What Hope for Man [1950]

The hopes and fears are alike due to the operation of new science and new technique upon old human nature, which is not changing as fast as the new circumstances require. Human life cannot be made a matter of unalloyed bliss, but the permissible hopes are very considerable. Scientific technique can confer two kinds of benefits: it can diminish bad things and increase good things. Scientific technique can abolish poverty and excessive hours of labour; whether it does so or not depends upon whether it co-exists with democracy. In the West, fortunately, the 10 growth of industrialism has coincided with the growth of democracy. It has been so used to a limited extent, in Britain and America, and would have been so used more effectively but for war. Its use in raising the standard of life has depended mainly upon three things: democracy, trade unionism, and birth control.