You scientists, self-styled, let a few doctors--ridiculed by the public and unassisted by you--do the investigating of the consciousness you were applying to electrons and protons. They used your method--the empirical method. They have announced their results steadily for the past half century. You never even looked them over. So now what are you? Big cheeses in the high-tension labs. Mere mice, around the psychological clinics. Hunting in your Bulletin for a way to stop war when, really, you haven't a good kindergarten knowledge of what war is and how it comes about."
"If there were enough psychiatrists, then--we wouldn't have to worry?"
"Be sarcastic!" I said. "All you birds need a good psychiatrist." He winced at that, rather sharply, I thought. But I didn't let up on him. "Guys like you are aware enough to see that perhaps Hitler could have used a psychoanalysis. You are not aware enough to see that any president of any big engineering school could use it, too. Why? Because you think pretty much as he thinks. And neither of you can see that your thinking is largely emotion and only somewhat logic. The great blunder of science was to imagine that science could be indefinitely developed for the physical benefit of man and never concurrently applied to his subjective needs, states, motives."
"It was hard enough for the early scientists to get across the simple truth about objects. If they'd tampered with man's beliefs--they'd all have been burned to death."
"What about you later scientists, then? Would anybody burn old Johann Brink to death, today, say for studying Freud?"
Paul chuckled. "The picture is beyond imagining."
"Yeah. And I'm sick of it. All your eminent predecessors rushed ahead investigating stars and bugs and drugs and air currents and left any inquiry into man himself to philosophers--who were usually ignorant even of physical science--or to James and Wundt and a few trying, solitary people. You didn't ever really apply science. Not all science to all reality. You just promulgated pure science along exactly half of its possible lines--and called it a job. Looking forever at the light outside--and never at the interior dark. Justifiable in a sense. But not bright. And not really scientific at all."
"Hear, hear!"
"If the Greeks had worked out math and aerodynamics and built flyable air frames--without bothering to study the problem of engines, we would regard them as remarkably skillful imbeciles. They would have littered old Attica with the fuselages of Piper Cubs and maybe B-29's, that couldn't get off the ground. In a sense, that's what they did do: they pushed knowledge ahead along certain lines a certain distance--and never followed through. You goons are still doing the same half-baked job."
"You want us to quit studying physics and start picking up stuff about the Oedipus complex and sibling rivalry?"
"It's too late. That's the assignment for the next civilization."
He just looked at me.
After a while, I went on. "You birds say that knowledge is power--yet all your knowledge turns into impotence when you want it used for human harmony and peace.
What is the power, then?"
"Let me guess. Instinct. You see--as an old Wylie reader--"
I heaved a cushion at him and enjoyed a little of my second cup of coffee.
"Instinct. You dumb bastards! If you were really dedicated to science, as you say, the last war would never have happened. And the next one wouldn't be forever imminent. You say you believe that scientific knowledge should be free to all. Freedom of knowledge, you say, to put it backwards, is essential to science. But every time the nations get miffed at each other--you lice lock yourselves up in the national labs and go to war against each other as much as any soldier. The old herd instinct. The old ego. Intellectual fealty to scientific principles? You have none!"
"I kind of resent that," Paul said slowly.
"You resent the accusation. We who are about to die of the fact
"If there were enough psychiatrists, then--we wouldn't have to worry?"
"Be sarcastic!" I said. "All you birds need a good psychiatrist." He winced at that, rather sharply, I thought. But I didn't let up on him. "Guys like you are aware enough to see that perhaps Hitler could have used a psychoanalysis. You are not aware enough to see that any president of any big engineering school could use it, too. Why? Because you think pretty much as he thinks. And neither of you can see that your thinking is largely emotion and only somewhat logic. The great blunder of science was to imagine that science could be indefinitely developed for the physical benefit of man and never concurrently applied to his subjective needs, states, motives."
"It was hard enough for the early scientists to get across the simple truth about objects. If they'd tampered with man's beliefs--they'd all have been burned to death."
"What about you later scientists, then? Would anybody burn old Johann Brink to death, today, say for studying Freud?"
Paul chuckled. "The picture is beyond imagining."
"Yeah. And I'm sick of it. All your eminent predecessors rushed ahead investigating stars and bugs and drugs and air currents and left any inquiry into man himself to philosophers--who were usually ignorant even of physical science--or to James and Wundt and a few trying, solitary people. You didn't ever really apply science. Not all science to all reality. You just promulgated pure science along exactly half of its possible lines--and called it a job. Looking forever at the light outside--and never at the interior dark. Justifiable in a sense. But not bright. And not really scientific at all."
"Hear, hear!"
"If the Greeks had worked out math and aerodynamics and built flyable air frames--without bothering to study the problem of engines, we would regard them as remarkably skillful imbeciles. They would have littered old Attica with the fuselages of Piper Cubs and maybe B-29's, that couldn't get off the ground. In a sense, that's what they did do: they pushed knowledge ahead along certain lines a certain distance--and never followed through. You goons are still doing the same half-baked job."
"You want us to quit studying physics and start picking up stuff about the Oedipus complex and sibling rivalry?"
"It's too late. That's the assignment for the next civilization."
He just looked at me.
After a while, I went on. "You birds say that knowledge is power--yet all your knowledge turns into impotence when you want it used for human harmony and peace.
What is the power, then?"
"Let me guess. Instinct. You see--as an old Wylie reader--"
I heaved a cushion at him and enjoyed a little of my second cup of coffee.
"Instinct. You dumb bastards! If you were really dedicated to science, as you say, the last war would never have happened. And the next one wouldn't be forever imminent. You say you believe that scientific knowledge should be free to all. Freedom of knowledge, you say, to put it backwards, is essential to science. But every time the nations get miffed at each other--you lice lock yourselves up in the national labs and go to war against each other as much as any soldier. The old herd instinct. The old ego. Intellectual fealty to scientific principles? You have none!"
"I kind of resent that," Paul said slowly.
"You resent the accusation. We who are about to die of the fact
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