Evening star., 1945-08-12
The Harnessed Atom
And Human Society
Lasting Peace, Christian Spirit
Now Essential to Survival
BIZ William II. Harrison.

By William II. Harrison
And the Lord God commanded the
man, saying, or every tree of the gar
den thou mayest freely eat: But of
the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil thou shalt not eat of it: for in
the day that thou eatest thereof thou
shalt surely die. '"'
And the serpent said unto the
woman. Ye shall not surely die For
God doth know that in the day we
eat thereof. then your eyes shall be
opened, and ye shall be as gods.
knowing good and evil And
she took of the fruit thereof, and did
eat and gave also unto her husband
with her; and he did eat. And the
eyes Of them both were opened - A."
And they heard the voice Of the
Lord God -. And unto Adam he
said. Because thou hast hearkened
unto the voice of thy wife, and hast
eaten of the tree 3 in sorrow shalt
thou eat of 1t all the days of thy life.
In every corner of the world today,
to every perceptive human being, to
the mystic and nonmystic alike, to the
supermaterialistic free-thinker as well
as to the most literal-minded reader of
the Bible, the story of Adam and Eve
in Eden must seem more meaningful,
more profound, more pointed, more
tocsin-like than at any time since it
was first written to give mankind
picture of the creation of earth and
heaven and of light and life.
For wholly apart from the symbol
cally striking coincidence that a wom-
an-an Austrian named Lise Meitner-
is credited with having found the final
mathematical key to it, the develop
ment Of the atomic bomb means that
man in the Goth century, like Adam and
Eve in Eden cons ago. has bitten into
"the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil' so deeply that he and his world
may well die unless he arms himself
with new wisdom against the magnifi-
cent terrors of his own genius.
1t would be reckless, of course, to
carry the Adam-and- Eve analogy too
far BY both instinct and reason-even
though there have been past efforts to
check 1.-THE human race has from its
beginning proceeded on the assumption
that its brains have been given it to be
used and that nothing animate or in
animate. however mysterious or un-
known, is forbidden ground In the i'm
memorial impulse to improve the con-
ditions of life by seeking constantly to
widen the horizons of knowledge. As
Henri Bergson has written, Ito exist is
TO change, to change is to mature to
mature Is to go on evolving ones self
endlessly, and for this purpose one of
the prime essentials of an enlightened
society is that men wage unremitting
war against ignorance on all fronts
whether 1t be in the slums of city or
IN the outer magnitudes of space be-
yond the stars.
Still, irrespective of this reservation
1t remains fact that to some minds at
least-including the minds of certain
Allied scientists who have fatty refused
10 nave anything to do with it, out of
sense OF conscience and primal fear
the creation Of the atomic bomb consti-
tutes an achievement so godlike in
character that there seems little re-
naming for man to learn except a
formula for breathing life into the dead
dust We have journeyed into the dark
est and remotest recesses of Nature and
have returned knowing secret that
gives us control of the fundamental
energy OF the universe-an energy that
ourns far more fiercely than the core of
the sun, giving off heat estimated to be
in the neighborhood of four triLion
degrees Fahrenheit.
This thing, in its present crude form,
IN merely the first stage of its almost
. Amitless development, has enabled the
United States to fashion a weapon
10000 times more destructive than TINT.
The missile that fell on Hiroshima and
the missile that fell on Nagasaki each
contained only an exceedingly small"
quantity OF our new atomic power, but
each was equivalent in blast effect to
1000 OF Britains 11-ton bombs, hitherto
the most terrible destroyers of their
Klno IN the history of the world. Ten
years from now, five years from now
even year from now, given the tech
nical improvements that science can
make in 1t meanwhile, this nightmare
contrlvance of Natures widest and most
devastating force will be many times
more deadly than it is today. This is
TACT, truth, reality that every
human being must make the most
solemn effort to comprehend. Its basic
meaning, its appalling significance, is
this:
Theoretically, at least-dt uery least
the United States OF America, as of
thas moment, as of this day and hour
IN the year OF our Lord, 1915, has it
aoith'n its po,oer literally, and abso-
iutely to destroy the whole aUorld. it.
SELF included. Literally and absolutelv
1t has 1t Uithin its potuer to ,oipe ont
eoery huing thing. euery mortal man
and epery blade of grass, on the tnce
OF the earth, and to conuert this place
into planet as dead as the moon.
When President Truman speaks of the
danger of total universal destruction
ne is not talking make-believe. Nor is
he talking make-believe when he saws
that ut is an awful responsibility which
has come to us" or when he suggests
that all of us could do worse than get
down on our knees and pray God that
He may guide us to use it in His wavs
and for His purposes"