SCIENCE AND DEMOCRACY

By Linus Pauling

Tau Beta Pi Banquet, Athenaeum, November 26, 1940

When I was last asked to speak at a TBP banquet, several years ago, nothing entered my mind except to talk on a scientific subject. Things are different now; in these days we all have a greater consciousness of social and political subjects, and hence it may be allowed me to talk on the subject expressed in a general way by the title Science and Democracy.

Democracy in its development has run a parallel course to science. Democracy, that form of government in which the people rules itself, originated in Greece, at the time that science got its start. The science of the Greeks was not perfect - thus Aristotle thought that a body weighing two pounds would fall twice as fast as one weighing one pound, and Lucretius (a Roman, to be sure) said that the molecules of honey and milk are round, whereas those of wormwood are hooked. Similarly the democracy of the Greeks was the rule of only a portion of the people - the others, the slaves, were in fact not considered to be people.

Democracy and science both faltered and lagged in the middle ages. Then came the renaissance of science and the revolutions which led to the rebirth of democracy - a better democracy than that of the ancients. This started with the revolutions of 1642 and 1688 in England, which consolidated the parliamentary system, then the American revolution; the French revolutions of 1789, 1830, and 1848; and Democracy got a firm and, we hope, lasting start in the world.

Thomas Jefferson, who may be considered the father of American democracy, stated that it was closely linked with science. He wrote in a letter to John Adams that he and his followers had believed "in the improvability of the human mind in science, in ethicism in government, etc. Those who advocated a reformation of institutions, pari passu with the progress of science, maintained that no definite limits could be assigned to progress. The enemies of reform, on the other hand, denied improvement and advocated steady adherence to the principles practices, and institutions of our fathers which they represented as the consummation of wisdom and the acme of excellence beyond which the human mind could never advance". Thus Jefferson contended that government, like science, could grow and improve through research. This is what democracy has done - there have been continual reforms, leading to a greater and greater voice of the people as a hole in the affairs of state. Thus in the time Of Andrew Jackson, who was truly the representative of the people, the old caucus system of electing the president was abolished in favor of the modern one with the electors pledged to vote for a certain candidate, and now we are talking of election by popular vote.

Democracy is a government of free men. It assures to the citizen personal freedom - the right to say what he wants to, to do what he wants to, subject only to the limitation that he must not thereby work against the common good. The alternative of dictatorship is that of slavery, with the individual subject to the whim of the ruler. This freedom is something worth fighting for, worth going to war for if necessary.

And now let me talk a bit about science and war, since war and government are linked together. Man has always been a warlike animal, and he has usually been fighting for his freedom of action in one way or another. In the earliest times he fought with his neighbor when their interests clashed. Then when he had learned to form tribes for the common good and protection the tribes fought. In time, with the development of the science of agriculture, there arose towns, which fought with neighboring towns. Mr. Waser has told me a story about Zurich and Rapperswil a thousand years ago. These towns were at war [end of typescript]

[from the manuscript] Now where are we and what can we hope for? We have large countries - a score or more, with a half-dozen of importance. These countries are fighting - the democracies, in which people are free, against the totalitarian states, in which people are the slaves of the rulers. England is fighting not alone for democracy but for existence - yet this is essentially for democracy. We are arming ---- .

The future? We can extrapolate - with the progress of science the countries of the future will be larger. Ultimately - perhaps in our lifetime - there will be a world government. The great question is this - will it be a world democracy or a world dictatorship. Either is possible.

The present war will lead to larger countries. Perhaps one will be so large as to dominate the world from now on - then war would be over. Otherwise the issue will be settled by a later war or wars.

The best hope is that the democracies will win this war and then continue to dominate the world. Control of the seas is the important thing. Admiral Mahan.