can at least strive to avoid mad actions and pray to be 

delivered from blind accidents. We can, in fact, do more than pray. 

We can all of us, whatever our special calling, keep informed about 

the course of public affairs, recognize that they are of personal 

concern to us, study public problems, and through the constant pressure of an enlightened public opinion prevent those who govern us 

from lapsing into carelessness. We can by our indirect influence 

as well as by voting at the polls see to it that firebrands do not 

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come into power. But let us not try to conjure away our fears by 

propitiatory witch hunts or by fatuous acceptance of the promises 

of political messiahs or the dazzling spectacle of the man on a white 

horse. We need alert yet sober leaders who can and will think their 

way through the problems that confront us, who can judge wisely and 

act decisively. We can have such leaders if we refuse to settle for 

less. Remember the adage of Plato's Republic that the punishment of 

wise men who refuse to take part in the government is to live under 

the government of unwise men. 

The stalemate that I envision, however, will not be a true one 

if it is allowed to rest only on the equal striking power of the 

opposing forces. We must, of course, have striking power equal or 

superior to that of our enemy. But equal striking power does not 

constitute an equilibrium of forces when one side is limited in its 

use of such power entirely to retaliation. And our side is so 

limited and must remain so. For the one thing above all others that 

distinguishes us from the enemy and makes him an enemy is the fact 

that we do not have a totalitarian form of government capable of 

making a surprise attack. Our enemy has such a government and will 

not be deterred from making a surprise attack by our mere threat to 

retaliate, if he has a reasonable hope of destroying at one stroke 

most of the forces that we must rely on for sustained retaliation. 

Had the Japanese been as nearly matched to us in military strength as 

the Soviet alliance is, they would probably have won the war in the 

Pacific. The only true stalemate for us is one in which we have 

striking power superior to the enemy's and defenses that are strong 

enough to balance the inherent advantage our enemies must always 

have of striking first. At the very least we must protect our 

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essential retaliatory means from destruction before they can be used. 

We have not thus far, in planning for defense, taken all the necessary possible measures to prevent such destruction. And unless the 

military corrects its thinking· soon, there is real danger that the 

stalemate upon which we depend for relative peace will prove to be 

altogether illusory. 

This is not the first crisis in human affairs, although it is by 

all odds the most intense we have yet gone through and the fastestpaced one. Yet a generation may suffice to resolve it. And the outcome will depend on how we react under almost intolerable strain. 

Society does not wish to commit suicide, nor does any part of it wish 

to do so. The question is whether it will commit suicide in spite of 

itself. If we can but weather this storm I believe that we may fairly 

hope to build a world in which there will be no more wars of any kind. 

The problems that cause wars--population problems, problems of access 

to resources--all such problems could conceivably be settled to 

everyone's advantage by other means than war, and science can contribute in an important way to their solution. The world's resources 

can be more effectively utilized and made more accessible to people 

by improved means of transport. The wild growth of populations can 

be curbed. Available materials that are not now made use of can be 

brought into profitable use just as has been done in the past with 

petroleum, natural gas, bauxite, and the magnesium in sea water. New 

sources of food may be found in organisms specifically developed to 

increase the total amount of the world's food supply. 

Our future progress depends on how well free peoples have 

learned to govern themselves. The test is not one of how fast 

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establish democracy or succu.mb to the wiles of demagogues or the 

tyranny of dictators. The test comes primarily in the great 

' democracies, with experience in parliamentary processes and the 

operation of courts, under a new type of threat and a gnawing fearo 

The test in this country is whether we can truly_maintain our freedoms and guard our way of life against threats from without, against 

subversion within, and against our own errors and aberrations. Our 

recent performance in this regard is not encouraging. 

The great asset of free countries in the present struggle is 

their freedom. The great disability of dictatorships is that they 

are always permeated with suspicion and distrust, conspiracy, personal spite, the deflection of justice for sinister ends, timidity in 

the expression of honest opinions. In a free world men may disagree 

and maintain their mutual respect; they may urge unpopular courses 

of action and be heard; it is assumed that they are loyal and seeking 

the best for their country and their fellows unless they are proved 

to be traitors by due process in independent and impartial tribunals. 

In a police state men express the current party line; and, if they 

misjudge it, they disappear. 

Here is an enormous advantage for the United States if it is kept 

unimpaired. It ensures that the whole course of government, our 

relations with other countries, our military policy, will undergo 

the full scrutiny of uncoerced public opinion. The advantage extends 

even into minor matters. "When a new weapon is being secretly planned 

about a table, when the relative priority of alternative technical or 

strategic programs is being considered, our system assumes that the 

junior participants who have honest thoughts to contribute may express 

them without fear of retaliation from powerful men who think otherwise, 

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or who have opposing vested interests. This great advantage of freedom to dissent makes the country genuinely strong in many ways. It 

must not be lost. 

Our enemy relies chiefly on the weapons of penetration and subversion to weaken us so that later he can destroy us. His first objective is to steal our secrets. Among the thousands or even millions 

who have access to secret information there have been a few, a very 

few, traitors. We must guard against such traitors with all our skill 

and determination. But the importance of their acts has been exaggerated out of all reasonable proportion. Without their help we tell 

the world, voluntarily, nearly all we know; and our enemy has only to 

read and listen. In technical articles, in advertisements, in budget 

presentations, in the release of testimony, in open court hearings, 

we disclose to the enemy our technical plans and programs, the 

essential characteristics of new airplanes and weapons, the location 

and equipment of our military bases and our factories for producing 

military items. We freely print critical dissections of the technical 

controversies that arise over the explicit development of our major 

weapons. Skilled analysts assemble scattered information and synthesize it into speculative accounts of what is happening in areas of 

military development. There is very little left for an enemy espionage system to find out, and it can concentrate on that little with 

the full background handed to it on a platter. If we are honestly 

determined to keep the enemy ignorant of our plans and designs, we 

must indeed be careful to keep both the traitor and the spy out of 

our councils, laboratories, and factories. But we need much more to 

draw a clear line between the information which the electorate must 

have for its reasoned judgment, and the technical and military 

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information which is not necessary for that purpose; and having drawn 

the line we need to hew strictly to it. Until we do this, we are 

protecting, at great risk to our operations, only a small part of the 

information that should be protected. But this first objective of 

our enemy's actions is today less important to him than his other 

objectives. 

His second objective is to penetrate our organizations and influence our decisions. There is not the slightest doubt that this was 

done successfully in the days when we were more gullible than we now 

are. It is difficult to recapture the atmosphere of the immediate 

post-war period, when we were a pushover for attempts of this kind. 

Russia had been our ally, a difficult one to be sure, but often a 

loyal ally under stress. Remember that when we landed in Normandy, 

we would have been highly vulnerable if Russia had concluded a . separate armistice, or even relaxed its pressure, so that the full 

weight of German arms could be brought to bear on us. It might perhaps have been in Russia's interest thus to prolong the struggle and 

stand aside until the nations of the West had become exhausted. 

After the war there was a strong hope that we could live in peaoe 

and understanding with our former ally. After all, Russia had plenty 

of land and resources and needed a generation in which to build industries and raise its standard of livingo There was validity in 

our purpose to ease tensions and further good relations. It was some 

time before the free world realized that it had demolished one threat 

only to be faced With another, far more sinister and far more skillful 

in its operations. In the interim there was penetration into many 

organizations by men who took their orders from the Kremlin. Much 

harm was done by these men, with their own strange ideas of the future; 

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undisciplined, arrogant men, who did not hesitate to undercut their 

superiors and their colleagues or to connive with a foreign power 

against the nation. The danger from such men is much less today, for 

we are now alert, and we are no longer gullible. Their efforts still 

persist, but they are much less successful and are concentrated on 

auxiliary organizations rather than on the center of government. To 

combat their threat we must be relentlessly vigilant. But the change 

of attitude that has occurred in the last decade, the clear realization among loyal members of our various organizations, from government bodies to labor unions, has rendered the efforts of those who 

would penetrate and influence our decisions and acts in favor of the 

enemy ineffective except in minor ways. 

The third objective of the enemy is the most important one. It 

is to spread confusion and distrust among us. In this purpose he has 

been most successful and is more successful today than ever before. 

In fact he has been so successful that he need hardly try further; we 

are carrying on the process now without his prompting, and the 

process grows by what it feeds on. Look about us. We have a system 

for the clearance of persons to do secret work, which seems almost 

calculated to destroy their reputations by innuendo and charges based 

on.spite. We have adopted a principle, abhorrent to our own best 

~radition, of establishing guilt on the basis of simple association. 

We have men who contributed much to the war effort now placed in 

jeopardy because of the expression of unpopular opinions. Ive have 

useful men denied the opportunity to contribute to our scientific 

efforts because of their youthful indiscreticns. Worst of all, we 

hava the evil practice of ruthless, ambitious men~ who use our 

loyalty procedures for political purposes. Suspicion and distrust 

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are rampant in the land. We are on the verge of abandoning some of 

our most treasured freedoms; we have nearly lost OU.! greatest advantage over the enemy in the current struggle--our mutual regard and 

trust as a people. 

The enemy's actions in the cold war have been uncommonly successful. Their impact has been most severe on the scientific community, and there are several reasons for this. Scientists occupy a 

key position in regard to those secrets which should be most strictly 

kept. They have always been more involved in international relations 

than most men, for science is by its very nature international in 

character. Scientists are highly individualistic; otherwise they 

would not be scientists. Concentrating in one field, they are sometimes exceedingly naive in others. When we dreamed of a world of 

understanding to put an end to recurrent wars, there was a greater 

portion of gullible men among them than among most other groups. And 

there were traitors among them, though exceedingly few, who were 

capable of doing and did great damage to us. It was inevitable, . therefore, that much of the hysterical witch hunt should have been 

concentrated on the scientific profession. Yet there is no place 

where it could be more disastrous to our national interest. In Russia 

today the scientist is respected and honored, too much so no doubt. 

In this country the scientist is under attack, viewed with suspicion; 

and young men hesitate to enter the profession or, once in, to participate in military programs because of the hazards to their reputations and careers. We had better reverse this trend if we wish to 

~ompete on even terms with the enemy. 

Just as soon as this is said there are always several rejoinders. 

Or.e of these is that the scientists seek special privileges. They do 

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not. To seek a restoration of the principles of the Bill of Rights 

in all the procedures of government is no~ to seek special privilege 

in this country. To urge a revision of our present security system . . 

to remove its defects, which are applicab.le to scientists, lawyers, . . 

diplomats, and all others alike, is not to seek special privilege. 

There should be an end, for all who labor in the interests of the 

country's safety, of trial on the basis of unsupported charges, of 

actions by officials of government which destroy reputation, of the 

assumption of guilt before trial. There should be a complete and 

final end of the use of the security system to discredit those who 

disagree. There should be a complete removal of the system from 

politics. To assert these things is to seek privilege, but only the 

privilege of all to live in a country which continues to be free. 

A second rejoinder is that scientists will refuse to serve unless the system is changed to suit their wishes. It is true that many 

individual men shrink from entering government duty under present conditions. A father who got caught in a communist gathering when he 

was twenty and foolish will shield his sons from the ordeal of seeing 

him pilloried. Retiring persons to whom strife of any sort is 

emotionally impossible will avoid the hazard. Men in vulnerable positions, where a whispering campaign, or even a series of strange inquiries among their friends and associates would place their careers 

in jeopardy, may pull their punches and go along with proposals which 

they disapprove rather than stand up and be counted. All this is 

happening and is doing great harm to our national effort. But scientists in general, in government, in industrial laboratories, in 

universities, working on military programs, are hard at work asusual, 

and are devoting their most conscientious efforts to the good of 

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their country, sometimes at considerable risk to themselves. There 

will be no scientific strike. The scientists of the country, like all 

other professional groups, place the good of their country above their 

personal comfort or their personal fate. Among scientific groups today 

there is sadness and discouragement. They work assiduously,_but they 

do not have the enthusiasm and confidence that they once had. They 

are making great technical progress in many fields, and they will 

continue to do so. But they yearn for a leadership in this country 

which would restore the old atmosphere in which there was a closekni t bond of mutual confidence and respect between them and the military, in which they could do their part toward the countryis preservation, anonymously and without thought of personal gain, but without 

threat to their reputations as loyal workers. 

The great question, as we try to envisage the future, is 

whether this madness of ours is a passing phase, or whether it will 

grow until the free world transforms itself into a replica of the 

captive world it opposes. If the latter is the outcome, the struggle 

will be over, for it will then not matter which tyranny prevails. The 

idea of progress then will no longer have any meaningo The question 

for us is whether we can conquer our fears, not abandoning them but 

rendering them sane and realistic, or whether our fears will feed upon 

themselves until we throw away our freedom in a wild attempt to preserve it. 

There is a great threat from overseas. But the threat here at 

home isfor the moment the greater one. This country has been througtl 

similar phases before, not as intense or dangerous, but bad enough. 

After the first World War we had an interval in which the guarantees 

of the Bill of Rights were disregarded by those in power, we had 

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witch hunts, and we saw spooks in every shadow. From this we recovered Without much permanent damage. The situation today is much more 

threatening. If all people knew the wide extent of the threat--which 

goes far beyond the few spectacular cases that make the headlines--

if they understood better how closely it fits into our enemy's designs and how successful those designs are proving, then there would 

be a return to reason in a hurry. One thing we need to learn is that 

the enemy alone stands to gain from the spread of suspicion and distrust among us, and it is in our interest to create mutual confidence. 

One thing we need especially to learn is that a vigorous system for 

throwing out the communists in our midst must be paralleled by vigorous executive action to detect those actions which are inspired by 

spite or attempts at thought control, to see that they are suppressed 

before they do real damage, and see that they backfire promptly on 

those who instigate them. Finally we need to learn that the use of 

star chamber proceedings for political purposes is dangerous in the 

last degree to the very foundation of a democracy. 

I have spoken thus far of three elements of progress--the 

progress of biological evolution, the progress of knowledge and 

understanding, the progress of technology with its attendant dangers 

of self destruction. There is one other form of progress that is 

often questioned but upon which I base my own strongest hopes. I 

ref er to progress in the ethical conceptions and conduct of men. 

How are we to judge of progress in this field? With respect 

to knowledge and understanding I have alreadydogmatically stated my 

standard of values. It is good for mankind to advance in knowledge 

and understanding and to use his knowledge for the pre.motion of human 

welfare. I shall state dogmatically my acceptance of another standard 

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of value by which I am willing to judge the very dogmas of the past. 

It is good for men to love and respect their fellow men and deal not 

only justly but also kindly with one another. 

By this dogmatic standard, as I have previously suggested, we 

may see little evidence of a steady ethical progress .in the last 

hundred and fifty years. But we can most certainly see much progress 

if we look back over the whole span of recorded history. We still 

lie, cheat, and steal as they did in the age of which Homer sang; but 

we do not write epics glorifying the wiles and tricks of unscrupulous 

national heroes. Dishonesty and unscrupulous behavior on the part of 

our leaders and statesmen may still pay temporary local dividends, 

but they lead at last to censure and in some cases to more substantial 

punishment and permanent disgrace. 

The ethical codes subscribed to if not followed by all liberal 

and thoughtful men today, regardless of their religious faiths, are 

more humane than they were six thousand years ago. Contrast the stern 

code of Draco with our present mild laws--mild, in the opinion of 

some, to the point of softness. Contrast the primitive ideal of conduct in the Song of Deborah, glorifying Jael, who enticed the fleeing 

Sisera into her tent and there drove a tent pin into his head, with 

the Sermon on the Mount. The ideal expressed in the Golden Rule, 

which we all yearn to follow, is from the point of view of peaceable 

human relations superior to the older rule of an eye for an eye and 

a tooth for a tooth. 

We are sometimes depressed by the fact that men, however fine 

their ideals, are now and have always been governed in large measure . . by evil, selfish impulses. Yet, if we stop to consider, we have made 

some small progress even in our behavior. Most of us have moved 

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perceptibly away from the primitive xenophobia that hates all outlanders and strangers. We are not so callous to human suffering 

even as our European and colonial forebears of, the sixteenth and 

seventeenth centuries. Mutilation and the pillory have passed out 

of our lexicon of punishments. No one would say with Defoe that a 

bankrupt· who falsifies his declaration ought in justice to be hanged . as a felon, or would regard the theft of a sheep or a shilling as a 

capital offense. We are not yet gentle in our relations with one 

another. But neither are we so savage as once we were. If we are 

at times discouraged, we must consider that the whole era of civilization has been but a moment in the largely unwritten history of mankind. On the whole, I believe, men feel more secure in their relations with one another than they did in the very early days when . every man carried a club, or later when they substituted swords and 

daggers. Perhaps this is jlst an evidence of improved police protection. But it is progress of a sort. We are not, indeed, visionaries 

when we strive for harmonious relations among all nations of the 

world. Our children may live to see its advent. 

In speaking of progress I have avoided the question of ultimate 

goals; the goals with which I have concerned myself are only those of 

men for their own and a few future generations. Can we suppose that 

for the ultimate goal of the cosmic drama man and man's works will 

have any significance? The species may long have been extinct before 

the ultimate, if we can in fact conceive of an ultimate, is reached. 

I am thinking of a much smaller drama in which man is the hero. 

If we may hope that men will within the next generation and a reasonable number of succeeding generations become better and happier than 

they are, according to our present standards of judging what is better 

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and happier, this hope is good in itself and is in no way diminished 

by the thought that men may never become perfect by those standards 

or that their standards of judging will change. We cannot wish for 

what we cannot imagine. 

Indeed it is a grim world, and the future for the moment looks 

dark. We reconcile ourselves now to the loss of that sense of certainty which we too often falsely enjoyed, and we have lost the 

exuberance with which we once hailed a vision of never ending 

progress. We struggle in confusion to maintain the privileges that 

were won by our fathers and that have been ours. But do we need to 

be glum about it all? The birds still sing in the trees; music still 

has the power to move us and to bring back happy memories. It is 

no new thing for man to confront perils in his upward struggle. Life 

has always been hazardous, civilization has always been threatened, 

our individual deaths have always been an inevitable certainty. But 

men have faced uncertain futures before with courage and even a light 

heart. Life, whatever else it may be, is not dull. We are privileged 

to share together in a great adventure, the very hazards of which 

should draw us closer together. With determination and wisdom our 

sorry old world may yet become a happy place to live in, where wars 

are no more, and where the spirit of brotherhood dominates all we 

think and do. 

-JO-