ABSTRACT
Relations between science and culture and the concomitant withdrawal of science into the purely technical sphere, is often supported by the specious and ambiguous argument that science is, and must be, ethically neutral. The contribution which science has to make to ethics, quite apart from questioning its fundamental presuppositions, but merely by revealing facts which were previously unknown or commonly overlooked, is very much greater than is usually admitted. The adoption of methods of thought which are commonplaces in science would bring before the bar of ethical judgment whole groups of phenomena which do not appear. Although science has been commonly held to be ethically neutral, and unconcerned with politics and social affairs, the scientific spirit has in fact been making an important contribution to the development of general cultural ideas. But science is no longer so passive; it has acquired a momentum and strength of its own.
