The Impact of Science on Society

202 Pages·1944·24.98 MB·English

by  RUSSELL, Bertrand

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hACKlE & SON (INDIA) LTD
Sit BEEWRANS) RUSSELL
New Hopes For a Changing World
Authority and the Individual
Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits
History of Western Philosophy
The Principlesof Mathematics
Thtrothrctson to Mathematical Philosophy
The Analysis of Mind
Our Knowledge of the External World
An Outlin of Philosophy
The Philosophy of Leibniz
An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth
Unpopular Essays
Power
In Praise ofIdleness
The Conquest ofHappiness
Sceptical Essays
Mysticism and Logic
The Scientific Outlook
Man*sge and Moras
Education and the Social Ordei
On Education
FreedomandOrgdnization 18141914
PrinciplesofSocialReconstruction
Roadsto Freedom
PracticeandTheoryofBolshevism
TWE AUTUOR
THE
IMPACT OP SCiENCE
ON
SOCIETY
By
BERTRAND RUSSELL
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PREFATORY NOTE
Tins book is based upon lectures originally
given at Ruskin College in Oxford, three of
which were subsequently repeated at Colum
bia University, New York The last chapter
in this book was the Lloyd Roberts Lecture
given at the Royal Society of Medicine
London, on ?9 November 1949.
PUBLISHERS’ NOTE
Tm Introduction by Dr White, the Notes
and the Inda at the end of the text have been
specially written for this edition and do not
form a part of the author’s original text,
published inUnitedKingdom by Messrs George
Alien & Unwin Ltd3 London

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 9
i SCIENCE AND TRADITION 25
IL CENERAL EFFECTS OF SCIENTIFIC TECHNIQUE 49
UI. SCIENTIFIC TECHNIQUE IN AN OLIGARCHY 53
IV. DEMOCRACY AND SCIENTIFIC TECHNiQUE 101
V. SCIENCE ANT) VAR 121
Vt SCIENCE AND VALUES 129
Vii CAN A SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY BE STABLE?, 155
NOTES 180
INDEX 199
ILLUSTRATIONS
THE AUFHOR Fronti*kce

INTRODUCTION
1. Biographical Sketch: Few men have
been so richly endowed by inheritance or by
gifts of intellect as Bertrand Russell and yet
popular recognition caine to him only very late
in life.
He was born on 18 May 1872, and succeeded
to the earldom, as the third Lord Russell, in
1931. His grandfathers were Lord John Russell,
a Whig Prime Minister of the Victorian age,
and Lord Stanley of Alderley.
Tragedy and conflict came into his life in
the early years when at the age of three he was
left an. orphan and became a Ward of the
Court, largely in order to secure a Christia±i
upbringing.
At Cambridge, where he went to Trinity
College in 1890, he was excessively retiring,
having had a very secluded early education,
but he quickly showed extremely high intek
lectual gifts, particularly in mathematics and
philosophy He became a Fellow of Trinity in
1895.
After a short period abroad, at the British
Embassy in Paris, Russell settled down, with a
very brief interlude of political interest, to a
career of research into mathematical analysis.
His fitst significant work was The Principles of