ABSTRACT
There is one human characteristic which can find a mode of expression in nationalism and war, and which, it may seem, would have to be completely denied in a scientific society. There is certainly a difficulty for science, since scientific belief is a quantitative affair; one believes in some things more, in others less, but in none with such absoluteness that evidence becomes irrelevant. Moreover, the nearer it gets to action, the more specific, though not necessarily the more unqualified, the advice of science becomes. What science gives one is a specific and detailed instruction which has a probability of bringing about the desired result; and scientific action is normally and essentially based on rather than on certainties. Science by itself is able to provide mankind with a way of life which is, firstly self-consistent and harmonious, and, secondly, free for the exercise of that objective reason on which our material progress depends.
