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Abstract

WE have received under the designation of “Commission F (Propaganda) “what is apparently a proposal emanating from the Twenty-third World Peace Congress to the Commission for Intellectual Co-operation of the League of Nations. We forbear to reproduce the language of this document, which has evidently been written under strong emotion. After an allusion to the fact that science often places its work at the service of war and destruction, a further allegation is made that science is frequently governed by a spirit of national hostility and narrow-mindedness, accompanied by the oppression and persecution of savants “who expressly profess another opinion.” The wording of this document is not felicitous, but the meaning and purpose are tolerably clear. The Commission for Intellectual Co-operation will certainly have the goodwill of the British scientific world in its efforts to divest science from all its misuses by man, and in all efforts towards promoting international amity. We think, however, that the document before us greatly overstates the case and does” much less than justice to the international sympathies that have existed and have been fostered in the scientific world. We certainly know nothing of international oppressions and persecutions following upon conflicts of opinion; we should rather have said that, before the War, the nations had nowhere reached a sense and condition of brotherhood more real than in the world of science. Not only was there a pooling of all new knowledge, but there were also numerous international organisations for co-operative scientific investigation and for deliberative and social intercourse. Few men of science in modern times have attained maturity without finding themselves linked by strong ties of friendship to a multitude of foreign fellow-workers. Certainly there are sometimes acute differences of opinion between two men of science, or it may be two schools of thought in different countries, but we have no knowledge of any oppression or persecution arising here any more than among men of the same country.