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TOPICS
Anthropology
What is anthropology
A day in Samoa
The economic process in primitive societies
The early education of Manus children
Moral standards and social organization
Production in primitive societies
The rules of good fieldwork
The science of custom
Survival in the cage
Gestures
Regional signals
The voices of time
Biology
Evolution and natural selection.
The laws of heredity: Mendel
Banting and the discovery of insulin
The Galapagos
On the origin of species
A modern look at monsters
Business
Brands Up
How to be a great manager
Derivatives - the beauty
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Motives
Research & development
SONY
American and Japanese styles
Chemistry
Metallurgy: Making alloys
Electricity helps Chemistry: Electro-plating
Economics
The conventional wisdom
Markets
Investment
Barter
Productivity as a guide to wages
The failure of the classical theory of commercial policy
Education
The personal qualities of a teacher
Rousseau's Emile
The beginnings of scientific and technical education
Supposed mental faculties and their training
The concept of number
English in the primary school
Britain and Japan: Two roads to higher education
What types of students do you have to teach?
Spoon-fed feel lost at the cutting edge
Geology/Geography
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The age of the earth
Oils
The use of land
History
The nature, object and purpose of history
The expansion of Western civilization
The career of Jenghis Khan
The trial and execution of Charles I
Peter the Great
The United States in 1790
Civilisation and history
Coal
Language
'Primitiveness' in language
English in the fifteenth century
An international language
Language as symbolism
From word symbol to phoneme symbol
Law
Modern constitutions
The functions of government
Initiative and referendum
Law report
The legal character of international law
The law of negligence
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The death penalty
Mathematics
On different degrees of smallness
Chance or probability
Philosophy
Definition and some of its difficulties
The subject matter of philosophy
What can we communicate?
Ethics
Aristotle's Ethics
The road to happiness
Logic
Inductive and deductive logic
Physics
The origin of the sun and the planets.
Can life exist on the planets?
The theory of continuous creation.
The creation of the universe
Atomic radiation and life
Marconi and the invention of radio
Particles or waves?
Matter, mass and energy
Structure of matter
The quantum theory of radiation
Footprints of the atom
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Splitting the atom
The development of electricity
The discovery of x-rays
Politics
Crowds
Diplomacy
What future for Africa?
Nationalism
Democracy
Locke's political theory
The search for world order
The declaration of independence
The rights of man
Psychology
Society and intelligence
The pressure to conform
Learning to live with the computer
Forgetting
Adolescence
Body language
Distance regulation in animals
An observation and an explanation
Gestures
Adaptive control of reading rate
Sociology
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Rational and irrational elements in contemporary society
Social life in a provincial university
The menace of over-population
Changes in English social life after 1918
Scientific method in the social sciences
Shopping in Russia
Technology
Seduced by technology
Blowing hot and cold on British windmills
Direct uses of solar radiation
Industrial robots
Tomorrow's phone calls
Coal
The medium is the message
The development of electricity
The autonomous house
Twentieth Century Discovery
Discovery of insecticides and pesticides
The origin of life
The structure of matter
Distance in our solar system
Space travel
The Artificial World Around Us
What men are doing to things
The nose does not know
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"This movie smells"
The artificial air
The odor-makers
The truth about tastes
Inside the flavor factory
Let us have "Nothing" to eat
What is happening to the steel age?
Diamonds of the laboratory
Who made this ruby?
The synthetic future
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ANTROPOLOGY
What Is Anthropology?
Anthropology is the study of humankind, especially of Homo sapiens, the biological species
to which we human beings belong. It is the study of how our species evolved from more
primitive organisms; it is also the study of how our species developed a mode of
communication known as language and a mode of social life known as culture. It is the study
of how culture evolved and diversified. And finally, it is the study of how culture, people, and
nature Interact wherever human beings are found.
This book is an Introduction to general anthropology, which is an amalgam of four fields of
study traditionally found within departments of anthropology at major universities. The four
fields are cultural anthropology (sometimes called social anthropology), archaeology,
anthropological linguistics, and physical anthropology. The collaborative effort of these four
fields is needed in order to study our species in evolutionary perspective and in relation to
diverse habitats and cultures.
Cultural anthropology deals with the description and analysis of the forms and styles of social
life of past and present ages. Its subdiscipline, ethnography, systematically describes
contemporary societies and cultures. Comparison of these descriptions provides the basis for
hypotheses and theories about the causes of human lifestyles.
Archaeology adds a crucial dimension to this endeavor. By digging up the remains of cultures
of past ages, archaeology studies sequences of social and cultural evolution under diverse
natural and cultural conditions. In the quest for understanding the present-day characteristics
of human existence, for validating or invalidating proposed theories of historical causation,
the great temporal depth of the archaeological record is indispensable.
Anthropological linguistics provides another crucial perspective:
the study of the totality of languages spoken by human beings. Linguistics attempts to
reconstruct the historical changes that have led to the formation of individual languages and
families of languages. More fundamentally, anthropological linguistics is concerned with the
nature of language and Its functions and the way language Influences and is Influenced by
other aspects of cultural life. Anthropological linguistics is concerned with the origin of
language and the relationship between the evolution of language and the evolution of Homo
sapiens. And finally, anthropological linguistics is concerned with the relationship between
the evolution of languages and the evolution and differentiation of human cultures.
Physical anthropology grounds the work of the other anthropological fields in our animal
origins and our genetically determined nature. Physical anthropology seeks to reconstruct the
course of human evolution by studying the fossil remains of ancient human and infrahuman
species. Physical anthropology seeks to describe the distribution of hereditary variations
among contemporary populations and to sort out and measure the relative contributions made
by heredity, environment, and culture to human biology.
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Because of Its combination of biological, archaeological, and ethnographic perspectives,
general anthropology is uniquely suited to the study of many problems of vital Importance to
the survival and well-being of our species.
To be sure, disciplines other than anthropology are concerned with the study of human beings.
Our animal nature is the subject of intense research by biologists, geneticists, and
physiologists. In medicine alone, hundreds of additional specialists investigate the human
body, and psychiatrists and psychologists, rank upon rank, seek the essence of the human
mind and soul. Many other disciplines examine our cultural, intellectual, and aesthetic
behavior. These disciplines include sociology, human geography, social psychology, political
science, economics, linguistics, theology, philosophy, musicology, art, literature, and
architecture. There are also many “area specialists,” who study the languages and life-styles
of particular peoples, nations, or regions: “Latin Americanists,” “Indianists,” “Sinologists,”
and so on. In view of this profusion of disciplines that describe, explain, and Interpret aspects
of human life, what justification can there be for a single discipline that claims to be the
general science of the human species?
The Importance of General Anthropology
Research and publications are accumulating in each of the four fields of anthropology at an
exponential rate. Few anthropologists nowadays master more than one field. And
anthropologists increasingly find themselves working not with fellow anthropologists of
another field but with members of entirely different scientific or humanistic specialties. For
example, cultural anthropologists interested in the relationship between cultural practices and
the natural environment may be obliged to pay closer attention to agronomy or ecology than
to linguistics. Physical anthropologists interested in the relationship between human and
protohuman fossils may, because of the Importance of teeth in the fossil record, become more
familiar with dentistry journals than with journals devoted to ethnography or linguistics.
Cultural anthropologists interested in the relationship between culture and individual
personality are sometimes more at home professionally with psychiatrists and social
psychologists than with the archaeologists in theIr own university departments. Hence, many
more than four fields are represented in the ongoing research of modern anthropology.
The specialized nature of most anthropological research makes it Imperative that the general
significance of anthropological facts and theories be preserved. This is the task of general
anthropology.
General anthropology does not pretend to survey the entire subject matter of physical,
cultural, archaeological, and linguistic anthropology. Much less does It pretend to survey the
work of the legions of scholars in other disciplines who also study the biological, linguistic,
and cultural aspects of human existence. Rather, it strives to achieve a particular orientation
toward all the human sciences, disciplines, and fields. Perhaps the best word for this
orientation is ecumenical. General anthropology does not teach all that one must know in
order to master the four fields or all that one must know in order to become an anthropologist.
Instead, general anthropology teaches how to evaluate facts and theories about human nature
and human culture by placing them in a total, universalist perspective. In the words of
Frederica De Laguna,
Anthropology is the only discipline that offers a conceptual schema for the whole context of
human experience…. It is like the carrying frame onto which may be fitted all the several
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subjects of a liberal education, and by organizing the load, making it more wieldy and capable
of being carried. (1968, p. 475)
I believe that the importance of general anthropology is that It is panhuman, evolutionary, and
comparative. The previously mentioned disciplines are concerned with only a particular
segment of human experience or a particular time or phase of our cultural or biological
development. But general anthropology is systematically and uncompromisingly comparative.
Its findings are never based upon the study of a single population, race, “tribe,” class, or
nation. General anthropology insists first and foremost that conclusions based upon the study
of one particular human group or civilization be checked against the evidence of other groups
or civilizations under both similar and different conditions. In this way the relevance of
general anthropology transcends the interests of any particular “tribe,” race, nation, or culture.
In anthropological perspective, all peoples and civilizations are fundamentally local and
evanescent. Thus general anthropology is implacably opposed to the insularity and mental
constriction of those who would have themselves and none other represent humanity, stand at
the pinnacle of progress, or be chosen by God or history to fashion the world in their own
Image.
Therefore general anthropology is “relevant” even when It deals with fragments of fossils,
extinct civilizations, remote villages, or exotic customs. The proper study of humankind
requires a knowledge of distant as well as near lands and of remote as well as present times.
Only in this way can we humans hope to tear off the blinders of our local life-styles to look
upon the human condition without prejudice.
Because of Its multidisciplinary, comparative, and diachronic perspective, anthropology holds
the key to many fundamental questions of recurrent and contemporary relevance. It lies
peculiarly within the competence of general anthropology to explicate our species’ animal
heritage, to define what is distinctively human about human nature, and to differentiate the
natural and the cultural conditions responsible for competition, conflict, and war. General
anthropology is also strategically equipped to probe the significance of racial factors in the
evolution of culture and in the conduct of contemporary human affairs. General anthropology
holds the key to an understanding of the origins of social inequality - of racism, exploitation,
poverty, and underdevelopment. Overarching all of general anthropology’s contributions is
the search for the causes of social and cultural differences and similarities. What is the nature
of the determinism that operates in human history, and what are the consequences of this
determinism for individual freedom of thought and action? To answer these questions is to
begin to understand the extent to which we can increase humanity’s freedom and well-being
by conscious intervention in the processes of cultural evolution.
A Day in Samoa
The life of the day begins at dawn, or if the moon has shown until daylight, the shouts of the
young men may be heard before dawn from the hillside. Uneasy in the night, populous with
ghosts, they shout lustily to one another as they hasten with their work. As the dawn begins to
fall among the soft brown roofs and the slender palm trees stand out against a colourless,
gleaming sea, lovers slip home from trysts beneath the palm trees or in the shadow of beached
canoes, that the light may find each sleeper in his appointed place. Cocks crow, negligently,
and a shrill-voiced bird cries from the breadfruit trees. The insistent roar of the reef seems
muted to an undertone for the sounds of a waking village. Babies cry, a few short wails before
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sleepy mothers give them the breast. Restless little children roll out of their sheets and wander
drowsily down to the beach to freshen their faces in the sea. Boys, bent upon an early fishing,
start collecting their tackle and go to rouse their more laggard companions. Fires are lit, here
and there, the white smoke hardly visible against the paleness of the dawn. The whole village,
sheeted and frowsy, stirs, rubs its eyes, and stumbles towards the beach. 'Talofa!' 'Talofa!'
'Will the journey start today?' 'Is it bonito fishing your lordship is going?' Girls stop to giggle
over some young ne'er-do-well who escaped during the night from an angry father's pursuit
and to venture a shrewd guess that the daughter knew more about his presence than she told.
The boy who is taunted by another, who has succeeded him in his sweetheart's favour,
grapples with his rival, his foot slipping in the wet sand. From the other end of the village
comes a long-drawn-out, piercing wail. A messenger has just brought word of the death of
some relative in another village. Half-clad, unhurried women, with babies at their breasts or
astride their hips, pause in their tale of Losa's outraged departure from her father's house to
the greater kindness in the home of her uncle, to wonder who is dead. Poor relatives whisper
their requests to rich relatives, men make plans to set a fish-trap together, a woman begs a bit
of yellow dye from a kinswoman, and through the village sounds the rhythmic tattoo which
calls the young men together. They gather from all parts of the village, diggingsticks in hand,
ready to start inland to the plantation. The older men set off upon their more lonely
occupations, and each household, reassembled under its peaked roof, settles down to the
routine of the morning. Little children, too hungry to wait for the late breakfast, beg lumps of
cold taro which they munch greedily. Women carry piles of washing to the sea or to the
spring at the far end of the village, or set off inland after weaving materials. The older girls go
fishing on the reef, or perhaps set themselves to weaving a new set of Venetian blinds.
In the houses, where the pebbly floors have been swept bare with a stiff, long-handled broom,
the women great with child and the nursing mothers sit and gossip with one another. Old men
sit apart, unceasingly twisting palm husk on their bare thighs and muttering old tales under
their breath. The carpenters begin work on the new house, while the owner bustles about
trying to keep them in a good humour. Families who will cook today are hard at work; the
taro, yams, and bananas have already been brought from inland; the children are scuttling
back and forth, fetching sea water, or leaves to stuff the pig. As the sun rises higher in the sky,
the shadows deepen under the thatched roofs, the sand is burning to the touch, the hibiscus
flowers wilt on the hedges, and little children bid the smaller ones, 'Come out of the sun.'
Those whose excursions have been short return to the village, the women with strings of
crimson jellyfish, or baskets of shellfish, the men with coconuts, carried in baskets slung on a
shoulder-pole. The women and children eat their breakfast, just hot from the oven, if this is
cook day, and the young men work swiftly in the midday heat, preparing the noon feast for
their elders.
It is high noon. The sand burns the feet of the little children, who leave their palm-leaf balls
and their pinwheels of frangipani blossoms to wither in the sun, as they creep into the shade
of the houses. The women who must go abroad carry great banana leaves as sunshades or
wind wet cloths about their heads. Lowering a few blinds against the slanting sun all who are
left in the village wrap their heads in sheets and go to sleep. Only a few adventurous children
may slip away for a swim in the shadow of a high rock, some industrious woman continues
with her weaving, or a close little group of women bend anxiously over a woman in labour.
The village is dazzling and dead; any sound seems oddly loud and out of place. Words have to
cut through the solid heat slowly. And then the sun gradually sinks over the sea.
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A second time the sleeping people stir, roused perhaps by the cry of 'A boat!' resounding
through the village. The fishermen beach their canoes, weary and spent from the heat, in spite
of the slaked lime on their heads, with which they have sought to cool their brains and redden
their hair. The brightly coloured fishes are spread out on the floor, or piled in front of the
houses until the women pour water over them to free them from taboo. Regretfully, the young
fishermen separate out the 'taboo fish', which must be sent to the chief, or proudly they pack
the little palm-leaf baskets with offerings offish to take to their sweethearts. Men come home
from the bush, grimy and heavy laden, shouting as they come, greeted in a sonorous rising
cadence by those who have remained at home. They gather in the guest house for their
evening kava drinking. The soft clapping of hands, the highpitched intoning of the talking
chief who serves the kava echo through the village. Girls gather flowers to weave into
necklaces; children, lusty from their naps and bound to no particular task, play circular games
in the half shade of the late afternoon. Finally the sun sets, in a flame which stretches from the
mountain behind to the horizon on the sea; the last bather comes up from the beach, children
straggle home, dark little figures etched against the sky; lights shine in the houses, and each
household gathers for its evening meal. The suitor humbly presents his offering, the children
have been summoned from their noisy play, perhaps there is an honoured guest who must be
served first, after the soft, barbaric singing of Christian hymns and the brief and graceful
evening prayer. In front of a house at the end of the village, a father cries out the birth of a
son. In some family circles a face is missing, in others little runaways have found a haven.
Again quiet settles upon the village, as first the head of the household, then the women and
children, and last of all the patient boys, eat their supper.
After supper the old people and the little children are bundled off to bed. If the young people
have guests, the front of the house is yielded to them. For day is the time for the councils of
old men and the labours of youth, and night is the time for lighter things. Two kinsmen, or a
chief and his councillor, sit and gossip over the day's events or make plans for the morrow.
Outside a crier goes through the village announcing that the communal breadfruit pit will be
opened in the morning, or that the village will make a great fish-trap. If it is moonlight,
groups of young men, women by twos and threes, wander through the village, and crowds of
children hunt for land crabs or chase each other among the breadfruit trees. Half the village
may go fishing by torchlight, and the curving reef will gleam with wavering lights and echo
with shouts of triumph or disappointment, teasing words or smothered cries of outraged
modesty. Or a group of youths may dance for the pleasure of some visiting maiden.
Many of those who have retired to sleep, drawn by the merry music, will wrap their sheets
about them and set out to find the dancing. A white-clad, ghostly throng will gather in a circle
about the gaily lit house, a circle from which every now and then a few will detach
themselves and wander away among the trees. Sometimes sleep will not descend upon the
village until long past midnight; then at last there is only the mellow thunder of the reef and
the whisper of lovers, as the village rests until dawn.
(From Coming of age in Samoa by Margaret Mead (1928))
The Economic Process in Primitive Societies
In our own economic system money gives a universal measure of values, a convenient
medium of exchange through which we can buy or sell almost anything, and also a standard
by which payments at one time can be expressed as commitments for the future. In a wider
sense it allows for the measurement of services against things, and promotes the flow of the
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economic process. In a primitive society without money we might expect all this to be absent,
yet the economic process goes on. There is a recognition of services, and payment is made for
them; there are means of absorbing people into the productive process, and values are
expressed in quantitative terms, measured by traditional standards.
Let us examine, to begin with, a situation of simple distribution such as occurs when an
animal is killed in a hunt. Do the hunters fall on the carcass and cut it to pieces, the largest
piece to the strongest man? This is hardly ever the case. The beast is normally divided
according to recognized principles. Since the killing of an animal is usually a co-operative
activity one might expect to find it portioned out according to the amount of work done by
each hunter to obtain it. To some extent this principle is followed, but other people have their
rights as well. In many parts of Australia each person in the camp gets a share depending
upon his or her relation to the hunters. The worst parts may even be kept by the hunters
themselves. In former times, at Alice Springs, according to Palmer, when a kangaroo was
killed the hunter had to give the left hind leg to his brother, the tail to his father's brother's
son, the loins and fat to his father-in-law, the ribs to his mother-in-law, the forelegs to his
father's younger sister, the head to his wife, and he kept for himself the entrails and the blood.
In different areas the portions assigned to such kinsfolk differ. When grumbles and fights
occur, as they often do, it is not because the basic principles of distribution are questioned, but
because it is thought they are not being properly followed. Though the hunter, his wife, and
children seem to fare badly, this inequality is corrected by their getting in their turn better
portions from kills by other people. The result is a criss-cross set of exchanges always in
progress. The net result in the long run is substantially the same to each person, but through
this system the principles of kinship obligation and the morality of sharing food have been
emphasized.
We see from this that though the principle that a person should get a reward for his labour is
not ignored, this principle is caught up into a wider set of codes which recognize that kinship
ties, positions, or privilege, and ritual ideas should be supported on an economic basis. As
compared with our own society, primitive societies make direct allowance for the dependants
upon producers as well as for the immediate producers themselves.
These same principles come out in an even more striking way in the feasts which are such an
important part of much primitive life. The people who produce the food, or who own it,
deliberately often hand over the best portions to others.
A feast may be the means of repaying the labour of others; of setting the seal on an important
event, such as initiation or marriage; or of cementing an alliance between groups. Prestige is
usually gained by the giver of the feast, but where personal credit and renown are linked most
closely with the expenditure of wealth, the giving of a feast is a step upon the ladder of social
status. In the Banks Islands and other parts of Melanesia such feasts are part of the ceremonial
of attaining the various ranks of the men's society, which is an important feature of native life.
In Polynesia these graded feasts do not normally occur, but in Tikopia a chief is expected to
mark the progress of his reign by a feast every decade or so. The 'feasts of merit' of the Nagas
of Assam are not so much assertion against social competitors as means of gaining certain
recognized ranks in the society.
(From Human Types, by Raymond Firth.
The Early Education of Manus Children
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For the first few months after he has begun to accompany his mother about the village the
baby rides quietly on her neck or sits in the bow of the canoe while his mother punts in the
stern some ten feet away. The child sits quietly, schooled by the hazards to which he has been
earlier exposed. There are no straps, no baby harness to detain him in his place. At the same
time, if he should tumble overboard, there would be no tragedy. The fall into the water is
painless. The mother or father is there to pick him up. Babies under two and a half or three are
never trusted with older children or even with young people. The parents demand a speedy
physical adjustment from the child, but they expose him to no unnecessary risks. He is never
allowed to stray beyond the limits of safety and watchful adult care.
So the child confronts duckings, falls, dousings of cold water, or entanglements in slimy
seaweed, but he never meets with the type of accident which will make him distrust the
fundamental safety of his world. Although he himself may not yet have mastered the physical
technique necessary for perfect comfort in the water his parents have. A lifetime of dwelling
on the water has made them perfectly at home there. They are sure-footed, clear-eyed, quick
handed. A baby is never dropped; his mother never lets him slip from her arms or carelessly
bumps his head against door post or shelf. In the physical care of the child she makes no
clumsy blunders. Her every move is a reassurance to the child, counteracting any doubts
which he may have accumulated in the course of his own less sure-footed progress. So
thoroughly do Manus children trust their parents that a child will leap from any height into an
adult's outstretched arms, leap blindly and with complete confidence of being safely caught.
Side by side with the parents' watchfulness and care goes the demand that the child himself
should make as much effort, acquire as much physical dexterity, as possible. Every gain a
child makes is noted, and the child is inexorably held to his past record. There are no cases of
children who toddle a few steps, fall, bruise their noses, and refuse to take another step for
three months. The rigorous way of life demands that the children be self-sufficient as early as
possible. Until a child has learned to handle his own body, he is not safe in the house, in a
canoe or on the small islands. His mother or aunt is a slave, unable to leave him for a minute,
never free of watching his wandering steps. So every new proficiency is encouraged and
insisted upon. Whole groups of busy men and women cluster about the baby's first step, but
there is no such delightful audience to bemoan his first fall. He is set upon his feet gently but
firmly and told to try again. The only way in which he can keep the interest of his admiring
audience is to try again. So self-pity is stifled and another step is attempted.
As soon as the baby can toddle uncertainly he is put down into the water at low tide when
parts of the lagoon are high and others only a few inches under water. Here the baby sits and
plays in the water or takes a few hesitating steps in the yielding spongy mud. The mother does
not leave his side, nor does she leave him there long enough to weary him. As he grows older,
he is allowed to wade about at low tide. His elders keep a sharp lookout that he does not stray
into deep water until he is old enough to swim. But the supervision is unobtrusive. Mother is
always there if the child gets into difficulties, but he is not nagged and plagued with continual
'don'ts'. His whole play-world is so arranged that he is permitted to make small mistakes from
which he may learn better judgment and greater circumspection, but he is never allowed to
make mistakes which are serious enough to frighten him permanently or inhibit his activity.
He is a tight-rope walker, learning feats which we would count outrageously difficult for little
children, but his tight-rope is stretched above a net of expert parental solicitude.... Expecting
children to swim at three, to climb about like young monkeys even before that age, may look
to us like forcing them; really it is simply a quiet insistence upon their exerting every particle
of energy and strength which they possess. Swimming is not taught: the small waders imitate
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their slightly older brothers and sisters, and after floundering about in waist deep water begin
to strike out for themselves. Sure-footedness on land and swimming come almost together, so
that the charm which is recited over a newly delivered woman says, 'May you not have
another child until this one can walk and swim.'
(From Growing up in New Guinea, by Margaret Mead.)
Moral Standards and Social Organization
What the anthropologist does in the study of moral systems is to examine for particular
societies the ideas of right and wrong that are held, and their social circumstances.
Consideration of material from some of the more primitive societies, and a contrast of it with
Western patterns, will help to bring out some of the basic moral aspects of social action.
A simple way of introducing this subject is to mention a personal experience. It concerns the
morality of giving, which has important problems in all human societies.
When I went to the isolated island of Tikopia I was dependent, as every anthropologist is, on
the local people for information and for guidance. This they gave, freely in some respects, but
with reservation in others, particularly on religious matters. Almost without exception, too,
they showed themselves greedy for material goods such as knives, fish-hooks, calico, pipes
and tobacco, and adept at many stratagems for obtaining them. In particular, they used the
forms of friendship. They made me gifts in order to play upon the sense of obligation thus
aroused in me. They lured me to their houses by generous hospitality which it was difficult to
refuse, and then paraded their poverty before me. The result of a month or two of this was that
I became irritated and weary. My stocks of goods were not unlimited, and I did not wish to
exhaust them in this casual doling out to people from whom I got no special anthropological
return. I foresaw the time when I would wish to reward people for ethnographic data and help
of a scientific kind and I would either have debased my currency or exhausted it. Moreover I
came to the conclusion that there was no such thing as friendship or kindliness among these
people. Everything they did for me seemed to be in expectation of some return. What was
worse, they were apt to ask for such return at the time, or even in advance of their service.
Then I began to reflect. What was this disinterested friendship and kindness which I expected
to find? Why, indeed, should these people do many services for me, a perfect stranger,
without return? Why should they be content to leave it to me to give them what I wanted
rather than express their own ideas upon what they themselves wanted? In our European
society how far can we say disinterestedness goes? How far do we use this term for what is
really one imponderable item in a whole series of interconnected services and obligations? A
Tikopia, like anyone else, will help to pick a person up if he slips to the ground, bring him a
drink, or do many other small things without any mention of reciprocation. But many other
services which involve him in time and trouble he regards as creating an obligation. This is
just what they do themselves. He thinks it right to get a material reward, and right that he
should be able to ask for it. Is he wrong in this? Was my moral indignation at his self-seeking
justified?
So I revised my procedure. At first I had expected a man to do me a service and wait, until, in
my own good time, I made him a freewill gift. Now I abandoned the pretence of disinterested
friendliness. When a gift was made to me or a service done, I went at once to my stores,
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opened them, and made the giver a present roughly commensurate to the value of that
received.
But more important than the change in my procedure was the change in my moral attitudes. I
was no longer indignant at the behaviour of these calculating savages, to whom friendship
seemed to be expressed only in material terms. It was pleasant and simple to adopt their
method. If one was content to drop the search for 'pure' or 'genuine' sentiments and accept the
fact that to people of another culture, especially when they had not known one long, the most
obvious foundation of friendship was material reciprocity, the difficulties disappeared. When
the obligation to make a material return was dragged into the light, it did not inhibit the
development of sentiments of friendship, but fostered it.
What I have shown of the material elements of friendship in Tikopia is intelligible in a society
where no very clear-cut line is drawn between social service and economic service, where
there is no sale or even barter of goods, but only borrowing and exchange in friendly or
ceremonial form. In European culture we demarcate the sphere of business from that of
friendship. The former insists on the rightness of obtaining the best bargain possible, while
the latter refuses to treat in terms of bargains at all. Yet there is an intermediate sphere.
Business has its social morality. Things are done 'as a favour', there are concepts of 'fair'
prices, and sharp practice and profiteering are judged as wrong. On the other hand, friendship
does not necessarily ignore the material aspects. 'One good turn deserves another' epitomizes
regard for reciprocity which underlies many friendly actions.
(From Elements of Social Organization, by Raymond Firth.)
Production in Primitive Societies
The exploitation of the natural resources of the environment constitutes the productive system
of any people, and the organization of this system in primitive society differs in several
important respects from our own. The first point which must be mentioned is the character of
work. As we have said, most economic effort in primitive society is devoted to the production
of food. The activities involved in this have, quite apart from the stimulus of real or potential
hunger, a spontaneous interest lacking in the ordinary work of an office or factory in
contemporary civilization. This will become clear when we reflect that most of the foodgetting activities of primitive peoples, such as fishing, hunting and gardening, are recreations
among ourselves. It does not follow that primitive man takes an undiluted pleasure in such
activities-much of the labour connected with them is heavy, monotonous or hazardous. But
they do possess an inherent interest lacking in most of the economic labour in modern
civilization, and much the same applies to primitive technology, in which the craftsman
himself creates an artefact, rather than being merely a human cog in the machinery of
production.
The spontaneous interest of work under primitive conditions is reinforced by a number of
social values attached to it. Skill and industry are honoured and laziness condemned, a
principle exemplified in the folk songs and proverbs of the Maori. From childhood onwards
the virtues of industry are extolled, as in the term ihu puku, literally 'dirty nose', applied as a
compliment to an industrious man because it implies that he is continually occupied in
cultivation with his face to the ground; on the other hand, the twin vices of greed and laziness
are condemned in the saying: 'Deep throat, shallow muscles'. Such social evaluations as these
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give pride in successful and energetic work, and stimulate potential laggards to play their part
in productive effort.
The interest of primitive work is increased, and its drudgery mitigated, by the fact that it is
often co-operative. Major undertakings, such as house-building or the construction of large
canoes, usually require the labour of more than one person. And even when the task
concerned could be done individually, primitive peoples often prefer collective labour. Thus
in Hehe agriculture much of the cultivation is done individually or by small family groups.
But at the time of the annual hoeing of the ground, it is customary for a man to announce that
on a certain day his wife will brew beer. His relatives and neighbours attend, help with the
hoeing, and are rewarded with beer in the middle of the day and in the evening. This is not to
be regarded as payment, since casual visitors who have not helped with the hoeing may also
take part in the beer drink. Under this system, each man helps others and is helped by them in
turn. From the purely economic point of view, the system has no advantage, since each man
could quite well hoe his own ground and the preparation of beer adds substantially to the
work involved. But the system does possess psychological advantages. The task of hoeing
might well appear endless if undertaken by each individual separately. Collective labour, and
the collateral activity of beer-drinking, changes a dreary task into a social occasion. The same
principle applies to collective labour in general in primitive society, and to the social activities
of feasting, dancing and other forms of collective enjoyment which frequently accompany it
or mark its conclusion.
(From An Introduction to Social Anthropology, by Ralph Piddington.)
Production in Primitive Societies
The exploitation of the natural resources of the environment constitutes the productive system
of any people, and the organization of this system in primitive society differs in several
important respects from our own. The first point which must be mentioned is the character of
work. As we have said, most economic effort in primitive society is devoted to the production
of food. The activities involved in this have, quite apart from the stimulus of real or potential
hunger, a spontaneous interest lacking in the ordinary work of an office or factory in
contemporary civilization. This will become clear when we reflect that most of the foodgetting activities of primitive peoples, such as fishing, hunting and gardening, are recreations
among ourselves. It does not follow that primitive man takes an undiluted pleasure in such
activities-much of the labour connected with them is heavy, monotonous or hazardous. But
they do possess an inherent interest lacking in most of the economic labour in modern
civilization, and much the same applies to primitive technology, in which the craftsman
himself creates an artefact, rather than being merely a human cog in the machinery of
production.
The spontaneous interest of work under primitive conditions is reinforced by a number of
social values attached to it. Skill and industry are honoured and laziness condemned, a
principle exemplified in the folk songs and proverbs of the Maori. From childhood onwards
the virtues of industry are extolled, as in the term ihu puku, literally 'dirty nose', applied as a
compliment to an industrious man because it implies that he is continually occupied in
cultivation with his face to the ground; on the other hand, the twin vices of greed and laziness
are condemned in the saying: 'Deep throat, shallow muscles'. Such social evaluations as these
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give pride in successful and energetic work, and stimulate potential laggards to play their part
in productive effort.
The interest of primitive work is increased, and its drudgery mitigated, by the fact that it is
often co-operative. Major undertakings, such as house-building or the construction of large
canoes, usually require the labour of more than one person. And even when the task
concerned could be done individually, primitive peoples often prefer collective labour. Thus
in Hehe agriculture much of the cultivation is done individually or by small family groups.
But at the time of the annual hoeing of the ground, it is customary for a man to announce that
on a certain day his wife will brew beer. His relatives and neighbours attend, help with the
hoeing, and are rewarded with beer in the middle of the day and in the evening. This is not to
be regarded as payment, since casual visitors who have not helped with the hoeing may also
take part in the beer drink. Under this system, each man helps others and is helped by them in
turn. From the purely economic point of view, the system has no advantage, since each man
could quite well hoe his own ground and the preparation of beer adds substantially to the
work involved. But the system does possess psychological advantages. The task of hoeing
might well appear endless if undertaken by each individual separately. Collective labour, and
the collateral activity of beer-drinking, changes a dreary task into a social occasion. The same
principle applies to collective labour in general in primitive society, and to the social activities
of feasting, dancing and other forms of collective enjoyment which frequently accompany it
or mark its conclusion.
(From An Introduction to Social Anthropology, by Ralph Piddington.)
The Science of Custom
Anthropology is the study of human beings as creatures of society. It fastens its attention upon
those physical characteristics and industrial techniques, those conventions and values, which
distinguish one community from all others that belong to a different tradition.
The distinguishing mark of anthropology among the social sciences is that it includes for
serious study other societies than our own. For its purposes any social regulation of mating
and reproduction is as significant as our own, though it may be that of the Sea Dyaks, and
have no possible historical relation to that of our civilization. To the anthropologist, our
customs and those of a New Guinea tribe are two possible social schemes for dealing with a
common problem, and in so far as he remains an anthropologist he is bound to avoid any
weighting of one in favour of the other. He is interested in human behaviour, not as it is
shaped by one tradition, our own, but as it has been shaped by any tradition whatsoever. He is
interested in the great gamut of custom that is found in various cultures, and his object is to
understand the way in which these cultures change and differentiate, the different forms
through which they express themselves, and the manner in which the customs of any peoples
function in the lives of the individuals who compose them.
Now custom has not been commonly regarded as a subject of any great moment. The inner
workings of our own brains we feel to be uniquely worthy of investigation, but custom, we
have a way of thinking, is behaviour at its most commonplace. As a matter of fact, it is the
other way round. Traditional custom, taken the world over, is a mass of detailed behaviour
more astonishing than what any one person can ever evolve in individual actions no matter
how aberrant. Yet that is a rather trivial aspect of the matter. The fact of first-rate importance
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is the predominant role that custom plays in experience and belief, and the very great varieties
it may manifest.
No man ever looks at the world with pristine eyes. He sees it edited by a definite set of
customs and institutions and ways of thinking. Even in his philosophical probings he cannot
go behind these stereotypes; his very concepts of the true and the false will still have
reference to his particular traditional customs. John Dewey has said in all seriousness that the
part played by custom in shaping the behaviour of the individual as over against any way in
which he can affect traditional custom, is as the proportion of the total vocabulary of his
mother tongue over against those words of his own baby talk that are taken up into the
vernacular of his family. When one seriously studies social orders that have had the
opportunity to develop autonomously, the figure becomes no more than exact and matter-offact observation. The life-history of the individual is first and foremost an accommodation to
the patterns and standards traditionally handed down in his community. From the moment of
his birth the customs into which he is born shape his experience and behaviour. By the time
he can talk, he is the little creature of his culture, and by the time he is grown and able to take
part in its activities, its habits are his habits, its beliefs his beliefs, its impossibilities his
impossibilities. Every child that is born into his group will share them with him, and no child
born into one on the opposite side of the globe will ever achieve the thousandth part. There is
no social problem it is more incumbent upon us to understand than this of the role of custom.
Until we are intelligent as to its laws and varieties, the main complicating facts of human life
must remain unintelligible.
(From Patterns of Culture, by Ruth Benedict.)
Survival in the Cage
Most casual visitors to zoos are convinced, as they stroll from cage to cage, that the antics of
the inmates are no more than an obliging performance put on solely for their entertainment.
Unfortunately for our consciences, however, this sanguine view of the contented, playful,
caged animal could in many cases be hardly farther from the truth. Recent research at London
Zoo has amply demonstrated that many caged animals are in fact facing a survival problem as
severe as that of their cousins in the wild-a struggle to survive, simply, against the monotony
of their environment. Well fed, well housed, well cared for, and protected from its natural
enemies, the zoo animal in its super-Welfare State existence is bored, sometimes literally to
death.
The extraordinary and subtle lengths to which some animals go to overcome this problem, and
the surprising behaviour patterns which arise as a result, were vividly described by Dr
Desmond Morris (Curator of Mammals, London Zoo) at a conference on `The biology of
survival' held in the rooms of the Zoological Society. As he and other speakers pointed out,
the problem of surviving in a monotonous and restricted environment is not confined to the
animal cage. Apart from the obvious examples of human prisoners or the astronaut, the
number of situations in which human beings have to face boredom and confinement for long
stretches is growing rather than decreasing. More to the point, many of the ways in which
animals respond to these conditions have striking analogies in many forms of obsessional or
neurotic behaviour in humans: the psychiatrist could well learn from the apes.
The animals which seem to react most strongly to this monotony are the higher 'nonspecialists' - those that do not rely on one or two highly developed adaptations or `tricks' to
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survive in the wild. Normally seizing every opportunity to exploit the chances and variety of
their surroundings, they are constantly investigating and exploring; in short, they are neophilic
(loving the new). Most species seem to show a balance between this active, curious behaviour
and its opposite, or neophobic; but with the primates and members of the dog and cat families,
for example, the neophilic pattern is usually overwhelmingly predominant.
It is not surprising that when such species are placed in the highly non-variable environment
of a zoo cage, where there are few novel stimuli, they cannot accept-and indeed actually fight
against-any kind of enforced inactivity (apart from those times when they obviously just give
up and relax). As Dr Morris has remarked, how they do this is a great testimony to their
ingenuity.
Observations by Dr Morris and the staff of London Zoo have revealed that there are probably
five main ways in which animals try to overcome their monotony. The first is to invent new
motor patterns for themselves-new exercises, gymnastics, and so forth. They may also try to
increase the complexity of their environment by creating new stimulus situations: many
carnivores, such as the large cats, play with their food as though it were a living animal,
throwing up dead birds in the air, pursuing the carcass, and pouncing on it to kill.
Alternatively the animal may increase the quantity of its reaction to normal stimuli.
Hypersexuality is one common response to this type of behaviour. A fourth method, akin to
some kinds of obsessional behaviour in man, is to increase the variability of its response to
stimuli such as food. Many animals can be seen playing, pawing, advancing, and retreating
from their food before eating it: some even go further by regurgitating it once eaten and then
devouring it again, and so on. Lastly-and this kind of behaviour can most nearly be called
neurotic-is the development of full, normal responses to subnormal stimuli, such as the
camel's expression of sexual arousal when cigarette smoke is blown in its face, or the making
of mother substitutes out of straw, wood, and suchlike.
No one claims that the observations of animals under these conditions are anything but
fragmentary. But at least enough is now known about them to persuade zoologists that these
bizarre behaviour patterns are not just haphazard, neurotic responses but are genuine attempts
to put back some kind of values into the animal's surroundings, attempts which are beginning
to show consistent patterns. It is also too early to say how far studies of this sort can throw
light on human behaviour under similar conditions (though as one zoologist remarked, they
do show that the best way of surviving a prison sentence is to turn oneself utterly neophobic
and take up an advanced course on economics). Yet there is a growing realization that the
human environment in the future will become more like that of the zoo animal rather than
less, so that the kind of observations mentioned above might well have a growing relevance.
Fairly recent studies of coalminers, for example, have shown that in spite of their
phenomenally high daily energy output they spend about seventeen hours sitting or lying
down, and sedentary workers some twenty to twenty-one hours. With the spread of
automation and the growth of white collar workers these figures are likely to increase. With
astronauts, polar scientists, and long-range aircraft crews the problem already exists: a recent
study of Antarctic scientists produced the remarkable fact that on average they spent only four
per cent of their time in winter outside the confines of their living quarters. With this
continued confinement and the extreme uniformity of the outside environment many odd
behaviour patterns were developed.
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(From an article by Gerald Leach in The Guardian, Tuesday, May 14th, 1963.)
GESTURES
A gesture is any action that sends a visual signal to an onlooker. To become a gesture, an act
has to be seen by someone else and has to communicate some piece of information to them. It
can do this either because the gesturer deliberately sets out to send a signal - as when he
waves his hand - or it can do it only incidentally - as when he sneezes. The hand-wave is a
Primary Gesture, because it has no other existence or function. It is a piece of communication
from start to finish. The sneeze, by contrast, is a secondary, or Incidental Gesture. Its primary
function is mechanical and is concerned with the sneezer’s personal breathing problem. In its
secondary role, however, it cannot help but transmit a message to his companions, warning
them that he may have caught a cold.
Most people tend to limit their use of the term ‘gesture’ to the primary form - the hand-wave
type - but this misses an important point. What matters with gesturing is not what signals we
think we are sending out, but what signals are being received. The observers of our acts will
make no distinction between our intentional Primary Gestures and our unintentional,
incidental ones. In some ways, our Incidental Gestures are the more illuminating of the two, if
only for the very fact that we do not think of them as gestures, and therefore do not censor and
manipulate them so strictly. This is why it is preferable to use the term ‘gesture’ in its wider
meaning as an ‘observed action’.
A convenient way to distinguish between Incidental and Primary Gestures is to ask the
question: Would I do it if I were completely alone? If the answer is No, then it is a Primary
Gesture. We do not wave, wink, or point when we are by ourselves; not, that is, unless we
have reached the unusual condition of talking animatedly to ourselves.
INCIDENTAL GESTURES
Mechanical actions with secondary messages
Many of our actions are basically non-social, having to do with problems of personal body
care, body comfort and body transportation; we clean and groom ourselves with a variety of
scratchings, rubbings and wipings; we cough, yawn and stretch our limbs; we eat and drink;
we prop ourselves up in restful postures, folding our arms and crossing our legs; we sit, stand,
squat and recline, in a whole range of different positions; we crawl, walk and run in varying
gaits and styles. But although we do these things for our own benefit, we are not always
unaccompanied when we do them. Our companions learn a great deal about us from these
‘personal’ actions - not merely that we are scratching because we itch or that we are running
because we are late, but also, from the way we do them, what kind of personalities we possess
and what mood we are in at the time.
Sometimes the mood-signal transmitted unwittingly in this way is one that we would rather
conceal, if we stopped to think about it. Occasionally we do become self-consciously aware of
the ‘mood broadcasts’ and ‘personality displays’ we are making and we may then try to check
ourselves. But often we do not, and the message goes out loud and clear.
For instance, if a student props his head on his hands while listening to a boring lecture, his
head-on-hands action operates both mechanically and gesturally. As a mechanical act, it is
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simply a case of supporting a tired head - a physical act that concerns no one but the student
himself. At the same time, though, it cannot help operating as a gestural act, beaming out a
visual signal to his companions, and perhaps to the lecturer himself, telling them that he is
bored.
In such a case his gesture was not deliberate and he may not even have been aware that he
was transmitting it. If challenged, he would claim that he was not bored at all, but merely
tired. If he were honest - or impolite - he would have to admit that excited attention easily
banishes tiredness, and that a really fascinating speaker need never fear to see a slumped,
head-propped figure like his in the audience.
In the schoolroom, the teacher who barks at his pupils to ‘sit up straight’ is demanding, by
right, the attention-posture that he should have gained by generating interest in his lesson. It
says a great deal for the power of gesture-signals that he feels more ‘attended-to’ when he
sees his pupils sitting up straight, even though he is consciously well aware of the fact that
they have just been forcibly un-slumped, rather than genuinely excited by his teaching.
Many of our Incidental Gestures provide mood information of a kind that neither we nor our
companions become consciously alerted to. It is as if there is an underground communication
system operating just below the surface of our social encounters. We perform an act and it is
observed. Its meaning is read, but not out loud. We ‘feel’ the mood, rather than analyse it.
Occasionally an action of this type becomes so characteristic of a particular situation that we
do eventually identify it - as when we say of a difficult problem: ‘That will make him scratch
his head’, indicating that we do understand the link that exists between puzzlement and the
Incidental Gesture of head-scratching. But frequently this type of link operates below the
conscious level, or is missed altogether.
Where the links are clearer, we can, of course, manipulate the situation and use our Incidental
Gestures in a contrived way. If a student listening to a lecture is not tired, but wishes to insult
the speaker, he can deliberately adopt a bored, slumped posture, knowing that its message will
get across. This is a Stylized Incidental Gesture - a mechanical action that is being artificially
employed as a pure signal. Many of the common ‘courtesies’ also fall into this category - as
when we greedily eat up a plate of food that we do not want and which we do not like, merely
to transmit a suitably grateful signal to our hosts. Controlling our Incidental Gestures in this
way is one of the processes that every child must learn as it grows up and learns to adapt to
the rules of conduct of the society in which it lives.
EXPRESSIVE GESTURES
Biological gestures of the kind we share with other animals
Primary Gestures fall into six main categories. Five of these are unique to man, and depend on
his complex, highly evolved brain. The exception is the category I called Expressive Gestures.
These are gestures of the type which all men, everywhere, share with one another, and which
other animals also perform. They include the important signals of Facial Expression, so
crucial to daily human interaction.
All primates are facially expressive and among the higher species the facial muscles become
increasingly elaborate, making possible the performance of a whole range of subtly varying
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facial signals. In man this trend reaches its peak, and it is true to say that the bulk of nonverbal signalling is transmitted by the human face.
The human hands are also important, having been freed from their ancient locomotion duties,
and are capable, with their Manual Gesticulations, of transmitting many small mood changes
by shifts in their postures and movements, especially during conversational encounters. I am
defining the word ‘gesticulation’, as distinct from ‘gesture’, as a manual action performed
unconsciously during social interactions, when the gesticulator is emphasizing a verbal point
he is making.
These natural gestures are usually spontaneous and very much taken for granted. Yes, we say,
he made a funny face. But which way did his eyebrows move? We cannot recall. Yes, we say,
he was waving his arms about as he spoke. But what shape did his fingers make? We cannot
remember. Yet we were not inattentive. We saw it all and our brains registered what we saw.
We simply did not need to analyse the actions, any more than we had to spell out the words
we heard, in order to understand them. In this respect they are similar to the Incidental
Gestures of the previous category, but they differ, because here there is no mechanical
function - only signalling. This is the world of smiles and sneers, shrugs and pouts, laughs and
winces, blushes and blanches, waves and beckons, nods and glares, frowns and snarls. These
are the gestures that nearly everyone performs nearly everywhere in the world. They may
differ in detail and in context from place to place, but basically they are actions we all share.
We all have complex facial muscles whose sole job it is to make expressions, and we all stand
on two feet rather than four, freeing our hands and letting them dance in the air evocatively as
we explain, argue and joke our way through our social encounters. We may have lost our
twitching tails and our bristling fur, but we more than make up for it with our marvellously
mobile faces and our twisting, spreading, fluttering hands.
In origin, our Expressive Gestures are closely related to our Incidental Gestures, because their
roots also lie in primarily non-communicative actions. The clenched fist of the gesticulator
owes its origin to an intention movement of hitting an opponent, just as the frown on the face
of a worried man can be traced back to an ancient eye-protection movement of an animal
anticipating physical attack. But the difference is that in these cases the link between the
primary physical action and its ultimate descendant, the Expressive Gesture, has been broken.
Smiles, pouts, winces, gapes, smirks, and the rest, are now, for all practical purposes, pure
gestures and exclusively communicative in function.
Despite their worldwide distribution, Expressive Gestures are nevertheless subject to
considerable cultural influences. Even though we all have an evolved set of smiling muscles,
we do not all smile in precisely the same way, to the same extent, or on the same occasions.
For example, all children may start out as easy-smilers and easy-laughers, but a local tradition
may insist that, as the youngsters mature, they must hide their feelings, and their adult
laughter may become severely muted as a result. These local Display Rules, varying from
place to place, often give the false impression that Expressive Gestures are local inventions
rather than modified, but universal, behaviour patterns.
MIMIC GESTURES
Gestures which transmit signals by imitation
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Mimic Gestures are those in which the performer attempts to imitate, as accurately as
possible, a person, an object or an action. Here we leave our animal heritage behind and enter
an exclusively human sphere. The essential quality of a Mimic Gesture is that it attempts to
copy the thing it is trying to portray. No stylized conventions are applied. A successful Mimic
Gesture is therefore understandable to someone who has never seen it performed before. No
prior knowledge should be required and there need be no set tradition concerning the way in
which a particular item is represented. There are four kinds of Mimic Gesture:
First, there is Social Mimicry, or ‘putting on a good face’. We have all done this. We have all
smiled at a party when really we feel sad, and perhaps looked sadder at a funeral than we feel,
simply because it is expected of us. We lie with simulated gestures to please others. This
should not be confused with what psychologists call ‘role-playing’. When indulging in Social
Mimicry we deceive only others, but when role-playing we deceive ourselves as well.
Second, there is Theatrical Mimicry - the world of actors and actresses, who simulate
everything for our amusement. Essentially it embraces two distinct techniques. One is the
calculated attempt to imitate specifically observed actions. The actor who is to play a general,
say, will spend long hours watching films of military scenes in which he can analyse every
tiny movement and then consciously copy them and incorporate them into his final portrayal.
The other technique is to concentrate instead on the imagined mood of the character to be
portrayed, to attempt to take on that mood, and to rely upon it to produce, unconsciously, the
necessary style of body actions.
In reality, all actors use a combination of both these techniques, although in explaining their
craft they may stress one or other of the two methods. In the past, acting performances were
usually highly stylized, but today, except in pantomime, opera and farce, extraordinary
degrees of realism are reached and the formal, obtrusive audience has become instead a
shadowy group of eavesdroppers. Gone are the actor’s asides, gone are the audience
participations. We must all believe that it is really happening. In other words, Theatrical
Mimicry has at last become as realistic as day-to-day Social Mimicry. In this respect, these
first two types of mimic activity contrast sharply with the third, which can be called Partial
Mimicry.
In Partial Mimicry the performer attempts to imitate something which he is not and never can
be, such as a bird, or raindrops. Usually only the hands are involved, but these make the most
realistic approach to the subject they can manage. If a bird, they flap their ‘wings’ as best they
can; if raindrops, they describe a sprinkling descent as graphically as possible. Widely used
mimic gestures of this kind are those which convert the hand into a ‘gun’, an animal of some
sort, or the foot of an animal; or those which use the movements of the hand to indicate the
outline shape of an object of some kind.
The fourth kind of Mimic Gesture can best be called Vacuum Mimicry, because the action
takes place in the absence of the object to which it is related. If I am hungry, for example, I
can go through the motions of putting imaginary food into my mouth. If I am thirsty, I can
raise my hand as if holding an invisible glass, and gulp invisible liquid from it.
The important feature of Partial Mimicry and Vacuum Mimicry is that, like Social and
Theatrical Mimicry, they strive for reality. Even though they are doomed to failure, they make
an attempt. This means that they can be understood internationally. In this respect they
contrast strongly with the next two types of gesture, which show marked cultural restrictions.
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SCHEMATIC GESTURES
Imitations that become abbreviated or abridged
Schematic Gestures are abbreviated or abridged versions of Mimic Gestures. They attempt to
portray something by taking just one of its prominent features and then performing that alone.
There is no longer any attempt at realism.
Schematic Gestures usually arise as a sort of gestural shorthand because of the need to
perform an imitation quickly and on many occasions. Just as, in ordinary speech, we reduce
the word ‘cannot’ to ‘can’t’, so an elaborate miming of a charging bull becomes reduced
simply to a pair of horns jabbed in the air as a pair of fingers.
When one element of a mime is selected and retained in this way, and the other elements are
reduced or omitted, the gesture may still be easy to understand, when seen for the first time,
but the stylization may go so far that it becomes meaningless to those not ‘in the know’. The
Schematic Gesture then becomes a local tradition with a limited geographical range. If the
original mime was complex and involved several distinctive features, different localities may
select different key features for their abridged versions. Once these different forms of
shorthand have become fully established in each region, then the people who use them will
become less and less likely to recognize the foreign forms. The local gesture becomes ‘the’
gesture, and there quickly develops, in gesture communication, a situation similar to that
found in linguistics. Just as each region has its own verbal language, so it also has its own set
of Schematic Gestures.
To give an example: the American Indian sign for a horse consists of a gesture in which two
fingers of one hand ‘sit astride’ the fingers of the other hand. A Cistercian monk would
instead signal ‘horse’ by lowering his head slightly and pulling at an imaginary tuft of hair on
his forehead. An Englishman would probably crouch down like a jockey and pull at imaginary
reins. The Englishman’s version, being closer to a Vacuum Mimic Gesture, might be
understood by the other two, but their gestures, being highly schematic, might well prove
incomprehensible to anyone outside their groups.
Some objects, however, have one special feature that is so strongly characteristic of them that,
even with Schematic Gestures, there is little doubt about what is being portrayed. The bull,
mentioned above, is a good example of this. Cattle are nearly always indicated by their horns
alone, and the two horns are always represented by two digits. In fact, if an American Indian,
a Hindu dancer, and an Australian Aborigine met, they would all understand one another’s
cattle signs, and we would understand all three of them. This does not mean that the signs are
all identical. The American Indian’s cattle sign would represent the bison, and the horns of
bison do not curve forward like those of domestic cattle, but inward, towards each other. The
American Indian’s sign reflects this, his hands being held to his temples and his forefingers
being pointed inward. The Australian Aborigine instead points his forefingers forward. The
Hindu dancer also points forward, but rather than using two forefingers up at the temples,
employs the forefinger and little finger of one hand, held at waist height. So each culture has
its own variant, but the fact that horns are such an obvious distinguishing feature of cattle
means that, despite local variations, the bovine Schematic Gesture is reasonably
understandable in most cultures.
SYMBOLIC GESTURES
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Gestures which represent moods and ideas
A Symbolic Gesture indicates an abstract quality that has no simple equivalent in the world of
objects and movements. Here we are one stage further away from the obviousness of the
enacted Mimic Gesture.
How, for instance, would you make a silent sign for stupidity? You might launch into a fullblooded Theatrical Mime of a drooling village idiot. But total idiocy is not a precise way of
indicating the momentary stupidity of a healthy adult. Instead, you might tap your forefinger
against your temple, but this also lacks accuracy, since you might do precisely the same thing
when indicating that someone is brainy. All the tap does is to point to the brain. To make the
meaning more clear, you might instead twist your forefinger against your temple, indicating ‘a
screw loose’. Alternatively, you might rotate your forefinger close to your temple, signalling
that the brain is going round and round and is not stable.
Many people would understand these temple-forefinger actions, but others would not. They
would have their own local, stupidity gestures, which we in our turn would find confusing,
such as tapping the elbow of the raised forearm, flapping the hand up and down in front of
half-closed eyes, rotating a raised hand, or laying one forefinger flat across the forehead.
The situation is further complicated by the fact that some stupidity signals mean totally
different things in different countries. To take one example, in Saudi Arabia stupidity can be
signalled by touching the lower eyelid with the tip of the forefinger. But this same action, in
various other countries, can mean disbelief, approval, agreement, mistrust, scepticism,
alertness, secrecy, craftiness, danger, or criminality. The reason for this apparent chaos of
meanings is simple enough. By pointing to the eye, the gesturer is doing no more than stress
the symbolic importance of the eye as a seeing organ. Beyond that, the action says nothing, so
that the message can become either: ‘Yes, I see’, or ‘I can’t believe my eyes’, or ‘Keep a
sharp look-out’, or ‘I like what I see’, or almost any other seeing signal you care to imagine.
In such a case it is essential to know the precise ‘seeing’ property being represented by the
symbolism of the gesture in any particular culture.
So we are faced with two basic problems where Symbolic Gestures are concerned: either one
meaning may be signalled by different actions, or several meanings may be signalled by the
same action, as we move from culture to culture. The only solution is to approach each culture
with an open mind and learn their Symbolic Gestures as one would their vocabulary.
As part of this process, it helps if a link can be found between the action and the meaning, but
this is not always possible. In some cases we simply do not know how certain Symbolic
Gestures arose. It is clear that they are symbolic because they now represent some abstract
quality, but how they first acquired the link between action and meaning has been lost
somewhere in their long history. A good instance of this is the ‘cuckold’ sign from Italy. This
consists of making a pair of horns, either with two forefingers held at the temples, or with a
forefinger and little finger of one hand held in front of the body. There is little doubt about
what the fingers are meant to be: they are the horns of a bull. As such, they would rate as part
of a Schematic Gesture. But they do not send out the simple message ‘bull’. Instead they now
indicate ‘sexual betrayal’. The action is therefore a Symbolic gesture and, in order to explain
it, it becomes necessary to find the link between bulls and sexual betrayal.
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Historically, the link appears to be lost, with the result that some rather wild speculations have
been made. A complication arises in the form of the ‘horned hand’, also common in Italy,
which has a totally different significance, even though it employs the same motif of bull’s
horns. The Y horned hand is essentially a protective gesture, made to ward off imagined
dangers. Here it is clear enough that it is the bull’s great power, ferocity and masculinity that
is being invoked as a symbolic aid to protect the gesturer. But this only makes it even more
difficult to explain the other use of the bull’s-horns gesture as a sign of a ‘pathetic’ cuckold.
A suggested explanation of this contradiction is that it is due to one gesture using as its
starting point the bull’s power, while the other - the cuckold sign - selects the bull’s frequent
castration. Since the domestication of cattle began, there have always been too many bulls in
relation to cows. A good, uncastrated bull can serve between 50 and 100 cows a year, so that
it is only necessary to retain a small proportion of intact bulls for breeding purposes. The rest
are rendered much more docile and easy to handle for beef production, by castration. In folklore, then, these impotent males must stand helplessly by, while the few sexually active bulls
‘steal their rightful females’; hence the symbolism of: bull = cuckold.
A completely different explanation once offered was that, when the cuckold discovers that his
wife has betrayed him, he becomes so enraged and jealous that he bellows and rushes
violently about like a ‘mad bull’.
A more classical interpretation involves Diana the Huntress, who made horns into a symbol of
male downfall. Actaeon, another hunter, is said to have sneaked a look at her naked body
when she was bathing. This so angered her that she turned him into a horned beast and set his
own hounds upon him, who promptly killed and ate him.
Alternatively, there is the version dealing with ancient religious prostitutes. These ladies
worshipped gods who wore ‘horns of honour’ - that is, horns in their other role as symbols of
power and masculinity - and the gods were so pleased with the wives who became sacred
whores that they transferred their godly horns on to the heads of the husbands who had
ordered their women to act in this role. In this way, the horns of honour became the horns of
ridicule.
As if this were not enough, it is also claimed elsewhere, and with equal conviction, that
because stags have horns (antlers were often called horns in earlier periods) and because most
stags in the rutting season lose their females to a few dominant males who round up large
harems, the majority of ‘horned’ deer are unhappy ‘cuckolds’.
Finally, there is the bizarre interpretation that bulls and deer have nothing to do with it.
Instead, it is thought that the ancient practice of grafting the spurs of a castrated cockrel on to
the root of its excised comb, where they apparently grew and became ‘horns’, is the origin of
the symbolic link between horns and cuckolds. This claim is backed up by the fact that the
German equivalent word for ‘cuckold’ (hahnrei) originally meant ‘capon’.
If, after reading these rival claims, you feel that all you have really learned is the meaning of
the phrase ‘cock-and-bull story’, you can be forgiven. Clearly, we are in the realm of fertile
imagination rather than historical record. But this example has been dealt with at length to
show how, in so many cases, the true story of the origin of a Symbolic Gesture is no longer
available to us. Many other similarly conflicting examples are known, but this one will suffice
to demonstrate the general principle.
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There are exceptions, of course, and certain of the Symbolic Gestures we make today, and
take for granted, can easily be traced to their origins. ‘Keeping your fingers crossed’ is a good
example of this. Although used by many non-Christians, this action of making the cross,
using only the first and second fingers, is an ancient protective device of the Christian church.
In earlier times it was commonplace to make a more conspicuous sign of the cross (to cross
oneself) by moving the whole arm, first downwards and then sideways, in front of the body,
tracing the shape of the cross in the air. This can still be seen in some countries today in a
non-religious context, acting as a ‘good luck’ protective device. In more trivial situations it
has been widely replaced, however, by the act of holding up one hand to show that the second
finger is tightly crossed over the first, with the crossing movement of the arm omitted.
Originally this was the secret version of ‘crossing oneself’ and was done with the hand in
question carefully hidden from view. It may still be done in this secret way, as when trying to
protect oneself from the consequences of lying, but as a ‘good luck’ sign it has now come out
into the open. This development is easily explained by the fact that crossing the fingers lacks
an obvious religious character. Symbolically, the finger-crossing may be calling on the
protection of the Christian God, but the small finger action performed is so far removed from
the priestly arm crossing action, that it can without difficulty slide into everyday life as a
casual wish for good fortune. Proof of this is that many people do not even realize that they
are demanding an act of Christian worship - historically speaking - when they shout out:
‘Keep your fingers crossed!’
TECHNICAL GESTURES
Gestures used by specialist minorities
Technical Gestures are invented by a specialist minority for use strictly within the limits of
their particular activity. They are meaningless to anyone outside the specialization and operate
in such a narrow field that they cannot be considered as playing a part in the mainstream of
visual communication of any culture.
Television-studio signals are a good example of Technical Gestures in use today. The studio
commentator we see on our screens at home is face to face with a ‘studio manager’. The
manager is linked to the programme director in the control room by means of headphones and
conveys the director’s instructions to the commentator by simple visual gestures. To warn the
commentator that he will have to start speaking at any moment, the manager raises a forearm
and holds it stiffly erect. To start him speaking, he brings the forearm swiftly down to point at
the commentator. To warn him that he must stop speaking in a few seconds, the manager
rotates his forearm, as if it were the hand of a clock going very fast - ‘Time is running out
fast.’ To ask him to lengthen the speaking time and say more, he holds his hands together in
front of his chest and pulls them slowly apart, as if stretching something – ‘stretch it out.’ To
tell the speaker to stop dead this instant, the manager makes a slashing action with his hand
across his throat - ‘Cut!’ There are no set rules laid down for these signals. They grew up in
the early days of television and, although the main ones listed here are fairly widespread
today, each studio may well have its own special variants, worked out to suit a particular
performer.
Other Technical Gestures are found wherever an activity prohibits verbal contact. Skindivers,
for instance, cannot speak to one another and need simple signals to deal with potentially
dangerous situations. In particular they need gestures for danger, cold, cramp and fatigue.
Other messages, such as yes, no, good, bad, up and down, are easily enough understood by
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the use of everyday actions and require no Technical Gestures to make sense. But how could
you signal to a companion that you had cramp? The answer is that you would open and close
one hand rhythmically - a simple gesture, but one that might nevertheless save a life.
Disaster can sometimes occur because a Technical Gesture is required from someone who is
not a specialist in a technical field. Suppose some holiday-makers take out a boat, and it sinks,
and they swim to the safety of a small, rocky island. Wet and frightened, they crouch there
wondering what to do next, when to their immense relief a small fishing-boat comes chugging
towards them. As it draws level with the island, they wave frantically at it. The people on
board wave back, and the boat chugs on and disappears. If the stranded holiday-makers had
been marine ‘specialists’, they would have known that, at sea, waving is only used as a
greeting. To signal distress, they should have raised and lowered their arms stiffly from their
sides. This is the accepted marine gesture for ‘Help!’
Ironically, if the shipwrecked signallers had been marine experts and had given the correct
distress signal, the potential rescue boat might well have been manned by holiday-makers,
who would have been completely nonplussed by the strange actions and would probably have
ignored them. When a technical sphere is invaded by the non-technical, gesture problems
always arise.
Firemen, crane-drivers, airport-tarmac signalmen, gambling-casino croupiers, dealers at
auctions, and restaurant staff, all have their own special Technical Gestures. Either because
they must keep quiet, must be discreet, or cannot be heard, they develop their own sets of
signals. The rest of us can ignore them, unless we, too, wish to enter their specialized spheres.
CODED GESTURES
Sign-language based on a formal system
Coded Gestures, unlike all others, are part of a formal system of signals. They interrelate with
one another in a complex and systematic way, so that they constitute a true language. The
special feature of this category is that the individual units are valueless without reference to
the other units in the code. Technical Gestures may be systematically planned, but, with them,
each signal can operate quite independently of the others. With Coded Gestures, by contrast,
all the units interlock with one another on rigidly formulated principles, like the letters and
words in a verbal language.
The most important example is the Deaf-and-dumb Sign Language of hand signals, of which
there is both a one-handed and a two-handed version. Also, there is the Semaphore Language
of arm signals, and the Tic-tac Language of the race course. These all require considerable
skill and training and belong in a totally different world from the familiar gestures we employ
in everyday life. They serve as a valuable reminder, though, of the incredibly sensitive
potential we all possess for visual communication. It makes it all the more plausible to argue
that we are all of us responding, with greater sensitivity than we may realize, to the ordinary
gestures we witness each day of our lives.
(From Manwatching by Desmond Morris.)
REGIONAL SIGNALS
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The way signals change from country to country and district to district
A Regional Signal is one that has a limited geographical range. If a Norwegian, a Korean and
a Masai were marooned together on a desert island, they would easily be able to communicate
their basic moods and intentions to one another by their actions. All humanity shares a large
repertoire of common movements, expressions and postures. But there would also be
misunderstandings. Each man would have acquired from his own culture a special set of
Regional Signals that would be meaningless to the others. If the Norwegian were shipwrecked
instead with a Swede and a Dane, he would find his task much easier, because their closer
origins would mean a greater share of these regional gestures, since localized actions, like
many words, do not follow precisely the present-day national boundaries.
This comparison of gestures with words is significant because it reveals immediately our state
of ignorance as regards gestural geography. We already know a great deal about linguistic
maps, but we know far too little about Gesture Maps. Ask a linguist to describe the
distribution of any language you like to name and he will be able to provide accurate, detailed
information for you. Take any word, and he will be able to demonstrate its spread from
country to country. He can even present you with local dialect maps for some parts of the
world and show you, like Professor Higgins in Pygmalion, how slang expressions are limited
to certain small areas of big cities. But ask anyone for a world-wide gesture atlas, and you will
be disappointed.
A start has already been made, however, and new field work is now beginning. Although this
research is only in its infancy, recent studies in Europe and around the Mediterranean are
providing some valuable clues about the way gestures change as one travels from locality to
locality. For example, there is a simple gesture in which the forefinger taps the side of the
nose. In England most people interpret this as meaning secrecy or conspiracy. The message is:
'Keep it dark, don't spread it around.' But as one moves down across Europe to central Italy,
the dominant meaning changes to become a helpful warning: 'Take care, there is danger-they
are crafty.' The two messages are related, because they are both concerned with cunning. In
England it is we who are cunning, by not divulging our secret. But in central Italy it is they
who are cunning, and we must be warned against them. The Nose Tap gesture symbolizes
cunning in both cases, but the source of the cunning has shifted.
This is an example of a gesture keeping the same form over a wide range, and also retaining
the same basic meaning, but nevertheless carrying a quite distinct message in two regions.
The more gestures that are mapped in the field, the more common this type of change is
proving to be. Another instance is found in the Eye Touch gesture, where the forefinger
touches the face just below the eye and pulls the skin downwards, opening the eye wider. In
England and France this has the dominant meaning: 'You can't fool me - I see what you are up
to.' But in Italy this shifts to: 'Keep your eyes peeled - pay attention, he's a crook.' In other
words the basic meaning remains one of alertness, but it changes from 'I am alert' to 'You be
alert'.
In both these cases, there is a small number of people in each region who interpret the gesture
in its other meaning. It is not an all-or-none situation, merely a shift in dominance of one
message over the other. This gives some idea of the subtlety of regional changes.
Occasionally there is a total switch as one moves from one district to the next, but more often
than not the change is only a matter of degree.
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Sometimes it is possible to relate the geography of modern Regional Signals to past historical
events. The Chin Flick gesture, in which the backs of the fingers are swept upwards and
forwards against the underside of the chin, is an insulting action in both France and northern
Italy. There it means 'Get lost-you are annoying me.' In southern Italy it also has a negative
meaning, but the message it carries is no longer insulting. It now says simply 'There is
nothing' or 'No' or 'I cannot' or 'I don't want any'. This switch takes place between Rome and
Naples and gives rise to the intriguing possibility that the difference is due to a surviving
influence of ancient Greece. The Greeks colonized southern Italy, but stopped their northern
movement between Rome and Naples. Greeks today use the Chin Flick in the same way as the
southern Italians. In fact, the distribution of this, and certain other gestures, follows
remarkably accurately the range of the Greek civilization at its zenith. Our words and our
buildings still display the mark of early Greek influence, so it should not be too surprising if
ancient Greek gestures are equally tenacious. What is interesting is why they did not spread
farther as time passed. Greek architecture and philosophy expanded farther and farther in their
influences, but for some reason, gestures like the Chin Flick did not travel so well. Many
countries, such as England, lack them altogether, and others, like France, know them only in a
different role.
Another historical influence becomes obvious when one moves to North Africa. There, in
Tunisia, the Chin Flick gesture once again becomes totally insulting: a Tunisian gives a
'French' Chin Flick, rather than a 'Southern Italian' Chin Flick, despite the fact that France is
more remote. The explanation, borne out by other gesture links between France and Tunisia,
is that the French colonial influence in Tunisia has left its imperial mark even on informal
body-language. The modern Tunisian is gesturally more French than any of his closer
neighbours who have not experienced the French presence.
This gives rise to the question as to whether gestures are generally rather conservative,
compared with other social patterns. One talks about the latest fashions in clothing, but one
never hears of 'this season's crop of new gestures'. There does seem to be a cultural tenacity
about them, similar to the persistence found in much folklore and in many children's games
and rhymes. Yet new gestures do occasionally manage to creep in and establish themselves.
Two thousand years ago it was apparently the Greeks who were the 'gesturally virile' nation.
Today it is the British, with their Victory-sign and their Thumbs-up, and the Americans with
their OK Circle-sign. These have spread right across Europe and much of the rest of the world
as well, making their first great advance during the turmoil of the Second World War, and
managing to cling on since then, even in the gesture-rich countries of southern Europe. But
these are exceptions. Most of the local signs made today are centuries old and steeped in
history.
(From Manwatching by Desmond Morris)
The Voices of Time
Time talks. It speaks more plainly than words. The message it conveys comes through loud
and clear. Because it is manipulated less consciously, it is subject to less distortion than the
spoken language. It can shout the truth where words lie.
I was once a member of a mayors’ committee on human relations in a large city. My
assignment was to estimate what the chances were of non-discriminatory practices being
adopted by the different city departments. The first step in this project was to interview the
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department heads, two of whom were themselves members of minority groups. If one were to
believe the words of these officials, it seemed that all of them were more than willing to adopt
non-discriminatory labour practices. Yet I felt that, despite what they said, in only one case
was there much chance for a change. Why? The answer lay in how they used the silent
language of time and space.
Special attention had been given to arranging each interview. Department heads were asked to
be prepared to spend an hour or more discussing their thoughts with me. Nevertheless,
appointments were forgotten; long waits in outer offices (fifteen to forty-five minutes) were
common, and the length of the interview was often cut down to ten or fifteen minutes. I was
usually kept at an impersonal distance during the interview. In only one case did the
department head come from behind his desk. These men had a position and they were literally
and figuratively sticking to it!
The implications of this experience (one which public-opinion pollsters might well heed) is
quite obvious. What people do is frequently more important than what they say. In this case
the way these municipal potentates handled time was eloquent testimony to what they
inwardly believed, for the structure and meaning of time systems, as well as the time
intervals, are easy to identify. In regard to being late there are: “mumble something" periods,
slight apology periods, mildly insulting periods requiring full apology, rude periods, and
downright insulting periods. The psychoanalyst has long been aware of the significance of
communication on this level. He can point to the way his patients handle time as evidence of
“resistances" and “transference."
Different parts of the day, for example, are highly significant in certain contexts. Time may
indicate the importance of the occasion as well as on what level an interaction between
persons is to take place. In the United States if you telephone somebody very early in the
morning, while he is shaving or having breakfast, the time of the call usually signals a matter
of utmost importance and extreme urgency. The same applies for calls after 11.00 p.m. A call
received during sleeping hours is apt to be taken as a matter of life and death, hence the rude
joke value of these calls among the young. Our realization that time talks is even reflected in
such common expressions as, "What time does the clock say?"
An example of how thoroughly these things are taken for granted was reported to me by John
Useem, an American social anthropologist, in an illuminating case from the South Pacific.
The natives of one of the islands had been having a difficult time getting their white
supervisors to hire them in a way consistent with their traditional status system. Through
ignorance the supervisors had hired too many of one group and by so doing had disrupted the
existing balance of power among the natives. The entire population of the island was seething
because of this error. Since the Americans continued in their ignorance and refused to hire
according to local practice, the head men of the two factions met one night to discuss an
acceptable reallocation of jobs. When they finally arrived at a solution, they went en masse to
see the plant manager and woke him up to tell him what had been decided. Unfortunately it
was then between two and three o’clock in the morning. They did not know that it is a sign of
extreme urgency to wake up Americans at this hour. As one might expect, the American plant
manager, who understood neither the local language nor the culture nor what the hullabaloo
was all about, thought he had a riot on his hands and called out the Marines. It simply never
occurred to him that the parts of the day have a different meaning for these people than they
have for us.
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On the other hand, plant managers in the United States are fully aware of the significance of a
communication made during the middle of the morning or afternoon that takes everyone away
from his work. Whenever they want to make an important announcement they will ask:
“When shall we let them know?" In the social world a girl feels insulted when she is asked for
a date at the last minute by someone she doesn’t know very well, and the person who extends
an invitation to a dinner party with only three or four days’ notice has to apologize. How
different from the people of the Middle East with whom it is pointless to make an
appointment too far in advance, because the informal structure of their time system places
everything beyond a week into a single category of “future" in which plans tend to “slip off
their minds.”
Advance notice is often referred to in America as “lead time," an expression which is
significant in a culture where schedules are important. While it is learned informally, most of
us are familiar with how it works in our own culture, even though we cannot state the rules
technically. The rules for lead time in other cultures, however, have rarely been analysed. At
the most they are known by experience to those who have lived abroad for some time. Yet
think how important it is to know how much time is required to prepare people, or for them to
prepare themselves, for things to come. Sometimes lead time would seem to be very extended.
At other times, in the Middle East, any period longer than a week may be too long.
How troublesome differing ways of handling time can be is well illustrated by the case of an
American agriculturalist assigned to duty as an attaché of our embassy in a Latin country.
After what seemed to him a suitable period he let it be known that he would like to call on the
minister who was his counterpart. For various reasons, the suggested time was not suitable; all
sorts of cues came back to the effect that the time was not yet ripe to visit the minister. Our
friend, however, persisted and forced an appointment which was reluctantly granted. Arriving
a little before the hour (the American respect pattern), he waited. The hour came and passed;
five minutes - ten minutes - fifteen minutes. At this point he suggested to the secretary that
perhaps the minister did not know he was waiting in the outer office. This gave him the
feeling that he had done something concrete and also helped to overcome the anxiety that was
stirring inside him. Twenty minutes - twenty-five minutes - thirty minutes - forty-five minutes
(the insult period)!
He jumped up and told the secretary that he had been “cooling his heels” in an outer office for
forty-five minutes and he was “damned sick and tired” of this type of treatment. The message
was relayed to the minister, who said, in effect, “Let him cool his heels.” The attaché’s stay in
the country was not a happy one.
The principal source of misunderstanding lay in the fact that in the country in question the
five-minute delay interval was not significant. Forty-five minutes, on the other hand, instead
of being at the tail end of the waiting scale, was just barely at the beginning. To suggest to an
American’s secretary that perhaps her boss didn’t know you were there after waiting sixty
seconds would seem absurd, as would raising a storm about “cooling your heels” for five
minutes. Yet this is precisely the way the minister registered the protestations of the American
in his outer office! He felt, as usual, that Americans were being totally unreasonable.
Throughout this unfortunate episode the attach? was acting according to the way he had been
brought up. At home in the United States his responses would have been normal ones and his
behaviour legitimate. Yet even if he had been told before he left home this sort of thing would
happen, he would have had difficulty not feeling insulted after he had been kept waiting for
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forty-five minutes. If, on the other hand, he had been taught the details of the local time
system just as he should have been taught the local spoken language, it would have been
possible for him to adjust himself accordingly.
What bothers people in situations of this sort is that they don’t realize they are being subjected
to another form of communication, one that works part of the time with language and part of
the time independently of it. The fact that the message conveyed is couched in no formal
vocabulary makes things doubly difficult, because neither party can get very explicit about
what is actually taking place. Each can only say what he thinks is happening and how he feels
about it. The thought of what is being communicated is what hurts.
AMERICAN TIME
People of the Western world, particularly Americans, tend to think of time as something fixed
in nature, something around us from which we cannot escape; an ever present part of the
environment, just like the air we breathe. That it might be experienced in any other way seems
unnatural and strange, a feeling which is rarely modified even when we begin to discover how
really different it is handled by some other people. Within the West itself certain cultures rank
time much lower in over-all importance than we do. In Latin America, for example, where
time is treated rather cavalierly, one commonly hears the expression, “Our time or your
time?” “Hora americana, hora mejicana?”
As a rule, Americans think of time as a road or a ribbon stretching into the future, along
which one progresses. The road has segments or compartments which are best kept discrete
(“one thing at a time”). People who cannot schedule time are looked down upon as
impractical. In at least some parts of Latin America, the North American (their term for us)
finds himself annoyed when he has made an appointment with somebody, only to find a lot of
other things going on at the same time. An old friend of mine of Spanish cultural heritage
used to run his business according to the “Latino” system. This meant that up to fifteen people
were in his office at the same time. Business which might have been finished in a quarter of
an hour sometimes took a whole day. He realized, of course, that the Anglo-Americans were
disturbed by this and used to make some allowance for them, a dispensation which meant that
they spent only an hour or so in his office when they had planned on a few minutes. The
American concept of the discreteness of time and the necessity for scheduling was at variance
with this amiable and seemingly confusing Latin system. However, if my friend had adhered
to the American system he would have destroyed a vital part of his prosperity.
People who came to do business with him also came to find out things and to visit each other.
The ten to fifteen Spanish-Americans and Indians who used to sit around the office (among
whom I later found myself after I had learned to relax a little) played their own part in a
particular type of communications network.
Not only do we Americans segment and schedule time, but we look ahead and are oriented
almost entirely toward the future. We like new things and are preoccupied with change. We
want to know how to overcome resistance to change. In fact, scientific theories and even some
pseudo-scientific ones, which incorporate a striking theory of change, are often given special
attention.
Time with us is handled much like a material; we earn it, spend it, save it, waste it. To us it is
somewhat immoral to have two things going on at the same time. In Latin America it is not
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uncommon for one man to have a number of simultaneous jobs which he either carries on
from one desk or which he moves between, spending a small amount of time on each.
While we look to the future, our view of it is limited. The future to us is foreseeable future,
not the future of the South Asian that involves many centuries. Indeed, our perspective is so
short as to inhibit the operation of a good many practical projects, such as sixty- and onehundred-year conservation works requiring public support and public funds. Anybody who
has worked in industry or in the government of the United States has heard the following:
"Gentlemen, this is for the long term! Five or ten years.”
For us a “long time” can be almost anything - ten or twenty years, two or three months, a few
weeks, or even a couple of days. The South Asian, however, feels that it is perfectly realistic
to think of a “long time” in terms of thousands of years or even an endless period. A colleague
once described their conceptualization of time as follows: “Time is like a museum with
endless corridors and alcoves. You, the viewer, are walking through the museum in the dark,
holding a light to each scene as you pass it. God is the curator of the museum, and only He
knows all that is in it. One lifetime represents one alcove.”
The American’s view of the future is linked to a view of the past, for tradition plays an
equally limited part in American culture. As a whole, we push it aside or leave it to a few
souls who are interested in the past for some very special reason.
There are, of course, a few pockets, such as New England and the South, where tradition is
emphasized. But in the realm of business, which is the dominant model of United States life,
tradition is equated with experience, and experience is thought of as being very close to if not
synonymous with know-how. Know-how is one of our prized possessions, so that when we
look backward it is rarely to take pleasure in the past itself but usually to calculate the knowhow, to assess the prognosis for success in the future.
Promptness is also valued highly in American life. If people are not prompt, it is often taken
either as an insult or as an indication that they are not quite responsible. There are those, of a
psychological bent, who would say that we are obsessed with time. They can point to
individuals in American culture who are literally time-ridden. And even the rest of us feel
very strongly about time because we have been taught to take it so seriously. We have
stressed this aspect of culture and developed it to a point unequalled anywhere in the world,
except, perhaps, in Switzerland and North Germany. Many people criticize our obsessional
handling of time. They attribute ulcers and hypertension to the pressure engendered by such a
system. Perhaps they are right.
SOME OTHER CONCEPTS OF TIME
Even within the very borders of the United States there are people who handle time in a way
which is almost incomprehensible to those who have not made a major effort to understand it.
The Pueblo Indians, for example, who live in the Southwest, have a sense of time which is at
complete variance with the clock-bound habits of the ordinary American citizen. For the
Pueblos events begin when the time is ripe and no sooner.
I can still remember a Christmas dance I attended some twenty-five years ago at one of the
pueblos near the Rio Grande. I had to travel over bumpy roads for forty-five miles to get
there. At seven thousand feet the ordeal of winter cold at one o’clock in the morning is almost
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unbearable. Shivering in the still darkness of the pueblo, I kept searching for a clue as to when
the dance would begin.
Outside everything was impenetrably quiet. Occasionally there was the muffled beat of a deep
pueblo drum, the opening of a door, or the piercing of the night’s darkness with a shaft of
light. In the church where the dance was to take place a few white towns-folk were huddled
together on a balcony, groping for some clue which would suggest how much longer they
were going to suffer. “Last year I heard they started at ten o’clock.” “They can’t start until the
priest comes.” “There is no way of telling when they will start.” All this punctuated by
chattering teeth and the stamping of feet to keep up circulation.
Suddenly an Indian opened the door, entered, and poked up the fire in the stove. Everyone
nudged his neighbour: “Maybe they are going to begin now." Another hour passed. Another
Indian came in from outside, walked across the nave of the church, and disappeared through
another door. “Certainly now they will begin. After all, it’s almost two o’clock.” Someone
guessed they were just being ornery in the hope that the white men would go away. Another
had a friend in the pueblo and went to his house to ask when the dance would begin. Nobody
knew. Suddenly, when the whites were almost exhausted, there burst upon the night the deep
sounds of the drums, rattles, and low male voices singing. Without warning the dance had
begun.
After years of performances such as this, no white man in his right mind will hazard a guess
as to when one of these ceremonial dances will begin. Those of us who have learned now
know that the dance doesn’t start at a particular time. It is geared to no schedule. It starts
when “things” are ready!
As I pointed out, the white civilized Westener has a shallow view of the future compared to
the Oriental. Yet set beside the Navajo Indians of northern Arizona, he seems a model of
long-term patience. The Navajo and the European-American have been trying to adjust their
concepts of time for almost a hundred years. So far they have not done too well. To the oldtime Navajo time is like space - only the here and now is quite real. The future has little
reality to it.
An old friend of mine reared with the Navajo expressed it this way: “You know how the
Navajo love horses and how much they love to gamble and bet on horse races. Well, if you
were to say to a Navajo, ‘My friend, you know my quarter horse that won all the races at
Flagstaff last Fourth of July?’ that Navajo would eagerly say ‘yes, yes,’ he knew the horse;
and if you were to say, ‘In the fall I am going to give you that horse,’ the Navajo’s face would
fall and he would turn round and walk away. On the other hand, if you were to say to him,
‘Do you see that old bag of bones I just rode up on? That old hay-bellied mare with the knock
knees and pigeon toes, with the bridle that’s falling apart and the saddle that’s worn out? You
can have that horse, my friend, it’s yours. Take it, ride it away now.’ Then the Navajo would
beam and shake your hand and jump on his new horse and ride away. Of the two, only the
immediate gift has reality; a promise of future benefits is not even worth thinking about.”
In the early days of the range control and soil conservation programs it was almost impossible
to convince the Navajo that there was anything to be gained from giving up their beloved
sheep for benefits which could be enjoyed ten or twenty years in the future. Once I was
engaged in the supervision of the construction of small earth dams and like everyone else had
little success at first in convincing Navajo workmen that they should work hard and build the
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37
dam quickly, so that there would be more dams and more water for the sheep. The argument
that they could have one dam or ten, depending on how hard they worked, conveyed nothing.
It wasn’t until I learned to translate our behaviour into their terms that they produced as we
knew they could.
The solution came about in this way. I had been discussing the problem with a friend,
Lorenzo Hubbell, who had lived on the reservation all his life. When there were difficulties I
used to find it helpful to unburden myself to him. Somewhere in his remarks there was always
a key to the underlying patterns of Navajo life. As we talked I learned that the Navajo
understood and respected a bargain. I had some inkling of this when I noticed how unsettled
the Indians became when they were permitted to fall down on the job they had agreed to do.
In particular they seemed to be apprehensive lest they be asked to repay an unfulfilled
obligation at some future time. I decided to sit down with the Navajo crew and talk to them
about the work. It was quite useless to argue about the future advantages which would accrue
from working hard; linear reasoning and logic were meaningless. They did respond, however,
when I indicated that the government was giving them money to get out of debt, providing
jobs near their families, and giving them water for their sheep. I stressed the fact that in
exchange for this, they must work eight hours every day. This was presented as a bargain.
Following my clarification the work progressed satisfactorily.
One of my Indian workmen inadvertently provided another example of the cultural conflict
centring around time. His name was “Little Sunday.” He was small, wiry, and winning. Since
it is not polite to ask the Navajo about their names or even to ask them what their name is, it
was necessary to inquire of others how he came to be named “Little Sunday.” The explanation
was a revealing one.
In the early days of the white traders the Indians had considerable difficulty getting used to
the fact that we Europeans divided time into strange and unnatural periods instead of having a
“natural” succession of days which began with the new moon and ended with the old. They
were particularly perplexed by the notion of the week introduced by the traders and
missionaries. Imagine a Navajo Indian living some forty or fifty miles from a trading store
that is a hundred miles north of the railroad deciding that he needs flour and maybe a little
lard for bread. He thinks about the flour and the lard, and he thinks about his friends and the
fun he will have trading, or maybe he wonders if the trader will give him credit or how much
money he can get for the hide he has. After riding horseback for a day and a half to two days
he reaches the store all ready to trade. The store is locked up tight. There are a couple of other
Navajo Indians camped in the hogan built by the trader. They say the trader is inside but he
won’t trade because it’s Sunday. They bang on his door and he tells them, “Go away, it’s
Sunday,” and the Navajo says, “But I came from way up on Black Mesa, and I am hungry. I
need some food.“What can the trader do? Soon he opens the store and then all the Navajo
pour in. One of the most frequent and insistent Sunday visitors was a man who earned for
himself the sobriquet “Big Sunday.” “Little Sunday,” it turns out, ran a close second.
The Sioux Indians provide us with another interesting example of the differing views toward
time. Not so long ago a man who was introduced as the superintendent of the Sioux came to
my office. I learned that he had been born on the reservation and was a product of both Indian
and white cultures, having earned his A.B. at one of the Ivy League colleges.
During a long and fascinating account of the many problems which his tribe was having in
adjusting to our way of life, he suddenly remarked: “What would you think of a people who
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had no word for time? My people have no word for ‘late’ or for ‘waiting’, for that matter.
They don’t know what it is to wait or to be late.” He then continued, “I decided that until they
could tell the time and knew what time was they could never adjust themselves to white
culture. So I set about to teach them time. There wasn’t a clock that was running in any of the
reservation classrooms. So I first bought some decent clocks. Then I made the school buses
start on time, and if an Indian was two minutes late that was just too bad. The bus started at
eight forty-two and he had to be there.”
He was right of course. The Sioux could not adjust to European ways until they had learned
the meaning of time. The superintendent’s methods may have sounded a bit extreme, but they
were the only ones that would work. The idea of starting the buses off and making the drivers
hold to a rigid schedule was a stroke of genius; much kinder to the Indian, who could better
afford to miss a bus on the reservation than lose a job in town because he was late.
There is, in fact, no other way to teach time to people who handle it as differently from us as
the Sioux. The quickest way is to get very technical about it and to make it mean something.
Later on these people can learn the informal variations, but until they have experienced and
then mastered our type of time they will never adjust to our culture.
Thousands of miles away from the reservations of the American Indian we come to another
way of handing time which is apt to be completely unsettling to the unprepared visitor. The
inhabitants of the atoll of Truk in the Southwest Pacific treat time in a fashion that has
complicated life for themselves as well as for others, since it poses special problems not only
for their civil and military governors and the anthropologists recording their life but for their
own chiefs as well.
Time does not heal on Truk! Past events stack up, placing an ever-increasing burden on the
Trukese and weighing heavily on the present. They are, in fact, treated as though they had just
occurred. This was borne out by something which happened shortly after the American
occupation of the atoll at the end of World War II.
A villager arrived all out of breath at the military government headquarters. He said that a
murder had been committed in the village and that the murderer was running around loose.
Quite naturally the military governor became alarmed. He was about to dispatch M.P.s to
arrest the culprit when he remembered that someone had warned him about acting
precipitously when dealing with “natives.” A little enquiry turned up the fact that the victim
had been “fooling around” with the murderer’s wife. Still more enquiry of a routine type,
designed to establish the place and date of the crime, revealed that the murder had not
occurred a few hours or even days ago, as one might expect, but seventeen years before. The
murderer had been running around loose in the village all this time.
A further example of how time does not heal on Truk is that of a land dispute that started with
the German occupation in the 1890s, was carried on down through the Japanese occupation,
and was still current and acrimonious when the Americans arrived in 1946.
Prior to Missionary Moses’ arrival on Uman in 1867 life on Truk was characterized by violent
and bloody warfare. Villages, instead of being built on the shore where life was a little easier,
were placed on the sides of mountains where they could be better protected. Attacks would
come without notice and often without apparent provocation. Or a fight might start if a man
stole a coconut from a tree that was not his or waylaid a woman and took advantage of her.
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Years later someone would start thinking about the wrong and decide that it had not been
righted. A village would be attacked again in the middle of the night.
When charges were brought against a chief for things he had done to his people, every little
slight, every minor graft would be listed; nothing would be forgotten. Damages would be
asked for everything. It seemed preposterous to us Americans, particularly when we looked at
the lists of charges. “How could a chief be so corrupt?” “How could the people remember so
much?”
Though the Truk islanders carry the accumulated burden of time past on their shoulders, they
show an almost total inability to grasp the notion that two events can take place at the same
time when they are any distance apart. When the Japanese occupied Truk at the end of World
War I they took Artie Moses, chief of the island of Uman to Tokyo. Artie was made to send a
wireless message back to his people as a demonstration of the wizardry of Japanese
technology. His family refused to believe that he had sent it, that he had said anything at all,
though they knew he was in Tokyo. Places at a distance are very real to them, but people who
are away are very much away, and any interaction with them is unthinkable.
An entirely different handling of time is reported by the anthropologist Paul Bohannan for the
Tiv, a primitive people who live in Nigeria. Like the Navajo, they point to the sun to indicate
a general time of day, and they also observe the movement of the moon as it waxes and
wanes. What is different is the way they use and experience time. For the Tiv, time is like a
capsule. There is time for visiting, for cooking, or for working; and when one is in one of
those times, one does not shift to another.
The Tiv equivalent of the week lasts five to seven days. It is not tied into periodic natural
events, such as the phases of the moon. The day of the week is named after the things which
are being sold in the nearest “market.” If we had the equivalent, Monday would be
“automobiles” in Washington, D.C., “furniture” in Baltimore, and “yard goods” in New York.
Each of these might be followed by the days for appliances, liquor and diamonds in the
respective cities. This would mean that as you travelled about the day of the week would keep
changing, depending on where you were.
A requisite of our own temporal system is that the components must add up: Sixty seconds
have to equal one minute, sixty minutes one hour. The American is perplexed by people who
do not do this. The African specialist Henri Alexandre Junod, reporting on the Thonga, tells
of a medicine man who had memorized a seventy-year chronology and could detail the events
of each and every year in sequence. Yet this same man spoke of the period he had memorized
as an “era” which he computed at “four months and eight hundred years’ duration.” The usual
reaction to this story and others like it is that the man was primitive, like a child, and did not
understand what he was saying, because how could seventy years possibly be the same as
eight hundred? As students of culture we can no longer dismiss other conceptualizations of
reality by saying that they are childlike. We must go much deeper. In the case of the Thonga,
it seemed that a “chronology” is one thing and an “era” something else quite different, and
there is no relation between the two in operational terms.
If these distinctions between European-American time and other conceptions of time seem to
draw too heavily on primitive peoples, let me mention two other examples - from cultures
which are as civilized, if not as industrialized, as our own. In comparing the United States
with Iran and Afghanistan very great differences in the handling of time appear. The
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American attitude toward appointments is an example. Once while in Tehran I had the
opportunity to observe some young Iranians making plans for a party. After plans were made
to pick up everyone at appointed times and places everything began to fall apart. People
would leave messages that they were unable to take so-and-so or were going somewhere else,
knowing full well that the person who had been given the message couldn’t possibly deliver
it. One girl was left stranded on a street corner, and no one seemed to be concerned about it.
One of my informants explained that he himself had had many similar experiences. Once he
had made eleven appointments to meet a friend. Each time one of them had failed to show up.
The twelfth time they swore that they would both be there, that nothing would interfere. The
friend failed to arrive. After waiting for forty-five minutes my informant phoned his friend
and found him still at home. The following conversation is an approximation of what took
place:
"Is that you, Abdul?” “Yes.” “Why aren’t you here? I thought we were to meet for sure.” “Oh,
but it was raining,” said Abdul with a sort of whining intonation that is very common in Parsi.
If present appointments are treated rather cavalierly, the past in Iran takes on a very great
importance. People look back on what they feel are the wonders of the past and the great ages
of Persian culture. Yet the future seems to have very little reality or certainty to it.
Businessmen have been known to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in factories of
various sorts without making the slightest plan as to how to use them. A complete woollen
mill was bought and shipped to Tehran before the buyer had raised enough money to erect it,
to buy supplies, or even to train personnel. When American teams of technicians came to help
Iran’s economy they constantly had to cope with what seemed to them to be an almost total
lack of planning.
Moving east from Iran to Afghanistan, one gets farther afield from American time concepts.
A few years ago in Kabul a man appeared, looking for his brother. He asked all the merchants
of the market place if they had seen his brother and told him where he was staying in case his
brother arrived and wanted to find him. The next year he was back and repeated the
performance. By this time one of the members of the American embassy had heard about his
inquiries and asked if he had found his brother. The man answered that he and his brother had
agreed to meet in Kabul, but neither of them had said what year.
Strange as some of these stories about the ways in which people handle time may seem, they
become understandable when correctly analysed. To do this adequately requires an adequate
theory of culture. Before we return to the subject of time again - in a much later chapter of
this book - I hope that I will have provided just such a theory. It will not only shed light on the
way time is meshed with many other aspects of society but will provide a key to unlock some
of the secrets of the eloquent language of culture which speaks in so many different ways.
(Edward T. Hall: The Silent Language published by Doubleday & Company, New York in
1959)
BIOLOGY
Evolution and Natural Selection
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41
The idea of evolution was known to some of the Greek philosophers. By the time of Aristotle,
speculation had suggested that more perfect types had not only followed less perfect ones but
actually had developed from them. But all this was guessing; no real evidence was
forthcoming. When, in modern times, the idea of evolution was revived, it appeared in the
writings of the philosophers-Bacon, Descartes, Leibniz and Kant. Herbert Spencer was
preaching a full evolutionary doctrine in the years just before Darwin's book was published,
while most naturalists would have none of it. Nevertheless a few biologists ran counter to the
prevailing view, and pointed to such facts as the essential unity of structure in all warmblooded animals.
The first complete theory was that of Lamarck (1744-1829), who thought that modifications
due to environment, if constant and lasting, would be inherited and produce a new type.
Though no evidence for such inheritance was available, the theory gave a working hypothesis
for naturalists to use, and many of the social and philanthropic efforts of the nineteenth
century were framed on the tacit assumption that acquired improvements would be inherited.
But the man whose book gave both Darwin and Wallace the clue was the Reverend Robert
Malthus (1766-1834), sometime curate of Albury in Surrey. The English people were
increasing rapidly, and Malthus argued that the human race tends to outrun its means of
subsistence unless the redundant individuals are eliminated. This may not always be true, but
Darwin writes:
In October 1838, I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population, and being well
prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on, from long
continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that, under
these circumstances, favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones
to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species. Here then I had a
theory by which to work.
Darwin spent twenty years collecting countless facts and making experiments on breeding and
variation in plants and animals. By 1844 he had convinced himself that species are not
immutable, but worked on to get further evidence. On 18 June 1858 he received from Alfred
Russell Wallace a paper written in Ternate, in the space of three days after reading Malthus's
book. Darwin saw at once that Wallace had hit upon the essence of his own theory. Lyell and
Hooker arranged with the Linnaean Society to read on July 1st 1858 Wallace's paper together
with a letter from Darwin and an abstract of his theory written in 1844, Then Darwin wrote
out an account of his labours, and on 24th November 1859 published his great book The
Origin of Species.
In any race of plants or animals, the individuals differ from each other in innate qualities.
Darwin offered no explanation of these variations, but merely accepted their existence. When
the pressure of numbers or the competition for mates is great, any variation in structure which
is of use in the struggle has 'survival value', and gives its possessor an improved chance of
prolonging life and leaving offspring. That variation therefore tends to spread through the race
by the elimination of those who do not possess it, and a new variety or even species may be
established. As Huxley said, this idea was wholly unknown till 1858. Huxley said the book
was like a flash of lightning in the darkness. He wrote
It did the immense service of freeing us from the dilemma - Refuse to accept the Creation
hypothesis, and what have you to propose that can be accepted by any cautious reasoner? In
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42
1857 I had no answer ready, and I do not think anyone else had. A year later we reproached
ourselves with dullness for being perplexed with such an enquiry. My reflection when I first
made myself master of the central idea of the Origin was 'How extremely stupid not to have
thought of that!'
The hypothesis of natural selection may not be a complete explanation, but it led to a greater
thing than itself-an acceptance of the theory of organic evolution, which the years have but
confirmed. Yet at first some naturalists joined the opposition. To the many, who were unable
to judge the biological evidence, the effect of the theory of evolution seemed incredible as
well as devastating, to run counter to common sense and to overwhelm all philosophic and
religious landmarks. Even educated man, choosing between the Book of Genesis and the
Origin of Species, proclaimed with Disraeli that he was 'on the side of the Angels'.
Darwin himself took a modest view. While thinking that natural selection was the chief cause
of evolution, he did not exclude Lamarck's idea that characters acquired by long use or disuse
might be inherited, though no evidence seemed to be forthcoming. But about 1890 Weismann
drew a sharp distinction between the body (or soma) and the germ cells which it contains.
Somatic cells can only reproduce cells like themselves, but germ cells give rise not only to the
germ cells of a new individual but to all the many types of cell in his body. Germ cells
descend from germ cells in a pure line of germ plasm, but somatic cells trace their origin to
germ cells. From this point of view, the body of each individual is an unimportant by-product
of his parents' germ cells. The body dies, leaving no offspring, but the germ plasms show an
unbroken continuity. The products of the germ cells are not likely to be affected by changes in
the body. So Weismann's doctrine offered an explanation of the apparent noninheritance of
acquired characters.
The supporters of pure Darwinism came to regard the minute variations as enough to explain
natural selection and natural selection enough to explain evolution. But animal breeders and
horticulturalists knew that sudden large mutations occur, especially after crossing, and that
new varieties might be established at once. Then in 1900 forgotten work by Mendel was
rediscovered and a new chapter opened.
In 1869 Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton, applied these principles to mental qualities. By
searching books of reference, Galton examined the inheritance of ability. For instance, he
found that the chance of the son of a judge showing great ability was about 500 times as high
as that of a man taken at random, and for the judge's father it was nearly as much. While no
prediction can be made about individuals, on the average of large numbers, the inheritance of
ability is certain.
(From Chapter VIII of A Shorter History of Science by Sir W. C. Dampier.)
Evolution and Natural Selection
The idea of evolution was known to some of the Greek philosophers. By the time of Aristotle,
speculation had suggested that more perfect types had not only followed less perfect ones but
actually had developed from them. But all this was guessing; no real evidence was
forthcoming. When, in modern times, the idea of evolution was revived, it appeared in the
writings of the philosophers-Bacon, Descartes, Leibniz and Kant. Herbert Spencer was
preaching a full evolutionary doctrine in the years just before Darwin's book was published,
while most naturalists would have none of it. Nevertheless a few biologists ran counter to the
www.seyfihoca.com
43
prevailing view, and pointed to such facts as the essential unity of structure in all warmblooded animals.
The first complete theory was that of Lamarck (1744-1829), who thought that modifications
due to environment, if constant and lasting, would be inherited and produce a new type.
Though no evidence for such inheritance was available, the theory gave a working hypothesis
for naturalists to use, and many of the social and philanthropic efforts of the nineteenth
century were framed on the tacit assumption that acquired improvements would be inherited.
But the man whose book gave both Darwin and Wallace the clue was the Reverend Robert
Malthus (1766-1834), sometime curate of Albury in Surrey. The English people were
increasing rapidly, and Malthus argued that the human race tends to outrun its means of
subsistence unless the redundant individuals are eliminated. This may not always be true, but
Darwin writes:
In October 1838, I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population, and being well
prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on, from long
continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that, under
these circumstances, favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones
to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species. Here then I had a
theory by which to work.
Darwin spent twenty years collecting countless facts and making experiments on breeding and
variation in plants and animals. By 1844 he had convinced himself that species are not
immutable, but worked on to get further evidence. On 18 June 1858 he received from Alfred
Russell Wallace a paper written in Ternate, in the space of three days after reading Malthus's
book. Darwin saw at once that Wallace had hit upon the essence of his own theory. Lyell and
Hooker arranged with the Linnaean Society to read on July 1st 1858 Wallace's paper together
with a letter from Darwin and an abstract of his theory written in 1844, Then Darwin wrote
out an account of his labours, and on 24th November 1859 published his great book The
Origin of Species.
In any race of plants or animals, the individuals differ from each other in innate qualities.
Darwin offered no explanation of these variations, but merely accepted their existence. When
the pressure of numbers or the competition for mates is great, any variation in structure which
is of use in the struggle has 'survival value', and gives its possessor an improved chance of
prolonging life and leaving offspring. That variation therefore tends to spread through the race
by the elimination of those who do not possess it, and a new variety or even species may be
established. As Huxley said, this idea was wholly unknown till 1858. Huxley said the book
was like a flash of lightning in the darkness. He wrote
It did the immense service of freeing us from the dilemma - Refuse to accept the Creation
hypothesis, and what have you to propose that can be accepted by any cautious reasoner? In
1857 I had no answer ready, and I do not think anyone else had. A year later we reproached
ourselves with dullness for being perplexed with such an enquiry. My reflection when I first
made myself master of the central idea of the Origin was 'How extremely stupid not to have
thought of that!'
The hypothesis of natural selection may not be a complete explanation, but it led to a greater
thing than itself-an acceptance of the theory of organic evolution, which the years have but
www.seyfihoca.com
44
confirmed. Yet at first some naturalists joined the opposition. To the many, who were unable
to judge the biological evidence, the effect of the theory of evolution seemed incredible as
well as devastating, to run counter to common sense and to overwhelm all philosophic and
religious landmarks. Even educated man, choosing between the Book of Genesis and the
Origin of Species, proclaimed with Disraeli that he was 'on the side of the Angels'.
Darwin himself took a modest view. While thinking that natural selection was the chief cause
of evolution, he did not exclude Lamarck's idea that characters acquired by long use or disuse
might be inherited, though no evidence seemed to be forthcoming. But about 1890 Weismann
drew a sharp distinction between the body (or soma) and the germ cells which it contains.
Somatic cells can only reproduce cells like themselves, but germ cells give rise not only to the
germ cells of a new individual but to all the many types of cell in his body. Germ cells
descend from germ cells in a pure line of germ plasm, but somatic cells trace their origin to
germ cells. From this point of view, the body of each individual is an unimportant by-product
of his parents' germ cells. The body dies, leaving no offspring, but the germ plasms show an
unbroken continuity. The products of the germ cells are not likely to be affected by changes in
the body. So Weismann's doctrine offered an explanation of the apparent noninheritance of
acquired characters.
The supporters of pure Darwinism came to regard the minute variations as enough to explain
natural selection and natural selection enough to explain evolution. But animal breeders and
horticulturalists knew that sudden large mutations occur, especially after crossing, and that
new varieties might be established at once. Then in 1900 forgotten work by Mendel was
rediscovered and a new chapter opened.
In 1869 Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton, applied these principles to mental qualities. By
searching books of reference, Galton examined the inheritance of ability. For instance, he
found that the chance of the son of a judge showing great ability was about 500 times as high
as that of a man taken at random, and for the judge's father it was nearly as much. While no
prediction can be made about individuals, on the average of large numbers, the inheritance of
ability is certain.
(From Chapter VIII of A Shorter History of Science by Sir W. C. Dampier.)
Banting and the Discovery of Insulin
While at the Medical School, Banting went into the library and looked at the November issue
of Surgery, Gynaecology and Obstetrics. The first article was entitled 'The relation of the
Islets of Langerhans to Diabetes' by Dr. Moses Barron of Minneapolis. Banting had to talk to
his students next day on the functions of the pancreas, so he took the journal home with him.
One paragraph in Barron's review of previous literature on the subject referred to the
experiments on tying the pancreatic ducts of rabbits made by Arnozen and Vaillard thirty-six
years earlier. Banting had not heard of these experiments before, but he knew that attempts to
treat diabetes with extracts of the pancreas had failed; and he wondered why.
A possible answer that occurred to him was that the hormone from the islets of Langerhans
was destroyed during the extraction of the pancreas. The question then was what might
destroy it; and his thoughts turned to the digestive ferment that the pancreas produced. He
knew this was very powerful, so powerful that it could break up and dissolve all sorts of
www.seyfihoca.com
45
protein foods including the toughest meats. Perhaps, during the process of extraction, this
ferment destroyed the vital hormone.
If that were so, Banting reasoned, the extraction ought to be delayed until the pancreas was no
longer producing this ferment. According to the experiments of Arnozen and Vaillard, this
condition could be reached by tying the pancreatic ducts. It was two o'clock in the morning of
October 31, 1920, when he wrote in his small black notebook: 'Tie off pancreas ducts of dogs.
Wait six or eight weeks. Remove and extract.'
Although he did not know it, this was much the same idea that had come to Lydia de Witt
fourteen years earlier. But it was not for the idea alone that Banting deserves to be
remembered; his greatness lay in the way he put it into practice. He had to wait until the
spring of 1921 before he could start work, and he filled in the time by reading all the literature
on the subject he could find. He still missed Lydia de Witt's work. At last he was given his
laboratory-small, hot and rather primitive-and his ten dogs. His assistant, Charles Best, was a
recent graduate in physiology and biochemistry who had been working under Macleod on
sugars. They began work on May 16.
Banting began by tying off the pancreatic ducts of a number of dogs, which was quite easy.
Then he had to remove the pancreas from other dogs to give them diabetes. The operation was
not easy, and Banting's training and ability as a surgeon proved invaluable. Even so, several
dogs died before he evolved a suitable technique.
On July 6 Banting and Best chloroformed two of the dogs whose pancreatic ducts they had
tied seven weeks earlier, and were disappointed to find that the pancreas had not degenerated
as they had hoped. They had not tied the ducts with the correct degree of tension needed-the
margin of error was very small. And they had only one week left to complete their work.
Macleod was away in Europe, but an extension was granted by the authorities, and the
experiment was continued. On July 27 another duct-tied dog was chloroformed, and when
Banting operated he found that the pancreas had shrivelled to about one-third of its original
size. It was removed, chopped into pieces and mixed with saline; and a small amount of a
filtered extract was injected into one of the diabetic dogs. Within two hours its blood sugar
had fallen considerably, and before long the dog became conscious, rose, and wagged its tail.
The effect of the injection was so dramatic that Banting and Best could hardly believe it; but
further experiments made them sure that they had indeed found what they were looking for.
They had succeeded in extracting the anti-diabetic hormone secreted by the islets of
Langerhans. They called it 'isletin'. It was some time later that Macleod renamed it insulin, a
word that had been suggested in 1910. Insulin did not cure diabetes. After a while the dog
relapsed, and further injections were needed to revive it again. But with regular injections of
insulin a dog with diabetes could live.
Banting and Best next succeeded in obtaining insulin by injecting secretin to stimulate the
production of the digestive ferment from the pancreas and exhaust the cells from which it
came. This was a much quicker method than tying the ducts and waiting several weeks; and
although the practical results were disappointing, its importance to the theory was
considerable.
So far insulin had been extracted only in sufficient quantity for laboratory work, and already
Banting and Best were seeking means of getting larger supplies. They now obtained insulin
www.seyfihoca.com
46
from the pancreas of a foetal calf-that is, a calf that had not yet been born. Nature, ever
practical, does not supply digestive ferments until a calf starts eating, so there was nothing to
destroy the insulin during extraction. This new success enabled Banting and Best to keep up
an adequate supply of insulin for more extensive experiments. At the same time they realized
that if their work was to have practical results in medical treatment it would be necessary to
get much larger supplies. And they could only come from adult cattle in the slaughterhouse.
The problem was to find a means of extracting the insulin from the pancreas of an ordinary
adult animal.
The problem was solved well enough to provide insulin for the first injections on human
beings. Two patients in Toronto General Hospital were chosen-a fourteen-year-old boy and a
doctor, both very seriously ill with diabetes: 'hopeless' cases. When treated with insulinalthough still in a relatively impure form-they improved at once. The boy is alive and well today.
'Research in medicine is specialized,' Banting said later, 'and as in all organized walks of life,
a division of labour is necessary. In consequence, a division of labour in the field of insulin
took place.' Professor J. B. Collip, a biochemist, was called in to produce a purer extract. He
succeeded very quickly; and other workers made it possible to obtain insulin on a really large
scale. Before very long insulin injections became the standard treatment for diabetes all over
the world. They still are today.
Banting, only thirty-one years old, was suddenly famous. Although for some extraordinary
reason he was not knighted until 1934, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in
1923jointly with Macleod.
(Fom Chapter VIII of Great Discoveries in Modern Science by Patrick Pringle.)
The Galapagos Islands
After Tahiti the Galapagos were the most famous of all the tropical islands in the Pacific.
They had been discovered in 1535 by Fray Tomas de Berlanga, Bishop of Panama, and were
now owned by Ecuador, 500 odd miles away. Already in the 1830s some sixty or seventy
whalers, mostly American, called there every year for 'refreshments', They replenished their
water tanks from the springs, they captured tortoises for meat, (galapagos is the Spanish word
for giant tortoises), and they called for mail at Post Office Bay where a box was set up on the
beach. Every whaling captain took from it any letters which he thought he might be able to
forward. Herman Melville called in at the Galapagos aboard the Acushnet not long after the
Beagle's visit, and the 'blighted Encantadas' are a part of the saga of the white whale. 'Little
but reptile life is here found', wrote Melville, 'the chief sound of life is a hiss'.
Apart from their practical uses there was nothing much to recommend the Galapagos; they
were not lush and beautiful islands like the Tahiti group, they were (and still are) far off the
usual maritime routes, circled by capricious currents, and nobody lived in them then except
for a handful of political prisoners who had been stranded there by the Ecuador government.
The fame of the islands was founded upon one thing; they were infinitely strange, unlike any
other islands in the world. No one who went there ever forgot theta. For the Beagle this was
just another port of call in a very long voyage, but for Darwin it was much more than that, for
it was here, in the most unexpected way-just as a man might have a sudden inspiration while
he is travelling in a car or a train-that he began to form a coherent view of the evolution of life
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47
on this planet. To put it into his own words: 'Here, both in space and time, we seem to be
brought somewhat near to that great fact-that mystery of mysteries-the first appearance of new
beings on this earth'.
The Beagle cruised for just over a month in the Galapagos, and whenever they reached an
interesting point FitzRoy dropped off a boatload of men to explore. On Narborough Island the
turtles were coming in at night to lay their eggs in the sand, thousands of them; they laid six
eggs in each hole. On Charles Island there was a penal settlement of two hundred convicts,
who cultivated sugar-cane, bananas and corn on the high ground. But the group that concerns
us is the one that was put ashore on James Island. Here Darwin, Covington, Bynoe and two
sailors were landed with a tent and provisions, and FitzRoy promised to come back and pick
them up at the end of a week. Darwin visited other islands as well, but they did not differ very
much from James Island, and so we can conveniently group all his experiences into this one
extraordinary week. They set up their tent on the beach, laid out their bedding and their stores,
and then began to look around them.
The marine lizards, on closer inspection, turned out to be miniature dragons, several feet in
length, and they had great gaping mouths with pouches under them and long flat tails; 'imps
of darkness', Darwin called them. They swarmed in thousands; everywhere Darwin went they
scuttled away before him, and they were even blacker than the forbidding black rocks on
which they lived. Everything about these iguanas was odd. They never went more than ten
yards inland; either they sunned themselves on the shore or dived into the sea where at once
they became expert swimmers, holding their webbed feet close to their sides and propelling
themselves along with strong swift strokes of their tails. Through the clear water one could
see them cruising close to the bottom, and they could stay submerged for a very long time; a
sailor threw one into the sea with a heavy weight attached to it, and when he fished it up an
hour later it was still alive and kicking. They fed on seaweed, a fact that Darwin and Bynoe
ascertained when with Bynoe's surgical instruments they opened one up and examined the
contents of its stomach. And yet, like some sailors, these marine beasts hated the sea. Darwin
took one by the tail and hurled it into a big pool that had been left in the rocks by the ebb-tide.
At once it swam back to the land. Again Darwin caught it and threw it back, and again it
returned. No matter what he did the animal simply would not stay in the sea, and Darwin was
forced to conclude that it feared the sharks there and instinctively, when threatened by
anything, came ashore where it had no enemies. Their breeding season was November, when
they put on their courting colours and surrounded themselves with their harems.
The other creatures on the coast were also strange in different ways; flightless cormorants,
penguins and seals, both cold-sea creatures, unpredictably living here in these tropical waters,
and a scarlet crab that scuttled over the lizards' backs, hunting for ticks. Walking inland with
Covington, Darwin arrived among some scattered cactuses, and here two enormous tortoises
were feeding. They were quite deaf and did not notice the two men until they had drawn level
with their eyes. Then they hissed loudly and drew in their heads. These animals were so big
and heavy that it was impossible to lift them or even turn them over on their sides Darwin and
Covington tried-and they could easily bear the weight of a man. Darwin got aboard and found
it a very wobbly seat, but he in no way impeded the tortoise's progress; he calculated that it
managed 60 yards in ten minutes, or 360 yards an hour, which would be roughly four miles a
day - 'allowing a little time for it to eat on the road'.
www.seyfihoca.com
48
The origin of species
INTRODUCTION
When on board H.M.S. Beagle as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the
distribution of the organic beings inhabiting South America, and in the geological relations of
the present to the past inhabitants of that continent. These facts, as will be seen in the latter
chapters of this volume, seemed to throw some light on the origin of species- that mystery of
mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers. On my return home, it
occurred to me, in 1837, that something might perhaps be made out on this question by
patiently accumulating and reflecting on all sorts of facts which could possibly have any
bearing on it. After five years' work I allowed myself to speculate on the subject, and drew up
some short notes; these I enlarged in 1844 into a sketch of the conclusions, which then
seemed to me probable: from that period to the present day I have steadily pursued the same
object. I hope that I may be excused for entering on these personal details, as I give them to
show that I have not been hasty in coming to a decision.
My work is now (1859) nearly finished; but as it will take me many more years to complete it,
and as my health is far from strong, I have been urged to publish this abstract. I have more
especially been induced to do this, as Mr. Wallace, who is now studying the natural history of
the Malay Archipelago, has arrived at almost exactly the same general conclusions that I have
on the origin of species. In 1858 he sent me a memoir on this subject, with a request that I
would forward it to Sir Charles Lyell, who sent it to the Linnean Society, and it is published
in the third volume of the Journal of that society. Sir C. Lyell and Dr. Hooker, who both knew
of my work- the latter having read my sketch of 1844- honoured me by thinking it advisable
to publish, with Mr. Wallace's excellent memoir, some brief extracts from my manuscripts.
This abstract, which I now publish, must necessarily be imperfect. cannot here give references
and authorities for my several statements; and I must trust to the reader reposing some
confidence in my accuracy. No doubt errors will have crept in, though I hope I have always
been cautious in trusting to good authorities alone. I can here give only the general
conclusions at which I have arrived, with a few facts in illustration, but which, I hope, in most
cases will suffice. No one can feel more sensible than I do of the necessity of hereafter
publishing in detail all the facts, with references, on which my conclusions have been
grounded; and I hope in a future work to do this. For I am well aware that scarcely a single
point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading
to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived. A fair result can be obtained
only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question;
and this is here impossible.
I much regret that want of space prevents my having the satisfaction of acknowledging the
generous assistance which I have received from very many naturalists, some of them
personally unknown to me. I cannot, however, let this opportunity pass without expressing my
deep obligations to Dr. Hooker, who, for the last fifteen years, has aided me in every possible
way by his large stores of knowledge and his excellent judgment.
In considering the Origin of Species, it is quite conceivable that a naturalist, reflecting on the
mutual affinities of organic beings, on their embryological relations, their geographical
www.seyfihoca.com
49
distribution, geological succession, and other such facts, might come to the conclusion that
species had not been independently created, but had descended, like varieties, from other
species. Nevertheless, such a conclusion, even if well founded, would be unsatisfactory, until
it could be shown how the innumerable species inhabiting this world have been modified, so
as to acquire that perfection of structure and coadaptation which justly excites our admiration.
Naturalists continually refer to external conditions, such as climate, food, &c., as the only
possible cause of variation. In one limited sense, as we shall hereafter see, this may be true;
but it is preposterous to attribute to mere external conditions, the structure, for instance, of the
woodpecker, with its feet, tail, beak, and tongue, so admirably adapted to catch insects under
the bark of trees. In the case of the mistletoe, which draws its nourishment from certain trees,
which has seeds that must be transported by certain birds, and which has flowers with
separate sexes absolutely requiring the agency of certain insects to bring pollen from one
flower to the other, it is equally preposterous to account for the structure of this parasite, with
its relations to several distinct organic beings, by the effects of external conditions, or of
habit, or of the volition of the plant itself.
It is, therefore, of the highest importance to gain a clear insight into the means of modification
and coadaptation. At the commencement of my observations it seemed to me probable that a
careful study of domesticated animals and of cultivated plants would offer the best chance of
making out this obscure problem. Nor have I been disappointed; in this and in all other
perplexing cases I have invariably found that our knowledge, imperfect though it be, of
variation under domestication, afforded the best and safest clue. I may venture to express my
conviction of the high value of such studies, although they have been very commonly
neglected by naturalists.
From these considerations, I shall devote the first chapter of this Abstract to Variation under
Domestication. We shall thus see that a large amount of hereditary modification is at least
possible; and, what is equally or more important, we shall see how great is the power of man
in accumulating by his Selection successive slight variations. I will then pass on to the
variability of species in a state of nature; but I shall, unfortunately, be compelled to treat this
subject far too briefly, as it can be treated properly only by giving long catalogues of facts.
We shall, however, be enabled to discuss what circumstances are most favourable to
variation. In the next chapter the Struggle for Existence amongst all organic beings
throughout the world, which inevitably follows from the high geometrical ratio of their
increase, will be considered. This is the doctrine of Malthus, applied to the whole animal and
vegetable kingdoms. As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly
survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows
that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the
complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and
thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will
tend to propagate its new and modified form.
This fundamental subject of Natural Selection will be treated at some length in the fourth
chapter; and we shall then see how Natural Selection almost inevitably causes much
Extinction of the less improved forms of life, and leads to what I have called Divergence of
Character. In the next chapter I shall discuss the complex and little known laws of variation.
In the five succeeding chapters, the most apparent and gravest difficulties in accepting the
theory will be given: namely, first, the difficulties of transitions, or how a simple being or a
simple organ can be changed and perfected into a highly developed being or into an
elaborately constructed organ; secondly, the subject of Instinct, or the mental powers of
www.seyfihoca.com
50
animals; thirdly, Hybridism, or the infertility of species and the fertility of varieties when
intercrossed; and fourthly, the imperfection of the Geological Record. In the next chapter I
shall consider the geological succession of organic beings throughout time; in the twelfth and
thirteenth, their geographical distribution throughout space; in the fourteenth, their
classification or mutual affinities, both when mature and in an embryonic condition. In the
last chapter I shall give a brief recapitulation of the whole work, and a few concluding
remarks.
No one ought to feel surprise at much remaining as yet unexplained in regard to the origin of
species and varieties, if he make due allowance for our profound ignorance in regard to the
mutual relations of the many beings which live around us. Who can explain why one species
ranges widely and is very numerous, and why another allied species has a narrow range and is
rare? Yet these relations are of the highest importance, for they determine the present welfare
and, as I believe, the future success and modification of every inhabitant of this world. Still
less do we know of the mutual relations of the innumerable inhabitants of the world during
the many past geological epochs in its history. Although much remains obscure, and will long
remain obscure, I can entertain no doubt, after the most deliberate study and dispassionate
judgment of which I am capable, that the view which most naturalists until recently
entertained, and which I formerly entertained - namely, that each species has been
independently created- is erroneous. I am fully convinced that species are not immutable; but
that those belonging to what are called the same genera are lineal descendants of some other
and generally extinct species, in the same manner as the acknowledged varieties of any one
species are the descendants of that species. Furthermore, I am convinced that Natural
Selection has been the most important, but not the exclusive, means of modification.
(Introduction to On The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, 1859)
INTRODUCTION
When on board H.M.S. Beagle as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the
distribution of the organic beings inhabiting South America, and in the geological relations of
the present to the past inhabitants of that continent. These facts, as will be seen in the latter
chapters of this volume, seemed to throw some light on the origin of species- that mystery of
mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers. On my return home, it
occurred to me, in 1837, that something might perhaps be made out on this question by
patiently accumulating and reflecting on all sorts of facts which could possibly have any
bearing on it. After five years' work I allowed myself to speculate on the subject, and drew up
some short notes; these I enlarged in 1844 into a sketch of the conclusions, which then
seemed to me probable: from that period to the present day I have steadily pursued the same
object. I hope that I may be excused for entering on these personal details, as I give them to
show that I have not been hasty in coming to a decision.
My work is now (1859) nearly finished; but as it will take me many more years to complete it,
and as my health is far from strong, I have been urged to publish this abstract. I have more
especially been induced to do this, as Mr. Wallace, who is now studying the natural history of
the Malay Archipelago, has arrived at almost exactly the same general conclusions that I have
on the origin of species. In 1858 he sent me a memoir on this subject, with a request that I
would forward it to Sir Charles Lyell, who sent it to the Linnean Society, and it is published
in the third volume of the Journal of that society. Sir C. Lyell and Dr. Hooker, who both knew
www.seyfihoca.com
51
of my work- the latter having read my sketch of 1844- honoured me by thinking it advisable
to publish, with Mr. Wallace's excellent memoir, some brief extracts from my manuscripts.
This abstract, which I now publish, must necessarily be imperfect. cannot here give references
and authorities for my several statements; and I must trust to the reader reposing some
confidence in my accuracy. No doubt errors will have crept in, though I hope I have always
been cautious in trusting to good authorities alone. I can here give only the general
conclusions at which I have arrived, with a few facts in illustration, but which, I hope, in most
cases will suffice. No one can feel more sensible than I do of the necessity of hereafter
publishing in detail all the facts, with references, on which my conclusions have been
grounded; and I hope in a future work to do this. For I am well aware that scarcely a single
point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading
to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived. A fair result can be obtained
only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question;
and this is here impossible.
I much regret that want of space prevents my having the satisfaction of acknowledging the
generous assistance which I have received from very many naturalists, some of them
personally unknown to me. I cannot, however, let this opportunity pass without expressing my
deep obligations to Dr. Hooker, who, for the last fifteen years, has aided me in every possible
way by his large stores of knowledge and his excellent judgment.
In considering the Origin of Species, it is quite conceivable that a naturalist, reflecting on the
mutual affinities of organic beings, on their embryological relations, their geographical
distribution, geological succession, and other such facts, might come to the conclusion that
species had not been independently created, but had descended, like varieties, from other
species. Nevertheless, such a conclusion, even if well founded, would be unsatisfactory, until
it could be shown how the innumerable species inhabiting this world have been modified, so
as to acquire that perfection of structure and coadaptation which justly excites our admiration.
Naturalists continually refer to external conditions, such as climate, food, &c., as the only
possible cause of variation. In one limited sense, as we shall hereafter see, this may be true;
but it is preposterous to attribute to mere external conditions, the structure, for instance, of the
woodpecker, with its feet, tail, beak, and tongue, so admirably adapted to catch insects under
the bark of trees. In the case of the mistletoe, which draws its nourishment from certain trees,
which has seeds that must be transported by certain birds, and which has flowers with
separate sexes absolutely requiring the agency of certain insects to bring pollen from one
flower to the other, it is equally preposterous to account for the structure of this parasite, with
its relations to several distinct organic beings, by the effects of external conditions, or of
habit, or of the volition of the plant itself.
It is, therefore, of the highest importance to gain a clear insight into the means of modification
and coadaptation. At the commencement of my observations it seemed to me probable that a
careful study of domesticated animals and of cultivated plants would offer the best chance of
making out this obscure problem. Nor have I been disappointed; in this and in all other
perplexing cases I have invariably found that our knowledge, imperfect though it be, of
variation under domestication, afforded the best and safest clue. I may venture to express my
conviction of the high value of such studies, although they have been very commonly
neglected by naturalists.
www.seyfihoca.com
52
From these considerations, I shall devote the first chapter of this Abstract to Variation under
Domestication. We shall thus see that a large amount of hereditary modification is at least
possible; and, what is equally or more important, we shall see how great is the power of man
in accumulating by his Selection successive slight variations. I will then pass on to the
variability of species in a state of nature; but I shall, unfortunately, be compelled to treat this
subject far too briefly, as it can be treated properly only by giving long catalogues of facts.
We shall, however, be enabled to discuss what circumstances are most favourable to
variation. In the next chapter the Struggle for Existence amongst all organic beings
throughout the world, which inevitably follows from the high geometrical ratio of their
increase, will be considered. This is the doctrine of Malthus, applied to the whole animal and
vegetable kingdoms. As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly
survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows
that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the
complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and
thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will
tend to propagate its new and modified form.
This fundamental subject of Natural Selection will be treated at some length in the fourth
chapter; and we shall then see how Natural Selection almost inevitably causes much
Extinction of the less improved forms of life, and leads to what I have called Divergence of
Character. In the next chapter I shall discuss the complex and little known laws of variation.
In the five succeeding chapters, the most apparent and gravest difficulties in accepting the
theory will be given: namely, first, the difficulties of transitions, or how a simple being or a
simple organ can be changed and perfected into a highly developed being or into an
elaborately constructed organ; secondly, the subject of Instinct, or the mental powers of
animals; thirdly, Hybridism, or the infertility of species and the fertility of varieties when
intercrossed; and fourthly, the imperfection of the Geological Record. In the next chapter I
shall consider the geological succession of organic beings throughout time; in the twelfth and
thirteenth, their geographical distribution throughout space; in the fourteenth, their
classification or mutual affinities, both when mature and in an embryonic condition. In the
last chapter I shall give a brief recapitulation of the whole work, and a few concluding
remarks.
No one ought to feel surprise at much remaining as yet unexplained in regard to the origin of
species and varieties, if he make due allowance for our profound ignorance in regard to the
mutual relations of the many beings which live around us. Who can explain why one species
ranges widely and is very numerous, and why another allied species has a narrow range and is
rare? Yet these relations are of the highest importance, for they determine the present welfare
and, as I believe, the future success and modification of every inhabitant of this world. Still
less do we know of the mutual relations of the innumerable inhabitants of the world during
the many past geological epochs in its history. Although much remains obscure, and will long
remain obscure, I can entertain no doubt, after the most deliberate study and dispassionate
judgment of which I am capable, that the view which most naturalists until recently
entertained, and which I formerly entertained - namely, that each species has been
independently created- is erroneous. I am fully convinced that species are not immutable; but
that those belonging to what are called the same genera are lineal descendants of some other
and generally extinct species, in the same manner as the acknowledged varieties of any one
species are the descendants of that species. Furthermore, I am convinced that Natural
Selection has been the most important, but not the exclusive, means of modification.
www.seyfihoca.com
53
(Introduction to On The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, 1859)
BUSINESS
Brands Up.
New Labour has proved a marketable package, but it may be that Tony Blair and his cabinet
colleagues should now go the whole hog and reinvent themselves as individual brands. A
survey recently found that consumers consider Heineken more trustworthy than the Prime
Minister, and brands like BT and BMW are better known than Gordon Brown and Jack Straw.
You know where you are with a brand. Invented in the 19th century to reassure consumers
they were getting the real McCoy, brands have long been the way shoppers navigate in a sea
of unknowns. They are beacons of consistency, badges of style. You know what you're
getting when you buy Marmite, Tennents lager or PG Tips. Or do you? Most of our bestknown brands have become baubles for multinationals. Brands are revenue streams, assets
which are made to sweat and sold between international corporations for millions. Marmite
may have been a national institution since 1902 when it was invented as a product of the
brewing industry in Burton on Trent. But it's now owned by the New Jersey based American
giant, CPC International - as are Bovril, Pot Noodles and Hellman's Mayonnaise. Lea &
Perrins is part of the French company, Danone, and PG Tips isn't owned by Brooke Bond; it's
part of the gigantic portfolio of margarine baron Unilever.
You think brands deliver consistency? Think again. Persil is owned he by Unilever in Britain
and by Henkel in Germany. Persil is Omo in Spain and the Netherlands and Skip in France
and Greece. Flora is Flora in the UK, but it's Becel in France and the Netherlands, and it's
Rama in Germany and Russia.
Names are misleading. Customers of the posh sounding Jeeves of Belgravia may be dismayed
to know it used to be owned by the down market chain Sketchley, until they sold it to a
German shoe company called Mr Minute. The QE2 sounds quintessentially British, but book
a cruise and you'll be swelling the coffers of Norwegian ship builders Kvaerner.
It's somehow equally disappointing to learn that the trendy new chain All Bar One is owned
by boring old Bass. All Bar One may be decently designed, but so it should be. Bass has a
long way to go to make amends for inflicting on the high street those fake Irish bars and
eyesores, O'Neills. Don't, however, think you can get away from Bass by drinking Grolsch,
Carling, Hoopers Hooch, Caffreys or Britvic Soft Drinks - Bass owns the lot. And if you
round off your evening by staying in the Holiday Inn, you'll bump up its profits nicely.
We like to think brands mean something. Consumers don't buy products; they make style
state-ments and are often prepared to pay a premium for the privilege. “The amount of
reliance placed on a brand is quite high, but it's not very well justified,” says Robert East. You
certainly may not have planned to benefit Barbie makers, Mattel, when you bought Scrabble,
nor profit the highly secretive Proc-ter and Gamble when you popped a Pringle or washed
your hair with Vidal Sassoon. You may have known P&G owned Ariel, Tampax and
Pampers, but did you know it also owns Sunny Delight orange drink, Crest, Clearasil, Pantene
Pro V, Cover Girl, Max Factor and Hugo Boss?
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You might think Virgin at least delivers on its promise. As brands go, it has more reason than
most to lay claim to certain values. It's inextricably associated with the founder, Richard
Branson. Yet even Virgin is not what it seems. In February, The Economist did an audit of the
empire: Virgin owns less than 50 per cent of Virgin Direct, Virgin Cola, Virgin Spirits, Virgin
Cinema, Virgin Vie and the Virgin Clothing Company. Hardly like a Virgin at all.
Does it matter? Should we worry about who owns what? “No,” says Nicholas Morgan,
marketing director for premium malt whiskies at United Distillers (owned by Diageo.)
“People buy a bottle of Bells or Johnnie Walker. They don't think about United Distillers and
we don't want them to. Information about the company gets in the way. It's not good for
anyone.
Consultants Inter-brand agree - but so they would. Inventors of brand names Hobnobs and
Mondeo, Interbrand were the first people to say you can put a price on a brand, and write it on
the balance sheet. “Most consumers are not that bothered about who owns the brand,
providing they get the service they want,” says its brand evaluation director, Alex Batchdor.
“It's getting the product right that matters. When ownership changes, no one gives a stuff.”
But shoppers may care much more than he would like to think. Angry consumers have in the
past inflicted major boycotts on the products of Barclays, Shell and Nestlé when they didn't
like what the companies were up to. Batchebr at Interbrand and Morgan at United Distillers
say no one is being misled - it's very easy to find out who owns what. But not from the
product it's not. Bylaw, all products need to have is an address you can write to. There's no
need to put any-thing about the parent company. So there's no way of knowing, when you're
buying a product of, say, Kraft Jacobs Suchard, that its parent company is the tobacco giant
Philip Morris. There's even less chance of knowing that the Chinese government owns part of
Midland Bank and First Direct (because the Hong Kong government bought an 8.9 per cent
stake in the banks' parent company, HSBC.)
Nor is it easy to unravel what ownership means at Rolls Royce after BMW bought the marque
and VW bought the factory. Ask either company exactly what is going on and both refer you
to Germany.
Not caring about ownership is also not an argument you could get past a Manchester United
supporter. Man U is the sports brand par excellence. The All Blacks are one of many clubs on
record as saying it's the brand on which they want to model themselves. It's the best-known
sports brand in the world - which is precisely why Rupert Murdoch would like to buy it, much
to the fans' dismay.
Andy Walsh, spokesman for the Manchester United Independent Supporters Association, will
fight a change of ownership tooth and nail. “We'd lose all our independence. It would no
longer be Man U. A football club generates a feeling of family, rather than a business, and in
terms of the emotional attachment, who owns it matters very much.”
There are other reasons why ownership matters. “Ownership is important in terms of public
policy and accountability,” says Robert East, professor of Marketing at Kingston University
Business School. It's where responsibility lies. Excluding own brands and fruit and veg, most
supermarket products are made by just three companies (four if you include booze). They are
Unilever, P&G, Nestlé and Diageo. It's a stranglehold even the supermarkets seem unaware
of.
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“Every week, we used to send a salesman to the supermarkets from each of our four main
companies: Van Den Berg Foods, Bird's Eye Walls, Lever Bros, and Elida Fabergé,” says a
spokesman for Unilever. “The supermarkets often had no idea they were all part of the same
company.”
Ownership certainly matters to the companies. This year Guinness (which already owned
United Distillers), merged with Grand Metropolitan. The newly formed group came up with
the unlovely name Diageo. The regulators made it sell Dewar's whisky and Bombay gin. The
two brands cost Bacardi-Martini £1.15 billion.
Brands are the life-blood of companies. You can buy a familiar but floundering brand, as
Unilever did with Colman's mustard, re-market it, then through brand extension flog the brand
to death. On the back of the mustard (made in Norwich for seven generations), Unilever has
now launched Colman's dry sauces, and Colman's and Oxo condiments.
But Unilever is beginning to change its brand strategy. “We think people want to know who is
controlling what, and who's behind the things they buy,” says a spokesman, Stephen Milton.
“They don't want some faceless conglomerate, and we think it's a trend that will continue.”
You can therefore expect to hear more about Unilever - which is just as well, as you're likely
to have plenty of its products in your home.
It's a high-risk strategy. Persil Power, accused of rotting your clothes, probably caused less of
a hiccup to Unilever's share price than New Coke's did to Coca-Cola. Being known to all your
customers - government/regulators, share-holders, trade and consumers - by the same name
means you have to take great care of it. A blip in one area, and the whole thing crashes down as Virgin may find now it has put its name on trains.
But it seems that the rewards can be greater. Whichever way they foster their brands, Nestlé,
Unilever, P&G, Diageo and the rest have a long way to go. Every time someone does a
survey, the super-brands that come out on top are the one-product or one-category companies,
known by the names under which they trade. You might not like them a great deal, but with
Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Sony and Microsoft you do at least know where you stand.
(From The Guardian November 5th 1998)
How to be a great manager
At the most general level, successful managers tend to have four characteristics:




they take enormous pleasure and pride in the growth of their people;
they are basically cheerful optimists - someone has to keep up morale when setbacks
occur;
they don't promise more than they can deliver;
when they move on from a job, they always leave the situation a little better than it
was when they arrived.
The following is a list of some essential tasks at which a manager must excel to be truly
effective.
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Great managers accept blame: When the big wheel from head office visits and expresses
displeasure, the great manager immediately accepts full responsibility. In everyday working
life, the best managers are constantly aware that they selected and should have developed
their people. Errors made by team members are in a very real sense their responsibility.
Great managers give praise: Praise is probably the most under-used management tool. Great
managers are forever trying to catch their people doing something right, and congratulating
them on it. And when praise comes from outside, they are swift not merely to publicise the
fact, 'but to make clear who has earned it. Managers who regularly give praise are in a much
stronger position to criticise or reprimand poor performance. If you simply comment when
you are dissatisfied with performance, it is all too common for your words to be taken as a
straightforward expression of personal dislike.
Great managers make blue sky: Very few people are comfortable with the idea that they will
be doing exactly what they are doing today in 10 years' time. Great managers anticipate
people's dissatisfaction.
Great managers put themselves about: Most managers now accept the need to find out not
merely what their team is thinking, but what the rest of the world, including their customers,
is saying. So MBWA (management by walking about) is an excellent thing, though it has to
be distinguished from MBWAWP (management by walking about - without purpose), where
senior management wander aimlessly, annoying customers, worrying staff and generally
making a nuisance of themselves.
Great managers judge on merit: A great deal more difficult than it sounds. It's virtually
impossible to divorce your feelings about someone - whether you like or dislike them - from
how you view their actions. But suspicions of discrimination or favouritism are fatal to the
smooth running of any team, so the great manager accepts this as an aspect of the game that
really needs to be worked on.
Great managers exploit strengths, not weaknesses, in themselves and in their people: Weak
managers feel threatened by other people's strengths. They also revel in the discovery of
weakness and regard it as something to be exploited rather than remedied. Great managers
have no truck with this destructive thinking. They see strengths, in themselves as well as in
other people, as things to be built on, and weakness as something to be accommodated,
worked around and, if possible, eliminated.
Great managers make things happen: The old-fashioned approach to management was rather
like the old-fashioned approach to child-rearing: 'Go and see what the children are doing and
tell them to stop it!' Great managers have confidence that their people will be working in their'
interests and do everything they can to create an environment in which people feel free to
express themselves.
Great managers make themselves redundant: Not as drastic as it sounds! What great managers
do is learn new skills and acquire useful information from the outside world, and then
immediately pass them on, to ensure that if they were to be run down by a bus, the team
would still have the benefit of the new information. No one in an organisation should be doing
work that could be accomplished equally effectively by someone less well paid than
themselves. So great managers are perpetually on the look-out for ' higher-level activities to
occupy their own time, while constantly passing on tasks that they have already mastered.
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(From The Independent )
Derivatives - The Beauty
Financial markets have grown more volatile since exchange rates were freed in 1973. Interest
rates and exchange rates now fluctuate more rapidly than at any time since the Crash of 1929.
At the same time, companies' profit margins have been squeezed by the lowering of trade
barriers and increased international competition. The result is that companies worldwide have
been forced to come to terms with their financial risks. No longer can managers stick their
heads in the sand and pretend that because their firms make cars, or sell soap powders, they
need only worry about this year's convertible or whether their new formula washes whiter
than Brand X. As many have found to their cost, ignoring interest-rate, currency or
commodity risks can hurt a company just as badly as the failure of a new product.
Derivatives offer companies the chance to reduce their financial risks - chiefly by transferring
them to someone (usually a bank) who is willing to assume and manage them. As they realize
this, more and more companies are using derivatives to hedge their exposures. America's
General Accounting Office reported that between 1989 and 1992 derivative volumes grew
145% to $12.1 trillion (in terms of the notional amount represented). This does not include
about $5.5 trillion of foreign-exchange forwards. Interest-rate risk was the main risk hedged at the end of 1992, interest-rate contracts accounted for 62% of total notionals, compared with
37% for foreign exchange.
In the US companies can now be sued for not hedging their exposures. In 1992, the Indiana
Court of Appeal held that the directors of a grain elevator co-operative had breached their
fiduciary duty by failing to sell forward the co-op's grain to hedge against a drop in prices.
Since 90% of the co-operative's operating income came from grain sales, its shareholders
argued that it was only prudent for the directors to have protected the co-op from the huge
losses it suffered (Brave v Roth, Indiana Court of Appeal). In another case, shareholders sued
Compaq Computers for violating securities laws by failing to disclose that it lacked adequate
mechanisms to hedge foreign-exchange risks.
Hedging does not necessarily remove all of a company's financial risk. When a firm hedges a
financial exposure, it is protecting itself against adverse market moves. If the markets move in
what would normally be the company's favour, the hedger could find itself in a position that
combined the worst of both hedged and unhedged worlds. For many firms, though, this is a
worthwhile price to pay for ensuring stability or certainty for some of their cashflows.
(From Managing derivative risks by Lillian Chew)
Motives
There is a multitude of psychological theories about what motivates man. Is the force inside
man, outside man, conditioned or not conditioned, goal directed or not goal directed? These
are all very controversial issues in academic research into what gets people to want to work.
Most people in organizations are not concerned with academic controversies and rely on their
commonsense view of behaviour.
The simplest motivation theory suggests that man is motivated by a series of needs or
motives. This theory argues that some of the motives are inherited and some learnt: that some
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are primarily physiological, while others are primarily psychological. Other theories deny the
existence of needs or motives. Therefore, at one extreme the behaviourists argue that
behaviour is a series of learned responses to stimuli, and at the other extreme systems
theorists talk about all systems - individuals, groups, and organizations - having needs.
Motivation can be either a conscious or an unconscious process: the allocation of time and
energy to work in return for rewards. Both internal and external stimuli lead to action.
Internalized values, hopes, expectations, and goals affect the decision process of the
individual, and thereby affect the resultant behaviour. Motivation is not an 'engine' built inside
an individual - as so many training managers believe. It is the individual responding to a
whole range of experiences, and responding as a totality, not as 'a need'. If we are threatened
by physical force, the stimulus for activity is external. If the hormone secretions in our bodies
operate effectively then we will wish to behave in physically satisfying ways. In both
examples, some of the force is inside the individual, while some of the stimulus is external.
How the individual will respond, how much energy he will expend, and how important are the
consequences (rewards) are all factors which moderate his motivation.
There have been many attempts to classify personal moderators in the decision process. The
most popular construct is the need, and categories of needs (e.g., body needs, safety needs,
social needs, achievement needs) dominate the literature. Goal categories, remarkably like
need categories, are also popular (e.g., money, status, power, friendship). Satisfaction theories
are a variation of goal theories, but have produced even 14 more controversial classifications
(e.g., implicit and explicit rewards).
There is no space here to go into what is primarily an academic debate on theories of
behaviour. I will contend that people are motivated to realize the outcome of ends or goals.
Where I use the term 'need', I do so in the sense of ends or goals desired by the individual. I
have difficulty in accepting a 'need' as a personality construct. However, desiring or wanting
an outcome does reveal something about a person, and 'need' can be used to refer to that
wanting. To many psychologists this view will be heresy, but I doubt if managers care what
the energy force is called (need, want, goal, etc.).
Organizational psychologists adopt hierarchies of goals or needs, along the lines suggested by
Maslow, McClelland, Ghiselli, and Likert. Maslow's need classifications are the most
extensively used, mainly because they seem to fit organizations rather than because they have
been empirically verified. We have little data to support the concept of a hierarchy of needs in
which lower order needs are satisfied before higher (hierarchically) order needs. However,
while need hierarchies may be difficult to accept, there is a great deal of data on the relevance
of these needs or ends or goals for individuals working in organizations, and it is these data
which are of value to managers.
The managers' dilemma is that, while they must accept the individual differences that exist
among their staff, organizational (and particularly personnel) practices assume that such
differences do not exist. The field of organization theory has been - and still is - plagued by
the conflict between the individual and the organization. As the orientation of this book is
towards organizations, it is important to deal with sameness or similarities between people,
while acknowledging differences within groups.
(From Managing people at work by John Hunt)
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Research and Development
There are two kinds of research: research and development, and basic research. The purpose
of research and development is to invent a product for sale. Edison invented the first
commercially successful light bulb, but he did not invent the underlying science that made the
light bulb possible. Edison at least understood the science, though, which was the primary
difference between inventing the light bulb and inventing fire. Basic research is something
else - ostensibly the search for knowledge for its own sake. Basic research provides the
scientific knowledge upon which R&D is later based. Sending telescopes into orbit or
building superconducting supercolliders is basic research. There is no way, for example, that
the $1.5 billion Hubble space telescope is going to lead directly to a new car or computer or
method of solid waste disposal. That is not what it is for. If a product ever results from basic
research, it usually does so fifteen to twenty years later, following a later period of research
and development.
Nearly all companies do research and development, but only a few do basic research. The
companies that can afford to do basic research (and cannot afford not to) are ones that
dominate their markets. Most basic research in industry is done by companies that have at
least a 50 percent market share. They have both the greatest resources to spare for this type of
activity and the most to lose if, by choosing not to do basic research, they eventually lose their
technical advantage over competitors. Such companies typically devote about 1 percent of
sales each year to research intended not to develop specific products but to ensure that the
company remains a dominant player in its industry twenty years from now. It is cheap
insurance, since failing to do basic research guarantees that the next major advance will be
owned by someone else.
The problem with industrial basic research, and what differentiates it from government basic
research, is this fact that its true product is insurance, not knowledge. If a researcher at the
government-sponsored Lawrence Livermore Lab comes up with some particularly clever new
way to kill millions of people, there is no doubt that his work will be exploited and that
weapons using the technology will eventually be built. The simple rule about weapons is that
if they can be built, they will be built. But basic researchers in industry find their work is at
the mercy of the marketplace and their captains-of-industry bosses. If a researcher at General
Motors comes up with a technology that will allow cars to be built for $100 each, GM
executives will quickly move to bury the technology, no matter how good it is, because it
threatens their current business, which is based on cars that cost thousands of dollars each to
build. Consumers would revolt if it became known that GM was still charging high prices for
cars that cost $100 each to build, so the better part of business valor is to stick with the old
technology since it results in more profit dollars per car produced.
In the business world, just because something can be built does not at all guarantee that it will
be built, which explains why RCA took a look at the work of George Heilmeier, a young
researcher working at the company's research center in New Jersey and quickly decided to
stop work on Heilmeier's invention, the liquid crystal display. RCA made this mid-1960s
decision because LCDs might have threatened its then-profitable business of building cathode
ray picture tubes. Twenty-five years later, of course, RCA is no longer a factor in the
television market, and LCD displays - nearly all made in Japan - are everywhere.
(From Accidental empires by Robert X Cringeley)
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SONY
I had decided during my first trip abroad in 1953 that our full name - Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo
Kabushiki Kaisha - was not a good name to put on a product. It was a tongue-twister. Even in
Japan, we shortened it sometimes to Totsuko, but when I was in the United States I learned
that nobody could pronounce either name. The English-language translation - Tokyo
Telecommunications Engineering Company - was too clumsy. We tried Tokyo Teletech for a
while, but then we learned there was an American company using the name Teletech.
It seemed to me that our company name didn't have a chance of being recognized unless we
came up with something ingenious. I also thought that whatever new name we came up with
should serve double duty- that is, it should be both our company name and our brand name.
That way we would not have to pay double the advertising cost to make both well known.
We tried a symbol for a while, an inverted pyramid inside a thin circle with small wedges cut
from the sides of the pyramid to give us a stylized letter "T." But for our first transistors and
for our first transistor radio, we wanted a brand name that was special and clever and that
people would remember. We decided our transistor radio would be the first consumer, product
available to the public with our new brand name on it.
I thought a lot about this when I was in the United States, where I noticed that many
companies were using three letter logotypes, such as ABC, NBC, RCA, and AT&T. Some
companies were also using just their full name as their logo. This looked like something new
to me. When I was a boy, I had learned to recognize the names of imported automobiles by
their symbols, the three-pointed star for Mercedes, the blue oval with Ford in it, the Cadillac
crown, the Pierce Arrow arrow, the Winged Victory of Rolls-Royce. Later, many car
companies began to use their names together with the symbol, like Chevrolet, Ford,
Buick, and others, and I could recognize their names even if I couldn't actually read them. I
pondered every possibility. Ibuka and I took a long time deciding on a name. We agreed we
didn't want a symbol. The name would be the symbol, and therefore it should be short, no
more than four or five characters. All Japanese companies have a company badge and a lapel
pin, usually in the shape of the company symbol, but except for a prominent few, such as the
three diamonds of Mitsubishi, for example, it would be impossible for an outsider to
recognize them. Like the automobile companies that began relying less and less on symbols
and more and more on their names, we felt we really needed a name to carry our message.
Every day we would write down possibilities and discuss them whenever we had the time. We
wanted a new name that could be recognized anywhere in the world, one that could be
pronounced the same in any language. We made dozens and dozens of tries. Ibuka and I went
through dictionaries looking for a bright name, and we came across the Latin word sonus,
meaning "sound." The word itself seemed to have sound in it. Our business was full of sound,
so we began to zero in on sonus. At that time in Japan borrowed English slang and nicknames
were becoming popular and some people referred to bright young and cute boys as "sonny,"
or "sonny-boys," and, of course, "sunny" and "sonny" both had an optimistic and bright sound
similar to the Latin root with which we were working. And we also thought of ourselves as
"sonny-boys" in those days. Unfortunately, the single word "sonny" by itself would give us
troubles in Japan because in the romanization of our language, the word "sonny" would be
pronounced "sohn-nee," which means to lose money. That was no way to launch a new
product. We pondered this problem for a little while and the answer struck me one day: why
not just drop one of the letters and make it "Sony"? That was it!
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The new name had the advantage of not meaning anything but "Sony" in any language; it was
easy to remember, and it carried the connotations we wanted. Furthermore, as I reminded
Ibuka, because it was written in roman letters, people in many countries could think of it as
being in their own language. All over the world governments were spending money to teach
people how to read English and use the roman alphabet, including Japan. And the more
people who learned English and the roman alphabet, the more people would recognize our
company and product name-at no cost to us.
We kept our old corporate name for some time after we began putting the Sony logotype on
our products. For our first product logo, we used a tall, thin sloping initial letter inside a
square box, but I soon realized that the best way to get name recognition would be to make
the name as legible and simple as possible, so we moved to the more traditional and simple
capital letters that remain today. The name itself is the logo.
We managed to produce our first transistorized radio in 1955 and our first tiny "pocketable"
transistor radio in 1957. It was the world's smallest, but actually it was a bit bigger than a
standard men's shirt pocket, and that gave us a problem for a while, even though we never
said which pocket we had in mind when we said "pocketable." We liked the idea of a
salesman being able to demonstrate how simple it would be to drop it into a shirt pocket. We
came up with a simple solution. We had some shirts made for our salesmen with slightly
larger than normal pockets, just big enough to slip the radio into.
The introduction of this proud achievement was tinged with disappointment that our first
transistorized radio was not the very first one on the market. An American company called
Regency, supported by Texas Instruments, and using TI transistors, put out a radio with the
Regency brand name a few months before ours, but the company gave up without putting
much effort into marketing it. As the first in the field, they might have capitalized on their
position and created a tremendous market for their product, as we did. But they apparently
judged mistakenly that there was no future in this business and gave it up.
Our fine little radio carried our company's new brand name, Sony, and we had big plans for
the future of transistorized electronics and hopes that the success of our small "pocketable"
radio would be a harbinger of successes to come.
In June 1957, we put up our first billboard carrying the Sony name opposite the entrance to
Tokyo's Haneda International Airport, and at the end of the year we put up another in the
heart of the Ginza district of Tokyo. In January 1958 we officially changed our company
name to Sony Corporation and were listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange that December.
We had registered the name Sony in one hundred and seventy countries and territories and in
various categories, not just electronics, in order to protect it from being used by others on
products that would exploit the similarity. But we soon learned that we had failed to protect
ourselves from some entrepreneurs right at home in Japan. One day we learned that somebody
was selling "Sony" chocolate.
We were very proud of our new corporate name and I was really upset that someone would
try to capitalize on it. The company that picked up our name had used a completely different
name on their products before and only changed the name when ours became popular. They
registered the name "Sony" for a line of chocolates and snack foods and even changed their
company trade name to Sony Foods. In their logo they used the same type of letters we used.
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In those days we sometimes used a small cartoon character called "Sonny Boy" in our
advertising. The character was actually called "Atchan," and was created by cartoonist
Fuyuhiko Okabe of the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun. The bogus Sony chocolate
merchants started using a similar cartoon. Seeing this stuff on sale in major department stores
made me sick with anger. We took the imposters to court and brought famous people such as
entertainers, newspapermen, and critics to confirm the damage that was being done to us. One
witness said he thought the appearance of Sony chocolate meant that the Sony Corporation
was in financial difficulty if it had to resort to selling chocolate instead of high-technology
electronics. Another witness said she had the impression that since Sony was really a
technical company, the chocolate must be some kind of synthetic. We were afraid that if these
chocolates continued to fill the marketplace, it would completely destroy the trust people had
in our company.
I have always believed that a trademark is the life of an enterprise and that it must be
protected boldly. A trademark and a company name are not just clever gimmicks-they carry
responsibility and guarantee the quality of the product. If someone tries to get a free ride on
the reputation and the ability of another who has worked to build up public trust, it is nothing
short of thievery. We were not flattered by this theft of our name.
Court cases take a long time in Japan, and the case dragged on for almost four years, but we
won. And for the first time in Japanese history, the court used the unfair competition law
rather than patent or trademark registration laws in granting us relief. The chocolate people
had registered the name, all right, but only after our name had become popular. In trying to
prove that the name was open for anyone to use, their lawyers went to the major libraries of
the country to show that the name was in the public domain, but they were in for a shock.
They came away empty-handed because no matter what dictionaries they went to they could
not find the word Sony. We knew they would discover that; we had done it ourselves long
before. The name is unique, and it is ours.
On our thirty-fifth anniversary, we thought we should consider revising our trademark. Styles
and fashions were changing in clothing, in product design, and in virtually everything, so we
thought that perhaps we should consider changing the style of the letters of our name. We
held an international competition, and we received hundreds of suggestions, along with
hundreds of pleas from our dealers not to change. After reviewing all the suggestions, we
decided not to make any changes. S O N Y still looked very good to us, and we decided, as
they say today, that there was no point in fixing something that was far from broken.
(From Made in Japan by Akio Morita)
American And Japanese Styles
Japanese attitudes toward work seem to be critically different from American attitudes.
Japanese people tend to be much better adjusted to the notion of work, any kind of work, as
honourable. Nobody would look down on a man who retires at age fifty-five or sixty and then
to keep earning money takes a more menial job than the one he left. I should mention that toplevel executives usually have no mandatory retirement age, and many stay on into their
seventies and even their eighties.
At Sony we have mandatory retirement from the presidency at sixty-five, but to utilize their
experience and knowledge we keep former executives who have retired as consultants. We
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provide them with office space and staff, so that they can work apart from the day-to-day
affairs of the company, at Ibuka Hall, a building located five minutes away from the
headquarters building. From time to time, we ask them for advice and they attend conferences
and other events as representatives of Sony. Many of those people who retire from managerial
jobs find executive positions in smaller companies or subsidiary companies of Sony where
their managerial experience and skill are needed and valued.
Workers generally are willing to learn new skills. Japan has never devised a system like the
American, in which a person is trained to do one thing and then refuses to take a job doing
anything else-and is even supported by government funds while he looks for a job that suits
his specific tastes. Because of Japan's special situation, our people do not have that luxury.
And our unemployment rate lately has not reached 3 percent.
One old style of management that is still being practiced by many companies in the United
States and by some in Japan is based on the idea that the company that is successful is the one
that can produce the conventional product most efficiently at cheaper cost. Efficiency, in this
system, becomes a god. Ultimately, it means that machinery is everything, and the ideal
factory is a perfectly automated one, perhaps one that is unmanned. This machinelike
management is a management of dehumanization.
But technology has accelerated at an unparalleled pace in the past few decades and it has
entailed digesting new knowledge, new information, and different technologies. Today,
management must be able to establish new business ahead of its competitors, rather than
pursue higher efficiency in manufacturing conventional products. In the U.S. and Europe
today, old-fashioned low-level jobs are being protected while the new technologies are being
neglected.
More important, an employee today is no longer a slave to machinery who is expected to
repeat simple mechanical operations like Charlie Chaplin in the film Modern Times. He is no
longer a beast of burden who works under the carrot-and stick rule and sells his labour. After
all, manual labour can be taken over by machine or computer. Modern industry has to be
brain-intensive and so does the employee. Neither machinery nor animals can carry out brainintensive tasks. In the late sixties, when integrated circuits had to be assembled by hand, the
deft fingers of Asian women were greatly in demand by U.S. companies. As the design of
these devices became more and more complicated, along came more sophisticated machinery,
such as laser trimmers, which required not deft fingers but agile minds and intelligence. And
so this upgrading of the workers is something that every country will have to be concerned
about, and the idea of preserving old-fashioned jobs in the modern era does not make sense.
This means educating new employees and re-educating older employees for new challenges.
That is not all. At Sony we at times have scientists participate in sales for a while because we
don't want our scientists to live in ivory towers. I have always felt they should know that we
are in a very competitive business and should have some experience in the front lines of the
business. Part of the training program for graduates who enter Sony as recruits fresh out of
university includes a program where non-technical persons undergo a month of training at a
factory and technical persons work as salespeople in a Sony shop or department store, selling
our products.
Japanese labour practices are often called old-fashioned in today's world, and some say the
old work ethic is eroding in Japan as it has elsewhere, but I do not think this is inevitable. As I
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see it, the desire to work and to perform well is not something unnatural that has to be
imposed on people. I think all people get a sense of satisfaction from accomplishing work that
is challenging, when their work and role in the company are being recognized. Managers
abroad seem to overlook this. People in America, for example, have been conditioned to a
system in which a person sells his labour for a price. In a way, that's good because people
cannot coast; they know they have to work to earn their money or be fired. (I also think the
way Americans make their children do work to earn their allowance is a fine idea; in Japan we
often just give the money without requiring anything of our children.) In Japan we do take the
risk of promising people job security, and then we have to keep motivating them. Yet I
believe it is a big mistake to think that money is the only way to compensate a person for his
work.
People need money, but they also want to be happy in their work and proud of it. So if we
give a lot of responsibility to a younger man, even if he doesn't have a title, he will believe he
has a good future and will be happy to work hard. In the United States, title and job and
monetary incentives are all tied together. That is why, if a young person has a big job,
management thinks he has to have a big salary. But in Japan we customarily give raises each
year as employees get older and more experienced in the company. If we give an unusually
high salary to one person, we cannot continue to give him annual increases indefinitely. At
some point, his salary will have to level off, and at that point, he is likely to get discouraged.
So we like to give the same sort of raise to all. I think this keeps our people well motivated.
This may be a Japanese trait, but I do not think so.
I believe people work for satisfaction. I know that advertisements and commercials in the U.S.
seem to hold up leisure as the most satisfying goal in life, but it is not that way in Japan yet. I
really believe there is such a thing as company patriotism and job satisfaction - and that it is
as important as money. It goes without saying that you must pay good wages. But that also
means, of course, that the company must not throw money away on huge bonuses for
executives or other frivolities but must share its fate with the workers. Japanese workers seem
to feel better about themselves if they get raises as they age, on an expectable curve. We have
tried other ways.
When we started our research laboratory, we had to go out and find researchers, and because
these people had more education and were, naturally, older than our normal new employees
we decided they should have higher wages, equivalent to U.S. salary levels. One suggested
plan was to put them under short-term contract, say three years, after which we would decide
whether to renew or not. But before we decided on this new pay scheme, I asked the new
employees whether they would prefer the more common system of lower pay to start, but with
yearly increases, or the three-year contract at a much higher wage.
Not one of them asked for the American-level salary. Everyone opted for long-range security.
That is why I tell the Americans I meet that people don't work only for money. But often
when I say it, they respond, "Yes, I see, but how much do you pay the ones who really work
hard?" Now this is an important point. When a worker knows he will be getting a raise each
year, he can feel so secure that he thinks there is no need to work hard. Workers must be
motivated to want to do a good job. We Japanese are, after all, human beings, with much in
common with people everywhere. Our evaluation system is complex and is designed to find
really capable persons, give them challenging jobs, and let them excel. It isn't the pay we give
that makes the difference-it is the challenge and the recognition they get on the job.
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My eldest son, Hideo, may not be the best example of the typical Japanese worker, but he has
an interesting and, I think, typical view of work in Japan. He has studied in Britain and the
United States, and all his life he wanted to work for Sony. He went to work as an Artists and
Repertory man at the CBS-Sony record company on the urging of Norio Ohga. He and I felt
that for him to come directly into Sony headquarters would be wrong, because of the family
connection and the overtones of nepotism. So he was proving himself at CBS-Sony. He
worked with foreign and local artists and became famous and successful in the record industry
in Japan. He worked very hard, from about noon until three or four o'clock in the morning,
doing his regular office business during the day and then dealing with musicians after they
finished their work. Hideo doesn't drink, and so it was hard for him to sit around the Tokyo
discos and bars with these rock stars, drinking Coca-Cola while they relaxed with whiskey in
the wee small hours of the morning. But it was important for him to do this, and although he
could have gone on a long time resting on his laurels, he took stock of himself on his thirtieth
birthday and made a decision.
As he put it, "In the record business, there are many people in their late thirties and early
forties wearing jogging shoes and white socks and jeans and T-shirts to the office. I looked at
those guys and said; I don't want to be like that when I am forty or forty-five. This business is
fine and I have been successful, and I have no reason to leave it. If I keep this job, I thought, I
might end up being a top officer of CBS-Sony, but I didn't want to see myself at fifty coming
into the office at one o'clock in the afternoon in jogging shoes and white socks saying 'Good
morning.' I felt I had to prove to myself after seven years in the record business that I could
work from nine to five, like ordinary people."
He was assigned to the Sony accounting division-quite a change, you might think, from the
artistic side of the record business-and some might have wondered whether he could make it
or not, but I believed he could. His attitude is very Japanese, despite his international
upbringing:
"All jobs are basically the same. You have to apply yourself, whether you are a record A&R
man, a salesman on the street, or an accounting clerk. You get paid and you work one hundred
percent to do the job at hand. As an A&R man, I was interested and excited and happy, but
naturally as long as you are satisfied with your work and are using your energy, you will be
happy. I was also very excited about the accounting division. I found out something new
every day, struggling with a whole bunch of invoices and the payment sheets, the balance
sheet, the profit and loss statement, and working with all those numbers. I began to get a
broad picture of the company, its financial position and what is happening day to day and
which way the company is heading. I discovered that that excitement and making music at the
studio are the same thing."
•
In the late sixties a European Commission internal memo on Japan was leaked, and a great stir
was created because it referred to the Japanese as "workaholics" who live in "rabbit hutches."
There is no doubt that inadequate housing is a major problem in Japan, and nobody could
deny that the Japanese are probably the hardest working people in the world. We have many
holidays in Japan, but only about the same number as the United States. We do not give long
summer vacations, even to our schoolchildren.
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At Sony we were one of the first Japanese companies to close down our factory for one week
in the summer, so that everybody could take off at the same time. And we long ago instituted
the five-day, forty-hour week. The Japan Labour Standards Act still provides for a maximum
forty-eight-hour workweek, though it is soon to be revised downward, and the average
workweek in manufacturing is now forty-three hours. But even with up to twenty days of paid
vacation a year, Japanese workers managed to take fewer days off and spend more days on the
job than workers in the United States and Europe.
It was only in 1983 that banks and financial institutions began to experiment with the five-day
week, closing one Saturday a month, and eventually the whole nation will move closer to the
five-day week. Still, International Labour Organization data show that Japanese work longer
weeks and have fewer labour disputes than workers in the U.S., the U.K., France, or West
Germany. What I think this shows is that the Japanese worker appears to be satisfied with a
system that is not designed only to reward people with high pay and leisure.
At Sony we learned that the problem with an employee who is accustomed to work only for
the sake of money is that he often forgets that he is expected to work for the group entity, and
this self-cantered attitude of working for himself and his family to the exclusion of the goals
of his co-workers and the company is not healthy. It is management's responsibility to keep
challenging each employee to do important work that he will find satisfying and to work
within the family. To do this, we often reorganize the work at Sony to suit the talents and
abilities of the workers.
I have sometimes referred to American companies as being structures like brick walls while
Japanese companies are more like stone walls. By that I mean that in an American company,
the company's plans are all made up in advance, and the framework for each job is decided
upon. Then, as a glance at the classified section of any American newspaper will show, the
company sets out to find a person to fit each job. When an applicant is examined, if he is
found to be oversized or undersized for the framework, he will usually be rejected. So this
structure is like a wall built of bricks: the shape of each employee must fit in perfectly, or not
at all.
In Japan recruits are hired, and then we have to learn how to make use of them. They are a
highly educated but irregular lot. The manager takes a good long look at these rough stones,
and he has to build a wall by combining them in the best possible way, just as a master mason
builds a stone wall. The stones are sometimes round, sometimes square, long, large, or small,
but somehow the management must figure out how to put them together. People also mature,
and Japanese managers must also think of the shapes of these stones as changing from time to
time. As the business changes, it becomes necessary to refit the stones into different places. I
do not want to carry this analogy too far, but it is a fact that adaptability of workers and
managements has become a hallmark of Japanese enterprise.
When Japanese companies in declining or sunset industries change their line of business or
add to it, workers are offered retraining and, for the most part, they accept it eagerly. This
sometimes requires a family move to the new job, and Japanese families are, again, generally
disposed to do this.
(From Made in Japan by Akio Morita)
CHEMISTRY
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Metallurgy: Making Alloys
The majority of alloys are prepared by mixing metals in the molten state; then the mixture is
poured into metal or sand moulds and allowed to solidify. Generally the major ingredient is
melted first; then the others are added to it and should completely dissolve. For instance, if a
plumber makes solder he may melt his lead, add tin, stir, and cast the alloy into stick form.
Some pairs of metals do not dissolve in this way. When this is so it is unlikely that a useful
alloy will be formed. Thus if the plumber were to add aluminium, instead of tin, to the lead,
the two metals would not dissolve - they would behave like oil and water. When cast, the
metals would separate into two layers, the heavy lead below and aluminium above.
One difficulty in making alloys is that metals have different melting points. Thus copper melts
at 1,083°C, while zinc melts at 419°C and boils at 907°C So, in making brass, if we just put
pieces of copper and zinc in a crucible and heated them above 1,083°C, both the metals would
certainly melt. But at that high temperature the liquid zinc would also boil away and the
vapour would oxidize in the air. The method adopted in this case is to heat first the metal
having the higher melting point, namely the copper. When this is molten, the solid zinc is
added and is quickly dissolved in the liquid copper before very much zinc has boiled away.
Even so, in the making of brass, allowance has to be made for unavoidable zinc loss which
amounts to about one part in twenty of the zinc. Consequently, in weighing out the metals
previous to alloying, an extra quantity of zinc has to be added.
Sometimes the making of alloys is complicated because the higher melting point metal is in
the smaller proportion. For example, one light alloy contains 92 per cent aluminium (melting
point 660°C) with 8 per cent copper (melting point 1,083°C). To manufacture this alloy it
would be undesirable to melt the few pounds of copper and add nearly twelve times the
weight of aluminium. The metal would have to be heated so much to persuade the large bulk
of aluminium to dissolve that gases would be absorbed, leading to unsoundness. In this, as in
many other cases, the alloying is done in two stages. First an intermediate 'hardener alloy' is
made, containing 50 per cent copper and 50 per cent aluminium, which alloy has a melting
point considerably lower than that of copper and, in fact, below that of aluminium. Then the
aluminium is melted and the correct amount of the hardener alloy added; thus, to make l00lb
of the aluminium-copper alloy we should require 84lb. of aluminium to be melted first and
16lb of hardener alloy to be added to it.
In a few cases, the melting point of the alloy can be worked out approximately by arithmetic.
For instance, if copper (melting point 1,083°C) is alloyed with nickel (melting point 1,454°C)
a fifty-fifty alloy will melt at about halfway between the two temperatures. Even in this case
the behaviour of the alloy on melting is not simple. A copper-nickel alloy does not melt or
freeze at one fixed and definite temperature, but progressively solidifies over a range of
temperature. Thus, if a fifty-fifty copper-nickel alloy is liquefied and then gradually cooled, it
starts freezing at 1,312°C, and as the temperature falls, more and more of the alloy becomes
solid until finally at 1,248°C it has completely solidified. Except in certain special cases this
'freezing range' occurs in all alloys, but it is not found in pure metals, metallic, or chemical
compounds, and in some special alloy compositions, referred to below, all of which melt and
freeze at one definite temperature.
The alloying of tin and lead furnishes an example of one of these special cases. Lead melts at
327°C and tin at 232°C. If lead is added to molten tin and the alloy is then cooled, the
freezing point of the alloy is found to be lower than the freezing points of both lead and tin
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(see figure 1). For instance, if a molten alloy containing 90 per cent tin and 10 per cent lead is
cooled, the mixture reaches a temperature of 217°C before it begins to solidify. Then, as the
alloy cools further, it gradually changes from a completely fluid condition, through a stage
when it is like gruel, until it becomes as thick as porridge, and finally, at a temperature as low
as 183°C, the whole alloy has become completely solid. By referring to figure 1, it can be
seen that with 80 per cent tin, the alloy starts solidifying at 203°C, and finishes only when the
temperature has fallen to 183°C (note the recurrence of the 183°C).
What happens at the other end of the series, when tin is added to lead? Once again the
freezing point is lowered. An alloy with only 20 per cent tin and the remainder lead starts to
freeze at 279°C and completes solidification at the now familiar temperature of 183°C. One
particular alloy, containing 62 per cent tin and 38 per cent lead, melts and solidifies entirely at
183°C. Obviously this temperature of 183°C and the 62/38 per cent composition are important
in the tin-lead alloy system. Similar effects occur in many other alloy systems and the special
composition which has the lowest freezing point of the series and which entirely freezes at
that temperature has been given a special name. The particular alloy is known as the 'eutectic'
alloy and the freezing temperature (183°C in the case of the tin-lead alloys) is called the
eutectic temperature.
By a careful choice of constituents, it is possible to make alloys with unusually low melting
points. Such a fusible alloy is a complex eutectic of four or five metals, mixed so that the
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melting point is depressed until the lowest melting point possible from any mixture of the
selected metals is obtained. A familiar fusible alloy, known as Wood's metal, has a
composition:
Bismuth
Lead
Tin
Cadmium
4 parts
2 parts
1 part
1 part
and its melting point is about 70°C; that is, less than the boiling point of water. Practical
jokers have frequently amused themselves by casting this fusible alloy into the shape of a
teaspoon, which will melt when used to stir a cup of hot tea.
These low melting point alloys are regularly in use for more serious purposes, as for example,
in automatic anti-fire sprinklers installed in the ceilings of buildings. Each jet of the water
sprinkler system contains a piece of fusible alloy, so that if a fire occurs and the temperature
rises sufficiently high, the alloy melts and the water is released through the jets of the
sprinkler.
(From Metals in the Service of Man by W. Alexander & A. Street.)
Electricity Helps Chemistry: Electro-plating
A liquid which is decomposed when an electric current passes through it is called an
electrolyte. The process is called electrolysis, and the two wires or plates dipping into the
electrolyte are called electrodes. The electrode which is connected to the positive terminal of
the cell or battery is called the anode. The electrode which is connected to the negative
terminal of the battery is called the cathode.
Let us examine what happens when two copper electrodes are used in a solution of copper
sulphate. The circuit is shown in the diagram. The right-hand diagram shows the two copper
electrodes dipping into the copper sulphate solution contained in a glass jar. The current
enters by the anode (+), passes through the solution, enters the cathode (-), and then leaves the
cathode as shown by the arrow. In the left-hand diagram, V represents the glass vessel
containing the copper sulphate (electrolyte), and the two electrodes are marked + for the
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anode and - for the cathode. When the switch S is closed, the current flows from the - terminal
of the battery B in the direction of the arrow to the anode (+) of V, through the solution to the
cathode (-), then round the circuit through S back to the negative terminal of the battery B.
Before starting this experiment the weights of the two copper plates which are to be used for
the anode and cathode must be written down carefully for future reference. Next, place the
anode and cathode in the copper sulphate solution and connect them up to the battery B and
switch S. The switch is then placed in the 'on' position and the current is allowed to flow
through the circuit for about half an hour. The anode and cathode are then removed and dried
carefully in blotting paper before being weighed a second time.
You will find that a surprising thing has happened. The anode now weighs a few milligrams
less than before and the cathode weighs a few milligrams more than before. The weight lost
by the anode is exactly equal to the gain in weight by the cathode. In some strange way a few
milligrams of copper have been removed from the anode and carried through the electrolyte
by the current and have finally become firmly attached to the cathode. This is a most exciting
discovery, for we have learned how to use an electric current to transfer tiny particles of
copper from the anode to the cathode.
Nineteenth-century industry soon found out how to apply this exciting discovery to our
everyday lives. Scientists found that many other metals could be transferred from anode to
cathode. The anode had to be made of the metal which it was desired to transfer to the
cathode, and the electrolyte had to be a suitable solution or salt of the metal. Then the cathode
always became plated with metal from the anode. Copper, silver, gold, nickel, zinc and
chromium can all be used in this process, which is called electro-plating. Electro-plating is
used widely in industry for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is used for decoration. Coatings of
nickel, gold, silver or chromium give a nice shiny appearance to articles and make them look
much more expensive. Watch-cases and cutlery are often plated with silver or gold to give
them a smart appearance so that they become attractive to intending buyers. Handlebars of
bicycles and the shiny fittings of cars are also made attractive by means of nickel and
chromium plating.
This leads us to the second reason for electro-plating - as a protection against rust or
corrosion. Iron and steel corrode easily when exposed to the atmosphere. Car fittings and the
shiny parts of bicycles are electro-plated chiefly for this reason, so that they may stand up to
the hard wear and tear of daily use. Zinc is formed into a protective layer for iron sheets by
the electroplating process which we now call galvanizing. Galvanized iron sheets resist the
effects of wind and weather much better than sheets made of iron. Tin is also used as a
protective agent. Sheets of thin iron are plated with tin and used for canning fruit and jam, and
for all kinds of 'tin' cans used in industry and trade. We may sum up by saying that industry
has used the process of electro-plating first to protect metal surfaces which would otherwise
corrode; and secondly to provide a beautiful and attractive finish to useful articles. As a result,
our bicycles and cars, our watches and cutlery, our building and manufacturing materials last
much longer and are much more pleasant to look at.
The process of electrolysis is used for the production of very pure specimens of metal. Most
metals in industrial use contain many impurities. About 1 million tons of refined copper are
produced each year by electrolysis. In this case the anode consists of crude copper and the
cathode of thin sheets of pure copper. As the current passes, pure copper from the anode
passes over to the cathode, and all impurities fall off the anode as a kind of mud. In this way
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pure copper is collected at one electrode and the muddy residue, which falls off the cathode,
sinks to the bottom of the vat and is periodically removed.
Aluminium is so widely used today that we can scarcely think of times when it was not
available. Yet a few years back it was a costly metal because no satisfactory method had been
found of producing it commercially. Aluminium ores are so common in nature that scientists
and engineers made many attempts to find a cheap and convenient method of refining them.
The problem was finally solved by electrolysis, using a carbon anode and aluminium ores,
which had been melted at a temperature of about 1,000°C, as the electrolyte. Aluminium is
now plentiful and it is being put to fresh uses every day.
Electrolysis has an important industrial application in the printing trade, for it is often used to
make the 'blocks' from which pictures and type are printed. A wax mould is first made of the
printing block which is to be reproduced. Since wax is a non-conductor of electricity it is
dusted over with graphite so that the surface becomes a conductor and can act as a cathode.
This mould then becomes the cathode upon which copper or chromium is deposited from the
anode. When the wax is taken out of the electrolyte it is coated with a fine shell of metal. The
wax is removed by heating and the metal shell acts as a mould into which molten type metal
can be poured. Plates made in this way are very hard-wearing and can be used to print many
thousands of copies of newspapers, journals and magazines.
(From General Science by N. Ahmad, W. F. Hawkins And W. M. Zaki.)
ECONOMICS
THE CONVENTIONAL WISDOM
The first requirement for an understanding of contemporary economic and social life is a clear
view of the relation between events and the ideas which interpret them. For each of these has
a life of its own, and much as it may seem a contradiction in terms each is capable for a
considerable period of pursuing an independent course.
The reason is not difficult to discover. Economic, like other social life, does not conform to a
simple and coherent pattern. On the contrary it often seems incoherent, inchoate, and
intellectually frustrating. But one must have an explanation or interpretation of economic
behaviour. Neither man's curiosity nor his inherent ego allows him to remain contentedly
oblivious to anything that is so close to his life.
Because economic and social phenomena are so forbidding, or at least so seem, and because
they yield few hard tests of what exists and what does not, they afford to the individual a
luxury not given by physical phenomena. Within a considerable range he is permitted to
believe what he pleases, he may hold whatever view of the world he finds most agreeable or
otherwise to his taste.
As a consequence, in the interpretation of all social life there is a persistent and never-ending
competition between what is relevant and what is merely acceptable. In this competition,
while a strategic advantage lies with what exists, all tactical advantage is with the acceptable.
Audiences of all kinds most applaud what they like best. And in social comment the test of
audience approval, far more than the test of truth, comes to influence comment. The speaker
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or writer who addresses his audience with the proclaimed intent of telling the hard, shocking
facts invariably goes on to expound what the audience most wants to hear.
Just as truth ultimately serves to create a consensus, so in the short run does acceptability.
Ideas come to be organized around what the community as a whole or particular audiences
find acceptable. And as the laboratory worker devotes himself to discovering scientific
verities, so the ghost writer and the public relations man concern themselves with identifying
the acceptable. If their clients are rewarded with applause, these artisans are qualified in their
craft. If not they have failed. However, by sampling audience reaction in advance, or by
pretesting speeches, articles, and other communications, the risk of failure can now be greatly
minimized.
Numerous factors contribute to the acceptability of ideas. To a very large extent, of course,
we associate truth with convenience - with what most closely accords with self-interest and
individual well-being or promises best to avoid awkward effort or unwelcome dislocation of
life. We also find highly acceptable what contributes most to self-esteem. Speakers before the
United States Chamber of Commerce rarely denigrate the business man as an economic force.
Those who appear before the AFL-CIO are prone to identify social progress with a strong
trade union movement. But perhaps most important of all, people approve most of what they
best understand. As just noted, economic and social behaviour are complex and mentally
tiring. Therefore we adhere, as though to a raft, to those ideas which represent our
understanding. This is a prime manifestation of vested interest. For a vested interest in
understanding is more preciously guarded than any other treasure. It is why men react, not
infrequently with something akin to religious passion, to the defence of what they have so
laboriously learned. Familiarity may breed contempt in some areas of human behaviour, but
in the field of social ideas it is the touchstone of acceptability.
Because familiarity is such an important test of acceptability, the acceptable ideas have great
stability. They are highly predictable. It will be convenient to have a name for the ideas which
are esteemed at any time for their acceptability, and it should be a term that emphasized this
predictability. I shall refer to those ideas henceforth as the conventional wisdom.
(From The Affluent Society by J. K. Galbraith)
MARKETS
A market is commonly thought of as a place where commodities are bought and sold. Thus
fruit and vegetables are sold wholesale at Covent Garden Market and meat is sold wholesale
at Smithfield Market. But there are markets for things other than commodities, in the usual
sense. There are real estate markets, foreign exchange markets, labour markets, short-term
capital markets, and so on; there may be a market for anything which has a price. And there
may be no particular place to which dealings are confined. Buyers and sellers may be
scattered over the whole world and instead of actually meeting together in a market-place they
may deal with one another by telephone, telegram, cable or letter. Even if dealings are
restricted to a particular place, the dealers may consist wholly or in part of agents acting on
instructions from clients far away. Thus agents buy meat at Smithfield on behalf of retail
butchers all over England; and brokers on the London Stock Exchange buy and sell securities
on instructions from clients all over the world. We must therefore define a market as any area
over which buyers and sellers are in such close touch with one another, either directly or
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through dealers, that the prices obtainable in one part of the market affect the prices paid in
other parts.
Modern means of communication are so rapid that a buyer can discover what price a seller is
asking, and can accept it if he wishes, although he may be thousands of miles away. Thus the
market for anything is, potentially, the whole world. But in fact things have, normally, only a
local or national market.
This may be because nearly the whole demand is concentrated in one locality. These special
local demands, however, are of quite minor importance. The main reason why many things
have not a world market is that they are costly or difficult to transport.
The lower the value per ton of a good, the greater is the percentage addition made to its price
by a fixed charge per ton-mile for transport. Thus, if coal is £2 a ton and tin £200 a ton at the
place of production, a given transport charge forms a percentage of the price of coal a hundred
times greater than of the price of tin. Hence transport costs may restrict the market for goods
with a low value per ton, even if, as is often the case, they are carried at relatively low rates. It
may be cheaper to produce, say, coal or iron ore at A than at B, but the cost of transporting it
from A to B may outweigh the difference in production costs, so that it is produced for local
consumption at B, and B does not normally form part of the market output of A. For example,
coal is produced much more cheaply in the United States than in Europe, but, owing to the
cost of transporting coal by rail from the inland mines to the Atlantic seaboard of the United
States, American coal seldom finds its way to Europe.
Sea transport, however, is very much cheaper than land transport. Hence commodities of this
type produced near a port can often be sent profitably quite long distances by sea. Thus
Swedish iron ore comes by sea from Narvik to the Ruhr, and British coal is exported to
Canada and South America.
The markets for real estate are local. Soil has been transported from French vineyards to
California, and historic mansions have been demolished in Europe to be re-erected in the
United States, but as a rule land and buildings are not transported.
Some goods, like new bread and fresh cream and strawberries, must be consumed very soon
after they have been produced, and this restricts their sale to local markets. Other goods do
not travel well. Thus many local wines which cannot stand transport can be bought in the
district more cheaply than similar wines which have a wider market. The development of
refrigeration, and of other devices which enable foodstuffs to be preserved and transported,
has greatly widened the market for such things as meat and fish and some kinds of fruit. But
such devices often transform the articles, from the standpoint of consumers, into a different
commodity. Condensed milk is not the same as fresh milk, and chilled meat or frozen butter
has not the same taste as fresh.
Many workers are reluctant to move to a different country, or even to a different part of their
own country, to get a higher wage. This should not be exaggerated. Before the war of 1914,
over a million persons a year emigrated overseas from Europe. Following it, there were
considerable movements of population within Great Britain away from the depressed areas
towards the more prosperous South. Employers may take the initiative. Thus girl textile
workers have been engaged in Yorkshire to work in Australia, and during the inter-war years
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French employers engaged groups of Poles and Italians to work in the coal-mines and steelworks of France. Nevertheless labour markets are mainly local, or at any rate national.
Transport services by rail or tram are obviously local in that passengers or goods must travel
between points on the fixed track. A firm may charter, for example, a Greek ship rather than
an English ship, if it is cheaper, but low railway rates in Belgium are no help to the firm
which wishes to send goods across Canada. In the same way, such things as gas, water, and
electricity, supplied by means of pipes or wires, cannot be sold to places not connected with
the system of pipes or wires.
(From Economics by Frederick Benham)
INVESTMENT
Of the various purposes which money serves, some essentially depend upon the assumption
that its real value is really constant over a period of time. The chief of these are those
connected, in a wide sense, with contracts for the investment of money. Such contracts namely those which provide for the payment of fixed sums of money over a long period of
time - are the characteristic of what it is convenient to call the Investment System, as distinct
from the property system generally. Under this phase of capitalism, as developed during the
nineteenth century, many arrangements were devised for separating the management of
property from its ownership. These arrangements were of three leading types: (i) those in
which the proprietor, while parting with the management of his property, retained his
ownership of it - i.e. of the actual land, buildings, and machinery, or of whatever else it
consisted in, this mode of tenure being typified by a holding of ordinary shares in a joint-stock
company; (ii) those in which he parted with the property temporarily, receiving a fixed sum of
money annually in the meantime, but regained his property eventually, as typified by a lease;
and (iii) those in which he parted with his real property permanently, in return either for a
perpetual annuity fixed in terms of money, or for a terminable annuity and the repayment of
the principal in money at the end of the term, as typified by mortgages, bonds, debentures,
and preference shares. This third type represents the full development of Investment.
Contracts to receive fixed sums of money at future dates (made without provision for possible
changes in the real value of money at those dates) must have existed as long as money has
been lent and borrowed. In the form of leases and mortgages, and also of permanent loans to
Governments and to a few private bodies, such as the East India Company, they were already
frequent in the eighteenth century. But during the nineteenth century they developed a new
and increasing importance, and had, by the beginning of the twentieth, divided the propertied
classes into two groups-the 'business men' and the 'investors' - with partly divergent interests.
The division was not sharp as between individuals; for business men might be investors also,
and investors might hold ordinary shares; but the division was nevertheless real, and not the
less important because it was seldom noticed.
By the aid of this system the active business class could call to the aid of their enterprises not
only their own wealth but the savings of the whole community; and the professional and
propertied classes, on the other hand, could find an employment for their resources, which
involved them in little trouble, no responsibility, and (it was believed) small risk.
For a hundred years the system worked, throughout Europe, with an extraordinary success and
facilitated the growth of wealth on an unprecedented scale. To save and to invest became at
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once the duty and the delight of a large class. The savings were seldom drawn on, and,
accumulating at compound interest, made possible the material triumphs which we now all
take for granted. The morals, the politics, the literature, and the religion of the age joined in a
grand conspiracy for the promotion of saving. God and Mammon were reconciled. Peace on
earth to men of good means. A rich man could, after all, enter into the Kingdom of Heaven-if
only he saved. A new harmony sounded from the celestial spheres. 'It is curious to observe
how, through the wise and beneficent arrangement of Providence, men thus do the greatest
service to the public, when they are thinking of nothing but their own gain': so sang the
angels.
The atmosphere thus created well harmonized the demands of expanding business and the
needs of an expanding population with the growth of a comfortable non-business class. But
amidst the general enjoyment of ease and progress, the extent to which the system depended
on the stability of the money to which the investing classes had committed their fortunes was
generally overlooked; and an unquestioning confidence was
I apparently felt that this matter would look after itself. Investments spread and multiplied,
until, for the middle classes of the world, the gilt-edged bond came to typify all that was most
permanent and most secure. So rooted in our day has been the conventional belief in the
stability and safety of a money contract that, according to English law, trustees have been
encouraged to embark their trust funds exclusively in such transactions, and are indeed
forbidden, except in the case of real estate (an exception which is itself a survival of the
conditions of an earlier age) to employ them otherwise.
As in other respects, so also in this, the nineteenth century relied on the future permanence of
its own happy experiences and disregarded the warning of past misfortunes. It chose to forget
that there is no historical warrant for expecting money to be represented even by a constant
quantity of a particular metal, far less by a constant purchasing power. Yet Money is simply
that which the State declares from time to time to be a good legal discharge of money
contracts. In 1914 gold had not been the English standard for a century or the sole standard of
any other country for half a century. There is no record of a prolonged war or a great social
upheaval which has not been accompanied by a change in the legal tender, but an almost
unbroken chronicle in every country which has a history, back to the earliest dawn of
economic record, of a progressive deterioration in the real value of the successive legal
tenders which have represented money.
(From A Tract on Monetary Reform by J M. Keynes)
BARTER
The existence of pure barter does not necessarily indicate a very primitive form of
civilization. Often the system survives long after the community has progressed considerably
in other respects. This may be due to conservatism, since primitive peoples are reluctant to
change their trading methods, even though they be sufficiently intelligent and advanced to
adopt more convenient methods. In some cases there is prejudice against the adoption of a
monetary economy, though such prejudice is usually directed against the use of coins rather
than against primitive money. In many cases barter continues to be the principal method of
trading long after the adoption of some form of money, for the simple reason that there is not
enough money to go round. And a decline in the supply of money often causes a relapse into
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barter. Distrust in money has also been responsible for reversion to the barter system; such
distrust may have been caused by debasement or inflation.
In the light of the stock phrases used by many economists about the inconvenience of barter it
may appear puzzling to the student that any community which was sufficiently advanced to
realize the possibilities of a monetary system should continue to practise such an inconvenient
method. The explanation is that in a primitive community barter is not nearly so inconvenient
as it appears through modern eyes. Economists are inclined to exaggerate its inconvenience
because they look at it from the point of view of modern man. The instances-real or
imaginary-they quote are calculated to make their readers wonder how any community could
possibly have existed under barter except in extremely primitive conditions. Some of them
seek to demonstrate the absurdity of barter by describing the difficulties that would arise if
our modern communities were to attempt to practise it. It is, of course, easy for a lecturer to
earn the laughter of his audience by telling them about the pathetic efforts of some market
gardener who has to find a barber in need of radishes before he can have his hair cut. What
the lecturer and his audience do not realize is that in a primitive community the grower of
radishes usually cuts his own hair, or has it cut by a member of his family or household; and
that even in primitive communities with barbers as an independent profession the barber and
the gardener have a fair idea about each other's requirements, and have no difficulty in suiting
each other. If the barber does not happen to require to-day any of the products the gardener is
in a position to offer, he simply performs his service in return for the future delivery of
products he is expected to need sooner or later.
Even the genuine instances quoted by economists to illustrate the absurdity of barter are apt to
be misleading in their implication. There is, for instance, the well-known experience of Mlle.
Zelie, singer at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris, who, in the course of a tour round the world,
gave a concert on one of the Society Islands, and received the fee of three pigs, twenty-three
turkeys, forty-four chickens, five thousand coconuts and considerable quantities of bananas,
lemons and oranges, representing one-third of the box office takings. In a letter published by
Wolowski and quoted to boredom by economists ever since, she says that, although this
amount of livestock and vegetables would have been worth about four thousand francs in
Paris, in the Society Islands it was of very little use to her. Another much-quoted experience
is that of Cameron in Tanganyika, when in order to buy an urgently needed boat he first had
to swap brass wire against cloth, then cloth against ivory and finally ivory against the boat.
What the economists quoting these and other similar instances do not appear to realize is that
the difficulties complained of are not inherent in the system of barter. They are largely
anomalies arising from sudden contact between two different civilizations. A native singer in
the Society Islands would not have been embarrassed at receiving payment in kind, since she
would have known ways in which to dispose of her takings, or store them for future use. Nor
would a native of Tanganyika have found the system of barter prevailing there at the time of
Cameron's visit nearly so difficult as Cameron did. Knowing local conditions, he would have
been prepared for the difficulties, and, before embarking on a major capital transaction such
as the purchase of a boat, he would have made arrangements accordingly. In any case, the fact
that the goods required could not be obtained by a single transaction would not have worried
him unduly. The majority of primitive peoples enjoy bartering and bargaining, and the time
lost in putting through three transactions instead of one would not matter to them nearly as
much as to modern man living at high speed, especially to an explorer in a hurry to proceed
on his journey. And while Cameron must have suffered a loss in each of the three
transactions, a local man with adequate time at his disposal and with a thorough knowledge of
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his market would have chosen the right moment for effecting the necessary exchanges on
terms reasonably advantageous to him.
(From Primitive Money by Paul Einzig)
PRODUCTIVITY AS A GUIDE TO WAGES
Through defective presentation the Government has allowed the wages pause to be interpreted
as involving a substantial sacrifice by all concerned, and especially by those least able to
afford it. The very reverse is true. In fact, substantial benefits would accrue to everybody by
maintaining existing wages levels, because if this were done for a reasonable time, real
earnings, or purchasing power, would improve. And if thereafter reasonable restraint were
exercised in asking for, or giving, wages increases, there would be a real hope of recapturing
the habit of price reduction and so of still further improving purchasing power.
It is not true that prosperity must be equated with 'gentle' inflation-whatever that means. And
while lip service is paid to the concept that inflation is caused by wage increases outstripping
increases in productivity, few people are willing to do something positive about it. There is
already active opposition to the wages pause, and no discernible determination by any
sections of the community concerned with wage negotiations to devise a logical wages policy.
It was, of course, unfortunate for the climate of industrial relations that the wages pause was
presented to both managements and workers without the most careful preparation and
education. Too much emphasis was, and still is, placed on actual wage rates and earnings,
whereas what matters most is real earnings, or purchasing power. Charts comparing, for
example, wage rates, earnings, and profits are unrealistic unless we add the line for real
earnings. When this is added, and also the line for productivity, it becomes startlingly clear
that however great the total wage claim and the eventual settlement, real earnings will always
follow much the same course as productivity. When substantial claims are substantially met
real earnings may for a little time rise above the line of productivity. But eventually they
come together again.
In spite of some sizeable variations profits have followed much the same course as weekly
wage rates though they have been almost consistently below them. Thus all the tough
bargaining by the unions on the basis of rising profits has only effectively raised real
purchasing power by about the same factor as rising productivity would in any case have
achieved had wages merely kept pace with it.
Of course, it is easy to see what is wrong. Put in its simplest terms it is that we have lost the
habit of price reduction. Everyone wants it but few achieve it in the face of ever rising costs.
At present we are importing too much and exporting too little. The reasons for this are
complex. Design, salesmanship, after-sales service, and many other factors enter into it. What
is certain is that it will be even more difficult to sell abroad after the next round of wage
claims have been met and incorporated into the price of the product. What would the picture
look like now if wage increases had more nearly been associated with the increase in
productivity? Certainly our products would have cost overseas and home customers fewer
pounds, shillings and pence without the purchasing power of the workers having been at all
impaired.
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It has long seemed to me that the alternative is a rationalized wage policy for industry,
maintaining the existing bargaining machinery, but avoiding the bitterness and acrimony that
is engendered at present, and also avoiding the time-wasting strikes and deflection of
management from its principal purpose. It may be argued that to base wage rates on a
productivity index would weaken the trade unions. I do not think so. If there were bargaining
committees of trade unions and employers for each industry and they based their negotiations
annually on whatever was the national increase in productivity, then I feel quite sure that
much more time would be left for the more important things - such as raising productivity
itself and improving working conditions and the training of craftsmen to adequate standards.
If workers knew that every year wage increases would be automatically considered without
their having to demand them, then this would remove the present acrimonious preliminaries to
negotiations and would guarantee that the result could never be inflationary - that is, wage
increases would be real increases in terms of purchasing power. It would also give workers a
more direct interest in raising productivity by relating it to their wage packets. As wages
would never exceed productivity, the cost of production could not rise from this cause; in all
probability it would fall. This would encourage price reduction and tend to give a lower retail
price index, so that real wages would increase, and any increase in the money rate would be
worth still more. This would solve the problem of the pensioners and other people with fixed
incomes. Furthermore, I am convinced that such a wage policy, when clearly understood,
would create a new spirit of collaboration between management, supervision, and
workpeople.
(J. J. Gracie From an article in The Guardian, December 7th, 1961)
THE FAILURE OF THE CLASSICAL THEORY OF COMMERCIAL POLICY
Let us try to sort out in appropriate groups the various influences which have been responsible
for these developments.
If we are to preserve a proper sense of proportion, I have no doubt whatever that right at the
top of the list we must put the direct impact and influence of war. This is a matter which is so
obvious that we are very apt to forget it. Yet whatever may be the importance of the political
and ideological tendencies which I shall shortly proceed to discuss, we get the perspective
wrong if we regard them as more important than the brute disruptive effects of the military
convulsions of our age. It was these convulsions which, by bursting the cake of custom and
compelling the supersession of the normal institutions of peace, created the states of mind in
which restrictive and disintegrating policies seemed legitimate. It may be said that if adequate
measures had been taken, the difficulties of disequilibrium would have been less; and that if
fundamental attitudes had not been disturbed by illiberal ideologies, the chances of applying
appropriate measures would have been greater. Doubtless there is truth in this. But we are not
dealing with communities of angels whose errors are always deliberate sins against the light.
We must not expect too much of the human spirit under strain; and we simplify history
unduly if, in the explanation of the policies of our time, we do not allot to the shock of war
something like autonomous status.
For somewhat similar reasons I am disposed to list separately the influence of mass
unemployment or imminent financial crisis. Of course, unemployment and financial crises are
not to be regarded as acts of God: there are often occasions when they are to be attributed to
wrong economic policies, in some cases perhaps springing from the same ideologies as the
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overt resistance to liberal commercial policies. But here again, I think we oversimplify if we
make our history monistic. In the explanation of how this or that community came to adopt
policies of commercial restriction, we do well to treat unemployment and financial crisis as at
least semi-independent causes. After all, we know that, in such circumstances, commercial
restrictions may actually have a favourable influence for a time: unemployment may be
diminished, a drain of gold or dollars arrested. And experience shows that it is just at such
times that liberal commercial policies are most in danger. Take, for instance, the final
abandonment of free trade by Great Britain in the early thirties. No one who lived through the
crisis of those days will be disposed to deny the influence of ideological factors. The
advocacy of tariff protection by Keynes, hitherto an outstanding free trader, had an impact
which should not be underestimated. But perhaps Keynes himself would not have gone that
way had there not been a depression. And certainly his influence would have been less if
people had not felt themselves to be in a sort of earthquake in which all the old guide posts
and landmarks were irrelevant.
Having thus recognized the catastrophic elements in the evolution of policy, we may now go
on to examine the more persistent and slow-moving forces. And since we are proceeding all
the time from the simpler to the more complex, we may put next on our list the influence of
producer interest. This is an influence which I am sure should be disentangled from those
which we have already examined. I know that it is sometimes argued that it is only because of
under-employment or financial dislocation that the pressure groups are effective; and I
willingly concede that in such situations they have, so to speak, very powerful allies. But I am
not willing to admit that it is only in such situations that they are successful. Producer interest
is ceaselessly active, seeking to protect itself against competition and the incidence of
disagreeable change. The influence of the agrarian interest in Europe which, while tending to
keep down the real incomes of European consumers, has wrought such havoc among
agricultural producers overseas, has certainly not been confined to times of general
unemployment. Nor - to allot blame evenly all round - have the many abuses of the infant
industry argument on the part of manufacturing interests. Much attention nowadays is given
to the alleged influence on history of the struggles between different classes, conceived on a
social basis. In my judgment, a more realistic view would pay more attention to the struggles
of different groups organized on a producer basis. These were the first foes of Classical
liberalism and they may very well be the last.
(From The Economist in the Twentieth Century, by Lionel Robbins)
EDUCATION
The Personal Qualities of a Teacher
Here I want to try to give you an answer to the question: What personal qualities are desirable
in a teacher? Probably no two people would draw up exactly similar lists, but I think the
following would be generally accepted.
First, the teacher's personality should be pleasantly live and attractive. This does not rule out
people who are physically plain, or even ugly, because many such have great personal charm.
But it does rule out such types as the over-excitable, melancholy, frigid, sarcastic, cynical,
frustrated, and over-bearing: I would say too, that it excludes all of dull or purely negative
personality. I still stick to what I said in my earlier book: that school children probably 'suffer
more from bores than from brutes'.
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Secondly, it is not merely desirable but essential for a teacher to have a genuine capacity for
sympathy-in the literal meaning of that word; a capacity to tune in to the minds and feelings
of other people, especially, since most teachers are school teachers, to the minds and feelings
of children. Closely related with this is the capacity to be tolerant-not, indeed, of what is
wrong, but of the frailty and immaturity of human nature which induce people, and again
especially children, to make mistakes.
Thirdly, I hold it essential for a teacher to be both intellectually and morally honest. This does
not mean being a plaster saint. It means that he will be aware of his intellectual strengths, and
limitations, and will have thought about and decided upon the moral principles by which his
life shall be guided. There is no contradiction in my going on to say that a teacher should be a
bit of an actor. That is part of the technique of teaching, which demands that every now and
then a teacher should be able to put on an act -to enliven a lesson, correct a fault, or award
praise. Children, especially young children, live in a world that is rather larger than life.
A teacher must remain mentally alert. He will not get into the profession if of low
intelligence, but it is all too easy, even for people of above-average intelligence, to stagnate
intellectually and that means to deteriorate intellectually. A teacher must be quick to adapt
himself to any situation, however improbable (they happen!) and able to improvise, if
necessary at less than a moment's notice. (Here I should stress that I use 'he' and 'his'
throughout the book simply as a matter of convention and convenience.)
On the other hand, a teacher must be capable of infinite patience. This, I may say, is largely a
matter of self-discipline and self-training; we are none of us born like that. He must be pretty
resilient; teaching makes great demands on nervous energy. And he should be able to take in
his stride the innumerable petty irritations any adult dealing with children has to endure.
Finally, I think a teacher should have the kind of mind which always wants to go on learning.
Teaching is a job at which one will never be perfect; there is always something more to learn
about it. There are three principal objects of study: the subject, or subjects, which the teacher
is teaching; the methods by which they can best be taught to the particular pupils in the
classes he is teaching; and -by far the most important-the children, young people, or adults to
whom they are to be taught. The two cardinal principles of British education today are that
education is education of the whole person, and that it is best acquired through full and active
co-operation between two persons, the teacher and the learner.
(From Teaching as a Career, by H . C . Dent.)
Rousseau's Emile
It is not intended, even if it were desirable, to give a running commentary on the Emile. The
reader is advised to study it for himself and to read in conjunction the account of the
education of Julie's children described in Part V of The New Heloise. All that space permits is
a summary of some of the more important ideas that Rousseau contributed to educational
theory. Speaking of the Emile, Lord Morley described it as 'one of the seminal books in the
history of literature, and of such books the worth resides less in the parts than in the whole. It
touched the deeper things of character. It filled parents with a sense of the dignity and
moment of their task. It cleared away the accumulation of clogging prejudices and obscure
inveterate usage, which made education one of the dark formalistic arts. It admitted floods of
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light and air into the tightly closed nurseries and schoolrooms. It effected the substitution of
growth for mechanism . . . it was the charter of youthful deliverance.'
It is the last sentence of this passage which expresses the most important influence that
Rousseau exercised upon education. One may justly hail him as the discoverer of the child.
This is not to forget that educational thinkers of the ancient world, the mediaeval period, and
the Renaissance, had kindly, sympathetic, and helpful ideas about the training of children. In
their view the child did not come first. They fixed their eyes upon what he was to be in the
future and the curriculum they approved and the methods they recommended were coloured
by this attitude. Rousseau, on the other hand, emphasised that the prime factor to be
considered in education is the child and his present nature as a child. He wrote: 'Nature wants
children to be children before they are men. If we deliberately pervert this order, we shall get
premature fruits which are neither ripe nor well flavoured, and which soon decay. ...
Childhood has ways of seeing, thinking, and feeling, peculiar to itself; nothing can be more
foolish than to substitute our ways for them.'
So important did this principle seem to him that he repeated it in the Emile. In the Preface to
the Emile, he wrote: 'We know nothing of childhood; and with our mistaken notions, the
further we advance, the further we go astray. The wisest writers devote themselves to what a
man ought to know, without asking what a child is capable of learning. They are always
looking for the man in the child without considering what he is before he becomes a man....
Begin thus by making a more careful study of your scholars, for it is clear that you know
nothing about them.' He carried out this advice in the Emile by expressing the view that
education is a continuous process which begins at birth and which can be divided into four
consecutive stages. Thus Book I deals with the infant; Book II with childhood; Book III with
the pre-adolescent between the ages of twelve and fifteen; and Book IV with adolescence.
These stages of development correspond to the progress made in the history of the human
race. To all intents and purposes, the infant is living at the animal level. The child can be
compared with primitive man. Boyhood is a period of self-sufficiency, whilst at adolescence
the sex impulses ripen, social behaviour becomes possible, and the young person is able to
conduct his life according to moral principles.
It is an easy matter to criticise Rousseau's account of the child's development from the
standpoint of present-day child study, but it is essential to bear in mind that in the eighteenth
century he was a pioneer in this field. His exposition was rendered less effective by his
adherence to a faculty psychology, but in his defence, one could urge that this was the
dominant view of his time. The continuity of the child's development may seem to be broken
by the emphasis placed upon the emergence of new faculties, for example, at adolescence, the
pupil appears to make a complete break with his former life. One may dispute Rousseau's
statement that the most dangerous period of human life lies between birth and the age of
twelve, but when these partial criticisms have been made, the fact remains that he
concentrated attention upon the child and his nature rather than upon the subject and the
pupil's future occupation. This was one of the most revolutionary steps that educational theory
had so far taken.
(From A Short History of Educational Ideas, by S. J. Curtis & M. E. A. Boultwood.)
The Beginnings of Scientific and Technical Education
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The higher instruction given to workers was mainly concerned at first with science. As early
as 1760 a professor at Glasgow, named Anderson, had begun to hold evening classes in
science, which working men were encouraged to attend. In his will he left an endowment for a
chair of natural philosophy at the University. Its first occupant was George Birkbeck (17761841), who held a degree in medicine. When he started his lectures in 1799 he found it
necessary to have a good deal of apparatus, and while this was being made under his
instructions he became acquainted with a number of Glasgow artisans. He found them so
intelligent and so eager to learn that he resolved to start a course of lectures and experiments
in mechanics 'solely for persons engaged in the practical exercise of the mechanical arts, men
whose situation in early life has precluded the possibility of acquiring even the smallest
portion of scientific knowledge.' The lectures proved a great success. After Birkbeck removed
to London in 1804, the lectures were continued by the next occupant of the chair; and finally,
in 1823, the members of the class organised it into a 'Mechanics' Institute'. Its purpose was
defined as 'instructing artisans in the scientific principles of arts and manufactures'.
Mechanics' institutes soon sprang up in many parts of the country. They were supported by
subscriptions from the members and by donations from sympathisers. By 1845 there were 610
institutions, with 102,050 members. They were naturally most popular in the manufacturing
districts, such as London, Lancashire, and Yorkshire; but there were a few successful
institutes also in such rural centres as Lewes, Basingstoke, Chichester and Lincoln. Each
Institute usually included a library, reading-room, and museum of models and apparatus.
Lectures were provided on mathematics and its applications, and on natural and experimental
science and drawing. Sometimes literary subjects, such as English and foreign languages,
were included. Travelling lecturers and circulating boxes of books helped to keep the smaller
institutes in touch with one another.
The mechanics' institutes played an important part in English education, and yet they were
only partially successful. By 180 two changes had become noticeable. Their membership
consisted more of clerks and apprentices and middle-class people than of working men, for
whose benefit they had been founded; and, as a corollary of this, their syllabuses had tended
to change. There was less purely technical instruction and more recreational activities and
popular lectures. Discussions, debates, and even social courses tended to take the place of ad
hoc courses designed to help artisans. There were several reasons for this change. The artisans
and working classes had not yet received an elementary education, which would form an
adequate foundation on which to build a superstructure of technical education. Reference has
already been made to the meagre limits of education provided by the monitorial schools and
other elementary schools. It must also be remembered that some of the children of the poor
hardly went to school at all and that the average length of school life was in any case only one
and a half or two years. Moreover, a great obstacle to the spread of knowledge at this period
was the high cost of newspapers, owing to the Government duty: from 1819 to 1836 there was
a stamp duty of 4d. a copy. In a Poor Law Commissioners' Report of 1834 there occurs this
passage: 'The dearness of newspapers in this country is an insurmountable obstacle to the
education of the poor. I could name twenty villages within a circuit of a few miles in which a
newspaper is never seen from one year's end to another.' Again, the fees for membership and
classes in mechanics' institutes tended to be too high for those for whom they were originally
designed. At the London Mechanics' Institute in 1823 the annual subscription was fixed at £1,
and this seems to have been a fairly usual charge. In 1826 1,477 workmen paid this fee at the
London Institute: but it would be a rather high fee for people of that type even today, and it
must have been much more onerous in the Corn Law days, after the Napoleonic Wars, when
wages generally were low. Thus the mechanics' institutes tended to decline in importance and
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change in character. But some of them retained much of their original character and were
stimulated into new life by the development of technical education during the second half of
the nineteenth century. For example, the London Mechanics' Institute was the forerunner of
the present Birkbeck College, which caters for evening students but is a constituent part of the
University of London. In the broadest sense, the mechanics' institutes have laid the foundation
for the development of our modern technical schools and colleges.
(From A Short History of English Education, by H. C. Barnard.)
Supposed Mental Faculties and Their Training
The mind is commonly thought to consist of a number of 'Faculties'-such as memory,
observation, perception, reasoning, will, judgment, and so on, pretty much the same as those
described by the phrenologists who feel the 'bumps' on a man's head and describe his
capacities according to the chart of the skull which they have mapped out. It is supposed that
a man has a good (or bad) memory in general, and that the exercise of the memory, say on
history dates or Latin verbs, will strengthen the memory as a whole; and that a training in the
observation of wild flowers will sharpen the whole 'faculty of observation' whatever is to be
observed; or again that mathematics, since it exercises the 'faculty of reasoning', equally
improves reasoning about politics, social problems, and religion.
This view as to mental faculties is still widely held by most educated people who have not
studied Psychology, and it still has a harmful influence on education in some ways. Let us
consider this 'popular' psychology carefully, discussing in this chapter the supposed
intellectual 'Faculties'.
An example of error in popular views about the mind appears in the idea of a faculty of
observation. One often hears it said that we should train the observation of our pupils; and it is
imagined that by training them to observe certain things we are training them to observe
anything and everything. A method of instruction used in the Army, in which a man had to
observe quickly and remember a score of various objects in a tray, seems to have been based
on this idea.
One of my students once gave a lesson on Botany in the presence of an inspector of schools.
After the lesson, the inspector said to her: 'Yes: that was an interesting lesson, but what I want
to know is, are you training the pupil's powers of observation? would they, for example, be
able to tell you the colour of the tie I was wearing?' The inspector overlooked the fact that the
more the pupils had concentrated their attention on the lesson, the less would they be likely to
notice the colour of his tie; and that the more interested they were in the flowers studied, the
less would they be likely to attend to him or his personal appearance. (I should like to add that
this incident occurred a good many years ago. Inspectors are better informed nowadays on
psychological matters.)
Observation, in fact, depends on interest and knowledge. If three friends travel abroad, one an
architect, another a botanist, and the third a stockbroker travelling with them only to take a
'cure' abroad, and interested only in his health and moneymaking, then the architect is likely
to notice the style of houses and other buildings more than his friends do, because he is
specially interested in them. The botanist will observe especially the flowers and trees of the
country more than his friends; and he will actually see more details because he knows what to
look for. Observation is guided by knowledge, and prompted by interest. We have, however,
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no reason to suppose that the botanist, trained in such observation, or the architect, keenly
observant of the buildings, will be more observant than the stockbroker of the faces of the
foreign people they meet, or the dress of the women. Indeed, they are more likely to have
their attention diverted by the objects of their special interests. So training in the careful
observation of the varied endings of Latin words, or of the changes in chemical substances in
experiments, will have no effect on the observation of pictures or the movements of the stars.
These popular ideas about the mind and its faculties sometimes have the element of truth in
them which makes it all the harder for the psychologist to eliminate their exaggeration. For
example, as to observation: a careful training in observing plants under the microscope
includes a training in method, in the value of the precise description of what is actually seen
(and not merely what one thinks should be there), and so on: and a student with such
experience will gain something from it if he turns to a similar study, e.g. zoology or geology,
especially when he also uses the microscope. Here we see that the adoption of an ideal of
truth and exactitude in such work or a training in a method of procedure in one kind of work,
may result in its application in a similar kind of work though it does not always do so.
(From Psychology and its Bearing on Education, by C. W. Valentine.)
The Concept of Number
The long struggle forward in children's thinking comes out very clearly in the development of
their number ideas-the part of Piaget's work which is now best known in this country. It offers
a striking illustration both of the nature of his discoveries and of the basic pattern of mental
growth. We can watch how the child starts from a level of utter confusion, without a notion of
what number really means, even though he may be able to count up to ten or twenty; a level
where number is completely mixed up with size, shape, and arrangement, or constantly shifts
according to the way it is subdivided or added up. And we can see how, on an average two
years later, children declare of their own accord that a number must stay the same, whatever
you do with it, so long as you do not actually add to it or take away from it; or that whatever
you have done with it, you can always reverse this and get back to where you started from; or
that you can always show it to be the same by counting; and so on.
The following are a few examples of the ways in which Piaget's experiments bring out this
pattern of growth:
1. Each child was presented with two vessels of the same shape and size containing equal
quantities of coloured liquid. Then the contents of one of them was poured into (a) two similar
but smaller vessels, (b) several such, (c) a tall but narrow vessel, (d) a broad but shallow one.
In each case the child was asked whether the quantity of liquid was still the same as in the
untouched vessel.
Piaget found that at a first stage, around 4-5 years, children took it for granted that the
quantity of liquid was now different - either more because the level was higher, or more
because there were more glasses, or less because the new vessel was narrower, or less because
the levels in the two or more glasses were lower. In other words, there was no idea of a
constant quantity, independent of its changing forms; if its appearance changed, the quantity
changed and could become either more or less according to what aspect of the new
appearance caught the child's eye. At a second stage, at about 5½-6, children had reached a
transitional phase, in which they wavered uncertainly between the visual appearance and the
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dawning idea of conservation in their minds. Thus the quantity of liquid might be regarded as
still the same when it was poured into two smaller glasses, but as greater when it was poured
into three. Or as remaining the same if the difference in level or cross-section in the new
vessel was small, but not if it was larger. Or the child might try to allow for the relation
between cross section and level, and experiment uncertainly without reaching any clear
conclusion. In the third stage, 6½-8, children give the correct answers right away, either by
reference to the height width relation, or by pointing out that the quantity has not been
changed: 'It's only been poured out.'
2. As a check on these results, Piaget carried out a similar set of experiments, with beads
instead of liquids. In this way something closer to counting could be introduced (e.g. the child
putting beads into a container one by one as the experimenter did the same into another
vessel). Also he could be asked to imagine that the beads inside each vessel were arranged
into the familiar shape of a necklace. The outcome was entirely the same. At the first stage,
the children thought that the quantity of beads would be either more or less, according as the
level looked higher, or the width greater, or there were more vessels, and this happened even
when a child had put one bead into his vessel for each one that the experimenter placed in his.
At stage 2 there is a struggle in the child's mind as before. This may show itself for example
by his first going wrong when comparing levels between a wider and a taller vessel; then
correcting himself if asked to think in terms of the necklaces; but when the beads are spread
over two or more containers, still thinking that the necklace will be longer. At stage 3 once
more the children reply correctly and cannot be shaken, however the questions or the
experiments may be varied.
(From The Growth of Understanding in the Young Child, by Nathan Isaacs.)
English in the Primary School
The writing of their own stories was started from the very first, long before the children could
read. The thought came from them, and was interpreted by means of a picture. When the
picture was finished, each one told me what it was about, and I wrote for them a few words
about their picture. I have kept a set of books all by one child, between the ages of four and a
half and seven years, which make a most valuable study of infant progress.
Jeffery came to me at four, a bright little fellow with a mop of wonderful auburn curls and a
gift of romancing which one morning caused him to rush into school declaring that a sow had
just bitten his head off 'down by the church'. He showed skill in handling crayons and writing
tools straight away, so I made him a sewn book and began on an illustrated version of 'The
House that Jack Built', a rhyme which he knew. He drew all the pictures, and after each one
copied, in his fashion, the appropriate text. Next came a book called 'The Farmer', in which he
himself thought up a situation every day and drew a picture of it; then I came along, wrote for
him what he wanted to say, and he copied it. As soon as this was finished he demanded a new
book in which to write the 'story of my donkey-the one that ran away'. As he had never had a
donkey, I recognized his romantic imagination at work, and was delighted at the thought of it
being put to such good use. This book was full of the most wonderful, lively pictures and it
was evident that Jeff was often considerably irked by the necessity of having to wait for me to
write down what he wanted to say. He was by this time only a month or two over five years
old, but was already beginning to read and I used to find him struggling valiantly on bits of
odd paper to write for himself the next part of the tale.
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Then we reached the long summer holiday. After it, Jeff returned to me a much more mature
little boy, and though still only five and a half, was reading very well when we had been a
month or so into the new term. His new book was called 'Jeff the Brave Cowboy', and this
time he wrote for himself on a piece of paper. I corrected it, and the fair copy was made into
his book. This book was really remarkable for the sudden leap forward he made in his use of
English. It was vigorous and economical, with adjectives and adverbs appearing quite
naturally in the right places, but only where they were needed for extra emphasis. The
undoubted success of 'The Brave Cowboy' put Jeff's feet firmly on the road to authorship. He
was away on 'The Dog Fight' before the previous one was really finished, because, having
seen a dog fight on his way to school one morning, he simply could not wait to start putting
down his memory of it. This was a change from the purely imaginative work of his previous
creations and very good as English practice, for he discovered not only the value of
possessing powers of keen observation, but of knowing the language that allowed one to
record what one had noticed in detail.
It appeared that Jeff's mother, a glorious red-head like himself, had thrown a bucket of water
over the fighting dogs. While he was drawing a picture of this, giving his mother
unmistakable hair, he was thinking deeply about it, for he must have been wondering how to
record the mood of the moment in words. He came to me for advice. Although he was still
only five years old, I explained to him the use of conversation marks, thinking that that was
what he had asked. He was not satisfied.
'Does that make it say how Mummy said it?' he asked. 'She didn't just say "Stop it". She said
(miming the throwing of the water and stamping his foot) "STOP IT!" '
After Christmas Jeff, now six, wanted to write a pirate story. After reading some pirate books,
he started on 'Jeff and the Flying Bird', this time writing his own book without any correction
or other interference from me.
One day (Jeff) stood on the prow of his ship, he lookted in his telscope.
What did he see ?
He saw a ship sailing across the sea to Jeffs ship.
Attack shouted Jeff.
At seven he wrote 'Jeff the Space Man', text in pencil but pictures in coloured inks. At the end
of his first session with his new book, he came to me to show it. I was sitting at my desk, he
standing by the side of it. I took the book from him, admired the picture, and read aloud:
Jeff pulled the lever and pressed the button. The space ship, swished up into the air
and was gene
I happened to glance at the real Jeff, who was pressing with all his might an imaginary button
on the side of my desk, after which he held the pit of his stomach and gazed at the school
ceiling.
'Gosh,' he said, in an awed voice, 'can't you just hear it?' I could.
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'The ssspace ssship ssswissshed ....' Of course! After that Jeff went on exercising his
imagination, his observation, and his increasing command of English, in book after book after
book. His last was a treatise on freshwater fish and how to catch them. At eleven-plus his I.Q.
showed him to be only of good average intelligence. I mention this just to prove that he was
not the brilliantly academic type of child from whom one would expect this lively interest in
English as a matter of course.
(From An Experiment in Education, by Sybil Marshall.)
Britain and Japan: Two roads to higher education
Britain and Japan are the two great pioneers of industrialism and therefore of the modern
world. Britain was the pioneer industrial nation of the Western, European-dominated world,
Japan of the Eastern, non-European and, to many eyes, the hope of the Third World. The
countries have always had much in common. Both groups of islands off an initially more
civilized and powerful continent, they had to defend themselves from military and cultural
conquest and to that end developed a powerful navy and an independence of mind which
made them increasingly different from their continental neighbours. Behind their sea defences
they were able to pursue their own ideals and ambitions which enabled them in the end to
originate changes in industry and society which, because they brought wealth and power,
others tried to imitate. The British at the height of their imperial power and economic
domination recognized in the emerging Japanese a fellow pioneer and an ally. They called her
‘the Britain of the East’ and in the 1902 Treaty were the first to recognize Japan as a world
power.
Yet the two countries took utterly different roads to industrialism, power and wealth. Britain,
the first industrial nation, evolved slowly without knowing - because nobody then knew what
an Industrial Revolution was - where she was going or what the end of modernization would
be. Japan, coming late to economic growth in a world which saw and felt only too clearly
what the gains and dangers of industrialism were, adopted it self-consciously and with
explosive and revolutionary speed. And they still bear the marks of these differences of
origin, timing and approach. Britain had the first Industrial Revolution because she had the
right kind of society to generate it; but for that very reason she was riot forced to change her
society as much as later developing countries, and she now has the wrong kind of society for
sustaining a high and continuing rate of economic growth. That does not mean that she has the
wrong kind of society to provide a highly civilized and comfortable life for her people. On the
contrary, just as the British were pioneers of the industrial society dominated by a gospel of
work so they may now be the pioneers of the post-industrial society dedicated to the gospels
of leisure and welfare.
Japan on the other hand has astonished the world by the degree to which she was prepared to
change her society in order to industrialize, and the speed at which, in less than a hundred
years, she transformed herself from a feudal society of samurai, artisans and peasants into one
of the most efficient industrial and egalitarian meritocracies in the world. However, it must be
said that Tokugawa Japan was no ordinary feudal society, and had hidden advantages for
industrial development which most feudal societies lack: one of the most urbanized
populations in the world, with a highly educated ruling class of efficient bureaucrats, large
numbers of skilled craftsmen and sophisticated merchants, and a more literate populace than
most other countries, even in the West. But the fact remains that the leaders of the Meiji
Restoration were prepared to abolish feudalism, establish equality before the law, and make
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everyone, rich or poor, samurai, worker or peasant, contribute to the survival and
development of the country.
If the British and Japanese roads to industrialism were different, their two roads to higher
education were even more different. The British educational road was far slower, more
indirect and evolutionary even than their road to industrial development and, indeed, in the
early stages had little connection with economic growth. The ancient universities, particularly
in England as distinct from Scotland, had become little more than finishing schools for young
gentlemen, chiefly landowners’ sons and young clergymen. They did not conduct research
and not one of the major inventions of the early Industrial Revolution originated in a
university. Oxford and Cambridge were even less important to English society when the
Industrial Revolution began than they were over a century earlier - many of the ruling elite
came to find little to interest them in the repetition of classical Greek and Latin texts.
When Japan was beginning its great transformation under the Meiji, the main contribution of
the British universities to economic growth was still in the future. It may seem surprising that,
in relation to industrial development and modernization, British higher education in the late
19th century was no more advanced than the new Japanese system. By 1900 university
students in both Britain and Japan were less than one per cent of the student age group. In
both countries higher education was exclusively for the elite, but whereas in Britain the elite
graduates went predominantly into the home civil service, colonial government and the
traditional professions, in Japan they went not only into these but still more into industry and
commerce and the newer technological professions.
This was because Japanese higher education, like the whole modern education system, was
created by the Meiji reformers for the express purpose of modernizing Japan. Japan, contrary
to popular belief in the West, did not start from scratch. Under the Tokugawa there were
higher schools and colleges based on Confucian learning, no more out of touch with the needs
of a traditional ruling elite than were Oxford and Cambridge. But the difference was that the
Meiji elite knew that higher education had to be changed, and changed radically if Japan was
to be transformed into a modern nation able to expel the barbarians and become a strong and
wealthy country. Under the Fundamental Code of Education of 1872 they set out to establish
a modern system of education with an elementary school within reach of every child, a
secondary school in every school district, and a university in each of eight academic regions.
In the next forty years, Japanese higher education expanded explosively. By 1922 there were
6 imperial and 20 non-imperial universities and 235 other higher institutions. Moreover, the
whole system was geared to industrialization and economic growth, to the production of
bureaucrats, managers, technologists and technicians. Whereas in Britain the sons of the elite
at this stage avoided industry, which was left to the largely self-educated, trained in industry
itself, in Japan the sons of the Shizoku, the ex-samurai who formed the majority of students in
the universities, went indiscriminately into the service of the state and of private industry.
Britain too began a remarkable expansion of higher education in the late 19th century. New
universities, more responsive to the scientific and industrial needs of their regions, came into
existence in nearly all the great cities which did not already have them: Manchester, Leeds,
Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol, Newcastle, Nottingham, Sheffield, and so on. These new
civic universities were much more dedicated to scientific and technological research and had a
provocative and stimulating effect on the older universities too, and Oxford and Cambridge
came to develop science and engineering and other modern subjects. Thus at the time Japan
was using higher education as an instrument of industrialization, Britain began to do the same.
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The road remained substantially different, however. Unlike the Japanese, the great majority of
British managers never went to university. Some went to a variety of technical colleges which
grew up to meet the demand which the universities had so long neglected, but the great
majority were trained on the job with the help of evening schools where they learned to pass
the examinations of the new professional bodies like the Institution of Mechanical Engineers
or the Institute of Chemistry.
Thus the British road to industrial higher education was largely a part-time road, Most modern
universities began as technical or other colleges, mostly for part-time students. This helps to
explain why Britain, with one of the smallest university systems amongst the advanced
countries, could sustain a competitive industrial economy, and even remain the world’s
largest exporter of manufactured goods down to the First World War.
During the 1960s the number of British universities nearly doubled, from 25 to 45 and in
addition 30 polytechnics were formed from existing technical colleges. But British industry
still depends to a larger extent than any other advanced country on part-time education and
training on the job.
Japan by contrast believes in full-time higher education, and has far larger numbers in
universities and colleges. Since the Second World War, initially under the stimulus of the
American Occupation, the system has grown from 64 universities and 352 other colleges with
about 250,000 students in l948 to 43l universities and 580 other colleges with nearly 2 million
students in 1977, equal to 38 per cent of the age group. In terms of full-time students Britain
is still only on the threshold of mass higher education; Japan is already moving towards
universal higher education.
Most educationists still believe that if only the British would spend as much on education as
the Japanese they could achieve the same rate of economic growth. But perhaps too much
influence is claimed for it by educationists. Could it not be said that education is an effect
rather than a cause - or rather, that it is an effect before it can become a cause. It is an effect of
the social values and social structure of the society which creates and provides it.
In other words, the British and the Japanese took two different roads to higher education and
to modern industrialism because they were two different kinds of society; with different aims
and ambitions, different moral and social values, different principles of social connexion and
of social structure.
In one sense the aims and objectives of the two societies were very similar. They both
harnessed personal ambition to the drive to wealth and power. The key to the British
Industrial Revolution was social ambition, ‘keeping up with the ‘Joneses,’ the desire to rise in
society by making money and to confirm that rise by spending money on conspicuous
consumer goods. In a similar way, the Japanese of the Meiji Restoration strove to become rich
and powerful in order to expel the barbarians and restore the country’s independence. The two
kinds of ambition were fundamentally different. The British landlords, farmers, industrialists
and workers were self-seeking and individualistic in their ambition, and national economic
growth was a by-product of their individual success. The Japanese samurai, merchants,
artisans, and peasants strove to succeed, but success was not measured as much by personal
wealth, status and power, as by the admiration and applause of one’s family, one’s colleagues
and one’s fellow citizens. Individual prosperity was a by-product of the group’s. The British
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(and Western) kind of ambition may be called ‘acquisitive individualism’ and the Japanese
kind ‘participative self-fulfilment’.
Acquisitive individualism in Britain has deep roots in English society. Even now the British
are more concerned with their individual share of the national cake than with increasing its
size.
The Japanese by contrast have never been individualists in this sense. They have always put
the group - the family, the village, the feudal han, the nation - before the individual and his
material gain. The individual has found his reward in and through the group and in loyalty to
its leader, who represents the group to the outside world.
This ideal of participative self-fulfilment has deep roots in Japanese society and goes back to
the nature of the Japanese family, the ie. In Western terms, ie is best translated as ‘household’
rather than ‘family’, since it was more open to newcomers such as sons-in-law than the
Western family, and outgoing members who married into another ie ceased to belong. Its
major feature was that every member, however new, strove for respect in the eyes or the
household and received protection and loyalty in return. This was the origin of that
participative self-fulfilment, that striving for success in and through whichever group one
came to belong to, which is the secret of Japanese unselfish ambition and co-operative
loyalty.
Yet there are limits to the group responsibility produced by the ie tradition. Because it was
rooted in a system of group rivalries which drew a sharp distinction between one’s own group
and all the others - which is why it is difficult, for example, to unite workers from different
companies in the same trade union - there is less sense of responsibility in Japan for the
welfare of those who do not belong to the same group. That is why welfare, social security,
pensions, medical services and leisure facilities are mainly organized by the large
corporations for their own workers, and the state welfare system is still undeveloped
compared with Britain and Europe.
Britain, despite its acquisitive individualism, always had another tradition, an aristocratic
tradition of paternalism or ‘noblesse oblige’ which, oddly enough, remained enshrined in the
older, aristocratic universities of Oxford and Cambridge while acquisitive individualism was
creating or capturing the newer universities of the industrial society. This tradition found its
way into the university settlement movement in the slums of London and other great cities,
into housing improvement and factory reform, into adult education for the working class, into
social work, even into British non- Marxist socialism, and into the welfare state. It was a
tradition which went beyond all groups, whether of family, trade, profession or class. It asked
in effect, ‘who is my neighbour?’ and it answered zany member of society who needs my
help’. This is the hidden principle which has saved Britain from the excesses of acquisitive
individualism.
Although British trade unions, employers and professional bodies today fight each other for a
bigger share of the cake regardless of what happens to the cake as a whole, there is a
gentleman’s agreement, stemming from that other, more gentlemanly tradition, that the
welfare of the poor, the disabled, the elderly, the sick and the unemployed comes first. For the
same reason, economic growth comes second. Welfare, leisure, a clean environment and a
civilized social life are now more important acquisitions to the British than a larger post-tax
income. Acquisitive individualism has shifted its ground, from material possessions to the
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non-material goods of health, education for pleasure, an enjoyable environment and a more
leisurely and pleasurable life.
Britain and Japan took two different roads to higher education and to industrialism because
they were two very different societies with different social structures and ideals. If the British
could borrow some of their unselfish self-fulfilment and co-operative efficiency from the
Japanese and the Japanese some of their concern for social welfare and public amenity from
the British, perhaps East and West could at last meet in mutual under- standing and each have
the best of both worlds.
Enrolments in universities and colleges in Britain and Japan as percentage of the student age
group
Britain
Japan
1885
(1.0)
0.5
1900
1.2
0.9
1920
1.8
1924
2.7
1930
3.1
1938
2.7
1940
4.0
1955
6.1
8.7
1960
8.3
10.2
1965
8.9
15.9
1970
13.8
18.7
1974
14.0
27.9
1977
33.9
1979
13.9
Note:
The British figures include full-time advanced students in universities, teacher training
colleges and further education; the Japanese figures those in universities, two-year colleges
and higher technical colleges (and excluding higher vocational schools).
What type of student do you have to teach?
Most lecturers try to help students develop their understanding. But understanding a foreign
language is not the same as understanding why someone is upset or understanding
electromagnetism or understanding history. It is not to be expected therefore that the same
teaching methods will be appropriate to these different kinds of understanding.
Most forms of understanding are expressed by concepts which differ from everyday ones. For
example, we all know that suitcases get heavier the longer you carry them, but in science this
is described in terms of constant weight plus increasing fatigue. The concept “weight” is
introduced and laid alongside the commonsense concept of “heaviness’. Similarly we all
know that time passes quickly when we are absorbed and slowly when we are bored, but
science tells us that this is an illusion; time really ticks away at a steady rate. Note that
conceptual change should not be the aim, as is sometimes suggested, since people still also
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need their common sense. The aim is to add new sets of concepts and to explain when to use
which set.
But “understanding” is not the only kind of learning which students need to master.
Instruction, demonstration and error-correction are the key teaching activities - which are
quite different from those needed to reach understanding - while practice is the main learning
activity.
Students also have to memorise information and be able to recall it when required, as well as
acquire several other kinds of learning (such as know-how and attitudes and values) each of
which calls for different teaching methods. So learning-centred teaching includes a conscious
matching of teaching methods to the intended kind of learning.
While good teaching involves, among other things, helping students to achieve their chosen
learning goals, the picture is further complicated by the different learning styles adopted by
different groups of students.
Many ways of categorisation and modelling students as learners have been suggested, of
which the following are as useful as any, particularly in connection with understanding.
(Differences between learners’ natural learning styles are not so significant when skills are
being taught, since the appropriate style is determined more by the activity involved than by
students’ natural capabilities.)
Some students are “holists”: which means they like to take an overview of a subject first and
then fill in the details and concepts in their own way.
Others are “serialists” who like to follow a logical progression of a subject, beginning at the
beginning. Educational researcher Gordon Pask structured some teaching materials in both a
holist and a serialist manner, and then tested previously-sorted cohorts of students using them.
He found that the best performance of those who were mismatched (i.e. holist students with
serialist material, and vice versa) was worse than the worst performance of those who were
matched to the learning materials.
This seems to imply, for example, that educational textbooks - which are naturally serialist in
character - should include signposts, summaries, alternative explanations of difficult concepts,
explanatory figure captions, a glossary of terms, a good index, etc, to help holist students find
their own way through them. Similarly projects, which are naturally holist in character, since
they are usually specified in terms of a final goal, can cause problems for serialists, who may
therefore need step-by-step guidance.
Another group of students are “visualisers” whose learning is helped by the inclusion of
diagrams, pictures, flow-charts, films, etc. Others are “verbalisers” and prefer to listen, read,
discuss, argue, attend tutorials and write during their conceptual development. And some are
“doers” and find that overt practical activity is best. The saying that “to hear is to forget, to
see is to remember, but to do is to understand” is only true for “doers”. With a typical mix of
students, attempts should be made to cater for each preferred style.
It is well known nowadays that for the development of “understanding” and for the
memorisation of information it is important that students adopt a “deep approach” to their
learning, rather than a “surface approach’. The deep approach refers to an intention to develop
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their understanding and to challenge ideas, while the “surface approach” is the intention to
memorise information and to follow instructions. Although students are naturally inclined
towards one approach rather than the other - often with a new subject the inclination is
towards the surface approach - this can vary from subject to subject and can usually be
changed by the teaching they receive. Overloading, for example, will encourage the surface
approach; stimulating interest may encourage the deep approach. Given the deep approach,
even good lectures can make a considerable contribution to students’ “understanding”.
Recently the need to encourage the deep approach in students has been allowed to dominate
the choice of teaching method, sometimes at the expense of effective teaching.
Constructivism in science teaching, for example, in which students are encouraged to devise
their own explanations of phenomena, certainly tends to encourage the deep approach, but it
can also leave students with misconceptions. Similarly, though problem-based learning is
usually popular with students, it teaches “know-how” rather than “understanding”: unless
explicit conceptual guidance is also given.
The fact that students have different preferred learning styles also has important implications
for course evaluation through feedback. It often seems to be assumed that students are a
homogeneous bunch and that therefore a majority opinion condemning a certain aspect of a
course justifies changing it for the future. But this can well be a mistake. If a course is well
matched, say, to “holist verbalisers” it is unlikely to be found very helpful to “serialist
visualisers”. In other words, feedback is likely to reveal as much about the students as about
the course or lecturer, and can be quite misleading unless it is properly analysed in terms of
the preferred learning styles of the particular cohort of students.
Indeed, student feedback about the teaching of “understanding” can, in any case, be quite
misleading, since students cannot be expected to judge what has been helpful to them until
much of the necessary conceptual development has occurred. Only after “the penny has
dropped” is such feedback likely to be reliable. Similarly, favourable feedback about the
necessary but tedious practising of important “skills” cannot normally be expected.
These considerations are all aspects of learning-centred teaching, with which all lecturers
should, in due course, become familiar. Innovation in education without taking these matters
into consideration is at best cavalier, at worst irresponsible, for it is the students who suffer
from teachers’ ill-founded experiments.
John Sparkes, Times Higher Education Supplement. February 6th, 1998.
Spoon-fed feel lost at the cutting edge
Before arriving at university students will have been powerfully influenced by their school’s
approach to learning particular subjects. Yet this is only rarely taken into account by teachers
in higher education, according to new research carried out at Nottingham University, which
could explain why so many students experience problems making the transition.
Historian Alan Booth says there is a growing feeling on both sides of the Atlantic that the
shift from school to university-style learning could be vastly improved. But little consensus
exists about who or what is at fault when the students cannot cope. “School teachers
commonly blame the poor quality of university teaching, citing factors such as large first-year
lectures, the widespread use of inexperienced postgraduate tutors and the general lack of
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concern for students in an environment where research is dominant in career progression,” Dr
Booth said.
Many university tutors on the other hand claim that the school system is failing to prepare
students for what will be expected of them at university. A-level history in particular is seen
to be teacher-dominated, creating a passive dependency culture.
But while both sides are bent on attacking each other, little is heard during such exchanges
from the students themselves, according to Dr Booth, who has devised a questionnaire to test
the views of more than 200 first-year history students at Nottingham over a three-year period.
The students were asked about their experience of how history is taught at the outset of their
degree programme. It quickly became clear that teaching methods in school were pretty staid.
About 30 per cent of respondents claimed to have made significant use of primary sources
(few felt very confident in handling them) and this had mostly been in connection with project
work. Only 16 per cent had used video/audio; 2 per cent had experienced field trips and less
than 1 per cent had engaged in role-play.
Dr Booth found students and teachers were frequently restricted by the assessment style
which remains dominated by exams. These put obstacles in the way of more adventurous
teaching and active learning, he said. Of the students in the survey just 13 per cent felt their
A-level course had prepared them very well for work at university. Three-quarters felt it had
prepared them fairly well.
One typical comment sums up the contrasting approach: “At A-level we tended to be spoonfed with dictated notes and if we were told to do any background reading (which was rare) we
were told exactly which pages to read out of the book”.
To test this further the students were asked how well they were prepared in specific skills
central to degree level history study. The answers reveal that the students felt most confident
at taking notes from lectures and organising their notes. They were least able to give an oral
presentation and there was no great confidence in contributing to seminars, knowing how
much to read, using primary sources and searching for texts. Even reading and taking notes
from a book were often problematic. Just 6 per cent of the sample said they felt competent at
writing essays, the staple A level assessment activity.
The personal influence of the teacher was paramount. In fact individual teachers were the
centre of students’ learning at A level with some 86 per cent of respondents reporting that
their teachers had been more influential in their development as historians than the students’
own reading and thinking.
The ideal teacher turned out to be someone who was enthusiastic about the subject; a good
clear communicator who encouraged discussion. The ideal teacher was able to develop
students involvement and independence. He or she was approachable and willing to help. The
bad teacher, according to the survey, dictates notes and allows no room for discussion. He or
she makes students learn strings of facts; appears uninterested in the subject and fails to listen
to other points of view.
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No matter how poor the students judged their preparedness for degree-level study, however,
there was a fairly widespread optimism that the experience would change them significantly,
particularly in terms of their open mindedness and ability to cope with people.
But it was clear, Dr Booth said, that the importance attached by many departments to thirdyear teaching could be misplaced. “Very often tutors regard the third year as the crucial time,
allowing postgraduates to do a lot of the earlier teaching. But I am coming to the conclusion
that the first year at university is the critical point of intervention”.
Alison Utley, Times Higher Education Supplement. February 6th, 1998.
GEOLOGY/GEOGRAPHY
The Age of the Earth
The age of the earth has aroused the interest of scientists, clergy, and laymen. The first
scientists to attack the problem were physicists, basing their estimates on assumptions that are
not now generally accepted. G. H. Darwin calculated that 57 million years had elapsed since
the moon was separated from the earth, and Lord Kelvin estimated that 20 - 40 million years
were needed for the earth to cool from a molten condition to its present temperature. Although
these estimates were much greater than the 6,000 years decided upon some two hundred years
earlier from a Biblical study, geologists thought the earth was much older than 50 or 60
million years. In 1899 the physicist Joly calculated the age of the ocean from the amount of
sodium contained in its waters. Sodium is dissolved from rocks during weathering and carried
by streams to the ocean. Multiplying the volume of water in the ocean by the percentage of
sodium in solution, the total amount of sodium in the ocean is determined as 16 quadrillion
tons. Dividing this enormous quantity by the annual load of sodium contributed by streams
gives the number of years required to deposit the sodium at the present rate. This calculation
has been checked by Clark and by Knopi with the resulting figure in round numbers of
1,000,000,000 years for the age of the ocean. This is to be regarded as a minimum age for the
earth, because all the sodium carried by streams is not now in the ocean and the rate of
deposition has not been constant. The great beds of rock salt (sodium chloride), now stored as
sedimentary rocks on land, were derived by evaporation of salt once in the ocean. The annual
contribution of sodium by streams is higher at present than it was in past geological periods,
for sodium is now released from sedimentary rocks more easily than it was from the silicates
of igneous rocks before sedimentary beds of salt were common. Also, man mines and uses
tons of salt that are added annually to the streams. These considerations indicate that the
ocean and the earth have been in existence much longer than 1,000,000,000 years, but there is
no quantitative method of deciding how much the figure should be increased.
Geologists have attempted to estimate the length of geologic time from the deposition of
sedimentary rocks. This method of measuring time was recognized about 450 B.C. by the
Greek historian Herodotus after observing deposition by the Nile and realizing that its delta
was the result of repetitions of that process. Schuchert has assembled fifteen such estimates of
the age of the earth ranging from 3 to 1,584 million years with the majority falling near 100
million years. These are based upon the known thicknesses of sedimentary rocks and the
average time required to deposit one foot of sediment. The thicknesses as well as the rates of
deposition used by geologists in making these estimates vary. Recently Schuchert has
compiled for North America the known maximum thicknesses of sedimentary rocks deposited
since the beginning of Cambrian time and found them to be 259,000 feet, about 50 miles. This
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thickness may be increased as other information accumulates, but the real difficulty with the
method is to decide on a representative rate of deposition, because modern streams vary
considerably in the amount of sediment deposited. In past geological periods the amount
deposited may have varied even more, depending on the height of the continents above sea
level, the kind of sediment transported, and other factors. But even if we knew exact values
for the thickness of PreCambrian and PostCambrian rocks and for the average rate of
deposition, the figure so obtained would not give us the full length of time involved. At many
localities the rocks are separated by periods of erosion called unconformities, during which
the continents stood so high that the products of erosion were carried beyond the limits of the
present continents and “lost intervals” of unknown duration were recorded in the depositional
record. It is also recognized that underwater breaks or diastems caused by solution due to
acids in sea water and erosion by submarine currents may have reduced the original thickness
of some formations. Geologists appreciated these limitations and hoped that a method would
be discovered which would yield convincing evidence of the vast time recorded in rocks.
Unexpected help came from physicists studying the radioactive behavior of certain heavy
elements such as uranium, thorium, and actinium. These elements disintegrate with the
evolution of heat and give off particles at a constant rate that is not affected by high
temperatures and great pressures. Helium gas is liberated, radium is one of the intermediate
products, and the stable end product is lead with an atomic weight different from ordinary
lead. Eight stages have been established in the radium disintegration series, in which elements
of lower atomic weights are formed at a rate which has been carefully measured. Thus,
uranium with an atomic weight of 238 is progressively changed by the loss of positively
charged helium atoms each having an atomic weight of 4 until there is formed a stable
product, uranium lead with an atomic weight of 206. Knowing the uranium-lead ratio and the
rate at which atomic disintegration proceeds, it is possible to determine the time when the
uranium mineral crystallized and the age of the rock containing it. By this method the oldest
rock, which is of Archeozoic age, is 1,850,000,000 years old, while those of the latest
Cambrian are 450,000,000 years old. Allowing time for the deposition of the early Cambrian
formations, the beginning of the Paleozoic is estimated in round numbers at 500,000,000
years ago. This method dates the oldest intrusive rock thus far found to contain radioactive
minerals. But even older rocks occur on the earth’s surface, for they existed when these
intrusions penetrated them. How much time should be assigned to them, we have no accurate
way of judging. Recently attention has centered upon the radio activity of the isotopes of
potassium, which disintegrate into calcium with an atomic weight of 40 instead of 40.08 of
ordinary calcium. On this basis A. K. Brewer has calculated the age of the earth at not more
than 2,500,000,000 years, but there is some question that this method has the same order of
accuracy as the uranium-lead method. Geologists are satisfied with the time values now
allotted by physicists for the long intervals of mountain-making, erosion, and deposition by
which the earth gradually reached its present condition.
DIVISIONS OF GEOLOGICAL TIME
The rocks of the accessible part of the earth are divided into five major divisions or eras,
which are in the order of decreasing age, Archeozoic, Proterozoic, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and
Cenozoic. Superposition is the criterion of age. Each rock is considered younger than the one
on which it rests, provided there is no structural evidence to the contrary, such as overturning
or thrust faulting. As one looks at a tall building there is no doubt in the mind of the observer
that the top story was erected after the one on which it rests and is younger than it in order of
time. So it is in stratigraphy in which strata are arranged in an orderly sequence based upon
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their relative positions. Certainly the igneous and metamorphic rocks at the bottom of the
Grand Canyon are the oldest rocks exposed along the Colorado River in Arizona and each
successively higher formation is relatively younger than the one beneath it. The rocks of the
Mississippi Valley are inclined at various angles so that successively younger rocks overlap
from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. Strata are arranged in recognizable groups by
geologists utilizing a principle announced by William Smith in 1799. While surveying in
England Smith discovered that fossil shells of one geological formation were different from
those above and below. Once the vertical range and sequence of fossils are established the
relative position of each formation can be determined by its fossil content. By examining the
succession of rocks in various parts of the world it was found that the restriction of certain life
forms to definite intervals of deposition was world wide and occurred always in the same
order. Apparently certain organisms lived in the ocean or on the land for a time, then became
extinct and were succeeded by new forms that were usually higher in their development than
the ones whose places they inherited. Thus, the name assigned to each era implies the stage of
development of life on the earth during the interval in which the rocks accumulated. The eras
are subdivided into periods, which are grouped together in to indicate the highest forms of life
during that interval. As the rocks of increasingly younger periods are examined higher types
of life appear in the proper order, invertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, man.
From this it is evident that certain fossil forms limited to a definite vertical range may be used
as index fossils of that division of geological time. Also, in this table are given for each era
estimates of the beginning, duration, and thickness of sediments, based largely upon a report
of a Committee of the National Research Council on the Age of the Earth. At the close of and
within each era widespread mountain-making disturbances or revolutions took place, which
changed the distribution of land and sea and affected directly or indirectly the life of the sea
and the land. The close of the Paleozoic era brought with it the rise of the Appalachian
Mountains. It has been estimated that only 3 per cent of the Paleozoic forms of life survived
and lived on into the Mesozoic era. The birth of the Rocky Mountains at the close of the
Mesozoic was accompanied by widespread destruction of reptilian life. Faunal successions
responded noticeably to crustal disturbances.
UNCONFORMITIES. In subdividing rocks geologists have been guided by the periods of
erosion resulting from extensive mountain construction. Uplift of the continents causes the
shallow seas to withdraw from land thereby deepening the ocean and allowing erosion to start
on the evacuated land areas. Since all the oceans are connected, sea level throughout the
world was affected in many instances, leaving a record of crustal movements in the
depositional history of each of the continents. At many places the rocks of one era are
separated from those of another by unconformities or erosion intervals, in which miles of
rocks were eroded from the crests of folds before sedimentation was resumed on the truncated
edges of the mountain structure. There are four stages in the development of an angular
unconformity, so named because there is an angular difference between the bedding of the
lower series and that of the overlying series. If the series above and below an unconformity
consist of marine formations, four movements of the area relative to sea level took place. In
stage 1 the sandstones and shales comprise a conformable marine series, which was laid down
by continuous deposition with the bedding of one formation conforming to the next. We have
seen that the deposition of 24,000 feet of sediment requires repeated sinking of the area below
sea level. In stage 2 the region was folded and elevated above sea level, so that erosion could
take place. Since erosion starts as soon as the land develops an effective slope for corrosion,
there is no proof that this structure ever stood 24,000 feet high. But, the evidence is clear that
24,000 feet were eroded to produce the flat surface, shown in stage 3. In order that the over
lying marine series could be deposited the area had to be again submerged below sea level.
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Since the region now stands above sea level, a fourth movement is necessary. In some cases
crustal movement does not tilt or fold the beds, but merely elevates horizontal strata so that
erosion removes material and leaves an irregular surface on which sedimentation may be
resumed with the deposition of an overlying formation parallel to the first. An erosion interval
between parallel formations is a disconformity. But not all unconformities and
disconformities are confined to the close of eras. Local deformation and uplift caused erosion
between formations within the same era and within the same period. In the Grand Canyon
region Devonian rocks rest on the eroded surface of Cambrian formations. At other North
American and European localities Ordovician and Silurian rocks occupy this interval, so that
the disconformity within the Paleozoic era at this locality represents two whole periods. It is
only by carefully tracing the sequence of rocks of one region into another that the immensity
of geological time can be appreciated from stratigraphy.
Oils
There are three main groups of oils: animal, vegetable and mineral. Great quantities of animal
oil come from whales, those enormous creatures of the sea which are the largest remaining
animals in the world. To protect the whale from the cold of the Arctic seas, nature has
provided it with a thick covering of fat called blubber. When the whale is killed, the blubber is
stripped off and boiled down, either on board ship or on shore. It produces a great quantity of
oil which can be made into food foör human consumption. A few other creatures yield oil, but
none so much as the whale. The livers of the cod and the halibut, two kinds of fish, yield
nourishing oil. Both cod liver oil and halibut liver oil are given to sick children and other
invalids who need certain vitamins. These oils may be bought at any chemist’s.
Vegetable oil has been known from antiquity. No household can get on without it, for it is
used in cooking. Perfumes may be made from the oils of certain flowers. Soaps are made
from vegetable and animal oils.
To the ordinary man, one kind of oil may be as important as another. But when the politician
or the engineer refers to oil, he almost always means mineral oil, the oil that drives tanks,
aeroplanes and warships, motor-cars and diesel locomotives; the oil that is used to lubricate
all kinds of machinery. This is the oil that has changed the life of the common man. When it is
refined into petrol it is used to drive the internal combustion engine. To it we owe the
existence of the motorcar, which has replaced the private carriage drawn by the horse. To it
we owe the possibility of flying. It has changed the methods of warfare on land and sea. This
kind of oil comes out of the earth. Because it burns well, it is used as fuel and in some ways it
is superior to coal in this respect. Many big ships now burn oil instead of coal. Because it
burns brightly, it is used for illumination; countless homes are still illuminated with oilburning lamps. Because it is very slippery, it is used for lubrication. Two metal surfaces
rubbing together cause friction and heat; but if they are separated by a thin film of oil, the
friction and heat are reduced. No machine would work for long if it were not properly
lubricated. The oil used for this purpose must be of the correct thickness; if it is too thin it will
not give sufficient lubrication, and if it is too thick it will not reach all parts that must be
lubricated.
The existence of oil wells has been known for a long time. Some of the Indians of North
America used to collect and sell the oil from the wells of Pennsylvania. No one, however,
seems to have realised the importance of this oil until it was found that paraffin-oil could be
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made from it; this led to the development of the wells and to the making of enormous profits.
When the internal combustion engine was invented, oil became of worldwide importance.
What was the origin of the oil which now drives our motor-cars and air-craft? Scientists are
confident about the formation of coal, but they do not seem so sure when asked about oil.
They think that the oil under the surface of the earth originated in the distant past, and was
formed from living things in the sea. Countless billions of minute sea creatures and plants
lived and sank to the sea bed. They were covered with huge deposits of mud; and by
processes of chemistry, pressure and temperature were changed through long ages into what
we know as oil. For these creatures to become oil, it was necessary that they should be
imprisoned between layers of rock for an enormous length of time. The statement that oil
originated in the sea is confirmed by a glance at a map showing the chief oilfields of the
world; very few of them are far distant from the oceans of today. In some places gas and oil
come up to the surface of the sea from its bed. The rocks in which oil is found are of marine
origin too. They are sedimentary rocks, rocks which were laid down by the action of water on
the bed of the ocean. Almost always the remains of shells, and other proofs of sea life, are
found close to the oil. A very common sedimentary rock is called shale, which is a soft rock
and was obviously formed by being deposited on the sea bed. And where there is shale there
is likely to be oil.
Geologists, scientists who study rocks, indicate the likely places to the oil drillers. In some
cases oil comes out of the ground without any drilling at all and has been used for hundreds of
years. In the island of Trinidad the oil is in the form of asphalt, a substance used for making
roads. Sir Walter Raleigh visited the famous pitch lake of Trinidad in 1595; it is said to
contain nine thousand million tons of asphalt. There are probably huge quantities of crude oil
beneath the surface.
The king of the oilfield is the driller. He is a very skilled man. Sometimes he sends his drill
more than a mile into the earth. During the process of drilling, gas and oil at great pressure
may suddenly be met, and if this rushes out and catches fire the oil well may never be brought
into operation at all. This danger is well known and steps are always taken to prevent it.
There is a lot of luck in drilling for oil. The drill may just miss the oil although it is near; on
the other hand, it may strike oil at a fairly high level. When the drill goes down, it brings up
soil. The samples of soil from various depths are examined for traces of oil. If they are
disappointed at one place, the drillers go to another. Great sums of money have been spent,
for example in the deserts of Egypt, in ‘prospecting’ for oil. Sometimes little is found. When
we buy a few gallons of petrol for our cars, we pay not only the cost of the petrol, but also
part of the cost of the search that is always going on.
When the crude oil is obtained from the field, it is taken to the refineries to be treated. The
commonest form of treatment is heating. When the oil is heated, the first vapours to rise are
cooled and become the finest petrol. Petrol has a low boiling point; if a little is poured into the
hand, it soon vaporizes. Gas that comes off the oil later is condensed into paraffin. Last of all
the lubricating oils of various grades are produced. What remains is heavy oil that is used as
fuel.
There are four main areas of the world where deposits of oil appear. The first is that of the
Middle East, and includes the regions near the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea, the Red Sea and
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the Persian Gulf. Another is the area between North and South America, and the third,
between Asia and Australia, includes the islands of Sumatra, Borneo and Java.
The fourth area is the part near the North Pole. When all the present oil-fields are exhausted, it
is possible that this cold region may become the scene of oil activity. Yet the difficulties will
be great, and the costs may be so high that no company will undertake the work. If progress in
using atomic power to drive machines is fast enough, it is possible that oil-driven engines may
give place to the new kind of engine. In that case the demand for oil will fall, the oilfields will
gradually disappear, and the deposits at the North Pole may rest where they are for ever.
(From Power and Progress by G. C. Thornley (Longman))
The use of land
A very important world problem - in fact, I am inclined to say it is the most important of all
the great world problems which face us at the present time - is the rapidly increasing pressure
of population on land and on land resources.
It is not so much the actual population of the world but its rate of increase which is important.
It works out to be about 1.6 per cent per annum net increase. In terms of numbers this means
something like forty to fifty-five million additional people every year. Canada has a
population of twenty million - rather less than six months' climb in world population. Take
Australia. There are ten million people in Australia. So, it takes the world less than three
months to add to itself a population which peoples that vast country. Let us take our own
crowded country - England and Wales: forty-five to fifty million people - just about a year's
supply.
By this time tomorrow, and every day, there will be added to the earth about 120,000 extra
people - just about the population of the city of York.
I am not talking about birth rate. This is net increase. To give you some idea of birth rate, look
at the seconds hand of your watch. Every second three babies are born somewhere in the
world. Another baby! Another baby! Another baby! You cannot speak quickly enough to keep
pace with the birth rate.
This enormous increase of population will create immense problems. By A.D. 2000, unless
something desperate happens, there will be as many as 7,000,000,000 people on the surface of
this earth! So this is a problem which you are going to see in your lifetime.
Why is this enormous increase in population taking place? It is really due to the spread of the
knowledge and the practice of what is coming to be called Death Control. You have heard of
Birth Control? Death Control is something rather different. Death Control recognizes the
work of the doctors and the nurses and the hospitals and the health services in keeping alive
people who, a few years ago, would have died of some of the incredibly serious killing
diseases, as they used to be. Squalid conditions, which we can remedy by an improved
standard of living, caused a lot of disease and dirt. Medical examinations at school catch
diseases early and ensure healthier school children. Scientists are at work stamping out
malaria and other more deadly diseases. If you are seriously ill there is an ambulance to take
you to a modern hospital. Medical care helps to keep people alive longer. We used to think
seventy was a good age; now eighty, ninety, it may be, are coming to be recognized as a
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normal age for human beings. People are living longer because of this Death Control, and
fewer children are dying, so the population of the world is shooting up.
Imagine the position if you and I and everyone else living on earth shared the surface between
us. How much should we have each? It would be just over twelve acres - the sort of size of a
small holding. But not all that is useful land which is going to produce food. We can cut out
one-fifth of it, for example, as being too cold. That is land which is covered with ice and snow
- Antarctica and Greenland and the great frozen areas of northern Canada. Then we can cut
out another fifth as being too dry - the great deserts of the world like the Sahara and the heart
of Australia and other areas where there is no known water supply to feed crops and so to
produce food. Then we can cut out another fifth as being too mountainous or with too great an
elevation above sea level. Then we can cut out another tenth as land which has insufficient
soil, probably just rock at the surface. Now, out of the twelve acres only about four are left as
suitable for producing food. But not all that is used. It includes land with enough soil and
enough rainfall or water, and enough heat which, at present, we are not using, such as, for
example, the great Amazon forests and the Congo forest and the grasslands of Africa. How
much are we actually using? Only a little over one acre is what is required to support one
human being on an average at the present time.
Now we come to the next point, and that is, the haves and the have-nots amongst the countries
of the world. The standard share per person for the world is a little over twelve acres per head;
potentially usable, about four acres; and actually used about 1.1 acre. We are very often told
in Britain to take the United States as an example of what is done or what might be done.
Every little American is born into this world with a heritage of the home country, the
continental United States, of just about the world average - about twelve acres. We can
estimate that probably some six acres of the total of twelve of the American homeland is
cultivable in the sense I have just given you. But the amount actually used - what the
Americans call 'improved land' in crops and pasture on farms - is three and a half acres. So the
Americans have over three times the world average of land on which to produce food for
themselves. On that land they produce more food than they actually require, so they have a
surplus for export.
Now suppose we take the United States' great neighbour to the north, Canada. Every
Canadian has 140 acres to roam around in. A lot of it is away in the frozen north, but there is
still an enormous area of land in Canada waiting to be settled and developed. The official
figure is twenty-two acres. The Canadians use at the moment four acres, and they too have a
large food surplus available for export.
Now turn to our own country. Including land of all sorts, there is just over one acre per head
in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That is why we have to be so
very careful with it. How much do we actually use? Just over half an acre to produce food that is as farm land. The story is much the same if you separate off Northern Ireland and
Scotland and just take England and Wales. In this very crowded country, we have only 0.8
acres per head of land of all sorts to do everything with which we need. That is why we have
to think so very carefully of this problem.
India, with 2.5 acres per head, has considerably more land than we have in this country. Not
all of it is usable for food production. But there is land which could be reclaimed by modern
methods, that is being tackled at the present time. The crucial figure is the actual area in
agricultural use - three-quarters of an acre! The yields from this land are low, methods of
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production are primitive, and that is why the Indians are so very near the starvation level for
almost every year of their lives. But they are not as badly off where land is concerned as
Japan.
The Japanese figures are the same as our own country in overall land - 1.1 acres per person but it is a very mountainous country with volcanoes, and so much less is cultivable. Less than
a fifth of an acre - 0.17 of an acre - is under cultivation. You see at once the tremendous land
problem which there is in Japan.
There is a great variation, of course, in the intensity with which land is used. In the United
States they are extravagant in the use of land and take, perhaps, twenty times as much to feed
one person as in Japan. You may talk about the Japanese agriculture being twenty times as
efficient as the American, but that raises a lot of questions.
The intensive cultivation characteristic of Japan uses every little bit of land and only the
barren hillsides are not required. Much of the agriculture is based on rice. The farm workers
plant by hand every individual rice plant, and this kind of intensive cultivation enables the
Japanese to support seven persons per acre.
By contrast, think of the ranch lands in North and South America, with animals ranging over
immense tracts of land. A diet of beef and of milk is extravagant of land ; in other words, it
takes a lot of land for the number of calories produced. In this sense it is less efficient than the
Japanese rice-growing agriculture. But not everyone likes eating rice.
Where the sea is concerned, we are scarcely, at the present time, out of the old Stone Age. In
the Stone Age, the people simply went out, killed wild animals - if they were lucky - and had
a good meal; if they were unlucky they just went hungry. At the present day, we do almost the
same thing in the sea, hunting wild fish from boats. In the future, perhaps, we shall cultivate
the sea; we shall grow small fish and fish spawn in tanks, take them to the part of the ocean
where we want them, let them grow to the right size, and harvest them. This is not fantasy,
because, at the present time, fish are being cultivated like that in ponds and tanks in India, and
various parts of the Far East so that the people there have a supply of protein. There is a great
development possible.
A lot of things are going to happen in the next fifty years. It is enormously important to
increase the yield of grain plants and a great deal has happened through the work of the
geneticists in the last few years. For instance, there has been an enormous world increase in
the production of what Americans call corn (maize to us) due to the development of new
strains. Throughout agriculture geneticists are improving plants to get higher yields.
From 'Using Land Wisely' Discovery (Granada Television, 1961)
HISTORY
THE NATURE, OBJECT AND PURPOSE OF HISTORY
I shall therefore propound answers to my four questions such as I think any present-day
historian would accept. Here they will be rough and ready answers, but they will serve for a
provisional definition of our subject-matter and they will be defended and elaborated as the
argument proceeds.
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(a) What is history? Every historian would agree, I think, that history is a kind of research or
inquiry. What kind of inquiry it is I do not yet ask. The point is that generically it belongs to
what we call the sciences: that is, the forms of thought whereby we ask questions and try to
answer them. Science in general, it is important to realize, does not consist in collecting what
we already know and arranging it in this or that kind of pattern. It consists in fastening upon
something we do not know, and trying to discover it. Playing patience with things we already
know may be a useful means towards this end, but it is not the end itself. It is at best only the
means. It is scientifically valuable only in so far as the new arrangement gives us the answer
to a question we have already decided to ask. That is why all science begins from the
knowledge of our own ignorance: not our ignorance of everything, but our ignorance of some
definite thing-the origin of parliament, the cause of cancer, the chemical composition of the
sun, the way to make a pump work without muscular exertion on the part of a man or a horse
or some other docile animal. Science is finding things out: and in that sense history is a
science.
(b) What is the object of history? One science differs from another in that it finds out things of
a different kind. What kinds of things does history find out? I answer, res gestae: actions of
human beings that have been done in the past. Although this answer raises all kinds of further
questions
many of which are controversial, still, however they may be answered, the answers do not
discredit the proposition that history is the science of res gestae, the attempt to answer
questions about human actions done in the past.
(c) How does history proceed? History proceeds by the interpretation of evidence: where
evidence is a collective name for things which singly are called documents, and a document is
a thing existing here and now, of such a kind that the historian, by thinking about it, can get
answers to the questions he asks about past events. Here again there are plenty of difficult
questions to ask as to what the characteristics of evidence are and how it is interpreted. But
there is no need for us to raise them at this stage. However they are answered, historians will
agree that historical procedure, or method, consists essentially of interpreting evidence.
(d) Lastly, what is history for? This is perhaps a harder question than the others; a man who
answers it will have to reflect rather more widely than a man who answers the three we have
answered already. He must reflect not only on historical thinking but on other things as well,
because to say that something is `for' something implies a distinction between A and B, where
A is good for something and B is that for which something is good. But I will suggest an
answer, and express the opinion that no historian would reject it, although the further
questions to which it gives rise are numerous and difficult.
My answer is that history is `for' human self-knowledge. It is generally thought to be of
importance to man that he should know himself: where knowing himself means knowing not
his merely personal peculiarities, the things that distinguish him from other men, but his
nature as man. Knowing yourself means knowing, first, what it is to be a man; secondly,
knowing what it is to be the kind of man you are; and thirdly, knowing what it is to be the
man you are and nobody else is. Knowing yourself means knowing what you can do; and
since nobody knows what he can do until he tries, the only clue to what man can do is what
man has done. The value of history, then, is that it teaches us what man has done and thus
what man is.
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(From The idea of history, by R. G. Collingwood.)
THE EXPANSION OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION
The predominance of the Western civilization throughout he world on the eve of the fateful
year 194 was, indeed, both recent and unprecedented. It was unprecedented in this sense-that,
though many civilizations before that of Europe had radiated their influence far beyond their
original homelands, none had previously cast its net right round the globe.
The civilization of Eastern orthodox Christendom, which grew up in mediaeval Byzantium,
had been carried by the Russians to the Pacific; but, so far from spreading westwards, it had
itself succumbed to Western influence since the close of the seventeenth century. The
civilization of Islam had expanded from the Middle East to Central Asia and Central Africa,
to the Atlantic coast of Morocco and the Pacific coasts of the East Indies, but it had obtained
no permanent foothold in Europe and had never crossed the Atlantic into the New World. The
civilization of ancient Greece and Rome had extended its political dominion into NorthWestern Europe under the Roman Empire and its artistic inspiration into India and the Far
East, where the Graeco-Roman models had stimulated the development of Buddhist art. Yet
the Roman Empire and the Chinese Empire had co-existed on the face of the same planet for
two centuries with scarcely any direct intercourse, either political or economic. It was the
same with the other ancient civilizations. Ancient India radiated her religion, her art, her
commerce and her colonists into the Far East and the East Indies, but never penetrated the
West. As far as we know for certain, the only civilization that has ever yet become worldwide
is ours.
Moreover, this is a very recent event. Nowadays we are apt to forget that Western Europe
made two unsuccessful attempts to expand before she eventually succeeded.
The first of these attempts was the mediaeval movement in the Mediterranean for which the
most convenient general name is the Crusades. In the Crusades, the attempt to impose the
political and economic dominion of West Europeans upon other peoples ended in a complete
failure, while, in the interchange of culture, the West Europeans received a greater impress
from the Muslims and Byzantines than they imparted to them. The second attempt was that of
the Spaniards and Portuguese in the sixteenth century of our era. This was more or less
successful in the New World, but, elsewhere, Western civilization, as propagated by the
Spaniards and Portuguese, was rejected after about a century's trial.
The third attempt was begun in the seventeenth century by the Dutch, French and English, and
these three West European nations were the principal authors of the world-wide ascendancy
that our Western civilization was enjoying in 1914. By 1914 the network of European trade
and European means of communication had become world-wide. On the plane of politics, the
European nations had not only colonized the New World, but had conquered India and
tropical Africa.
The political ascendancy of Europe, however, though outwardly even more imposing than her
economic ascendancy, was really more precarious. The daughter-nations overseas had already
set their feet firmly on the road towards independent nationhood. The United States and the
Latin American Republics had long since established their independence by revolutionary
wars; and the self-governing British Dominions were in the process of establishing theirs by
peaceful evolution. In India and tropical Africa, European domination was being maintained
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by a handful of Europeans who lived there as pilgrims and sojourners. They had not found it
possible to acclimatize themselves sufficiently to bring up their children in the tropics; this
meant that the hold of Europeans upon the tropics had not been made independent of a
European base of operations. Finally, the cultural influence of the West European civilization
upon Russians, Muslims, Hindus, Chinese, Japanese, and tropical Africans was so recent a
ferment that it was not yet possible to predict whether it would evaporate without permanent
effect, or whether it would turn the dough sour, or whether it would successfully leaven the
lump.
This then, in very rough outline, was the position of Europe in the world on the eve of the
War of 1914-1918. She was in the enjoyment of an undisputed ascendancy, and the peculiar
civilization which she had built up for herself was in process of becoming world-wide. Yet
this position, brilliant though it was, was not merely unprecedented and recent; it was also
insecure. It was insecure chiefly because, at the very time when European expansion was
approaching its climax, the foundations of West European civilization had been broken up
and the great deeps loosed by the release and emergence of two elemental forces in European
social life-the forces of industrialism and democracy, which were brought into a merely
temporary and unstable equilibrium by the formula of nationalism. It is evident that a Europe
which was undergoing a terrific double strain of this inward transformation and outward
expansion-both on the heroic scale-could not with impunity squander her resources, spend her
material wealth and man-power unproductively, or exhaust her muscular and nervous energy.
If her total command of resources was considerably greater than that which any other
civilization had ever enjoyed, these resources were relative to the calls upon them; and the
liabilities of Europe on the eve of 1914, as well as her assets, were of an unprecedented
magnitude. Europe could not afford to wage even one World War; and when we take stock of
her position in the world after a Second World War and compare it with her position before
1914, we are confronted with a contrast that is staggering to the imagination.
(From Civilization on Trial, by Arnold Toynbee)
THE CAREER OF JENGHIS KHAN
We have now to tell of the last and greatest of all the raids of nomadism upon the civilizations
of the East and West. We have traced in this history the development side by side of these two
ways of living, and we have pointed out that as the civilizations grew more extensive and
better organized, the arms, the mobility, and the intelligence of the nomads also improved.
The nomad was not simply an uncivilized man, he was a man specialized and specializing
along his own line. From the very beginning of history the nomad and the settled people have
been in reaction. Whenever civilization seems to be choking amidst its weeds of wealth and
debt and servitude, when its faiths seem rotting into cynicism and its powers of further growth
are hopelessly entangled in effete formulae, the nomad drives in like a plough to break up the
festering stagnation and release the world to new beginnings. The Mongol aggression, which
began with the thirteenth century, was the greatest, and so far it has been the last, of all these
destructive ploughings of human association.
From entire obscurity the Mongols came very suddenly into history towards the close of the
twelfth century. They appeared in the country to the north of China, in the land of origin of
the Huns and Turks, and they were manifestly of the same strain as these peoples. They were
gathered together under a chief; under his son Jenghis Khan their power grew with
extraordinary swiftness.
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The career of Jenghis Khan and his immediate successors astounded the world, and probably
astounded no one more than these Mongol Khans themselves. The Mongols were in the
twelfth century a tribe subject to those Kin who had conquered North-east China. They were a
horde of nomadic horsemen living in tents, and subsisting mainly upon mare's milk products
and meat. Their occupations were pasturage and hunting, varied by war. They drifted
northward as the snows melted for summer pasture, and southward to winter pasture after the
custom of the steppes. Their military education began with a successful insurrection against
the Kin. The empire of Kin had the resources of half' China behind it and in the struggle the
Mongols learnt very much of the military science of the Chinese. By the end of the twelfth
century they were already a fighting tribe of exceptional quality.
The opening years of the career of Jenghis were spent in developing his military machine, in
assimilating the Mongols and the associated tribes about them into an organised army. His
first considerable extension of power was westward, when the Tartar Kirghis and the Uigurs
(who were the Tartar people of the Tarim basin) were not so much conquered as induced to
join his organisation. He then attacked the Kin empire and took Pekin (1214). The Khitan
people, who had been so recently subdued by the Kin, threw in their fortunes with his, and
were of very great help to him. The settled Chinese population went on sowing and reaping
and trading during this change of masters without lending its weight to either side.
We have already mentioned the very recent Kharismian empire of Turkestan, Persia and
North India. This empire extended eastward to Kashgar, and it must have seemed one of the
most progressive and hopeful empires of the time. Jenghis Khan, while still engaged in this
war with the Kin empire, sent envoys to Kharismia. They were put to death, an almost
incredible stupidity. The Kharismian government, to use the political jargon of today, had
decided not to `recognize' Jenghis Khan and took this spirited course with him. Thereupon
(1218) the great host of horsemen that Jenghis Khan had consolidated swept over the Pamirs
and down into Turkestan. It was well armed, and probably it had some guns and gunpowder
for siege work-for the Chinese were certainly using gunpowder at this time, and the Mongols
learnt its use from them. Kashgar, Khokand, Bokhara fell and then Samarkand, the capital of
the Kharismian empire. Thereafter nothing held the Mongols in the Kharismian territories.
They swept westward to the Caspian, and southward as far as Lahore. To the north of the
Caspian a Mongol army encountered a Russian force from Kieff. There was a series of battles,
in which the Russian armies were finally defeated and the Grand Duke of Kieff was taken
prisoner. So it was that the Mongols appeared on the northern shores of the Black Sea. A
panic swept Constantinople, which set itself to reconstruct its fortifications. Meanwhile other
armies were engaged in the conquest of the empire of the Hsia in China. This was annexed,
and only the southern part of the Kin empire remained unsubdued. In 1227 Jenghis Khan died
in the midst of a career of triumph. His empire reached already from the Pacific to the
Dnieper. And it was an empire still vigorously expanding.
Like all empires founded by nomads, it was, to begin with, purely a military and
administrative empire, a framework rather than a rule. It centred on the personality of the
monarch, and its relations with the mass of the population over which it ruled was simply one
of taxation for the maintenance of the horde. But Jenghis Khan had called to his aid a very
able and experienced administrator of the Kin empire, who was learned in all the traditions
and science of the Chinese. This statesman, Yeliu Chutsai, was able to carry on the affairs of
the Mongols long after the death of Jenghis Khan, and there can be little doubt that he is one
of the great political heroes of history. He tempered the barbaric ferocity of his masters, and
saved innumerable cities and works of art from destruction. He collected archives and
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inscriptions, and when he was accused of corruption, his sole wealth was found to consist of
documents and a few musical instruments. To him perhaps quite as much as to Jenghis is the
efficiency of the Mongol military machine to be ascribed. Under Jenghis, we may note
further, we find the completest religious toleration established across the entire breadth of
Asia.
(From The Outline of History, by H G Wells)
THE TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF CHARLES I
JANUARY, 1649
Officers and men had come home from the war in a fierce mood, prepared to commit any
violence. Colonel Pride and his musqueteers, stationed at the door of the Com-mons, excluded
some hundred members and carried off nearly fifty more to prison. On January 4th, 1649, the
Rump that remained, not one hundred strong, passed this resolution:
That the people are, under God, the original of all just power: and that the Commons
of England, in Parliament assembled, being chosen by and representing the people,
have the supreme power in this nation; that whatsoever is enacted or declared for law
by the Commons in Parliament assembled, hath the force of law, and all the people of
this nation are concluded thereby, although the consent of the King or House of Peers
be not had thereunto.
In logical accordance with these new principles, it was voted a few weeks later that the House
of Lords was 'useless and dangerous and ought to be abolished'. The King disappeared from
the constitution by a yet more signal and symbolic act. 'We will cut off his head', said
Cromwell, 'with the crown upon it.'
The Commons appointed a Commission to try Charles Stuart. Unless the theoretic declaration
of the omnipotence of the Lower House held good by 'the Law of Nature', this Commission
had no legal power. Furthermore, Charles had committed no legal crime. Law and pity, would
both plead on his side. His own outward dignity and patience made his appeal to pity and law
the most effective appeal in that sort that is recorded in the history of England. Law and pity
were known of old to Englishmen; the new ideas ranged against these two powerful pleaders
were new and strange. The sovereignty of the people and the equality of man with man in the
scales of justice were first ushered into the world of English politics by this deed. Against
them stood the old-world ideals, as Charles proclaimed them from the scaffold with his dying
breath:
For the people (he said, as he looked out into eternity) truly I desire their liberty and freedom
as much as anybody whatsoever; but I must tell you, their liberty and freedom consists in
having government, those laws by which their lives and goods may be most their own. It is
not their having a share in the government; that is nothing appertaining to them. A subject and
a sovereign are clear different things.
That, indeed, was the issue. Those who sought to substitute a better theory of government for
that proclaimed by Charles as his legacy to England did not pause to consider that the people,
for whose new-born sovereignty they struck, was heart and soul against the deed. By the side
of this objection, the charge that they acted 'by no law' shrinks to insignificance. They were
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striving to make a law of democracy, and could not be expected to effect this by observing the
old laws. But their fault lay in this, that the new law by which they condemned Charles, while
it claimed to derive from the people of England, did not, save in theory, derive from that
source at all. When the bleeding head was held up; the shout of the soldiers was drowned in
the groans of the vast multitude.
If there was any chance that the establishment of a more democratic form of government
could gradually win the sup-port of the people at large, that chance was thrown away by the
execution of the King. The deed was done against the wish of many even of the Independents
and Republicans; it outraged beyond hope of reconciliation the two parties in the state who
were strong in numbers and conservative tradition, the Presbyterians and the Cavaliers; and it
alienated the great mass of men who had no party at all. Thus the Republicans, at the outset of
their career, made it impossible for themselves ever to appeal in free election to the people
whom they had called to sovereignty.
It is much easier to show that the execution was a mistake and a crime (and it certainly was
both) than to show what else should have been done. Any other course, if considered in the
light of the actual circumstances, seems open to the gravest objection. The situation at the end
of 1648 was this - that any sort of government by consent had been rendered impossible for
years to come, mainly by the untrustworthy character of the King, and by the intolerant action
of Parliament after the victory won for it by the Army. Cromwell had advocated a real
settlement by consent, only to have it rejected by King, Parliament, and Army alike. The
situation had thereby been rendered impossible, through no fault of his.
(From England under the Stuarts by G. M. Trevelyan)
PETER THE GREAT
The impact of Peter the Great upon Muscovy was like that of a peasant hitting a horse with
his fist. Muscovy bore many of the marks permanently and henceforward she became known
as Russia. Yet his reforms, for all their importance, did not create a new form of state: they
were to a large extent the very rapid and energetic extension of ideas and practices already to
be found in the generation before him. The old and the new continued to live on, in part
conflicting, in part coalescing. Tsarism in his lifetime received a new stamp owing to his
wholly exceptional character and abilities, but its functioning remained as before dependent
upon different sec-tions of the landed class and the machinery of government. Peter did not
introduce the idea of the service state; he pushed it to extremes, enforced compulsory service
in the army, navy, and government on the landowners and himself set the example as the first
servant of the state. He wrote of himself with full justification: 'I have not spared and I do not
spare my life for my fatherland and people.'
Peter was repellent in his brutality, coarseness and utter disregard of human life; but he was
mightily propellent, through his ever-flaming energy and will-power, his insatiable curiosity
and love of experiment, his refusal to accept any defeat and his capacity to launch, however
crudely and over-hastily at first, great schemes on an immense, however wasteful, scale. From
earliest childhood his over-riding personal interest was the art of war, by sea as well as by
land; but he understood it in the widest sense as involving the full utilization of the human and
material resources of his country. He was at war for twenty-eight consecutive years, from
1695. He began when he was twenty-four; when he finally had peace he was fifty-two and
had little more than a year to live.
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Almost all Peter's reforms were born of military and naval
requirements. Russia must be westernized in order to ensure the 'two necessary things in
government, namely order and defence'. His task was, again, as he himself put it, to convert
his subjects from 'beasts into human beings', from 'children into adults'. His strongest modern
critics allow that he was inspired by devotion to Russia, not by personal ambition, and that he
aimed at inculcating by example and precept rational ideas of citizenship in terms of efficient,
and therefore educated, service to the state, in contrast with blind service to a sacrosanct ruler
throned far away on high in the hallowed veneration of Muscovite ceremonial.
His reforms until about 1715 were imposed piecemeal, chaotically and (as he himself
admitted) far too hastily, in dependence on the urgent pressure of the moment. He was
constantly scrapping or remodelling this or that portion of his own handiwork in frantic search
for more recruits, more labour, more revenue, more munitions. In his last dozen years, when
war was less onerous and his contacts with the West were closer, the peremptory edicts, often
conflicting with each other, gave way to systematic, carefully elaborated legislation that
remoulded state and church alike. His brutal violence, the enormous demands that he exacted
and his external flouting of national ways and prejudices supplied fertile ground for
opposition. He had to crush in blood four serious risings, and he condemned to death his own
son and heir, Alexis, on the ground of his being the ringleader of reaction (Q18). In actuality
Alexis was a passive creature who was only hoping for his father's death in terrified fear of
his own. The opposition was leaderless; and as well it was too heterogeneous; almost all
interests in Russia were divided between supporters and opponents of Peter.
He aimed at transforming tsarism into a European kind of absolute monarchy, and to a
considerable extent he succeeded. Russia was never the same again, even though the pace was
too hot and there was regress after his death. He declared himself to be 'an absolute monarch
who does not have to answer for any of his actions to anyone in the world; but he has power
and authority for the purpose of governing his states and lands according to his will and wise
decision as a Christian sovereign'. This version of enlightened despotism, typically enough,
appeared in Peter's new code for the army (1716). The creation of a national standing army on
Western models was one of the most fundamental of his legacies, and the links of tsarism with
military power and the military spirit were henceforth knitted even more closely than before.
One external sign is significant. Peter himself almost always appeared as a soldier or sailor
(when not dressed as a mechanic) and all succeeding emperors did likewise; his predecessors
(when not hunting) had usually appeared in hieratic pomp, half tsar, half high-priest.
No tsar has made such a lasting impression on Russia as Peter, whether in his works or his
personality. He was an unheard-of tsar-for some no tsar at all, but Antichrist. He brought the
tsar to earth and entwined himself in the hopes and fears and groans of his subjects as a dark
and terrible force, rooting up the past, putting to rout the Swedes; as a ruler such as they had
never conceived before, to be seen throughout the length and breadth of the land, immense in
stature, with his tireless stride that was more of a run and his huge calloused hands of which
he was so proud; a ruler who went into battle as a bombardier, who wielded an axe as well as
any of his subjects, who could kill a man with a single blow of his fist-and on occasion did.
He made Russia conscious of great destiny, and ever since Europe and Asia have had to
reckon with her.
(From Survey of Russian History, by B. H. Sumner)
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THE UNITED STATES IN 1790
In the physiographic features of the settled part of America there was a certain uniformity.
The coast-line was low and un-inviting, except in northern New England, where it had
something of the rugged picturesqueness of the western coast of Britain. South of New York
stretched a long succession of barrier beaches in flattish curves, parting at the entrances of the
great bays of Chesapeake and Delaware, and enclosing the shallow lagoons of Albemarle and
Pamlico. A vast forest of conifers and hardwood swept up from the coast over the crest of the
Appalachians, and down to the Great Lakes, the prairies of Illinois, the savannahs of the lower
Mississippi, and the Gulf of Mexico. Except for natural meadows along the rivers, open
country did not exist in the land that the English colonists wrested from the Indians. Their
farms had been cleared from the forest; and it was still too early to aver that the colonists had
conquered the forest. Volney wrote that during his journey in 1796 through the length and
breadth of the United States he scarcely travelled for more than three miles together on open
and cleared land. 'Compared with France, the entire country is one vast wood.' Only in
southern New England, and the eastern portion of the Middle States, did the cultivated area
exceed the woodland; and the clearings became less frequent as one approached the
Appalachians.
Like western Europe, the United States lies wholly within the northern temperate zone, and
the belt of prevailing westerly winds. The earliest European explorers had passed it by for the
Caribbean and the St. Lawrence because they were seeking tropical plantations, fur-trading
posts, and fishing stations. Their successors, in search of farm-lands, found the greater part of
the Thirteen Colonies suitable for life and labour as are few portions of the non-European
world. Yet the climate of the area settled by 1790 is in many respects unlike that of Europe.
Westerly winds reach it across a continent, without the moisture and the tempering of the
Atlantic. North-west is the prevailing wind in winter, and south-west in summer.
Consequently the summers are everywhere hotter than in the British Isles, and the winters,
north of Virginia, colder; the extremes of heat and cold in the same season are greater; the
rainfall less, although adequate for animal and plant life. Near the sea-coast a sea-turn in the
wind may soften outlines, but inland the dry air, clear sky, and brilliant sunlight foreshorten
distant prospects, and make the landscape sharp and hard.
In most parts of the United States the weather is either fair or foul. It rains or shines with a
businesslike intensity; in comparison, the weather of the British Isles is perpetually unsettled.
In the coastal plain of the Carolinas and the Gulf, there is a soft gradation between the
seasons, and a languor in the air; else-where, the transition from a winter of ice and snow to a
summer of almost tropical heat is abrupt.
Our spring gits everythin' in tune
An' gives one leap from April into June
wrote Lowell. Except where the boreal forest of conifers maintains its sombre green, the sharp
dry frosts of October turn the forest to a tapestry of scarlet and gold, crimson and russet. High
winds strip the leaves in November, and by New Year's day the country north of Baltimore,
along the Appalachians, and east of the Sierras, should be tucked into a blanket of snow.
(From History of the United States by S. E. Morison)
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Civilisation and History
Most of the people who appear most often and most gloriously in the history books are great
conquerors and generals and soldiers, whereas the people who really helped civilization
forward are often never mentioned at all. We do not know who first set a broken leg, or
launched a seaworthy boat, or calculated the length of the year, or manured a field; but we
know all about the killers and destroyers. People think a great deal of them, so much so that
on all the highest pillars in the great cities of the world you will find the figure of a conqueror
or a general or a soldier. And I think most people believe that the greatest countries are those
that have beaten in battle the greatest number of other countries and ruled over them as
conquerors. It is just possible they are, but they are not the most civilized. Animals fight; so
do savages; hence to be good at fighting is to be good in the way in which an animal or a
savage is good, but it is not to be civilized. Even being good at getting other people to fight
for you and telling them how to do it most efficiently - this, after all, is what conquerors and
generals have done - is not being civilized. People fight to settle quarrels. Fighting means
killing, and civilized peoples ought to be able to find some way of settling their disputes other
than by seeing which side can kill off the greater number of the other side, and then saying
that that side which has killed most has won. And not only has won, but, because it has won,
has been in the right. For that is what going to war means; it means saying that might is right.
That is what the story of mankind has on the whole been like. Even our own age has fought
the two greatest wars in history, in which millions of people were killed or mutilated. And
while today it is true that people do not fight and kill each other in the streets - while, that is to
say, we have got to the stage of keeping the rules and behaving properly to each other in daily
life - nations and countries have not learnt to do this yet, and still behave like savages.
But we must not expect too much. After all, the race of men has only just started. From the
point of view of evolution, human beings are very young children indeed, babies, in fact, of a
few months old. Scientists reckon that there has been life of some sort on the earth in the form
of jellyfish and that kind of creature for about twelve hundred million years; but there have
been men for only one million years, and there have been civilized men for about eight
thousand years at the outside. These figures are difficult to grasp; so let us scale them down.
Suppose that we reckon the whole past of living creatures on the earth as one hundred years;
then the whole past of man works out at about one month, and during that month there have
been civilizations for between seven and eight hours. So you see there has been little time to
learn in, but there will be oceans of time in which to learn better. Taking man's civilized past
at about seven or eight hours, we may estimate his future, that is to say, the whole period
between now and when the sun grows too cold to maintain life any longer on the earth, at
about one hundred thousand years. Thus mankind is only at the beginning of its civilized life,
and as I say, we must not expect too much. The past of man has been on the whole a pretty
beastly business, a business of fighting and bullying and gorging and grabbing and hurting.
We must not expect even civilized peoples not to have done these things. All we can ask is
that they will sometimes have done something else.
From The Story of Civilization by C. E. M. Joad (A. D. Peters & Co. 1962)
Coal
The rapid growth of steam power relied directly on large supplies of its only fuel: coal. There
was a great increase in the amount of coal mined in Britain.
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Coal was still cut by hand and the pits introduced few really new techniques. The increased
demand was met by employing more miners and by making them dig deeper. This was made
possible by more efficient steam pumps and steam-driven winding engines which used wire
ropes to raise the coal to the surface, by better ventilation and by the miner's safety lamp
which detected some dangerous gases. By the 1830s scams well below 1000 feet were being
worked in south Durham and the inland coalfields of Lancashire and Staffordshire. Central
Scotland and south Wales were mined more intensively later. By the end of the nineteenth
century the best and most accessible seams were worked out. As the miners followed the
eastern scams of the south Yorkshire-north Midlands area, which dipped further below the
surface, shafts of 3,000 feet were not uncommon.
Some of the work in mines was done by women and children. Boys and girls were often put in
charge of the winding engines or of opening and shutting the trap doors which controlled the
ventilation of the mines. Then they had to crouch all day in the same spot by themselves in the
dark. When these evils were at last publicized in 1842 by a Royal Commission, many mines
no longer employed women, but Parliament made it illegal for them all. It also forbade them
to employ boys under the age of ten. The limit, which was very difficult to enforce, was
increased to twelve in the 1870s. Subsequently it rose with the school leaving age.
Mining was very dangerous. Loose rocks were easily dislodged and the risk of being killed or
injured by one was always greater in the tall scams where they had further to fall. In the north
of England fatal accidents were not even followed by inquests to discover why they had
happened until after 1815. Few safety precautions were taken before the mid-nineteenth
century. The mine owners insisted that they were not responsible. The men were most
reluctant to put up enough props to prevent the roof from falling in and to inspect the winding
gem: and other machinery on which their lives depended. If they did, they spent less time
mining and so earned less money because the miners' pay was based not on how long they
worked but on how much coal they extracted. They preferred to take risks.
The deeper seams contained a dangerous gas called 'fire-damp' which could be exploded by
the miners' candles. The safety lamp, which was invented in the early nineteenth century, did
not really solve this problem, but it was often used to detect gas and so made the mining of
deeper seams possible. There the air was more foul, the temperature higher (one pit paid the
men an extra 6d a day for working in 130°F) and the risk of fire-damp even greater. In the
1840s a series of terrible explosions in the deeper mines led to stricter regulations, which
inspectors helped enforce. The inspectors were particularly keen on proper ventilating
machines and, although deeper shafts were sunk, they did not become more dangerous.
However, many serious accidents still occurred.
(From Britain Transformed, Penguin Books)
LANGUAGE
'Primitiveness' in Language
'Primitive' is a word that is often used ill-advisedly in discussions of language. Many people
think that 'primitive' is indeed a term to be applied to languages, though only to some
languages, and not usually to the language they themselves speak. They might agree in calling
'primitive' those uses of language that concern greetings, grumbles and commands, but they
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would probably insist that these were especially common in the so-called 'primitive
languages'. These are misconceptions that we must quickly clear from our minds.
So far as we can tell, all human languages are equally complete and perfect as instruments of
communication: that is, every language appears to be as well equipped as any other to say the
things its speakers want to say. It may or may not be appropriate to talk about primitive
peoples or cultures, but that is another matter. Certainly, not all groups of people are equally
competent in nuclear physics or psychology or the cultivation of rice or the engraving of
Benares brass. But this is not the fault of their language. The Eskimos can speak about snow
with a great deal more precision and subtlety than we can in English, but this is not because
the Eskimo language (one of those sometimes miscalled 'primitive') is inherently more precise
and subtle than English. This example does not bring to light a defect in English, a show of
unexpected 'primitiveness'. The position is simply and obviously that the Eskimos and the
English live in different environments. The English language would be just as rich in terms
for different kinds of snow, presumably, if the environments in which English was habitually
used made such distinction important.
Similarly, we have no reason to doubt that the Eskimo language could be as precise and subtle
on the subject of motor manufacture or cricket if these topics formed part of the Eskimos' life.
For obvious historical reasons, Englishmen in the nineteenth century could not talk about
motorcars with the minute discrimination which is possible today: cars were not a part of their
culture. But they had a host of terms for horse-drawn vehicles which send us, puzzled, to a
historical dictionary when we are reading Scott or Dickens. How many of us could distinguish
between a chaise, a landau, a victoria, a brougham, a coupe, a gig, a diligence, a whisky, a
calash, a tilbury, a carriole, a phaeton, and a clarence ?
The discussion of 'primitiveness', incidentally, provides us with a good reason for sharply and
absolutely distinguishing human language from animal communication, because there is no
sign of any intermediate stage between the two. Whether we examine the earliest records of
any language, or the present-day language of some small tribe in a far-away place, we come
no nearer to finding a stage of human language more resembling animal communication and
more 'primitive' than our own. In general, as has been said, any language is as good as any
other to express what its speakers want to say. An East African finds Swahili as convenient,
natural and complete as an East Londoner finds English. In general the Yorkshire Dalesman's
dialect is neither more nor less primitive or ill-fitted to its speaker's wants than Cockney is for
the Londoner's. We must always beware the temptation to adopt a naive parochialism which
makes us feel that someone else's language is less pleasant or less effective an instrument than
our own.
This is not to say that an individual necessarily sounds as pleasant or as effective as he might
be, when using his language, but we must not confuse a language with an individual's ability
to use it. Nor are we saying that one language has no deficiencies as compared with another.
The English words 'home' and 'gentleman' have no exact counterparts in French, for example.
These are tiny details in which English may well be thought to have the advantage over
French, but a large-scale comparison would not lead to the conclusion that English was the
superior language, since it would reveal other details in which the converse was true. Some
years ago it came as something of a shock to us that we had no exact word for translating the
name that General de Gaulle had given to his party - Rassemblement du Peuple Francais. The
B.B.C. for some time used the word 'rally', and although this scarcely answers the purpose it
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is a rather better translation of 'rassemblement' than either of the alternatives offered by one
well-known French-English dictionary, 'muster' and 'mob'.
The more we consider the question, then, the less reasonable does it seem to call any language
'inferior', let alone 'primitive'.
The Sanskrit of the Rig-Veda four thousand years ago was as perfect an instrument for what
its users wanted to say as its modern descendant, Hindi, or as English.
(From The Use of English, by Randolph Quirk )
English in the Fifteenth Century
Soon after Chaucer's death, in the fifteenth century, there was a renewed drift towards
simplification in English. Final unaccented vowels, by 1400 already reduced to a very slight
number, were entirely lost. Still more nouns were shifted to the majority declension (with
plurals in -s) out of the small group left in the minority declensions. More and more verbs
shifted to the weak conjugation from those still retaining the internal vowel change. For a
time, of course, there was a choice of forms: for example, between 'he clomb' and 'he
climbed'; 'he halp' and 'he helped'. Some of the quaint surviving constructions out of Old
English, such as impersonal verbs with the dative, the inflected genitive case for nouns
denoting things, and the double negative, began to fall into disuse. They persist in the
fifteenth century, indeed even into the sixteenth, but they are increasingly felt to be archaic
survivals.
Another important usage became increasingly prevalent in the fifteenth and early sixteenth:
the bolstering of verbs with a number of auxiliaries derived from 'do' and 'be'. In Middle
English a question was asked with the simple form of the verb in inverted position: 'What say
you? What think you?' For a couple of centuries after 1400 this was still done habitually, but
more and more people fell into the habit of saying 'What do you say? What do you think?' The
'do' was colourless and merely brought about a deferment of the main verb. In effect it makes
our English usage somewhat like Russian, which says 'What you say? What you think?'
without any inversion of the verb before the subject. In simple statements the 'do' forms were
used for situations where we no longer feel the need for them. An Elizabethan would say 'I do
greatly fear it' (an unrestricted statement). We should use the less emphatic 'I fear it greatly.'
During the same period there began the gradual spread of the so-called progressive
conjugation, with forms of 'to be': ' I am coming; he is sitting down.' These two special forms
of English conjugation have developed an intricate etiquette, with many modifications of
usage, which cause great trouble to the foreign student. One of the last distinctions he masters
is the one between 'I eat breakfast every morning' and 'I am eating breakfast now'; between 'I
believe that, and 'I do indeed believe that.'
One of the most fateful innovations in English culture, the use of the printing press, had its
effects on the language in many ways. The dialect of London, which for over a century had
been gaining in currency and prestige, took an enormous spurt when it was more or less
codified as the language of the press. As Caxton and his successors normalized it, roughly
speaking, it became the language of officialdom, of polite letters, of the spreading commerce
centres at the capital. The local dialects competed with it even less successfully than formerly.
The art of reading, though still a privilege of the favoured few, was extended lower into the
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ranks of the middle classes. With the secularizing of education later on, the mastery of the
printed page was extended to still humbler folk. Boys who, like William Shakespeare, were
sons of small-town merchants and craftsmen, could learn to read Latin literature and the Bible
even if they had no intention of entering the Church. Times had distinctly changed since the
thirteenth century. It may be added that changes in society-the gradual emergence of a
mercantile civilization-gave scope to printing which it would never have had in the earlier
Middle Ages. The invention was timely in more than one sense.
All this may have been anticipated by the early printers. Their technological innovations may
have been expected to facilitate the spread of culture. But they could not have foreseen that
the spelling which they standardized, more or less, as the record of contemporary
pronunciation, would have been perpetuated for centuries afterwards. Today, when our
pronunciation has become quite different, we are still teaching our unhappy children to spell
as Caxton did. Respect for the printed page has become something like fetish-worship. A few
idiosyncrasies have been carefully preserved, although the reason for them is no longer
understood. When Caxton first set up the new business in London he brought with him
Flemish workers from the Low Countries, where he himself had learned it. Now the Flemish
used the spelling 'gh' to represent their own voiced guttural continuant, a long-rolled-out
sound (y) unlike our English (g). English had no such sound at the time, but the employees in
Caxton's shop were accustomed to
combining the two letters, and continued to do so in setting up certain English words. In
words like 'ghost' and 'ghastly' it has persisted, one of the many mute witnesses to
orthographical conservatism.
(From The Gift of Tongues, by Margaret Schlauch.)
An International Language
Some languages are spoken by quite small communities and they are hardly likely to survive.
Before the end of the twentieth century many languages in Africa, Asia, and America will
have passed into complete oblivion unless some competent linguist has found time to record
them. The languages that remain are constantly changing with the changing needs and
circumstances of the people who speak them. Change is the manifestation of life in language.
The great languages of the world, such as English, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, German,
Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, and Arabic, are just as liable to change as
Swahili, Tamil, or Choctaw. Change may, it is true, be artificially retarded in special
conditions: for example in the great liturgical languages of mankind, such as Sanskrit, the
language of the orthodox Hindu religion of India; or Pali, the sacred language of Buddhism;
or Latin, the liturgical language of the Roman Church. By arduous schooling a man may train
himself to read, write, and converse in these crystallized forms of speech. Sanskrit, Pali, and
Latin are magnificent and awe-inspiring exceptions to the otherwise universal principle of
change. Their immutability depends upon two main factors or conditions: first, that they are
not normally used in everyday conversation, but are entrusted instead to the care of a
privileged class of priests and scholars; and secondly, that they possess memorable recorded
literatures and liturgies which are constantly read and recited in acts of religious devotion and
worship.
It is just because these two conditions do not apply to artificial languages like Volapuk,
Esperanto, and Ido, that they, however carefully devised and constructed, cannot come alive
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and then escape from the law of change. Over one hundred artificial languages have been
framed by men in recent times, but the three just named are far more widely known and used
than any others. Volapuk, or 'World's Speech', was created by a Bavarian pastor named Johan
Martin Schleyer, in 1879, when it was acclaimed with enthusiasm as the future universal
speech of mankind. Only eight years later, however, many of Volapuk's most ardent
supporters abandoned it in favour of the system invented by the 'hopeful doctor', Doktoro
Esperanto, a Polish Jew named Lazarus Zamenhof (1859-1917). Esperanto is certainly an
improvement upon Volapuk in that it is both more flexible and more regular. Even within
Zamenhof's lifetime, however, the mechanism of Esperanto was improved in various ways,
and in 1907 Ido (a made-up name consisting of the initials of International Delegation
substantive suffix -o) was formulated. This Delegation included scholars prominent in various
branches of learning, but its recommendations were not accepted by the main body of
Esperantists who were reluctant to admit that all their well-established textbooks might now
be out of date. Today Esperanto, and not its more advanced form Ido, is easily the first
constructed language in the world and it has proved its worth at numerous international
gatherings. It no longer aspires to supplant ethnic languages. Like those other artificial
languages created in the twentieth century - Edgar de Wahl's Occidental (1922), Otto
Jespersen's Novial (1928), Guiseppe Peano's Interlingua, or Latino sine Flexione (1908), and
Lancelot Hogben's Interglossa (1943), and many more - Esperanto can be regarded as a
valuable bridge-language which any man may find unexpectedly useful in unforeseen
contingencies. Learning Esperanto is a pleasant pastime, and manipulating its regularized
affixes and inflections may become a healthy form of mental gymnastics. Nevertheless, even
loyal esperantists have been known to chafe and strain under the necessary bonds of
orthodoxy. However much society may desire and demand that it should remain constant,
'language changes always and everywhere'. In the New World, where opportunities are
limitless and enthusiasm boundless, and where whole families have been reputed to adopt
Esperanto as their everyday language, it has become modified considerably within the space
of one year to suit the special circumstances and way of life of that particular community. The
worlds in which different social communities live are separate worlds, not just one world with
different linguistic labels attached. An American and a Russian may converse pleasantly in
Esperanto about travel, food, dress, and sport, but they may be quite incapable of talking
seriously in Esperanto about religion, science, or philosophy. 'Men imagine', as Francis Bacon
said long ago, 'that their minds have command over language: but it often happens that
language bears rule over their minds.' Whether we like it or not, we are all very much under
the spell of that particular form of speech which has become the medium of discourse for our
society.
(From Language in the Modern World, by Simeon Potter.)
Language as Symbolism
Animals struggle with each other for food or for leadership, but they do not, like human
beings, struggle with each other for things that stand for food or leadership: such things as our
paper symbols of wealth (money, bonds, titles), badges of rank to wear on our clothes, or lownumber licence plates, supposed by some people to stand for social precedence. For animals,
the relationship in which one thing stands for something else does not appear to exist except
in very rudimentary form.
The process by means of which human beings can arbitrarily make certain things stand for
other things may be called the symbolic process. Whenever two or more human beings can
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communicate with each other, they can, by agreement, make anything stand for anything. For
example, here are two symbols:
X
Y
We can agree to let X stand for buttons and Y stand for bows: then we can freely change our
agreement and let X stand for Chaucer and Y for Shakespeare, X for the CIO and Y for the
AFL. We are, as human beings, uniquely free to manufacture and manipulate and assign
values to our symbols as we please. Indeed, we can go further by making symbols that stand
for symbols. If necessary we can, for instance, let the symbol M stand for all the X's in the
above example (buttons, Chaucer, CIO) and let N stand for all the Y's (bows, Shakespeare,
AFL). Then we can make another symbol, T, stand for M and N, which would be an instance
of a symbol of a symbol of symbols. This freedom to create symbols of any assigned value
and to create symbols that stand for symbols is essential to what we call the symbolic process.
Everywhere we turn, we see the symbolic process at work. Feathers worn on the head or
stripes on the sleeve can be made to stand for military leadership; cowrie shells or rings of
brass or pieces of paper can stand for wealth; crossed sticks can stand for a set of religious
beliefs; buttons, elks' teeth, ribbons, special styles of ornamental haircutting or tattooing, can
stand for social affiliations. The symbolic process permeates human life at the most primitive
as well as at the most civilized levels.
Of all forms of symbolism, language is the most highly developed, most subtle, and most
complicated. It has been pointed out that human beings, by agreement, can make anything
stand for anything. Now human beings have agreed, in the course of centuries of mutual
dependency, to let the various noises that they can produce with their lungs, throats, tongues,
teeth, and lips systematically stand for specified happenings in their nervous systems. We call
that system of agreements language. For example, we who speak English have been so trained
that, when our nervous systems register the presence of a certain kind of animal, we may
make the following noise: 'There's a cat.' Anyone hearing us expects to find that, by looking
in the same direction, he will experience a similar event in his nervous system-one that will
lead him to make an almost identical noise. Again, we have been so trained that when we are
conscious of wanting food we make the noise 'I'm hungry.'
There is, as has been said, no necessary connection between the symbol and that which is
symbolized. Just as men can wear yachting costumes without ever having been near a yacht,
so they can make the noise, 'I'm hungry', without being hungry. Furthermore, just as social
rank can be symbolized by feathers in the hair, by tattooing on the breast, by gold ornaments
on the watch chain, or by a thousand different devices according to the culture we live in, so
the fact of being hungry can be symbolized by a thousand different noises according to the
culture we live in: J'ai faim', or 'Es hungert mich', or 'Ho appetito', or 'Hara ga hetta', and so
on.
However obvious these facts may appear at first glance, they are actually not so obvious as
they seem except when we take special pains to think about the subject. Symbols and things
symbolized are independent of each other: nevertheless, we all have a way of feeling as if,
and sometimes acting as if, there were necessary connections. For example, there is the vague
sense we all have that foreign languages are inherently absurd: foreigners have such funny
names for things, and why can't they call things by their right names? This feeling exhibits
itself most strongly in those English and American tourists who seem to believe that they can
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make the natives of any country understand English if they shout loud enough. Like the little
boy who is reported to have said: 'Pigs are called pigs because they are such dirty animals',
they feel that the symbol is inherently connected in some way with the things symbolized.
Then there are the people who feel that since snakes are 'nasty, slimy creatures' (incidentally,
snakes are not slimy), the word 'snake' is a nasty, slimy word.
(From Language in Thought and Action, by S. Hayakawa)
From Word Symbol to Phoneme Symbol
The second process, by which pictures cease to be ideograms and come to stand for specific
linguistic forms, is even more important. The earliest Sumerian writings are just lists of
objects with symbols for numbers against them: for example, four semicircles and the picture
of an ox's head would read 'four oxen'. It seems that writing arose to meet the needs of the
highly centralized city state, and the first writings are records of payments to the temple or
city treasury, and similar transactions.
In this way, pictorial symbols come to stand for various words, which are the names of
concrete objects like sheep, oxen, the sun, houses and so on. Next, by a process of extension,
the same symbols are made to stand for more abstract words related to the original word. Thus
a picture of the sun may come to stand for the words for 'bright', or 'white', and later for the
words 'day' and 'time', and a picture of a whip for words like 'power' or 'authority'.
Perhaps the really crucial development, however, is 'phonetization', the association of a
symbol with a particular sound (or group o£ sounds). First, a symbol for a concrete object is
transferred to some more abstract object which is denoted by the same or a similar word. For
example, the Sumerian word ti meant 'arrow', and so was represented by an arrow in the
script; but there was also a Sumerian word ti which meant 'life', so the arrow symbol came to
be used for this too. The arrow symbol was then felt to stand for the sound of the word ti, and
was used for the syllable ti in longer words. In this way, the original word symbols developed
into syllable symbols, which could be grouped together to spell out a word.
An analogous process in English can be imagined on these lines. A picture of a tavern is used
to represent the word inn. Because of the identity of sound, the same symbol then becomes
used for the word in. At the same time a picture of an eye is used for the word eye, and then
by extension is used for the word sight. Finally the tavern symbol and the eye symbol are
combined to write the words incite and insight, and have now become syllabic symbols. If we
wanted to distinguish between insight and incite in our syllabic script, we could add a third
symbol to show which of the two was intended: we could draw a picture of an orator to show
that we meant incite, or add a symbol for some word like 'wisdom' to show that we meant
insight. When we used the eye symbol by itself, we might wish to indicate whether it stood
for the word eye or the word sight; one way of doing this would be to add a symbol after it
suggesting one of the sounds used in the word intended: for example, if we had a symbol for
the words sow, sew, so, we could add this after our eye symbol to indicate that the required
word began with s. These and similar methods are used in ancient Egyptian and Sumerian
writing.
Sumerian writing is very mixed, using ideograms, word symbols, syllable symbols, and
various kinds of indicators of the types mentioned. Out of it, however, developed the almost
purely syllabic system of cuneiform writing which was used for Akkadian (the language of
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the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians), and which for centuries dominated the writing of the
Near East.
Ancient Egyptian writing also developed into a syllabic system, and was particularly
important for the development of true alphabetic writing (i.e. a script that has symbols
representing phonemes). The important thing about the Egyptian system was that the vowels
were not indicated. Most of the signs (about eighty) stood for a group of two consonants, plus
any vowels whatever. For example, the symbol for a house (par) stood for the group pr, and
this could mean par, per, apr, epr, epra, and so on. But there were twenty-four signs which
stood for only one consonant plus any vowel; for example, the symbol representing a mouth
(ra) stood for the consonant r, and could mean ra, ar, re, er, and so on. When the West Semitic
peoples living round the eastern shores of the Mediterranean developed a script, they did so
by taking over from the Egyptians just these twenty-four signs. Originally, this must have
been a syllable system, in which each of the signs stood for a number of possible syllables,
like the Egyptian ra, ar, re, er, etc.: but in fact it is formally identical with a purely alphabetic
system in which only the consonants are written and the vowels are left out.
The final step, of having fixed and regular symbols for the vowels, was made by the Greeks
when they took over this Semitic alphabet. Some of the consonant sounds of Phoenician did
not exist in Greek, and the Greeks used the corresponding symbols for vowels. For example,
the first letter of the West Semitic alphabet, derived from the picture of an ox, was 'aleph', and
stood for a kind of h sound (represented in the spelling by'); the Greeks of the period did not
use this sound, and took the letter over as alpha, representing an a sound. Thus was reached at
last a system of writing where symbols stand for phonemes, and all later alphabetic systems
are ultimately derived from this Greek achievement. The great advantage of the system is the
relatively small number of symbols needed, which makes universal literacy possible.
(From The Story of Language, by A. L. Barber.)
LAW
MODERN CONSTITUTIONS
It is natural to ask, in the light of this discussion, why it is that countries have Constitutions,
and why most of them make the Constitution superior to the ordinary law.
If we investigate the origins of modern Constitutions, we find that, practically without
exception, they were drawn up and adopted because people wished to make a fresh start, so
far as the statement of their system of government was concerned. The desire or need for a
fresh start arose either because, as in the United States, some neighbouring communities
wished to unite together under a new government, or because, as in Austria or Hungary or
Czechoslovakia after 1918, communities had been released from an Empire as the result of a
war and were now free to govern themselves; or because, as in France in 1789 or the U.S.S.R.
in 1917, a revolution had made a break with the past and a new form of government on new
principles was desired; or because, as in Germany after 1918 or in France in 1875 or in 1946,
defeat in war had broken the continuity of government and a fresh start was needed after the
war. The circumstances in which a break with the past and the need for a fresh start come
about vary from country to country, but in almost every case in modern times, countries have
a Constitution for the very simple and elementary reason that they wanted, for some reason, to
begin again and so they put down in writing the main outline, at least, of their proposed
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system of government. This has been the practice certainly since 1781 when the American
Constitution was drafted, and as the years passed no doubt imitation and the force of example
have led all countries to think it necessary to have a Constitution.
This does not explain, however, why many countries think it necessary to give the
Constitution a higher status in law than other rules of law. The short explanation of this
phenomenon is that in many countries a Constitution is thought of as an instrument by which
government can be controlled. Constitutions spring from a belief in limited government.
Countries differ however in the extent to which they wish to impose limitations. Sometimes
the Constitution limits the executive or subordinate local bodies; sometimes it limits the
legislature also, but only so far as amendment of the Constitution itself is concerned; and
sometimes it imposes restrictions upon the legislature which go far beyond this point and
forbid it to make laws upon certain subjects or in a certain way or with certain effects.
Whatever the nature and the extent of the restrictions, however, they are based upon a
common belief in limited government and in the use of a Constitution to impose these
limitations.
The nature of the limitations to be imposed on a government, and therefore the degree to
which a Constitution will be supreme over a government, depends upon the objects which the
framers of the Constitution wish to safeguard. In the first place they may want to do no more
than ensure that the Constitution is not altered casually or carelessly or by subterfuge or by
implication; they may want to secure that this important document is not lightly tampered
with, but solemnly, with due notice and deliberation, consciously amended. In that case it is
legitimate to require some special process of constitutional amendment - say, that the
legislature may amend the Constitution only by a two-thirds majority or after a general
election or perhaps upon three months notice.
The framers of Constitutions have more than this in mind. They may feel that a certain kind of
relationship between legislature and the executive is important, or that the judicature should
have a certain guaranteed degree of independence of the legislature and executive. They may
feel that there are certain rights which citizens have and which the legislature or the executive
must not invade or remove. They may feel that certain laws should not be made at all. The
framers of the American Constitution, for example, forbade Congress to pass any ex
post,facto law, that is, a law made after the occurrence of the action or the situation which it
seeks to regulate-a type of law which may render a man guilty of an offence through an action
which, when he committed it, was innocent. The framers of the Irish Constitution of 1937
forbade the legislature to pass any law permitting divorce.
Further safeguards may be called for when distinct and different communities decide to join
together under a common government but are anxious to retain certain rights for themselves.
If these communities differ in language, race, and religion, safeguards may be needed to
guarantee to them a free exercise of these national characteristics. Those who framed the
Swiss, the Canadian, and the South African Constitutions, to name a few only, had to consider
these questions. Even when communities do not differ in language, race, or religion, they may
still be unwilling to unite unless they are guaranteed a measure of independence inside the
union. To meet this demand the Constitution must not only divide powers between the
government of the Union and the governments of the individual, component parts, but it must
also be supreme in so far at any rate as it enshrines and safeguards this division of powers.
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In some countries only one of the considerations mentioned above may operate, in others
some, and in some, all. Thus, in the Irish Constitution, the framers were anxious that
amendment should be a deliberate process, that the rights of citizens should be safeguarded
and that certain types of laws should not be passed at all, and therefore they made the
Constitution supreme and imposed restrictions upon the legislature to achieve these ends. The
framers of the American Constitution also had these objects in mind, but on top of that they
had to provide for the desire of the thirteen colonies to be united for some purposes only and
to remain independent for others. This was an additional reason for giving supremacy to the
Constitution and for introducing certain extra safeguards into it.
(From Modern constitutions by K. C. Wheare)
THE FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT
England had become a political unit before the Norman Conquest. By the middle of the
fourteenth century England had a general or common law, and the main functions of
government, those relating to the agricultural economy of the village apart, were vested in the
central authorities that surrounded the king and in the king's local representatives. From this
time we can speak of England as a 'State'.
The growth of the division of labour, which may also be described as the disappearance of
subsistence agriculture, and which became marked in England with the development of the
wool trade, did not of itself imply a corresponding increase in the functions of government.
Some increase there was, of necessity. A more extensive system for maintaining order, some
organization for the repair of roads and bridges, a development of the instruments for the
settling of disputes and the imposition of taxation, were obviously required by the gradual
breakdown of village self-sufficiency. Trade and commerce are, however, matters of private
arrangement, and the State itself need do no more than provide the laws to regulate disputes,
the judicial institutions to administer the laws, and the currency to serve as the instrument of
exchange. It happens that in England the State went somewhat further, and was compelled to
make some attempt to control the movement of labour. So long as labour was provided within
the manor by labourers who themselves had interests in the land of the manor, the problem
was one for the manor alone; but hired labour became more and more the practice as
specialization developed, in ancillary trades as well as in agriculture itself, and labourers in
search of work left their manors, with the result that the State interfered in the interests of
public order and the needs of employers. This was especially so after the Black Death created
a dearth of labour. Justices of labour were created to regulate labour, and were subsequently
merged with the justices of the peace, who were originally concerned only with the
apprehension of criminals.
By the sixteenth century the State had to concern itself far more than in the past with external
relations, and at the same time it had not only to deal internally with 'wandering beggars' who
were 'rogues and vagabonds', but also to provide poor relief; and the requirements of transport
compelled more effective provision for the maintenance of roads and bridges. The result of
further economic development was that in the eighteenth century the State had additional
functions relating to the regulation of foreign trade, and the government of colonies.
Moreover, though the foundation of the nation's economic life remained in the village, the
towns became increasingly important.
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The Industrial Revolution - falsely so named, because there was no clear break in the chain of
development, and the use of steam-power merely accelerated the speed of change - altered the
emphasis. Mining, iron smelting, and other industries became as important as agriculture. The
domestic wool industry was superseded by weaving factories, and foreign trade developed the
cotton industry. New methods of transport were developed. These changes did not in
themselves require any new functions of government; indeed, the ideas of the time, especially
after Adam Smith, were in favour of easing such governmental restrictions on trade and
industry as already existed and of developing a system of free competition. There were,
however, repercussions in the field of government. New roads, canals, and, in due course,
railways were required. New ports and harbours were opened. Though some or all of these
might be provided by private enterprise, the intervention of the State was necessary to enable
land to be acquired, traffic to be regulated, roads crossed, bridges built, and so on.
The most important effect from a governmental aspect, however, was the congregation of vast
numbers of inhabitants into towns, some of which were ancient market towns, some mere
villages, and some entirely new growths where before agriculture had reigned supreme. The
old methods by which the family had obtained its own water and disposed of its own sewage
and refuse were dangerous to health in these great urban centres. New police forces had to be
created, streets paved and lighted, refuse collected, and water supplies and main drainage
provided. The existence of unemployment on a large scale created a new problem for the poor
law. In particular it was recognized that ill-health was responsible for much unemployment
and, therefore, for much expenditure on poor relief. On the one hand medical services and
hospitals had to be provided, and on the other hand there was new agitation for preventive
remedies-pure water, clean streets, good sewerage, and sewage disposal. Also, these remedies
were not enough if a large part of the population spent most of its time in unhealthy factories
and mines. Hours and other conditions of employment had to be regulated; and though this
involved in the earlier experiments only restrictions on private enterprise, they were soon.
found to be ineffective without State inspection.
Thus, while the State in the nineteenth century was freeing trade from the cumbersome
restrictions of the eighteenth century, it proceeded to regulate industry both directly in the
interests of public health and indirectly by providing services out of the produce of taxation.
After 1867 sections of the working class had the vote, and the individualist principles which
appealed to the middle class of the industrial towns became much less strong. Accordingly,
the provision of services became part of State policy. It recognized, for instance, its
responsibility for the education of the young and provided schools, not merely by subsidizing
ecclesiastical bodies, as it had done since 1833, nor merely for the benefit of 'pauper children',
but directly through the local authorities and for the benefit of all children. There was, too, a
general and progressive reform of all the public services, and new services, such as housing,
transport, and electricity, were provided. In the present century the pace of development has
accelerated; and while on the one hand existing services have been expanded, new services
like pensions, insurance, and broadcasting have developed; and since 1945 some of the
services formerly provided by private enterprise have been taken over by the State.
(From The law and the constitution by Ivor Jennings)
INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM
It is sometimes argued that a democratic system requires the embodiment of the initiative and
the referendum in the constitution. A people, it is said, does not really control its own life if its
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only direct participation in the business of making legal imperatives is confined to choosing
the persons responsible for their substance. By the initiative, the popular will can take positive
form; and by the referendum, the people can prevent action by its representatives with which
it is not in agreement. Direct government, it is claimed, provides a necessary supplement to a
representative system; otherwise, as Rousseau said of the English people, it is only free at
election time.
But this is, it may be suggested, both to mistake the nature of the problems which have to be
decided, and the place at which popular opinion can obtain the most valuable results in action.
In all modern states, the size of the electorate is necessarily so large that the people can hardly
do more, as a whole people, than give a direct negative or affirmative to the questions direct
government would place before them. Legislation, however, is a matter not less of detail than
of principle; and no electorate can deal with the details of a measure submitted to it for
consideration. Direct government, in fact, is too crude an instrument for the purposes of
modern government. It fails to make discussion effective at the point where discussion is
required; and it leaves no room for the process of amendment. One might, it is true, leave
certain broad questions of principle to popular vote, whether, for instance, the supply of
electricity should be a national or a private service. But all other questions are so delicate and
complex that the electorate would have neither the interest nor the knowledge, when taken as
an undifferentiated electorate, to arrive at adequate decisions.
Nor is this all. Not only can most questions not be framed in a way which can make direct
government effective; the secondary results of the system are also unsatisfactory. It is hardly
compatible, for instance, with the parliamentary system since it places the essential
responsibility for measures outside the legislature. Such a division of responsibility destroys
that coherence of effort which enables a people adequately to judge the work of its
representatives. It assumes, further, that public opinion exists about the process of legislation,
as well as about its results. But the real problem of government is not forcibly to extract from
the electorate an undifferentiated and uninterested opinion upon measures about which it is
not likely to be informed. It is rather to relate to the law-making process that part of public
opinion which is relevant to, and competent about, its substance before that substance is made
a legal imperative. 'This involves not direct government, but a method of associating the
relevant interest-units of the community with the making of measures that will affect their
lives. A referendum, for example, on a national scheme of health insurance would give far
less valuable results than a technique of consultation in which the opinions of doctors, tradeunions, and similar associations were given a full opportunity to state their view before the
scheme was debated in the legislative assembly. Effective opinion for the purpose of
government, in a word, is almost always opinion which is organized and differentiated from
that of the multitude by the possession of special knowledge. Popular opinion, as such, will
rarely give other than negative results; and it seems to be the lesson of experience, very
notably on the record of Switzerland, that it is so firmly encased in traditional habit, as to
make social experiment difficult when it is a reserve-power-outside.
(From An Introduction to Politics by H. J. Laski)
S v S (FINANCIAL PROVISION: DEPARTING FROM EQUALITY) [2001] 2 FLR 246
[2001] 2 FLR 246
Family Division
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Peter Collier QC
(sitting as a Deputy Judge of the High Court)
2 February 2001
Financial provision – Factors to be considered – Departure from equality
The parties were married in 1967 when the wife was 25 and the husband 27. There were two
children, a son aged 37 who was financially independent, and a daughter, aged 27, who lived
with her mother and was supported by her financially to some extent. The wife worked
outside the home until her son was born and thereafter ran the house and worked in the
husband’s business. The marriage broke down in 1998 when the husband left the matrimonial
home and disclosed that he had been having an affair with another woman since 1992, and
that she had a child by him. At the hearing of the wife’s application for ancillary relief the
judge found that the husband’s share of the total assets of the parties amounted to £2,102,890,
consisting of his interests in various businesses, his pension fund, some properties, his halfinterest in the matrimonial home and investments, a yacht, and a number of vintage cars. The
wife had her half-share in the house, her car, and a portfolio of investments, all amounting to
£629,166. It was argued on the wife’s behalf that this was a case in which to follow the
principles set out in White v White, so as to achieve a clean break and an equal division of the
assets, by the transfer by the husband to the wife of his share of the matrimonial home and of
the joint investments, together with a lump sum of £400,000. Counsel for the husband
contended that in the circumstances that approach would not be fair having regard to the
criteria in s 25 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973.
Held – the assets of the parties had been valued on a net value basis, ie taking account of sale
costs and tax liabilities, and did not fall to be reduced in the husband’s case because some of
the capital was not readily available or was not producing an income. However, having regard
to all the matters in s 25, the award of £400,000 to the wife, required to achieve equality,
would discriminate against the husband. On the facts, such an award would mean that the wife
lived in luxury, while for the husband with a new family to support, things would be much
tighter. If an agreement was harder on one party than the other, then there was good reason to
depart from equality. The court should aim to provide both parties with a comfortable house
and sufficient money to discharge their needs and obligations. On that basis there would be an
order for the husband to transfer to the wife his half-share of the matrimonial home and of the
joint investments, and to pay to her a lump sum of £300,000.
Statutory provision considered
Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, s 25
Cases referred to in judgment
Leadbeater v Leadbeater [1985] FLR 789, FD
Piglowska v Piglowski [1999] 2 FLR 763, [1999] 1 WLR 1360, [1999] 3 All ER 632, CA and
HL
White v White [2000] 2 FLR 981, [2000] 3 WLR 1571, [2001] 1 All ER 43, HL
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[2001] 2 FLR 247
Martin Pointer QC for the petitioner
Rodger Hayward-Smith QC and Andrew Marsden for the respondent
PETER COLLIER QC: This is an application for ancillary relief by Mrs S, following the
breakdown of her marriage to her husband Mr S.
The marriage
The petitioner (who I will hereafter refer to as ‘the wife’) is Mrs S. She is 58 years of age,
having been born on 14 June 1942. The respondent, her husband, is Mr S. He is now 60 years
of age, having been born on 30 April 1940. They were married on 20 September 1967, when
she was 25 and he was 27.
The children
S, born on 27 July 1969, he is now 31. He lives in America and is, of course, financially
independent. He has not featured in the evidence, unlike his sister M, who is now 27, having
been born on 15 July 1973. She has completed her tertiary education; in fact she has two MA
degrees, but at the present time has no permanent employment. Her father thinks she should
be more independent than does her mother, who continues to support her, having provided a
car for her, by way of paying the hire-purchase instalments on the car, which is said to be a
loan to her. She has also assisted her, towards the end of last year, in her attempts to set up a
small retail business, by buying goods for her; again that is a loan of some £5000 which has
been shown in the schedules.
The husband helped M to buy a property in Colchester some while ago now. She currently
rents that out, receiving about £500 per month, the mortgage costing her some £340 a month;
and at the present time she chooses to live with her mother.
There was a Trust Fund set up for the children in 1976, for tax and inheritance reasons. Since
December 1998, M has received a total of £31,556 from the Trust Funds.
Employment
At the time of the marriage the husband was working with his brother, H, in a business that
they owned and ran, known as ‘[SCL]’, making car alarms and battery chargers. The business
had been started by them in 1960.
When they married, the wife was working as a PA/secretary to the Managing Director of
MGN. In 1969, when S was expected, she gave up work and, thereafter, she has not worked
outside the family or the family businesses. It is accepted that she worked in the home,
bringing up the children and running the home. When S was about 2, she began to work for
the husband’s company. She was an employee, she was on the books; she did secretarial and
what I described as ‘general duties’, but they covered quite a lot of matters, including hosting
people who came to visit.
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He says that she has exaggerated her role in the business, and she says that he has minimised
it. I find it is not necessary to define it with precision, suffice to say that in my judgment she
made a significant contribution to the business.
[2001] 2 FLR 248
Homes
The first matrimonial home was in Tomswood Road, Chigwell; it was bought for £12,000,
with the assistance of a gift of £3000 from the wife’s father, A. The husband says that he does
not recall exactly how much, but he believes they also had some help from his family. Again,
greater precision will not affect the fact that these two people began to share their lives, with
support from their families, it was a real partnership, each bringing what they could to the
partnership, supported by both their families and they intended to work hard to make their
family and business something of which they could both be proud.
In 1976 or 1977, Tomswood Road was sold for £43,000 and they purchased Hunters,
Chigwell, for £58,750 with the aid of a mortgage of £25,000. The mortgage was paid off out
of the proceeds of the subsequent sale of the business. The wife remains there to this day, and
it is accepted that she should stay there. I am told that the house is not, itself, attractive, being
a chalet-bungalow that has been extended, and at the time these proceedings commenced it
was in need of substantial redecoration. Over the years that she has lived there, the wife has
put time and money into the development of the garden, which is clearly her pride and joy.
She envisages that in due course, if necessary, she could put in a ramp and push her zimmerframe up and down between house and garden.
In October 1991, the husband and his brother H sold SCL to RG, and some of the proceeds
have been used to purchase investment portfolios: there is a joint portfolio; there are separate
ones for each of the husband and wife; there is one creating a settlement trust for the children;
there is also a pension fund, which now provides an income for the husband.
Some time before 1992, the husband formed a relationship with a Miss D who bore his
daughter, B, in that year. The existence of both that relationship and that child were kept
secret from the wife until April of 1998. I simply record that the husband had had a brief
relationship with another woman in the mid 1980s, he had left the matrimonial home for a
short time but had returned.
Businesses
In addition to SCL, there are other businesses in which the husband has been and, in some
instances, remains involved. PPEL, was set up by the parties to receive commission on the
sale of battery chargers for RG after the sale of SCL to RG. PPEL commenced business in
1993. The company has had an income of as high as £19,000, but in recent years it has
deteriorated to £2000–£3000 a year. I have been told that the company was used as a vehicle
to buy equipment for and fund travel by the wife; the husband says that he anticipates no
future profits from this company.
SL and TFL were also companies run by the husband and his brother. I shall say more of
those later when I come to deal with valuations. AVIL – I need say little about that: it was a
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business in which the parties invested money and which failed. Some moneys had been repaid
to the husband, and I understand there will be no further income from that source.
Properties
There are other properties that have come within the family at different times. Lower Clapton
Road, these are commercial premises which are let.
[2001] 2 FLR 249
They are premises left to the husband by his mother, and comprise a shop, a flat and an
advertising hoarding. They currently produce an income: the shop and flat, some £11,000
plus; the hoarding, £7500.
There is an issue regarding the hoarding. At an earlier stage in the proceedings it was stated,
in relation to its value, that ‘the income from the advertising panel, which in our view is high,
is relatively insecure’. Since then, it has been disclosed that the local council, Hackney, had
written to the husband on 18 November 1997 stating that in their view there was neither
'deemed nor 'express' consent for this board which is in a conservation area. Since then, the
advertiser, Postmobile, has written to the council stating that the board has been in its present
situation for so long that it must have deemed consent. That letter has been acknowledged and
there has been no further action on the part of the local authority. The husband told me that he
thought the board had been there for over 45 years. On that evidence, I am not able to
discount the rent received in relation to these premises.
There are factory premises in Springfield, Chelmsford. These premises were purchased
through a Business Expansion Scheme and are rented out, producing an income in the region
of some £10,000 a year.
Aveley Way, Malden, is the husband’s present home where he lives with Miss D, B and
another daughter of Miss D’s by a former relationship.
For completeness, I should perhaps add that prior to the husband’s purchase of that property,
into which he moved with his new family, Miss D had been living in a council house which
she has now purchased with the aid of a loan of £33,331 from the husband. That property she
now lets out at £5400 pa, and I am told that the property is now worth some £55,000.
Cars
The parties have an interest in classic cars. The husband rebuilt several of these and they
would spend a significant amount of time touring and rallying in these cars. The family’s
present collection of cars include several classic cars, an E-Type Jaguar, a Jowett Jupiter and a
Jowett Javelin. They are all with the husband, who has built a garage at his new home to
house them. He also owns an Audi Quatro and a Peugeot 205. The agreed value of all those
cars is £41,200. For everyday use the husband has an imported Toyota Estate car worth some
£1500; the wife has a Volkswagen Golf, bought with the help of a loan from her sister of
£17,000 in November 1998. The Golf is now said to be worth £10,000.
The boat
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There is a boat, an Oyster 435, known as ‘Star Charger 4’, which is currently moored in
Antibes in the South of France. There is no agreed valuation, but I am asked to come to a
view about its value based on a variety of material that has been put before me and to which I
shall turn in due course.
Bank accounts
There are on both sides various bank accounts.
Breakdown of the marriage
The breakdown of the marriage happened in April 1998. The husband does not dispute the
wife’s account that he left the matrimonial home on 27 April 1998, having disclosed his affair
2 days earlier on 25 April 1998.
[2001] 2 FLR 250
Present circumstances
The wife continues to live in the former matrimonial home, she has her own investment
income and the £350 per month ordered by way of interim periodical payments.
The husband lives with Miss D, who is 41 years old, B, who is now aged 8, and Miss D’s
other child, E, who is aged 15, at Aveley Way, Malden. It has been described to me as a
typical small modern estate house on the outskirts of the town. The husband says he bought it
only intending to stay there until he knows the outcome of these proceedings, when he hopes
to buy something more suitable where he can keep his cars and spend his remaining years. He
is retired but clearly he remains an active man.
Valuation of the assets
These are mostly agreed, but the outstanding issues remain in relation to the husband’s
interest in the companies SL and TFL, and the value of Star Charger 4, the boat.
I deal first with SL and TFL. SL manufactures tubular furniture, and TFL does the same, and
there is a trading relationship between the two companies. TFL owes SL in excess of
£300,000, and TFL has a deficiency of some £63,000. I am told it is to SL’s advantage to
continue the present situation as it is able to use up tax losses, but to run the two companies
involves the doubling of some of the costs. The management of both companies is the same;
as I understand it, they have the same directors and similar shareholders. Mr P is the only nonfamily member who is a director, otherwise, the husband, plus his sister-in-law, PS, and her
father, DL, are the directors.
I am asked to resolve the dispute as to the valuation of the husband’s interest in these two
companies. In order to assist me, I heard from two accountants, ME, called on behalf of the
wife, and PM on behalf of the husband.
In relation to SL, they agree that the basis of the valuation should be the company’s net asset
value. There is a small difference between them as to whether one should discount SL’s net
assets by the amount of TFL’s deficiency, which is £63,539, since TFL still owes SL
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£306,563. The net asset value of the shares at face value, on ME’s valuation, is £92,582, and
PM’s valuation produces £102,478.
They also differ in the degree to which the appropriate figure should be discounted. I am told
that the scale accepted by the Inland Revenue is between 40 and 50%. PM says the proper
discount is 40%, ME says it is 50%. Which is chosen is dependent upon the extent of the
control that the husband has over the company. The Articles of Association provide that the
sale should be, in the first instance, to its present shareholders who are all in some way
connected with the family, and, of course, Mr P. If they decide not to buy, then the company
can purchase the shares if it has sufficient reserves. Finally, if neither of those routes produce
a sale, then a third party sale can take place.
What is the extent of the control that the husband has? It is argued that he does not involve
himself in the day-to-day management of the business; that the other directors, as I have said,
are Mr P who manages the company, DL and his daughter, PS, who is the widow of H, the
husband’s brother.
ME is the company auditor and occasionally attends board meetings. He
[2001] 2 FLR 251
did not disagree when I said to him that I thought it would be suggested that the husband was
a strong character. He told me that the husband does attend board meetings where he
expresses his views and that he is respected by the other directors. I am satisfied that in key
decisions of the sort we are contemplating, the husband would have substantial influence; and
so, given the agreed scale of 40–50%, I have assessed the discount at 40% in relation to SL.
Also given the relationship of the companies, I do not propose to make a reduction in value
because of TFL’s deficiency. Consequently, I determine the value of the husband’s interest in
SL at £62,000.
That leaves TFL. Unlike SL, where ME and PM agree about the basis of the valuation, that is
not the position with TFL. There are no assets, so I cannot value the company on a net asset
basis. The company has paid no dividends, so I cannot value it on a dividend yield basis. PM
says that nevertheless a trade sale basis can be arrived at on the basis of the profit. ME says
that there is no track record and the profit is not reliable.
Having explored with ME how these companies are related in their trading, it became clear
that TFL was intended to have a genuinely separate existence, resulting from a joint venture
between SL and another business. However, the other party gradually withdrew, leaving the
owners of SL to run TFL. Their two directors, Messrs. C and J, were replaced by the husband
and DL, and the company is now run solely to gain certain tax advantages arising from past
tax losses. The result is that TFL is, realistically, just a division of SL. ME said that once
someone was told the story of TFL, they would not want to buy TFL’s shares. I agree. In my
judgment, the shares have no saleable value, certainly not one that could be assessed on a
trade sale basis (as PM attempted to do), and no other basis has been put forward to me.
So I assess the value of the husband’s interest in SL at £62,000, but the value of his interest in
TFL as nil. Mr Hayward-Smith QC suggests that that figure should be further discounted as it
is said by the accountants not to be the equivalent of cash. I have considered carefully his
submissions, but in the end I have decided that although they are not realisable as
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immediately as if it was a publicly quoted company, I should not make any allowance for that,
otherwise I would have to go through the same exercise with all the properties, each of which
may take some considerable time to realise. I must assume that everything has a value and, in
the absence of firm evidence about a difference between market value and forced sale value,
and also a reason for preferring the latter in some particular instance, I should take the market
value of all the assets, including this one, as their true value.
The boat
That leaves the other issue, the value of the Star Charger boat. This was built between 1983
and 1985. The husband has rebuilt part of the cabin area. He jointly owned the boat with his
brother, but bought out his brother’s share for £50,000 when his brother bought another boat
in March 1998. Attempts had been made to sell the boat in 1996 through Oyster Brokerage of
Ipswich. They advertised the boat at an asking price of £125,000; no sale was achieved.
Oysters have since said, in the summer of 1999, that they had hoped to achieve a price of
£110,000–£100,000. Apparently it would sell better in the UK, so any sale here for a better
price would necessitate transporting the boat to the UK at a cost of about £4000, in addition to
the
[2001] 2 FLR 252
10% commission charged by the selling agent.
The self-same agents were asked for a valuation in 1999. They said that their insurance policy
precluded them from giving valuations, but said that they estimated the value at £82,500–
£87,500 in June of 1999. They were again asked in January 2001. Making the same
reservation regarding valuation/estimation, they said it would have depreciated by a further 5–
10% and so now would be worth £75,000
The insured sum throughout has been £112,900, which is a replacement value. The boat
suffers from osmosis, which has been taken into account in the estimations, but it will effect
its saleability. The wife, going on the original advert for sale, and discounting, says that the
value should be assessed at £95,000 less 10% commission.
Doing the best I can, it seems to me that if I take the mean between £82,500 and £87,500,
which is £85,000, and then deduct the commission and transport costs, and then also make
some small allowance for depreciation, I come to a figure of about £70,000, which is the
amount, in the absence of better evidence, I shall take as the value of the boat.
As the value of all the other assets is now agreed, those findings of mine produce a total asset
value of £2,732,055.
The arguments as to how those assets should be divided which were presented (in the broadest
outline) to me are as follows.
The wife’s case
On behalf of the wife it is argued that this is a classic case in which to follow the principles
set out by Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead in his speech in the House of Lords case of White v
White [2000] 2 FLR 981, [2000] 3 WLR 1571. It is said that there are sufficient funds for a
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clean break, with an equal division of all the assets. That can be achieved by transferring the
husband’s half-share of the house, and of the joint funds, to her absolutely, and adding to that
a lump sum to make up half the value of the assets; that sum is just over £400,000. It is said
that the husband has not displaced that as a starting point.
The husband’s case
For the husband, it is said that that is not the correct approach; that this is only marginally a
White case. It is said that when I look at the statutory criteria set out in s 25 of the
Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, my tentative conclusions will be that equality is not possible
here if I am to be fair and do justice to those criteria. He particularly argues that given the fact
that significant parts of the assets are, on the one hand, the home, which will go to the wife,
and, on the other hand, his pension fund, then I am restricted to the extent that I can balance
the figures equally.
Section 25 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973
It seems to me that I must begin by examining the statute. Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead said in
White v White [2000] 2 FLR 981, 992, [2000] 3 WLR 1571, 1581, quoting from Lord
Hoffmann’s speech in Piglowska v Piglowski [1999] 2 FLR 763, 782, [1999] 1 WLR 1360,
1379:
‘ section 25(2) does not rank the matters listed in that subsection in any kind of hierarchy.
[2001] 2 FLR 253
I think it would be helpful, therefore, if I deal first with those matters relative to background
and history. Subsection (d): ‘the age of each party to the marriage and the duration of the
marriage;’. I recited the history earlier: he 60, she is 58; the marriage was a long one, lasting
almost 31 years.
Subsection (f): ‘the contributions which each of the parties is or is likely in the foreseeable
future to make to the welfare of the family, including any contribution by looking after the
home or caring for the family;’. As I indicated earlier, I take the view that for many years this
marriage was a partnership, each contributing equally but in different ways, and no one has
argued otherwise.
Subsection (c): ‘the standard of living enjoyed by the family before the breakdown of the
marriage;’. It is part of the wife’s evidence that in the final year of marriage they got through
£120,000, and she would have me believe that this was typical expenditure. I find that the
£120,000 is not proved. I consider it was an unlikely sum to have been spent, given that it is
the sum of their two proposed future budgets, which includes a £24,500 mortgage for the
husband. Clearly they were very comfortably off, whatever they wanted to do they could and
did do. She told me they ‘lived the life of Riley’. She also said that her experience before the
separation was that there was plenty for whatever she wanted to do, he begrudged it but there
were adequate funds. They enjoyed classic cars that the husband rebuilt; they had a yacht in
the south of France; they took holidays as and when they wished. Her expenditure on the
garden was unrestrained. She made regular major shopping expeditions to the West End. In
latter years, the husband had a child he was supporting to the tune of £350 per month, without
his wife, who monitored their finances, suspecting anything.
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Subsection (e): ‘any physical or mental disability of either of the parties to the marriage;’.
There are none of significance. The wife has been depressed, but no one suggests that she
should go out to work or that she has special needs that should be provided for.
Subsection (g): ‘the conduct of each of the parties, if that conduct is such that it would in the
opinion of the court be inequitable to disregard it;’.
Subsection (h): ‘ the value to each of the parties to the marriage of any benefit which, by
reason of the dissolution or annulment of the marriage, that party will lose the chance of
acquiring.
Neither of those subsections has any relevance to my determination.
I turn to the two main subsections, those dealing with assets and resources on the one hand,
and with needs, obligations and responsibilities on the other.
Subsection (a):
‘ the income, earning capacity, property and other financial resources which each of the
parties to the marriage has or is likely to have in the foreseeable future, including in the case
of earning capacity any increase in that capacity which it would in the opinion of the court be
reasonable to expect a party to the marriage to take steps to acquire.
Income
Apart from her interim maintenance of £350 month, the wife has investment income only.
Currently there is that produced by her own portfolio and her half of the joint investments,
producing something in the region, I have been
[2001] 2 FLR 254
told, of £25,000. It is not suggested that she will have any income other than what is produced
by those investments, plus any produced by the lump sum that I order the husband to pay her.
The husband has income from a number of sources. His pension fund currently produces
£52,470 per year. His rental from properties produces £28,500 per year, though I note that
something less than that was shown in his tax return for the year ending April 1999. He has
investment income of his own, of about £12,500, and his half-share of the joint investments,
producing something over £5000. Some other earnings have been produced from time to time,
such as bonuses from SL. It is clear that he has more cards available to him in his hand than
she has in hers, and that he has some more flexibility than she does.
Earning capacity
She has none. I accept that he wants to remain retired, but I note that he is a company director,
having his say in those companies. I do not consider that either of them should take steps to
increase their earning capacity at this stage of their lives, they have both reached the age when
they can expect to live now off the fruits of their past labours.
Property and other financial resources
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The matrimonial home and the portfolio of joint investments are the only jointly owned items;
each has other property in their own name and other expectations as well as obligations.
The wife
She has her half-interest in the home, which is £252,200, and her half-share of the joint
investments at £81,050. She owns a car said to be worth £10,000, but she owes her sister
£17,000 which was loaned to her to buy that car. She is owed £5000 by M, which are moneys
advanced to help her set up a small business venture at the end of last year. She has some
small amounts in her bank accounts. Her main asset is her own portfolio of investments, said
to be worth £286,608. She has to date paid legal costs of £12,553 (relevant by reason of the
decision in Leadbeater v Leadbeater [1985] FLR 789). Her total pot, therefore, amounts to
£629,166.
The husband
He has his half-interest in the home, £252,200 net, and his half-share of the joint investments,
£81,050. He owns a collection of cars valued at £41,200; his everyday car is worth £1500. He
owns the boat which I have assessed at £70,000. He has lent £33,331 to Miss D. He expects to
receive £75,000 from his brother H’s estate. He has an investment portfolio worth £356,313
net. He has two PEPs worth £12,526. He has SL shares, which I have valued at £62,000. He
has over £115,000 in various bank accounts. His pension fund is valued at 689,037. He has
paid costs to date of £38,369. His total pot, therefore, comes to £2,102,890. The total joint
assets amount to £2,732,055. I come to subs (b):
‘ the financial needs, obligations and responsibilities which each of the parties to the marriage
has or is likely to have in the foreseeable future.
[2001] 2 FLR 255
The section refers to ‘needs, obligations and responsibilities’.
Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead was critical of the phrase ‘reasonable requirements which has, in
recent years, been used in these courts to comprehend the assessment that is made under this
subsection in the context of the rest of the section.
I shall consider her ‘needs, obligations and responsibilities in the context that is set by the
other factors to which I have already referred. If this is different from ‘reasonable
requirements’, then so be it.
Housing
The wife needs a house; she wants to live in Hunters. She tells me it is the ugliest house she
knows, but it has the nicest garden she knows. She wants to stay there; there are no dependent
children, so there is no particular need to do so. The house is worth over £500,000, which is a
significant part of the assets. One of the difficulties in this case is created by her desire to stay
in that house.
The husband has bought a house; it has an equity of £80,000. He hopes to improve his lot in
relation to housing, dependent on the outcome of these proceedings. Mr Pointer QC says he
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does not plan to move, he is settled where he is, but I accept the husband’s evidence that he
would like to move, and he will if he is able.
Obligations and responsibilities
The husband has a new family, Miss D, B (aged 8) and E (aged 15), and there has been
argument about the effect that I should give to that. The wife has no obligations, though she
supports her daughter M to an extent, as I have already described. M’s father says that her
mother indulges her. If she does, that is her choice, perhaps understandable in the
circumstances.
General standard of living
I find that the parties have a similar standard of living, as one might expect from people who
have lived together for over 30 years. They are not critical of each other’s proposed budgets
overmuch. She questions his need for a boat costing £10,000 pa, and some expenditure on his
cars; and he inquires as to her proposed expenditure of £7000 pa in relation to clothing.
In relation to housekeeping figures, he has a budget of £7800, which is £150 a week; she has a
budget of £4633, which is £90. That seems to me to be perfectly reasonable, relative to and
consistent with the way they have lived in the past.
As for hobbies, he has his boat and cars, and she has her garden.
Those are the criteria I have to consider. The aim, or, in modern parlance, ‘the overriding
objective’, is now said to be to achieve a fair outcome. Well, what are the arguments? Mr
Pointer says this is a classic White case and that all I need to do, having arrived at a grand
total value for the assets, is to make an order that will result in them each having a half share
of that total.
Mr Hayward-Smith says: ‘Not so, that will result in unfairness and that there are reasons why
I should not go down that route. First, he says this is not really a White case: White assumes a
‘clean break case where the children are grown up and independent, and where the assets
exceed the amounts required by the parties for their financial needs in terms of a home and
income for each of them. In those circumstances, equality should be the
[2001] 2 FLR 256
yardstick against which any division should be checked.
Mr Hayward-Smith says that if this is a White case, it is ‘on the cusp’, and he has sought to
persuade me that for various reasons the capital is not all readily available and sufficiently
free to make that equal division. There is, he says, nothing binding on H’s estate to pay, and
no timescale within which they will pay; the estate is not straightforward and the husband will
not be paid until it is finalised.
I am not told that he has any charge on Miss D’s property; and, as she doesn’t earn, she will
not be in a position to raise a mortgage on it, so that loan could only be repaid if she sold her
property and he cannot force her to sell. The boat has been for sale previously and did not sell.
There is also the argument about the saleability of the SL shares. I must also note that whilst
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they remain in his hands pending sale, none of these assets produces any income. So, for all
these reasons, it is said that the assets are not such as enable an immediate fair division by the
ordering of a payment of a lump sum so as to even out the shares of assets held by each.
Secondly, it is argued that to simply divide the assets is to take no notice of the fact that the
wife unnecessarily diminished the capital available after the separation. It is said that she
removed and spent moneys from the accounts as if it was ‘going out of fashion’. It is said that
she liquidated some of her own capital unnecessarily.
Finally, under this head, it is said that it was quite unnecessary for her to borrow £17,000
from her sister to purchase a car, whilst at the same time purchasing for her daughter, on hirepurchase, a Polo motorcar.
It is said that I should take all that into account in deciding whether this is a White case; and,
if it is, that those sums should be reflected in the final calculations.
Thirdly, it is argued that the husband’s pension fund takes this case outside White: it is the
largest single part of the assets. It is said that this fund is now set up and he cannot vary it, he
cannot draw capital from it, and his flexibility in relation to how his income is delivered is
therefore significantly affected.
Finally, it is said that he has different and additional needs: he has responsibilities for Miss D,
B and E; he wants B to have a private education, as did his other two children; he wants also
to provide properly for his new family. It is said that it is accepted that they had come to him
knowing that he has a former wife to be provided for; but, nevertheless, they must be
considered and they do stretch the limited resources.
Mr Hayward-Smith invites me to perform an exercise whereby, leaving aside the house, I
should enhance the wife’s present asset position by an additional £143,475, made up of the
various sums she is said to have expended unnecessarily, so as to provide a current total of
£388,788. To that should be added the joint portfolio, a further £162,099. He says that if she
were then to be given a lump sum of £100,000 she would have a total free capital of
£650,887, plus a house worth £504,400, giving her assets worth £1,155,287. He says that with
the £650,887 she would, on a Duxbury basis, have some £45,000 pa net, not far short of what
she is looking for in her proposed budget of £48,611.
In relation to those arguments, Mr Pointer says that first, ‘assets are assets and I should not
over-concern myself with how and when they may be realised.
[2001] 2 FLR 257
In relation to alleged diminution of capital, he says that the figures are wrong and the
arguments are flawed: the proper date to take as the start point must be the date when the
husband left, which is 27 April 1998, not the start date on the page of the bank statement
which was 6 April 1998. He says that if we go from the date of separation, the amount drawn
or paid from the bank is not £38,700 but £22,500, and that she has accounted for £18,000, and
more, of that in her schedule at A/57.
As to the withdrawals of capital, amounting to £45,000 in 3 years, that has only enabled her to
bring her income up to about £45,000 pa that she needs to spend.
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In relation to the third point regarding the pension fund, he says that this is not different in
principle from the wife’s position: she will be entirely dependent upon investment income,
she will have to invest in a Duxbury fund and will have no more flexibility than him.
Fourthly, it is said that the position of his paramour and her children, only one of whom is his,
cannot reduce the rights of his wife as there are ample resources to provide for her and to
enable the husband to look after his new family.
I do not consider that I can differentiate between assets in relation to their value. The courts
have always approached these matters on a net value basis, ie, taking account of sale costs and
tax liabilities. White affirmed that approach.
I dealt earlier with the difficulty of applying forced sale values to particular items and said
that there would have to be very good reasons for doing so. I am not satisfied that there are
any such reasons here; and, indeed, no forced sale values have been provided. It seems to me
that the place that this might have some impact is on the time allowed for paying any lump
sum ordered.
I must therefore, in this case, take the values that have been agreed, or that I have found, and
work on the basis that that value is realisable within a reasonable time.
As regards unnecessary diminution of the value of the assets by the wife, I have no doubt that
she was devastated by the revelations that her husband had been involved in a ongoing
deception of her for many years and that he had had a child by a woman some 6 years
previously, which woman he was still seeing and which child he was supporting. I have no
doubt that she did spend as she saw fit. She changed the locks and the alarm system. She
bought a new car, which is included in the schedules, both the car and the loan; and she
continued in the lifestyle to which she had grown accustomed. I am equally sure that she felt
drawn closer to her daughter as a result of her husband’s revelations.
I am not prepared to find that she was unnecessarily extravagant or that she diminished the
resources available to any significant extent. I accept Mr Pointer’s arguments about the dates
and the amounts of her bank withdrawals. I also accept his argument that the pension fund is,
in reality, no different from the Duxbury fund in which she will have to invest.
As to the position of the second family, this is really a question of seeing what happens when
the arithmetic is done on different bases.
The proposed equation that Mr Hayward-Smith puts forward seems to me to fail for several
reasons: first, I do not accept his argument about the diminution of capital by which I should
now notionally enhance the wife’s
[2001] 2 FLR 258
fund. Even if I did do that, then, as such capital as she has liquidated has been spent, she will
not be able to buy a sufficient fund to provide for her reasonable needs.
The other side of that equation would be that if the husband only had to raise £100,000 for a
lump sum payment, that would leave him with over £500,000 free funds, ie bank accounts and
investments, which could purchase an income of some £35,000 pa. That would need to be
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added to his present income of £80,000 from pension fund and rental properties, and he would
still have his boat, cars and money, in due course, to come from H’s estate and Miss D. Even
given his needs, that does not seem to me to be a fair outcome.
I must test it by comparing it to the outcome of an equal division. What happens if I go down
the equality route? It requires the payment of a lump some to the wife of £400,000, in addition
to the transfer of the house and the joint investments. That would put £835,000 into the wife’s
hands. A Duxbury calculation says that that gives her over £50,000 pa; she only asks for
£48,000. As Mr Pointer says, it is not for me, in some patriarchal way, to say what she should
and should not do with her money, to allow some of her items and to disallow others.
However, I am permitted to observe that she would, on her own figures, be living in relative
luxury. By that I mean that she will remain in the family house; she will be able to enjoy her
garden, spending, as she plans to do, over £7500 per year on it; also spending £7000 a year on
clothes and £7000 a year on miscellaneous items not included in her very detailed budget.
If the husband was ordered to pay that sum, and chose to do so by liquidating his investments,
then they would produce just under £400,000. He would then have just under £100,000 in
bank accounts, plus his expectation from H’s estate, the money due from Miss D, his boat,
car, SL shares and his properties. His income from his pension fund and rental properties
would be the £80,000 gross, which is £51,000 net, plus whatever came from the balance of his
assets as he chose to invest them.
He still has several choices open to him: his current home is subject to a mortgage which
expires in September 2004; he could pay that off as it was only a 5-year mortgage and is
heavily weighted to capital repayments. He has the next 15 years to decide when to convert
his pension fund into an annuity. He can make choices about his leisure activity. But is he not
as entitled, if at all possible, to maintain those in the same way that the wife will have her
garden?
Undoubtedly things will be very much tighter for him than for the wife. His budget contains
no provision for education for B; and, apart from his expenditure on his boat, is, on any view,
modest, for example, £150 a week housekeeping for a family of four.
So it seems to me that equality may not be the answer here. Is there another course that would
be fair? It seems to me that I must consider the various subsections of s 25 and aim to provide
as fair a distribution as possible. I am driven to conclude, against the background of this case,
that I should therefore aim to provide them each with a comfortable house and with sufficient
money to discharge their needs, obligations and responsibilities. If, in addition to the transfer
of the house and the joint assets, I order the husband to pay a lump sum of £300,000, then that
will provide the wife with a fund of £735,000 which should produce a net
[2001] 2 FLR 259
income that will meet her stated needs. She will have an unencumbered house worth over
£500,000. Her life will, so far as I can judge, continue in the style that she says she enjoyed
during the marriage.
The husband will have, immediately, somewhere in the region of £180,000 in liquid funds to
top up the income that comes from his pension fund and his rental properties. He will also
have free capital of £275,000 in property, including his home, and about £240,000 to come
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from the boat, the SL shares, H’s estate and Miss D’s loan. His net income will be just about
sufficient to meet his proposed budget.
I must then check my tentative conclusions against the yardstick of ‘equality’. My proposals
would share the joint pot as to £1,469,640 for the husband, and £1,262,416 for the wife. The
question for me is whether ‘if the shoe pinches (to use a phrase of Ward LJ in Piglowska v
Piglowski [1999] 2 FLR 763, [1999] 1 WLR 1360), and pinches more on one party than the
other, as a result of an equal distribution; is that sufficient demonstration that there is good
reason, in that case, to depart from equality? I believe that it is. I have looked at my proposals
to see if there is any discrimination in them. I do not believe that there is. It seems to me that
if I were to divide the assets equally, then I would be discriminating against the husband as a
result of his responsibility for his new family. I am satisfied that to deal with the matter in the
way I have proposed will result in as fair an outcome to both parties as is possible in this case.
I shall therefore order that the husband shall transfer to the wife his half-share in the
matrimonial home, Hunters, his half-share in the joint investments, and shall pay a lump sum
of £300,000 to the wife.
Order accordingly.
Solicitors:
Stokoe Partnership for the petitioner
Ellison & Co for the respondent
PATRICIA HARGROVE
Barrister
THE LEGAL CHARACTER OF INTERNATIONAL LAW
It has often been said that international law ought to be classified as a branch of ethics rather
than of law. The question is partly one of words, because its solution will clearly depend on
the definition of law which we choose to adopt; in any case it does not affect the value of the
subject one way or the other, though those who deny the legal character of international law
often speak as though 'ethical' were a depreciatory epithet. But in fact it is both practically
inconvenient and also contrary to the best juristic thought to deny its legal character. It is
inconvenient because if international law is nothing but international morality, it is certainly
not the whole of international morality, and it is difficult to see how we are to distinguish it
from those other admittedly moral standards which we apply in forming our judgements on
the conduct of states. Ordinary usage certainly uses two tests in judging the 'rightness' of a
state's act, a moral test and one which is somehow felt to be independent of morality. Every
state habitually commits acts of selfishness which are often gravely injurious to other states,
and yet are not contrary to international law; but we do not on that account necessarily judge
them to have been 'right'. It is confusing and pedantic to say that both these tests are moral.
Moreover, it is the pedantry of the theorist and not of the practical man; for questions of
international law are invariably treated as legal questions by the foreign offices which conduct
our international business, and in the courts, national or international, before which they are
brought; legal forms and methods are used in diplomatic controversies and in judicial and
arbitral proceedings, and authorities and precedents are cited in argument as a matter of
course. It is significant too that when a breach of international law is alleged by one party to a
controversy, the act impugned is practically never defended by claiming the right of private
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judgement, which would be the natural defence if the issue concerned the morality of the act,
but always by attempting to prove that no rule has been violated. This was true of the
defences put forward even for such palpable breaches of international law as the invasion of
Belgium in 194, or the bombardment of Corfu in 1923.
But if international law is not the same thing as international morality, and if in some
important respects at least it certainly resembles law, why should we hesitate to accept its
definitely legal character? The objection comes in the main from the followers of writers such
as Hobbes and Austin, who regard nothing as law which is not the will of a political superior.
But this is a misleading and inadequate analysis even of the law of a modern state; it cannot,
for instance, unless we distort the facts so as to fit them into the definition, account for the
existence of the English Common Law. In any case, even if such an analysis gave an adequate
explanation of law in the modern state, it would require us to assume that that law is the only
true law, and not merely law at a particular stage of growth or one species of a wider genus.
Such an assumption is historically unsound. Most of the characteristics which differentiate
international law from the law of the state and are often thought to throw doubt on its legal
character, such, for instance, as its basis in custom, the fact that the submission of parties to
the jurisdiction of courts is voluntary, the absence of regular processes either for creating or
enforcing it, are familiar features of early legal systems; and it is only in quite modern times,
when we have come to regard it as natural that the state should be constantly making new
laws and enforcing existing ones, that to identify law with the will of the state has become
even a plausible theory. If, as Sir Frederick Pollock writes, and as probably most competent
jurists would today agree, the only essential conditions for the existence of law are the
existence of a political community, and the recognition by its members of settled rules
binding upon them in that capacity, international law seems on the whole to satisfy these
conditions.
(From The Law of Nations by J. L. Brierly)
THE LAW OF NEGLIGENCE
Have you ever wondered how, with the infinite complexity of life, the law can provide for
every situation by a rule laid down in advance? Take the driving of a motor car. How can you
have a law that will govern every turn of the steering wheel? The answer found in the law
books is that cars must be driven, and almost everything else must be done, with reasonable
care and without negligence. This at least seems to state a rule. But is it a real rule, or just an
appearance of one? Unless one can give a content to the notion of reasonableness, and to its
opposite, negligence, the problem will be raised afresh: how can the law provide for every
eventuality?
In practice the negligence rule means that the judge or jury decides whether the defendant is
to be blamed or not, and this involves fixing upon something that he could and should have
done (or omitted to do) in order to avoid the mischief.
During the nineteenth century the judges attempted to clarify the law by inventing the notion
of the reasonable man. Instead of asking, as before, whether the defendant was guilty of
imprudence, the judges required the jury to consider whether the defendant had behaved like a
reasonable man, or a reasonably careful man, or a reasonably prudent man.
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Having invented the reasonable man, the judges had to make an effort to describe him.
According to some, he was the ordinary reasonable man. This was not the same as saying that
he was the ordinary man, but came rather near it. Indeed, Lord Bowen, with his gift for a
phrase, equated the reasonable man with 'the man on the Clapham omnibus', and this had led
to the widespread supposition that the standard of care required by the common law is that of
the average man. The supposition is certainly untrue.
'The ordinary reasonable man' of the judges' imagining is a meticulously careful person, so
careful that very few gentlemen come up to his standard. Every form of average is a measure
of central tendency, but the standard required by law is not a central human tendency of any
kind.
Take one obvious point. A defendant in an action for negligence would not be allowed to put
the passengers of a Clapham omnibus into the witness-box to say that they would have done
the same as he did. The evidence would not be listened to. One reason for this is that if
ordinary standards were conclusive, the courts could not use their influence to improve these
standards.
Again, ordinary people, even though normally they are circumspect in their behaviour, lapse
into carelessness now and then. As Elbert Hubbard expressed it, with humorous exaggeration,
'Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day. Wisdom consists in not
exceeding the limit'. But the idealized stereotype of the law, so far from being given five
minutes' indulgence a day, is never allowed an off-moment. The defendant may be a good
driver with twenty-five years' clean record, yet he will be held liable in damages for
negligence if he injures someone during a momentary lapse.
That the judges set the standard by the nearly perfect man, rather than the average man, is
lavishly illustrated in the law reports. The master of a small motor vessel, when off
Greenhithe in the Thames, fainted at the wheel, as a result of eating bad tinned salmon, and a
collision followed. Up to the moment of fainting the master had felt quite well, and he was
obviously not negligent in fainting. A pure accident, you might say. But the judge held that
the master was negligent because he had failed to foresee that he might lose consciousness,
and had omitted to provide against this by having some other person on deck who might be
able to get to the bridge in time to prevent an accident if fainting occurred. As a landlubber I
am in no position to comment upon this decision, but obviously, it could not be applied to
land vehicles without absurdity. No one would suggest that the Clapham or any other omnibus
should carry a reserve driver, ready to seize the wheel in case the other driver faints.
Where, then, is our elusive standard to be found? If the reasonable man is not to be discovered
on the Clapham omnibus, can he be identified with the judge or juryman who has to decide
the issue? Technically, at least, the answer is again in the negative. A judge must not tell the
members of the jury to determine what they would have done, because that is not the
question. The individual jurors might not have acted as prudently as they now think, on
reflection, they ought to have acted in the situation. jurors are expected to follow Hume's
precept that, in considering the moral character of an act, we should adopt the role of
impartial spectator, seeking reactions as to what we would approve or disapprove, not as to
what we ourselves would have felt or done.
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Perhaps this is the key to the puzzle. The reasonable man is a phantom reflecting a certain
ideal on the part of the tribunal, whether judge or jury as the case may be. He is a
personification of the court's social judgment.
If this is the right conclusion, I think one is driven to admit that the device of trying to decide
cases in terms of the reasonable man is not such a good idea after all. Why not address oneself
directly to the problem of negligence? Values are important, but there is no point in
personifying values, or attributing them to a fictitious person. In speaking of what a
reasonable man does or does not do, we appear to be stating a fact, whereas in truth the
question is how people ought to behave. It is merely misleading to use an expression that
seems to indicate the behaviour of real people, when we are evaluating behaviour by reference
to an ideal standard.
(Glanville Williams from an article in The Listener, February 2nd, 1961)
THE DEATH PENALTY
I want to organize under five simple verbs my own reasons for thinking that the death penalty
is a bad thing. If we catch a man who has committed a murder, try him and convict him, we
have to do something more with him than punish him, because, although he must be punished,
there are several other things that ought to happen to him. I think that the whole theory of
what ought to be done to a convicted murderer can be summed up in the five verbs: prevent,
reform, research, deter and avenge. Let me take these five things in turn and see how the
death penalty now looks as a means of achieving them.
The first is 'prevent'. By this I mean preventing the same man from doing it again, to check
him in his career-though, of course, nobody makes a career of being a murderer, except the
insane, who are not at issue in the question of the death penalty. I believe that I am right in
saying that in the course of a century there is only one doubtful case of a convicted murderer,
after his release at the end of a normal life sentence, committing another murder. I think that
that means, statistically, that the released murderer is no more likely to murder again than
anybody else is. The question of long sentences comes in here. If the sane convicted murderer
is not to be hanged, should he be imprisoned, and should the length of his service be
determined in a way not the usual one for the actual sentence served? I think this question can
be answered only by looking at the statistics of how likely a man is to do it again. In other
words, how likely a prison sentence for a given number of years, 15, 20 or 30 years, is to
prevent him from doing it again. There is a wealth of statistics available to us on that. I do not
think they suggest that the convicted murderer who is not hanged should have his prison
sentence dealt with in any way differently from that in which prison sentences are usually
dealt with.
To turn to the second verb on my list, 'reform'. That is rather a nineteenth century word, and
perhaps we should now say 'rehabilitate', stressing more the helping of a man with his social
functions rather than adjusting his internal character; but that is a minor point. It is clear that,
whatever we may think about what is able to be achieved in our prison system by treatment in
the reformatory and rehabilitatory way - and it is open to criticism for lack of funds and so onit is obvious that less can be achieved if you hang a man. One man who is utterly
unreformable is a corpse; and hanging is out of the question, because you cannot achieve any
form of reform or rehabilitation by it.
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The next word is 'research'. This is not part of the traditional idea of what to do with a
convicted murderer. It is rather a new notion that it may be an appropriate purpose in
detaining a criminal and inflicting punishment and other things upon him that research should
be conducted into the criminal personality and the causes of crime. At the moment we hang
only the sanest criminals. We can get all the research we want into the motives, characters and
personality structures of those with diminished responsibility, the insane and those under an
age to be hanged. But the one we cannot research into is the man who is sane and who
commits capital murder in cold blood on purpose. It might be that if we were to keep this man
alive and turn psychiatrists and other qualified persons on to talking to him for twenty years
during his prison sentence we should find things that would enable us to take measures which
would reduce the murder rate and save the lives of the victims. But in hanging these men we
cut ourselves off from this possible source of knowledge of help to the victims of murder.
The fourth word, 'deter', is the crux of the whole thing. Abolitionists, as we all know, have
held for many years that evidence from abroad has for long been conclusive that the capital
penalty is not a uniquely effective deterrent against murder. Retentionists of the death penalty
have been saying for years that we are not like those abroad; we are a different country
economically; our national temperament is different; and there is this and that about us which
is not so about those in Italy, Norway or certain States of the United States, New Zealand,
India, or wherever it may be. Now we have this remarkable pamphlet which in effect closes
that gap in the abolitionists' argument. It shows within mortal certitude that we are exactly
like those abroad, and that in this country the death penalty is not a uniquely effective
deterrent against murder.
The last on the list of my five verbs is 'avenge'. Here the death penalty is uniquely effective. If
a man has taken life, the most effective, obvious and satisfying form of vengeance is to take
his life. I have no argument against that. I think it is true that if one accepts vengeance as a
purpose proper for the State in its handling of convicted criminals, then the death penalty
should stay for convicted murderers. For myself-and it is only a personal matter-I utterly
reject the idea that vengeance is a proper motive for the State in dealing with convicted
criminals; and I hope that, from the date of the publication of this pamphlet onwards, those
who wish to retain the death penalty will admit that its only merit is precisely that of
vengeance.
(Lord Kennet from a Speech in the House of Lords, November 9th, 1961)
MATHEMATICS
On Different Degrees of Smallness
We shall find that in our processes of calculation we have to deal with small quantities of
various degrees of smallness. We shall have also to learn under what circumstances we may
consider small quantities to be so minute that we may omit them from consideration.
Everything depends upon relative minuteness. Before we fix any rules let us think of some
familiar cases. There are 60 minutes in the hour, 24 hours in the day, 7 days in the week.
There are therefore 1,440 minutes in the day and 10,080 minutes in the week.
Obviously 1 minute is a very small quantity of time compared with a whole week. Indeed, our
forefathers considered it small as compared with an hour, and called it 'one minute', meaning
a minute fraction - namely one-sixtieth-of an hour. When they came to require still smaller
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subdivisions of time, they divided each minute into 60 still smaller parts, which in Queen
Elizabeth's days, they called 'second minutes' (i.e. small quantities of the second order of
minuteness). Nowadays we call these small quantities of the second order of smallness
'seconds'. But few people know why they are so called. Now if one minute is so small as
compared with a whole day, how much smaller by comparison is one second!
Again, think of a farthing as compared with a sovereign; it is worth only a little more than
1/1,000 part. A farthing more or less is of precious little importance compared with a
sovereign; it may certainly be regarded as a small quantity. But compare a farthing with
£1,000: relatively to this greater sum, the farthing is of no more importance than 1/1,000 of a
farthing would be to a sovereign. Even a golden sovereign is relatively a negligible quantity in
the wealth of a millionaire.
Now if we fix upon any numerical fraction as constituting the proportion which for any
purpose we call relatively small, we can easily state other fractions of a higher degree of
smallness.
Thus if, for the purpose of time, x/6o be called a small fraction, then 1/60 of 1/60 (being a
small fraction of a small fraction) may be regarded as a small quantity of the second order of
smallness. Or, if for any purpose we were to take 1 per cent (i.e. 1/100) as a small fraction,
then 1 per cent of 1 per cent (i.e. 1/10,000) would be a small fraction of the second order of
smallness; and 1/1,000,000 would be a small fraction of the third order of smallness, being 1
per cent of 1 per cent of 1 per cent.
Lastly, suppose that for some very precise purpose we should regard 1/1,000,000 as 'small'.
Thus, if a first-rate chronometer is not to lose or gain more than half a minute in a year, it
must keep time with an accuracy of 1 part in 1,051,200. Now if, for such a purpose, we regard
1/1,000,000 (or one millionth) as a small quantity, then 1/1,000,000 of 1/1,000,000, that is
1/1,000,000,000,000 (or one billionth) will be a small quantity of the second order of
smallness, and may be utterly disregarded, by comparison.
Then we see that the smaller a small quantity itself is, the more negligible does the
corresponding small quantity of the second order become. Hence we know that in all cases we
are justified in neglecting the small quantities of the second - or third (or higher) - orders, if
only we take the small quantity of the first order small enough in itself. But it must be
remembered that small quantities if they occur in our expressions as factors multiplied by
some other factor, may become important if the other factor is itself large. Even a farthing
becomes important if only it is multiplied by a few hundred.
Now in the calculus we write dx for a little bit of x. These things such as dx and du, and dy,
are called 'differentials', the differential of x, or of u, or of y, as the case may be. (You read
them as dee-eks, or dee-you, or dee-wy). If dx be a small bit of x, and relatively small, it does
not follow that such quantities as x.dx or a2.dx or ax.dx are negligible. But dx times dx would
be negligible, being a small quantity of the second order.
A very simple example will serve as illustration. Let us think of x as a quantity that can grow
by a small amount so as to become x + dx, where dx is the small increment added by growth.
The square of this is x2 + 2x.dx + (dx)2. The second term is not negligible because it is a firstorder quantity; while the third term is of the second order of smallness, being a bit of a bit of
x. Thus if we took dx to mean numerically, say 1/60 of x, then the second term would be 2/60
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of x2, whereas the third term would be 1/3,600 of x2. This last term is clearly less important
than the second. But if we go further and take dx to mean only 1/1000 of x, then the second
term will be 2/1,000 of x2, while the third term will be only 1/1,000,000 Of x2.
Geometrically this may be depicted as follows: draw a square the side of which we will take
to represent x. Now suppose the square to grow by having a bit dx added to its size each way.
The enlarged square is made up of the original square x2, the two rectangles at the top and on
the right, each of which is of area x. dx (or together 2x.dx), and the little square at the top
right-hand corner which is (dx)2. We have taken dx as quite a big fraction of x - about 1/5. But
suppose we had taken it as only 1/1000 - about the thickness of an inked line drawn with a
fine pen. Then the little corner square will have an area of only 1/10,000 of x2, and be
practically invisible. Clearly (dx)2 is negligible if only we consider the increment dx to be
itself small enough.
(From Calculus Made Easy by Silvanus P. Thompson.)
Chance or Probability
The aim of science is to describe the world in orderly language, in such a way that we can, if
possible, foresee the results of those alternative courses of action between which we are
always choosing. The kind of order which our description has is entirely one of convenience.
Our purpose is always to predict. Of course, it is most convenient if we can find an order by
cause and effect; it makes our choice simple; but it is not essential.
There is of course nothing sacred about the causal form of natural laws. We are accustomed to
this form, until it has become our standard of what every natural law ought to look like. If you
halve the space which a gas fills, and keep other things constant, then you will double the
pressure, we say. If you do such and such, the result will be so and so; and it will always be so
and so. And we feel by long habit that it is this 'always' which turns the prediction into a law.
But of course there is no reason why laws should have this always, all-or-nothing form. If you
self-cross the offspring of a pure white and a pure pink sweet pea, said Mendel, then on an
average one-quarter of these grandchildren will be white, and three-quarters will be pink. This
is as good a law as any other; it says what will happen, in good quantitative terms, and what it
says turns out to be true. It is not any less respectable for not making that parade of every time
certainty which the law of gases makes.
It is important to seize this point. If I say that after a fine week, it always rains on Sunday,
then this is recognized and respected as law. But if I say that after a fine week, it rains on
Sunday more often than not, then this somehow is felt to be an unsatisfactory statement; and it
is taken for granted that I have not really got down to some underlying law which would
chime with our habit of wanting science to say decisively either 'always' or 'never'. Somehow
it seems to lack the force of law.
Yet this is a mere prejudice. It is nice to have laws which say, 'This configuration of facts will
always be followed by event A, ten times out of ten.' But neither taste nor convenience really
make this a more essential form of law than one which says, 'This configuration of facts will
be followed by event A seven times out of ten, and by event B three times out of ten.' In form
the first is a causal law and the second a statistical law. But in content and in application,
there is no reason to prefer one to the other.
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There is, however, a limitation within every law which does not contain the word 'always'.
Bluntly, when I say that a configuration of facts will be followed sometimes by event A and at
other times by B, I cannot be certain whether at the next trial A or B will turn up. I may know
that A is to turn up seven times and B three times out of ten; but that brings me no nearer at
all to knowing which is to turn up on the one occasion I have my eye on next time. Mendel's
law is all very fine when you grow sweet peas by the acre; but it does not tell you, and cannot,
whether the single second generation seed in your window box will flower white or pink.
But this limitation carries with it a less obvious one. If we are not sure whether A or B will
turn up next time, then neither can we be sure which will turn up the time after, or the time
after that. We know that A is to turn up seven times and B three; but this can never mean that
every set of ten trials will give us exactly seven As and three Bs.
Then what do I mean by saying that we expect A to turn up seven times to every three times
which B turns up? I mean that among all the sets of ten trials which we can choose from an
extended series, picking as we like, the greatest number will contain seven As and three Bs.
This is the same thing as saying that if we have enough trials, the proportion of As to Bs will
tend to the ratio of seven to three. But of course, no run of trials, however extended, is
necessarily long enough. In no run of trials can we be sure of reaching precisely the balance
of seven to three.
Then how do I know that the law is in fact seven As and three Bs? What do I mean by saying
that the ratio tends to this in a long trial, when I never know if the trial is long enough? And
more, when I know that at the very moment when we have reached precisely this ratio, the
next single trial must upset it because it must add either a whole A or a whole B, and cannot
add seven-tenths of one and three-tenths of the other. I mean this. After ten trials, we may
have eight As and only two Bs; it is not at all improbable. But it is very improbable that, after
a hundred trials, we shall have as many as eighty As. It is excessively improbable that after a
thousand trials we shall have as many as eight hundred As; indeed it is highly improbable that
at this stage the ratio of As and Bs departs from seven to three by as much as five per cent.
And if after a hundred thousand trials we should get a ratio which differs from our law by as
much as one per cent, then we should have to face the fact that the law itself is almost
certainly in error.
Let me quote a practical example. The great naturalist Bufhon was a man of wide interests.
His interest in the laws of chance prompted him to ask an interesting question. If a needle is
thrown at random on a sheet of paper ruled with lines whose distance apart is exactly equal to
the length of the needle, how often can it be expected to fall on a line and how often into a
blank space? The answer is rather odd: it should fall on a line a little less than two times out
of three - precisely, it should fall on a line two times out of pi where pi is the familiar ratio of
the circumference of a circle to its diameter, which has the value 3.14159265.... How near can
we get to this answer in actual trials? This depends of course on the care with which we rule
the lines and do the throwing; but, after that, it depends only on our patience. In 1901 an
Italian mathematician, having taken due care, demonstrated his patience by making well over
3,000 throws. The value he got for pi was right to the sixth place of decimals, which is an
error of only a hundred thousandth part of one per cent.
This is the method to which modern science is moving. It uses no principle but that of
forecasting with as much assurance as possible, but with no more than is possible. That is, it
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idealizes the future from the outset, not as completely determined, but as determined within a
defined area of uncertainty.
(From The Common Sense of Science by J. Bronowski.)
PHILOSOPHY
Definition and Some of its Difficulties
If our thought is to be clear and we are to succeed in communicating it to other people, we
must have some method of fixing the meanings of the words we use. When we use a word
whose meaning is not certain, we may well be asked to define it. There is a useful traditional
device for doing this by indicating the class to which whatever is indicated by the term
belongs, and also the particular property which distinguishes it from all other members of the
same class. Thus we may define a whale as a 'marine animal that spouts'. 'Marine animal' in
this definition indicates the general class to which the whale belongs, and 'spouts' indicates
the particular property that distinguishes whales from other such marine animals as fishes,
seals, jelly-fish, lobsters, etc. In the same way we can define an even number as a finite
integer divisible by two, or a democracy as a system of government in which the people
themselves rule.
There are other ways, of course, of indicating the meanings of words. We may, for example,
find it hard to make a suitable definition of the word 'animal', so we say that an animal is such
a thing as a rabbit, dog, fish, etc. Similarly we may say that religion is such a system as
Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Christian Science, etc. This way of indicating the meaning of a
term by enumerating examples of what it includes is obviously of limited usefulness. If we
indicated our use of the word 'animal' as above, our hearers might, for example, be doubtful
whether a sea-anemone or a slug was to be included in the class of animals. It is, however, a
useful way of supplementing a definition if the definition itself is definite without being easily
understandable. If, for example, we explain what we mean by religion by saying: 'A religion
is a system of beliefs and practices connected with a spiritual world, such as Christianity,
Islam, Judaism, Christian Science, and so on', we may succeed in making our meaning more
clear than it would be if we had been given the definition alone.
Failure of an attempt at definition to serve its purpose may result from giving as
distinguishing mark one which either does not belong to all the things the definition is
intended to include, or does belong to some members of the same general class which the
definition is intended to exclude. Thinking, for example, of the most obvious difference
between a rabbit and a cabbage, we might be tempted to define an animal as a living organism
which is able to move about. This would combine both faults mentioned above, since some
animals (e.g. some shell-fish such as the oyster) are not able to move about for the whole or
part of their lives, while some vegetables (such as the fresh-water alga Volvox) do swim
about. Of course, anyone who used the above definition might claim to be defining 'animal' in
a new and original way to include Volvox and exclude oysters, but he would have failed to
produce a definition which defined the ordinary use of the word 'animal'.
More commonly an attempt at definition fails by not indicating correctly the general class to
which the thing defined belongs. One meets, for example, in psychological writings such
definitions as: 'Intelligence is a state of mind characterized by the ability to learn and solve
problems.' The second part of the definition is all right, but the word 'intelligence' is not used
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for a state of mind; and the person who defines 'intelligence' like this does not in his actual use
of the word make it stand for a state of mind. Such conditions as despair, concentration,
alertness, and hope can be called 'states of mind'. 'Intelligence' is used for a quality of mind,
not for a state. If the word 'quality' replaced the word 'state' in the above definition it would
indicate very well the current use of the word 'intelligence'.
(From Straight and Crooked Thinking, by R. H. Thouless.)
The Subject Matter of Philosophy
It seems clear that subjects or fields of study are determined by the kind of questions to which
they have been invented to provide the answer. The questions themselves are intelligible if,
and only if, we know where to look for the answers.
If you ask someone an ordinary question, say, 'Where is my coat?', 'Why was Mr Kennedy
elected President of the United States?', 'What is the Soviet system of criminal law?' he would
normally know how to set about finding an answer. We may not know the answers ourselves,
but we know that in the case of the question about the coat, the proper procedure is to look on
the chair, in the cupboard, etc. In the case of Mr Kennedy's election or the Soviet system of
law we consult writings of specialists for the kind of empirical evidence which leads to the
relevant conclusions, and renders them, if not certain, at any rate probable.
In other words, we know where to look for the answer: we know what makes some answers
plausible and others not. What makes this type of question intelligible in the first place is that
we think that the answer can be discovered by empirical means, that is, by orderly observation
or experiment or methods compounded of these, namely those of common sense or the natural
sciences. There is another class of questions where we are clear about the proper route by
which the answers are to be sought, namely the formal disciplines: mathematics, for example,
or logic, or grammar, or chess, where there are certain fixed axioms, certain accepted rules of
deduction, and the answer to problems is to be found by applying these rules in the manner
prescribed as correct.
The hallmark of these provinces of human thought is that once the question is put we know
which way to proceed to try to obtain the answer. The history of systematic human thought is
largely a sustained effort to formulate all the questions that occur to mankind in such a way
that they will fall into one or other of these two great baskets: the empirical, that is, questions
whose answers depend, in the end, on the data of observation; and the formal, that is,
questions whose answers depend on pure calculation, untrammelled by factual knowledge.
But there are certain questions that do not easily fit into this classification. 'What is an okapi?'
is answered easily enough by an act of empirical observation. Similarly 'What is the cube root
of 729?' is settled by a piece of calculation in accordance with accepted rules. But if I ask
'What is a number?', 'What is the purpose of human life on earth', 'Are you sure that all men
are brothers?' how do I set about looking for the answer?
There seems to be something queer about all these questions as wide apart as those about
number, or the brotherhood of man, or purposes of life; they differ from the questions in the
other baskets in that the question itself does not seem to contain a pointer to the way in which
the answer to it is to be found. The other, more ordinary, questions contain precisely such
pointers built-in techniques for finding the answers to them. The questions about number and
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so on reduce the questioner to perplexity, and annoy practical people precisely because they
do not seem to lead to clear answers or useful knowledge of any kind.
This shows that between the two original baskets, the empirical and the formal, there is an
intermediate basket, in which all those questions live which cannot easily be fitted into the
other two. These questions are of the most diverse nature; some appear to be questions of fact,
others of value; some are questions about words, others are about methods pursued by
scientists, artists, critics, common men in the ordinary affairs of life; still others are about the
relations between the various provinces of knowledge; some deal with the presuppositions of
thinking, some with the correct ends of moral or social or political action.
The only common characteristic which all these questions appear to have is that they cannot
be answered either by observation or calculation, either by inductive methods or deductive;
and as a crucial corollary of this, that those who ask them are faced with a perplexity from the
very beginning-they do not know where to look for the answer; there are no dictionaries,
encyclopaedias, compendia of knowledge, no experts, no orthodoxies, which can be referred
to with confidence as possessing unquestionable authority or knowledge in these matters.
Such questions tend to be called philosophical.
(From an article by Sir Isaiah Berlin in The Sunday Times, 14th November, 1962.)
What can we Communicate?
The obvious answer to the question how we know about the experiences of others is that they
are communicated to us, either through their natural manifestations in the form of gestures,
tears, laughter, play of feature and so forth, or by the use of language. A very good way to
find out what another person is thinking or feeling is to ask him. He may not answer, or if he
does answer he may not answer truly, but very often he will. The fact that the information
which people give about themselves can be deceptive does not entail that it is never to be
trusted. We do not depend on it alone; it may be, indeed, that the inferences which we draw
from people's non-verbal behaviour are more secure than those that we base upon what they
say about themselves, that actions speak more honestly than words. But were it not that we
can rely a great deal upon words, we should know very much less about each other than we
do.
At this point, however, a difficulty arises. If I am to acquire information in this way about
another person's experiences, I must understand what he says about them. And this would
seem to imply that I attach the same meaning to his words as he does. But how, it may be
asked, can I ever be sure that this is so? He tells me that he is in pain, but may it not be that
what he understands by pain is something quite different from anything that I should call by
that name? He tells me that something looks red to him, but how do I know that what he calls
'red' is not what I should call 'blue', or that it is not a colour unlike any that I have ever seen,
or that it does not differ from anything that I should even take to be a colour? All these things
would seem to be possible. Yet how are such questions ever to be decided?
In face of this difficulty, some philosophers have maintained that experiences as such are
uncommunicable. They have held that in so far as one uses words to refer to the content of
one's experiences, they can be intelligible only to oneself. No one else can understand them,
because no one else can get into one's mind to verify the statements which they express. What
can be communicated, on this view, is structures. I have no means of knowing that other
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people have sensations or feelings which are in any way like my own. I cannot tell even that
they mean the same by the words which they use to refer to physical objects, since the
perceptions which they take as establishing the existence of these objects may be utterly
different from any that I have ever had myself. If I could get into my neighbour's head to see
what it is that he refers to as a table, I might fail to recognize it altogether, just as I might fail
to recognize anything that he is disposed to call a colour or a pain. On the other hand,
however different the content of his experience may be from mine, I do know that its structure
is the same. The proof that it is the same is that his use of words corresponds with mine, in so
far as he applies them in a corresponding way. However different the table that he perceives
may be from the table that I perceive, he agrees with me in saying of certain things that they
are tables and of others that they are not. No matter what he actually sees when he refers to
colour, his classification of things according to their colour is the same as mine. Even if his
conception of pain is quite different from my own, his behaviour when he is in pain is such as
I consider to be appropriate. Thus the possible differences of content can, and indeed must be
disregarded. What we can establish is that experiences are similarly ordered. It is this
similarity of structure that provides us with our common world: and it is only descriptions of
this common world, that is, descriptions of structure, that we are able to communicate.
On this view, the language which different people seem to share consists, as it were, of flesh
and bones. The bones represent its public aspect; they serve alike for all. But each of us puts
flesh upon them in accordance with the character of his experience. Whether one person's way
of clothing the skeleton is or is not the same as another's is an unanswerable question. The
only thing that we can be satisfied about is the identity of the bones.
(From The Problem of Knowledge, By A. J. Ayer.)
Ethics
Ethics is traditionally a department of philosophy, and that is my reason for discussing it. I
hardly think myself that it ought to be included in the domain of philosophy, but to prove this
would take as long as to discuss the subject itself, and would be less interesting.
As a provisional definition, we may take ethics to consist of general principles which help to
determine rules of conduct. It is not the business of ethics to say how a person should act in
such and such specific circumstances; that is the province of casuistry. The word 'casuistry'
has acquired bad connotations, as a result of the Protestant and Jansenist attacks on the
Jesuits. But in its old and proper sense it represents a perfectly legitimate study. Take, say, the
question: In what circumstances is it right to tell a lie? Some people, unthinkingly, would say:
Never! But this answer cannot be seriously defended. Everybody admits that you should lie if
you meet a homicidal maniac pursuing a man with a view to murdering him, and he asks you
whether the man has passed your way. It is admitted that lying is a legitimate branch of the art
of warfare; also that priests may lie to guard the secrets of the confessional, and doctors to
protect the professional confidences of their patients. All such questions belong to casuistry in
the old sense, and it is evident that they are questions deserving to be asked and answered. But
they do not belong to ethics in the sense in which this study has been included in philosophy.
It is not the business of ethics to arrive at actual rules of conduct, such as: 'Thou shalt not
steal.' This is the province of morals. Ethics is expected to provide a basis from which such
rules can be deduced. The rules of morals differ according to the age, the race, and the creed
of the community concerned, to an extent that is hardly realized by those who have neither
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travelled nor studied anthropology. Even within a homogeneous community differences of
opinion arise. Should a man kill his wife's lover? The Church says no, the law says no, and
common sense says no; yet many people would say yes, and juries often refuse to condemn.
These doubtful cases arise when a moral rule is in process of changing. But ethics is
concerned with something more general than moral rules, and less subject to change. It is true
that, in a given community, an ethic which does not lead to the moral rules accepted by that
community is considered immoral. It does not, of course, follow that such an ethic is in fact
false since the moral rules of that community may be undesirable. Some tribes of headhunters hold that no man should marry until he can bring to the wedding the head of an enemy
slain by himself. Those who question this moral rule are held to be encouraging licence and
lowering the standard of manliness. Nevertheless, we should not demand of an ethic that it
should justify the moral rules of head-hunters.
Perhaps the best way to approach the subject of ethics is to ask what is meant when a person
says: 'You ought to do so-and-so' or 'I ought to do so-and-so.' Primarily, a sentence of this sort
has an emotional content; it means 'this is the act towards which I feel the emotion of
approval'. But we do not wish to leave the matter there; we want to find something more
objective and systematic and constant. The ethical teacher says: 'You ought to approve acts of
such-and-such kinds.' He generally gives reasons for this view, and we have to examine what
sorts of reasons are possible. We are here on very ancient ground. Socrates was concerned
mainly with ethics; Plato and Aristotle both discussed the subject at length; before their time,
Confucius and Buddha had each founded a religion consisting almost entirely of ethical
teaching, though in the case of Buddhism there was afterwards a growth of theological
doctrine. The views of the ancients on ethics are better worth studying than their views on
(say) physical science; the subject has not yet proved amenable to exact reasoning, and we
cannot boast that the moderns have as yet rendered their predecessors obsolete.
(From An Outline of Philosophy, by Bertrand Russell.)
Aristotle's Ethics
As to goodness of character in general, Aristotle says that we start by having a capacity for it,
but that it has to be developed by practice. How is it developed ? By doing virtuous acts. At
first sight this looks like a vicious circle. Aristotle tells us that we become virtuous by doing
virtuous acts, but how can we do virtuous acts unless we are already virtuous? Aristotle
answers that we begin by doing acts which are objectively virtuous, without having a reflex
knowledge of the acts and a deliberate choice of the acts as good, a choice resulting from an
habitual disposition. For instance, a child may be told by its parents not to lie. It obeys
without realizing perhaps the inherent goodness of telling the truth, and without having yet
formed a habit of telling the truth; but the acts of truth-telling gradually form the habit, and as
the process of education goes on, the child comes to realize that truth-telling is right in itself,
and to choose to tell the truth for its own sake, as being the right thing to do. It is then virtuous
in this respect. The accusation of the vicious circle is thus answered by the distinction
between the acts which create the good disposition and the acts which flow from the good
disposition once it has been created. Virtue itself is a disposition which has been developed
out of a capacity by the proper exercise of that capacity. (Further difficulties might arise, of
course, concerning the relation between the development of moral valuations and the
influence of social environment, suggestion of parents and teachers, etc., but with these
Aristotle does not deal.)
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How does virtue stand to vice? It is a common characteristic of all good actions that they have
a certain order and proportion, and virtue, in Aristotle's eyes, is a mean between two
extremes, the extremes being vices, one being a vice through excess, the other being a vice
through defect. Through excess or defect of what? Either in regard to a feeling or in regard to
an action. Thus, in regard to the feeling of confidence, the excess of this feeling constitutes
rashness - at least when the feeling issues in action, and it is with human actions that ethics
are concerned - while the defect is cowardice. The mean, then, will be a mean between
rashness on the one hand and cowardice on the other hand: this mean is courage and is the
virtue in respect to the feeling of confidence. Again, if we take the action of giving of money,
excess in regard to this action is prodigality - and this is a vice - while defect in regard to this
action is illiberality. The virtue, liberality, is the mean between the two vices, that of excess
and that of defect. Aristotle, therefore, describes or defines moral virtue as 'a disposition to
choose, consisting essentially in a mean relatively to us determined by a rule, i.e. the rule by
which a practically wise man would determine it.' Virtue, then, is a disposition, a disposition
to choose according to a rule, namely, the rule by which a truly virtuous man possessed of
moral insight would choose. Aristotle regarded the possession of practical wisdom, the ability
to see what is the right thing to do in the circumstances, as essential to the truly virtuous man,
and he attaches much more value to the moral judgments of the enlightened conscience than
to any a priori and merely theoretical conclusions. This may seem somewhat naive, but it
must be remembered that for Aristotle the prudent man will be the man who sees what is truly
good for a man in any set of circumstances: he is not required to enter upon any academic
preserve, but to see what truly befits human nature in those circumstances.
When Aristotle speaks of virtue as a mean, he is not thinking of a mean that has to be
calculated arithmetically: that is why he says in his definition 'relatively to us'. We cannot
determine what is excess, what mean and what defect by hard-and-fast, mathematical rules: so
much depends on the character of the feeling or action in question: in some cases it may be
preferable to err on the side of excess rather than on that of defect, while in other cases the
reverse may be true. Nor, of course, should the Aristotelian doctrine of the mean be taken as
equivalent to an exaltation of mediocrity in the moral life, for as far as excellence is
concerned virtue is an extreme: it is in respect of its essence and its definition that it is a
mean.
(From A History of Philosophy, by Frederick Copleston.)
The Road to Happiness
It is a commonplace among moralists that you cannot get happiness by pursuing it. This is
only true if you pursue it unwisely. Gamblers at Monte Carlo are pursuing money, and most
of them lose it instead, but there are other ways of pursuing money which often succeed. So it
is with happiness. If you pursue it by means of drink, you are forgetting the hang-over.
Epicurus pursued it by living only in congenial society and eating only dry bread,
supplemented by a little cheese on feast days. His method proved successful in his case, but
he was a valetudinarian, and most people would need something more vigorous. For most
people, the pursuit of happiness, unless supplemented in various ways, is too abstract and
theoretical to be adequate as a personal rule of life. But I think that whatever personal rule of
life you may choose it should not, except in rare and heroic cases, be incompatible with
happiness.
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There are a great many people who have all the material conditions of happiness, i.e. health
and a sufficient income, and who, nevertheless, are profoundly unhappy. In such cases it
would seem as if the fault must lie with a wrong theory as to how to live. In one sense, we
may say that any theory as to how to live is wrong. We imagine ourselves more different from
the animals than we are. Animals live on impulse, and are happy as long as external
conditions are favourable. If you have a cat it will enjoy life if it has food and warmth and
opportunities for an occasional night on the tiles. Your needs are more complex than those of
your cat, but they still have their basis in instinct. In civilized societies, especially in Englishspeaking societies, this is too apt to be forgotten. People propose to themselves some one
paramount objective, and restrain all impulses that do not minister to it. A businessman may
be so anxious to grow rich that to this end he sacrifices health and private affections. When at
last he has become rich, no pleasure remains to him except harrying other people by
exhortations to imitate his noble example. Many rich ladies, although nature has not endowed
them with any spontaneous pleasure in literature or art, decide to be thought cultured, and
spend boring hours learning the right thing to say about fashionable new books that are
written to give delight, not to afford opportunities for dusty snobbism.
If you look around you at the men and women whom you can call happy, you will see that
they all have certain things in common. The most important of these things is an activity
which at most times is enjoyable on its own account, and which, in addition, gradually builds
up something that you are glad to see coming into existence. Women who take an instinctive
pleasure in their children can get this kind of satisfaction out of bringing up a family. Artists
and authors and men of science get happiness in this way if their own work seems good to
them. But there are many humbler forms of the same kind of pleasure. Many men who spend
their working life in the City devote their week-ends to voluntary and unremunerated toil in
their gardens, and when the spring comes they experience all the joys of having created
beauty.
The whole subject of happiness has, in my opinion, been treated too solemnly. It had been
thought that man cannot be happy without a theory of life or a religion. Perhaps those who
have been rendered unhappy by a bad theory may need a better theory to help them to
recovery, just as you may need a tonic when you have been ill. But when things are normal a
man should be healthy without a tonic and happy without a theory. It is the simple things that
really matter. If a man delights in his wife and children, has success in work, and finds
pleasure in the alternation of day and night, spring and autumn, he will be happy whatever his
philosophy may be. If, on the other hand, he finds his wife hateful, his children's noise
unendurable, and the office a nightmare; if in the daytime he longs for night, and at night
sighs for the light of day, then what he needs is not a new philosophy but a new regimen - a
different diet, or more exercise, or what not.
Man is an animal, and his happiness depends on his physiology more than he likes to think.
This is a humble conclusion, but I cannot make myself disbelieve it. Unhappy businessmen, I
am convinced, would increase their happiness more by walking six miles every day than by
any conceivable change of philosophy. This, incidentally, was the opinion of Jefferson, who
on this ground deplored the horse. Language would have failed him if he could have foreseen
the motor-car.
(From an article in The Listener, by Bertrand Russell.)
Logic
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Discourse is connected thought, expressed in words. It moves this way and that, like the
shuttle in the loom (as Plato said) weaving the fabric of reasoned argument. In discourse with
others opinion is formed, knowledge is acquired, and truth attained. What is said by one
speaker, combined with what is said by another speaker, may yield a truth, not previously
known to either speaker. In that discourse with oneself which is called reflection or
meditation, a truth learned today links up with a truth learned yesterday, and the two truths
may point the way to some advance or even discovery of tomorrow. From what others have
said or from what we ourselves have thought, conclusions and inferences are drawn and they
are the special concern of Logic. It is all too easy to draw wrong conclusions and false
inferences; and discourse without the discipline of Logic is a fruitful source of false opinion,
ignorance and error.
Logic trains the mind to draw the right conclusion, and to avoid the wrong, to make the true
inference and not the false. It has formulated rules of inference to govern and guide debate
and to promote discovery. Logic has to deal as well with other important elements of
discourse, but its main province has always been, and still is, inference.
Idle talk and trivial conversation do not rank as discourse for our purpose. Logic has little to
do with the frivolous; its business is with the serious statement which admits truth or falsity.
Logic promotes truth; yet we can go far in Logic without knowing or caring much whether a
particular statement is true or false, in the ordinary acceptation of those words. By true in
ordinary speech we mean true to fact, and by false we mean the opposite. Now a statement,
true to fact, may in its context infringe a rule of Logic; and a statement, false in fact, may in
its context conform to the rules of Logic. The logician, as such, is not directly concerned with
fact, but is much more concerned with the observance of the rules of Logic, and therefore he
uses a pair of technical terms, valid and invalid, to express, respectively, what conforms to the
rules of logic and what does not conform thereto. By the aid of these terms he can set out the
rules of reasoning without committing himself as to whether a particular statement is true to
fact, or not. Valid comes from the Latin, validus, strong. A valid passport may make mistakes
in fact, but if duly signed and not out of date, it may do its work and get you through the
barrier. On the other hand, it may give the colour of the eyes and all the other facts correctly,
but if it is out of date, it will not do its work; it is invalid. The distinction between truth and
validity must be carefully observed. It is illogical and therefore incorrect to speak of a true
syllogism, if you mean a valid syllogism, or of a valid conclusion, if you mean a true
conclusion.
This distinction is of special importance here; for in the study of the syllogism, as such, Logic
concentrates on the form of the reasoning, for the most part, and is not directly concerned
with the truth of its contents. If the syllogism complies with the formal rules, it is valid, if not,
not. If the conclusion follows from the premisses, the conclusion is valid, even though
premiss and conclusion may not be true to fact. Example:
All fish are cold-blooded.
Whales are fish.
Whales are cold-blooded.
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The first premiss is true; the second is false; the conclusion is false; but the conclusion is
correctly drawn from the premisses, and therefore valid in its syllogism, even though it is not
true to fact.
The reverse can happen too. A proposition, true to fact, may appear as the conclusion of an
invalid syllogism. Example:
The industrious are prudent.
Ants are prudent.
Ants are industrious.
These examples are warnings against the habit of judging the validity or invalidity of a
syllogism by the truth or falsity of the conclusion. As students of Logic our first duty is to
look at the working of the syllogism, and to judge its validity, or otherwise, by the rules. No
good comes of confusing the two sets of terms, as is sometimes done. Truth is truth, and
validity is validity, and neither can do duty for the other. The lazy habit of styling a valid
conclusion true, or a true conclusion valid, weakens both our sense of truth and our feeling for
Logic.
(From Teach Yourself Logic, by A. A. Luce.)
Inductive and deductive logic
Now I want to talk about methods of finding one's way through these hierarchies - logic.
Two kinds of logic are used, inductive and deductive. Inductive inferences start with
observations of the machine and arrive at general conclusions. For example, if the cycle goes
over a bump and the engine misfires, and then goes over another bump and the engine
misfires, and then goes over another bump and the engine misfires, and then goes over a long
smooth stretch of road and there is no misfiring, and then goes over a fourth bump and the
engine misfires again, one can logically conclude that the misfiring is caused by the bumps.
That is induction: reasoning from particular experiences to general truths.
Deductive inferences do the reverse. They start with general knowledge and predict a specific
observation. For example, if, from reading the hierarchy of facts about the machine, the
mechanic knows the horn of the cycle is powered exclusively by electricity from the battery,
then he can logically infer that if the battery is dead the horn will not work. That is deduction.
Solution of problems too complicated for common sense to solve is achieved by long strings
of mixed inductive and deductive inferences that weave back and forth between the observed
machine and the mental hierarchy of the machine found in the manuals. The correct program
for this interweaving is formalized as scientific method.
Actually I've never seen a cycle-maintenance problem complex enough really to require fullscale formal scientific method. Repair problems are not that hard. When I think of formal
scientific method an image sometimes comes to mind of an enormous juggernaut, a huge
bulldozer-slow, tedious, lumbering, laborious, but invincible. It takes twice as long, five times
as long, maybe a dozen times as long as informal mechanic's techniques, but you know in the
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end you're going to get it. There's no fault isolation problem in motorcycle maintenance that
can stand up to it. When you've hit a really tough one, tried everything, racked your brain and
nothing works, and you know that this time Nature has really decided to be difficult, you say,
"Okay, Nature, that's the end of the nice guy," and you crank up the formal scientific method.
For this you keep a lab notebook. Everything gets written down, formally, so that you know at
all times where you are, where you've been, where you're going and where you want to get. In
scientific work and electronics technology this is necessary because otherwise the problems
get so complex you get lost in them and confused and forget what you know and what you
don't know and have to give up. In cycle maintenance things are not that involved, but when
confusion starts it's a good idea to hold it down by making everything formal and exact.
Sometimes just the act of writing down the problems straightens out your head as to what they
really are.
The logical statements entered into the notebook are broken down into six categories: (1)
statement of the problem, (2) hypotheses as to the cause of the problem, (3) experiments
designed to test each hypothesis, (4) predicted results of the experiments, (5) observed results
of the experiments and (6) conclusions from the results of the experiments. This is not
different from the formal arrangement of many college and high-school lab notebooks but the
purpose here is no longer just busywork. The purpose now is precise guidance of thoughts
that will fail if they are not accurate.
The real purpose of scientific method is to make sure Nature hasn't misled you into thinking
you know something you don't actually know. There's not a mechanic or scientist or
technician alive who hasn't suffered from that one so much that he's not instinctively on
guard. That's the main reason why so much scientific and mechanical information sounds so
dull and so cautious. If you get careless or go romanticizing scientific information, giving it a
flourish here and there, Nature will soon make a complete fool out of you. It does it often
enough anyway even when you don't give it opportunities. One must be extremely careful and
rigidly logical when dealing with Nature: one logical slip and an entire scientific edifice
comes tumbling down. One false deduction about the machine and you can get hung up
indefinitely.
In Part One of formal scientific method, which is the statement of the problem, the main skill
is in stating absolutely no more than you are positive you know. It is much better to enter a
statement "Solve Problem: Why doesn't cycle work?" which sounds dumb but is correct, than
it is to enter a statement "Solve Problem: What is wrong with the electrical system?" when
you don't absolutely know the trouble is in the electrical system. What you should state is
"Solve Problem: What is wrong with cycle?" and then state as the first entry of Part Two:
"Hypothesis Number One: The trouble is in the electrical system." You think of as many
hypotheses as you can, then you design experiments to test them to see which are true and
which are false.
This careful approach to the beginning questions keeps you from taking a major wrong turn
which might cause you weeks of extra work or can even hang you up completely. Scientific
questions often have a surface appearance of dumbness for this reason. They are asked in
order to prevent dumb mistakes later on.
Part Three, that part of formal scientific method called experimentation, is sometimes thought
of by romantics as all of science itself because that's the only part with much visual surface.
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They see lots of test tubes and bizarre equipment and people running around making
discoveries. They do not see the experiment as part of a larger intellectual process and so they
often confuse experiments with demonstrations, which look the same. A man conducting a
gee-whiz science show with fifty thousand dollars' worth of Frankenstein equipment is not
doing anything scientific if he knows beforehand what the results of his efforts are going to
be. A motorcycle mechanic, on the other hand, who honks the horn to see if the battery works
is informally conducting a true scientific experiment. He is testing a hypothesis by putting the
question to nature. The TV scientist who mutters sadly, "The experiment is a failure; we have
failed to achieve what we had hoped for," is suffering mainly from a bad scriptwriter. An
experiment is never a failure solely because it fails to achieve predicted results. An
experiment is a failure only when it also fails adequately to test the hypothesis in question,
when the data it produces don't prove anything one way or another.
Skill at this point consists of using experiments that test only the hypothesis in question,
nothing less, nothing more. If the horn honks, and the mechanic concludes that the whole
electrical system is working, he is in deep trouble. He has reached an illogical conclusion. The
honking horn only tells him that the battery and horn are working. To design an experiment
properly he has to think very rigidly in terms of what directly causes what. This you know
from the hierarchy. The horn doesn't make the cycle go. Neither does the battery, except in a
very indirect way. The point at which the electrical system directly causes the engine to fire is
at the spark plugs, and if you don't test here, at the output of the electrical system, you will
never really know whether the failure is electrical or not.
To test properly the mechanic removes the plug and lays it against the engine so that the base
around the plug is electrically grounded, kicks the starter lever and watches the spark-plug
gap for a blue spark. If there isn't any he can conclude one of two things: (a) there is an
electrical' failure or (b) his experiment is sloppy. If he is experienced he will try it a few more
times, checking connections, trying every way he can think of to get that plug to fire. Then, if
he can't get it to fire, he finally concludes that a is correct, there's an electrical failure, and the
experiment is over. He has proved that his hypothesis is correct.
In the final category, conclusions, skill comes in stating no more than the experiment has
proved. It hasn't proved that when he fixes the electrical system the motorcycle will start.
There may be other things wrong. But he does know that the motorcycle isn't going to run
until the electrical system is working and he sets up the next formal question: "Solve problem:
what is wrong with the electrical system?"
He then sets up hypotheses for these and tests them. By asking the right questions and
choosing the right tests and drawing the right conclusions the mechanic works his way down
the echelons of the motorcycle hierarchy until he has found the exact specific cause or causes
of the engine failure, and then he changes them so that they no longer cause the failure.
An untrained observer will see only physical labour and often get the idea that physical labour
is mainly what the mechanic does. Actually the physical labour is the smallest and easiest part
of what the mechanic does. By far the greatest part of his work is careful observation and
precise thinking. That is why mechanics sometimes seem so taciturn and withdrawn when
performing tests. They don't like it when you talk to them because they are concentrating on
mental images, hierarchies, and not really looking at you or the physical motorcycle at all.
They are using the experiment as part of a program to expand their hierarchy of knowledge of
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the faulty motorcycle and compare it to the correct hierarchy in their mind. They are looking
at underlying form.
(From Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance by Robert Pirsig
PHYSICS
The Origin of the Sun and Planets
The suggestion that the material of the earth was indeed derived from an exploding star - a
supernova, is supported by strong evidence. The shower of stars must have been surrounded
by a cloud of gas - the cloud from which the stars had just condensed. A supernova,
undergoing violent disintegration, must have expelled gases that went to join this cloud, the
material from the supernova thereby getting mixed with the large quantity of hydrogen of
which the cloud was mainly composed. Our problem is then to explain how both the sun and
the planets were formed out of this mixture of materials.
It is a characteristic of a good detective story that one vital clue should reveal the solution to
the mystery, but that the clue and its significance should be far from obvious. Such a clue
exists in the present problem. It turns on the simple fact that the sun takes some 26 days to
spin once round on its axis-the axis being nearly perpendicular to the orbits of the planets,
which lie in nearly the same plane. The importance of this fact is that the sun has no business
to be rotating in 26 days. It ought to be rotating in a fraction of a day, several hundred times
faster than it is actually doing. Something has slowed the spin of the sun. It is this something
that yields the key to the mystery.
Stars are the products of condensations that occur in the dense inter-stellar gas clouds. A
notable cloud is the well-known Orion Nebula whose presence in the 'sword' of Onion can
easily be seen with binoculars. Stars forming out of the gas in such clouds must undergo a
very great degree of condensation. To begin with, the material of a star must occupy a very
large volume, because of the extremely small density of the inter-stellar gas. In order to
contain as much material as the sun does, a sphere of gas in the Orion Nebula must have a
diameter of some 10,000,000,000,000 miles. Contrast this with the present diameter of the
sun, which is only about a million miles. Evidently in order to produce a star like the sun a
blob of gas with an initial diameter of some 10 million million miles must be shrunk down in
some way to a mere million miles. This implies a shrinkage to one ten millionth of the
original size.
Now it is a consequence of the laws of dynamics that, unless some external process acts on it,
a blob of gas must spin more and more rapidly as it shrinks. The size of a condensation and
the speed of its spin keep an inverse proportion with each other. A decrease of size to one tenmillionth of the original dimensions leads to an increase in the speed of spin by 10 million.
But the rotation speed of the sun is only about 2 kilometres per second. At a speed of 100
kilometres per second the sun would spin round once in about half a day, instead of in the
observed time of 26 days.
Only one loophole remains. We must appeal to some external process to slow down the spin
of the solar condensation. Our problem is to discover how such an external process operates.
First we must decide at what stage of the condensation the external process acts. Does it act
while the condensing blob still has very large dimensions? Or does it operate only in the later
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stages, as the condensation reaches the compact stellar state ? Or does it operate more or less
equally throughout the whole shrinkage?
A strong hint that the process must act mainly in the late stages of the condensation comes
from observations of the rates of spin of stars. It is found that the rates of spin have a very
curious dependence on surface temperature. Stars like the sun, with surface temperatures less
than 6,000° C, rotate slowly like the sun. But stars with surface temperatures greater than
7,000° C rotate considerably more rapidly, their equatorial speeds of rotation being usually
greater than 5o kilometres per second. Although this is still much less than what we should
expect if no external process were operative, it is considerably greater than the equatorial
rotation speed possessed by the sun.
This shows that while the external process must be operative in all cases, it is operative to
different degrees that depend on the surface temperature of the final star. Now the difference
between one star and another can scarcely show at all during the early stages of the shrinkage.
Certainly the difference between two condensations, one yielding a star of surface
temperature 6,000° C and the other yielding a star of surface temperature 7,000° C, must be
very small indeed during the early stages: much too small for the stars to come to have
markedly different rotation speeds if the external process were of main effect during the early
stages. The inference is that the process operates mainly during the late stages of
condensation.
8. Now what was the external process? We have mentioned that rotary forces must have
become important during the late stages of condensation. The effect of these forces was to
cause the condensation to become more and more flattened at its poles. Eventually the
flattening became sufficient for an external rotating disc to begin growing out of the equator.
The sequence of events is illustrated in figure 1.
Once the sun had thus grown a disc the external process was able to come into operation. The
process consisted of a steady transference of 'rotational momentum from the sun to the disc.
Two birds were thereby killed with one stone. The sun was slowed down to its present slow
rate of spin and the disc, containing the material out of which the planets were subsequently to
condense, was pushed farther and farther from the sun. The solar condensation probably first
grew its disc when it had shrunk to a size somewhat less than the orbit of the innermost
planet, Mercury. The pushing outwards of the main bulk of the disc explains why the larger
planets now lie so far from the sun.
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It may be wondered why such an obvious theory was not put forward long ago. The answer is
that there seemed to be such grave objections to it that not until very recently has it been
examined at all seriously. And now it turns out that the objections are not so grave as was
previously believed.
(From Chapter VI of Frontiers of Astronomy by Fred Hoyle.)
Can Life Exist on the Planets?
The old view that every point of light in the sky represented a possible home for life is quite
foreign to modern astronomy. The stars have surface-temperatures of anything from 1,650
degrees to 60,000 degrees or more and are at far higher temperatures inside. A large part of
the matter of the universe consists of stellar matter at a temperature of millions of degrees, its
molecules being broken up into atoms, and the atoms broken up, partially or wholly, into their
constituent parts. The rest consists, for the most part, of nebular gas or dust. Now the very
concept of life implies duration in time; there can be no life-or at least no life at all similar to
that we know on earth-where atoms change their make up millions of times a second and no
pair of atoms can ever stay joined together. It also implies a certain mobility in space, and
these two implications restrict life to the small range of physical conditions in which the
liquid state is possible. Our survey of the universe has shown how small this range is in
comparison with that exhibited by the universe as a whole. It is not to be found in the stars nor
in the nebulae out of which the stars are born. Indeed, probably only an infinitesimal fraction
of the matter of the universe is in the liquid state.
Actually we know of no type of astronomical body in which the conditions can be favourable
to life except planets like our own revolving round a sun. Even these may be too hot or too
cold for life to obtain a footing. In the solar system, for instance, it is hard to imagine life
existing on Mercury or Neptune since liquids boil on the former and freeze hard on the latter.
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Even when all the requisite conditions are satisfied, will life come or will it not? We must
probably discard the at one time widely accepted view that if once life had come into the
universe in any way whatsoever, it would rapidly spread from planet to planet and from one
planetary system to another until the whole universe teemed with life; space now seems too
cold, and planetary systems too far apart. Our terrestrial life must in all probability have
originated on the earth itself. What we should like to know is whether it originated as the
result of some amazing accident or succession of coincidences, or whether it is the normal
event for inanimate matter to produce life in due course, when the physical environment is
suitable. We look to the biologist for the answer, which so far he has not been able to produce.
The astronomer might be able to give a partial answer if he could find evidence of life on
some other planet, for we should then at least know that life had occurred more than once in
the history of the universe, but so far no convincing evidence has been forthcoming. There is
no definite evidence of life anywhere in the universe, except on our own planet.
Apart from the certain knowledge that life exists on earth, our only definite knowledge is that,
at the best, life must be limited to a tiny fraction of the universe. Millions of millions of stars
exist which support no life, which have never done so and never will do so. Of the planetary
systems in the sky, many must be entirely lifeless, and in others life, if it exists at all, is
probably limited to a few of the planets.
Let us leave these rather abstract speculations and come down to earth. The earth, which
started life as a hot mass of gas, has gradually cooled, until it has now about touched bottom,
and has almost no heat beyond that which it receives from the sun. This just about balances
the amount it radiates away into space, so that it would stay at its present temperature for ever
if external conditions did not change, and any change in its condition will be forced on it by
changes occurring outside. These changes may be either gradual or catastrophic.
Of the gradual changes which are possible, the most obvious is a diminution in the light and
heat received from the sun. We have seen that if the sun consisted of pure hydrogen, it could
lose one part in 150 of its whole mass through the transformation of hydrogen into helium.
The energy thus set free would provide for radiation at the present rate through a period of
1000,000 million years.
The sun does not consist of pure hydrogen, and has never done so, but a fair proportion of its
present substance is probably hydrogen, and this ought to provide radiation for at least several
thousands of millions of years, at the present rate. After all the available supplies of hydrogen
are used up, the sun will, so far as we can guess, proceed to contract to the white dwarf state,
probably to a condition resembling that of the faint companion of Sirius. The shrinkage of the
sun to this state would transform our oceans into ice and our atmosphere into liquid air; it
seems impossible that terrestrial life could survive.
Such at least would be the normal course of events, the tragedy we have described happening
after a time of the order of perhaps 10,000 millions of years. But a variety of accidents may
intervene to bring the human race to an end long before any such interval has elapsed. To
mention only possible astronomical occurrences, the sun may run into another star, any
asteroid may hit any other asteroid and, as a result, be so deflected from its path as to strike
the earth, any of the stars in space may wander into the solar system and, in so doing, upset all
the planetary orbits to such an extent that the earth becomes impossible as an abode of life. It
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is difficult to estimate the likelihood of any of these events happening, but rough calculations
suggest that none of them is at all likely to happen within the next 10,000 million years or so.
A more serious possibility is that the sun's light and heat may increase so much as to shrivel
up all terrestrial life. We have seen how 'novae' occasionally appear in the sky, temporarily
emitting anything up to 25,000 times the radiation of the sun. It seems fairly certain that if our
sun were suddenly to become a nova, its emission of light and heat would so increase as to
scorch all life off the earth, but we are completely in the dark as to whether our sun runs any
risk of entering the nova stage. If it does, this is probably the greatest of all the risks to which
life on earth is exposed.
Apart from improbable accidents, it seems that if the solar system is left to the natural course
of evolution, the earth is likely to remain a possible abode of life for thousands of millions of
years to come.
(From The Universe Around Us by Sir James Jeans, F.R.S.
The Theory of Continuous Creation
We must move on to consider the explanations that have been offered for this expansion of
the universe. Broadly speaking, the older ideas fall into two groups. One was that the universe
started its life a finite time ago in a single huge explosion, and that the present expansion is a
relic of the violence of this explosion. This big bang idea seemed to me to be unsatisfactory
even before detailed examination showed that it leads to serious difficulties. For when we
look at our own galaxy there is not the smallest sign that such an explosion ever occurred. But
the really serious difficulty arises when we try to reconcile the idea of an explosion with the
requirement that the galaxies have condensed out of diffuse background material. The two
concepts of explosion and condensation are obviously contradictory, and it is easy to show, if
you postulate an explosion of sufficient violence to explain the expansion of the universe, that
condensations looking at all like the galaxies could never have been formed.
We come now to the second group of theories. The ordinary idea that two particles attract
each other is only accepted if their distance apart is not too great. At really large distances, so
the argument goes, the two particles repel each other instead. On this basis it can be shown
that if the density of the background material is sufficiently small, expansion must occur. But
once again there is a difficulty in reconciling this with the requirement that the background
material must condense to form the galaxies.
I should like now to approach more recent ideas by describing what would be the fate of our
observable universe if any of these older theories had turned out to be correct. Every receding
galaxy will eventually increase its distance from us until it passes beyond the limit of the
observable universe-that is to say, they will move to a distance beyond the critical limit of
about two thousand million light years that I have already mentioned. When this happens,
nothing that occurs within them can ever be observed from our galaxy. So if any of the older
theories were right we should end in a seemingly empty universe, or at any rate in a universe
that was empty apart perhaps from one or two very close galaxies that became attached to our
galaxy as satellites.
Although I think there is no doubt that every galaxy we now observe to be receding from us
will, in about ten thousand million years, have passed entirely beyond the limit of vision of an
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observer in our galaxy, yet I think that such an observer would still be able to see about the
same number of galaxies as we do now. By this I mean that new galaxies will have condensed
out of the background material at just about the rate necessary to compensate for those that
are being lost as a consequence of their passing beyond our observable universe. At first sight
it might be thought that this could not go on indefinitely because the material forming the
background would ultimately become exhausted. But again, I do not believe that this is so, for
it seems likely that new material is constantly being created so as to maintain a constant
density in the background material. So we have a situation in which the loss of galaxies,
through the expansion of the universe, is compensated by the condensation of new galaxies,
and this can continue indefinitely.
The idea that matter is created continuously represents our ultimate goal in this series of
lectures. The idea in itself is not new. I know of references to the continuous creation of
matter that go back more than twenty years; and I have no doubt that a close inquiry would
show that the idea, in its vaguest form, goes back very much further than that. What is new is
that it has now been found possible to put a hitherto vague idea in a precise mathematical
form. It is only when this has been done that the consequences of any physical idea can be
worked out and its scientific value assessed.
Now what are the consequences of continuous creation? Perhaps the most surprising result of
the mathematical theory is that the average density of the background material must stay
constant. To achieve this only a very slow creation rate is necessary. The new material does
not appear in a concentrated form in small localized regions but is spread throughout the
whole of space. The average rate of appearance amounts to no more than the creation of one
atom in the course of a year in a volume equal to St. Paul's Cathedral. As you will realize, it
would be quite impossible to detect such a rate of creation by direct experiment.
But although this seems such a slow rate when judged by ordinary ideas, it is not small when
you consider that it is happening everywhere in space. The total rate for the observable
universe alone is about a hundred million, million, million, million, million tons per second.
Do not let this surprise you because, as I have said, the volume of the observable universe is
very large. It is this creation that drives the universe. The new material produces an outward
pressure that leads to the steady expansion. But it does much more than that. With continuous
creation the apparent contradiction between the expansion of the universe and the requirement
that the background material shall be able to condense into galaxies is completely overcome.
For it can be shown that once an irregularity occurs in the background material a galaxy must
eventually be formed. Such irregularities are constantly being produced through the
gravitational action of the galaxies themselves. So the background material must give a steady
supply of new galaxies. Moreover, the created material also supplies unending quantities of
atomic energy. For, by arranging that newly created material is composed of hydrogen, we
explain why, in spite of the fact that hydrogen is being consumed in huge quantities in the
stars, the universe is nevertheless observed to be overwhelmingly composed of it.
So we see that no large-scale changes in the universe can be expected to take place in the
future. Without continuous creation the universe must evolve towards a dead state in which all
the matter is condensed into a vast number of dead stars. With continuous creation, on the
other hand, the universe has an infinite future in which all its present very large-scale features
will be preserved.
(From The Nature of the Universe by Fred Hoyle.)
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The Creation of the Universe
Before we can discuss the basic problem of the origin of our universe, we must ask ourselves
whether such a discussion is necessary. Could it not be true that the universe has existed since
eternity, changing slightly in one way or another in its minor features, but always remaining
essentially the same as we know it today? The best way to answer this question is by
collecting information about the probable age of various basic parts and features that
characterize the present state of our universe.
For example, we may ask a physicist or chemist: 'How old are the atoms that form the
material from which the universe is built?' Only half a century ago such a question would not
have made much sense. However, when the existence of natural radioactive elements was
recognized, the situation. became quite different. It became evident that if the atoms of the
radio-active elements had been formed too far back in time, they would by now have decayed
completely and disappeared. Thus the observed relative abundances of various radio-active
elements may give us some clue as to the time of their origin.
We notice first of all that thorium and the common isotope of uranium (U238) are not
markedly less abundant than the other heavy elements, such as, for example, bismuth,
mercury or gold. Since the half-life periods of thorium and of common uranium are 14 billion
and 4.5 billion years respectively, we must conclude that these atoms were formed not more
than a few billion years ago. On the other hand the fissionable isotope of uranium (U235) is
very rare, constituting only 0.7 % of the main isotope. The half-life of U235 is considerably
shorter than that of U238, being only about 0.9 billion years. Since the amount of fissionable
uranium has been cut in half every 0.9 billion years, it must have taken about seven such
periods, or about 6 billion years, to bring it down to its present rarity, if both isotopes were
originally present in comparable amounts. Similarly, in a few other radio-active elements,
such as radio-active potassium, the unstable isotopes are also always found in very small
relative amounts. This suggests that these isotopes were reduced quite considerably by slow
decay taking place over a period of a few billion years. Of course, there is no a priori reason
for assuming that all the isotopes of a given element were originally produced in exactly equal
amounts. But the coincidence of the results is significant, inasmuch as it indicates the
approximate date of the formation of these nuclei. Furthermore, no radio-active elements with
half-life periods shorter than a substantial portion of a billion years are found in nature,
although they can be produced artificially in atomic piles. This also indicates that the
formation of atomic species must have taken place not much more recently than a few billion
years before the present time. Thus there is a strong argument for assuming that radio-active
atoms, and along with them, all other stable atoms were formed under some unusual
circumstances which must have existed in the universe a few billion years ago.
As the next step in our enquiry, we may ask a geologist: 'How old are the rocks that form the
crust of our globe?' The age of various rocks - that is, the time that has elapsed since their
solidification from the molten state - can be estimated with great precision by the so-called
radio-active clock method. This method, which was originally developed by Lord Rutherford,
is based on the determination of the lead content in various radio-active minerals such as
pitchblende and uraninite. The significant point is that the natural decay of radio-active
materials results in the formation of the so-called radiogenic lead isotopes. The decay of
thorium produces the lead isotope Pb208, whereas the two isotopes of uranium produce Pb207
and Pb206. These radiogenic lead isotopes differ from their companion Pb204, natural lead,
which is not the product of decay of any natural radio-active element.
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As long as the rock material is in the molten state various physical and chemical processes
may separate the newly produced lead from the mother substance. However, after the material
has become solid and ore has been formed, radiogenic lead remains at the place of its origin.
The longer the time period after the solidification of the rock, the larger the amount of lead
deposited by any given amount of radio-active substance. Therefore, if one measures the
relative amounts of deposited radiogenic lead isotopes and the lead-producing radio-active
substances (that is, the ratios: Pb208/Th232, Pb207/U235, Pb206/U238) and if one knows the
corresponding decay rates, one can get three independent estimates of the time when a given
radio-active ore was formed. By applying this method, one gets results of the kind shown in
the following table.
Mineral
Locality
Geological period
Age in years x
106
Pitchblende
Colorado, U.S.A.
Tertiary
58
Pitchblende
Bohemia, Europe
Carboniferous
215
Pitchblende
Belgium Congo, Africa
Pre-Cambrian
580
Uraninite
Wilberforce, Canada
Pre-Cambrian
1,035
Pitchblende
Great Bear Lake, Canada
Pre-Cambrian
1,330
Uranite
Karelia, U.S.S.R.
Pre-Cambrian
1,765
Uranite
Manitoba, Canada
Pre-Cambrian
1,985
The last two minerals are the oldest yet found, and from their age we must conclude that the
crust of the earth is at least 2 billion years old.
A much more elaborate method was proposed recently by the British geologist, Arthur
Holmes. This method goes beyond the formation time of different radio-active deposits; and
claims an accurate figure for the age of the material forming the earth. By applying this
method to the relative amounts of lead isotopes found in rocks of different geological ages,
Holmes found that all curves intersect near the point corresponding to a total age of 3.35
billion years, which must represent the correct age of our earth.
How old is the moon? As was shown by the work of the British astronomer, George Darwin,
the moon is constantly receding from the earth, at the rate of about 5 inches every year.
Dividing the present distance to the moon (239,000 miles) by the estimated rate of recession,
we find that the moon must have been practically in contact with the earth about 4. billion
years ago.
Thus we see that whenever we inquire about the age of some particular part or property of the
universe we always get the same approximate answer - a few billion years old. Thus it seems
that we must reject the idea of a permanent unchangeable universe and must assume that the
basic features of the universe as we know it today are the direct result of some evolutionary
development which must have begun a few billion years ago.
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(From The Creation of the Universe by George Gamow.
Atomic Radiation and Life
The radiation dose given off by an X-ray machine or by isotopes is usually measured by
determining the number of ions produced in a volume of gas. Since these carry an electric
charge there are a number of extremely delicate methods by which they can be detected. The
widely used Geiger counter consists essentially of a wire stretched inside a cylindrical tube, so
arranged that an electric current can pass between the wire and the tube only when there are
ions in the gas. Consequently, when an ionizing particle passes through the tube, an electric
signal is given out. In this way the number of ionizing particles given off by a radio-active
source can be accurately counted. This is called the activity of the material. It is measured in a
unit called the curie after the discoverer of radium. The activity of one gram of radium
together with its decay products is equal to one curie. Every time an atom disintegrates a betaor alpha-ray is given off, together with a certain amount of gamma radiation.
The activity in curies can tell us nothing about the dose of radiation given off by the radioactive material, since the curie measures only the number of ionizing particles emitted,
independent of their range or energy. If, for example, we put next to the skin one curie of
radio-active cobalt, which gives off energetic gamma-rays, the dose received on the surface
will be one five-thousandth part of the dose received from one curie of polonium which gives
off alpha-particles. On the other hand the gamma-rays from the curie of cobalt will penetrate
deeply, while the alpha-rays will not affect anything which lies more than two one-thousandth
of an inch below the surface of the skin.
The best way of defining the dose of radiation which an irradiated material has received is in
terms of energy. We have seen that on exposure to ionizing radiation electrons, or other subatomic particles moving at great speed, lose energy to the surrounding molecules. The amount
of' energy gained by the irradiated substance is clearly the important factor, and will
determine the biological changes produced. The most widely used unit for measuring X-ray
and gamma-ray dosage is the roentgen - named after the discoverer of X-rays. The remarkable
property of ionizing radiation is that the small amount of energy represented by a few hundred
roentgens can kill a man.
The primitive embryonic cell known as the zygote, which is formed after the entry of the
sperm into the ovum, is very sensitive so radiation. For example, 80 per cent of mice, exposed
to 200 rads of X-rays within the first five days after conception, fail to give birth. Smaller
doses give rise to a lower incidence of pre-natal death, but an appreciable reduction in the
average litter size has been observed with 50 rads.
At first the embryo grows by cell division without differentiation and becomes firmly
implanted in the wall of the uterus. This requires about eight days in human beings and five
days in mice. Then differentiation begins, and the individual organs and limbs are formed; the
embryo takes shape. During this period it is in the greatest danger. Now radiation no longer
kills-the damaged embryo is not re-absorbed or aborted, but proceeds to a live birth which is
abnormal. These malformations can be very great, so as to give horrible and distressing
monsters, which are, however, quite capable of living for a time. The incidence is particularly
high in the early stages of the active development of the embryo.
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The period of major organ production is over after about three months in human beings, and
the foetus then develops its finer aspects and generally grows and develops. Exposure to doses
insufficient to produce severe radiation sickness in the mother no longer produces gross
deformities which can be recognized in small experimental animals. But the absence of
striking changes in the newborn does not mean that the irradiation has been without harm.
The general effect is less obvious, but none the less serious, and irradiation at the later stages
of pregnancy results in very marked growth reduction, giving small babies which develop into
smaller adults. Their life span is reduced and their reproductive organs are often affected so
that they grow up sterile. Damage to the brain and eyes was found a few weeks after birth in
all cases which had been irradiated in the foetal stage with zoo rads, and there is a significant
incidence after 200 rads. Since only gross disorders of the brain can be detected in
experimental animals, it seems likely that much smaller doses will give effects which are
serious in man.
The detailed picture of the influence of radiation on prenatal development has been obtained
from studies with animals. Unhappily, sufficient human cases are known to make it certain
that the same pattern also occurs in man; and we can confidently superimpose a human timescale on the mouse data. Some of our information is derived from the survivors of the atom
bombs in Japan. The children of the women who were pregnant and exposed to irradiation at
Nagasaki and Hiroshima are, on average, shorter and lighter and have smaller heads,
indicating an under-developed brain. Some show severe mental deficiencies, while others
were unable to speak normally at five years old.
Most of our knowledge comes from expectant mothers who were irradiated for therapeutic or
diagnostic reasons. Many cases are described in the medical literature of abnormalities
following exposure of the embryo. Most of these arose twenty or thirty years ago at a time
when radiologists did not know of the great radio-sensitivity of the foetus. A detailed survey
showed that, where a mother received several hundred roentgen within the first two months
after the implantation of the embryo, severe mal-development was observed in every child, a
high proportion of whom lived for many years.
(From Atomic Radiation and Life by Peter Alexander.)
Marconi and the invention of Radio
The theory of energy waves - or wireless waves - in :he air was first put forward in 1864, ten
years before Marconi was born by the British physicist James Clerk Maxwell, Professor of
Experimental Physics at Cambridge University. Maxwell produce by brilliant mathematical
reasoning, the theory that 'electro-magnetic disturbances', though invisible to our eves, must
exist in space, and that these waves travel at the same speed as the light waves - that is, at the
rate of 186,000 miles, the equivalent of more than seven times round the world, per second.
This was a very remarkable deduction; but at that time no means of producing and detecting
such waves were known, and Maxwell was, therefore unable to carry out any scientific
experiments to prove the truth of his theory, and had to leave it to others to show how correct
his reasoning had been. Twenty-four years later the German physicist, Heinrich Hertz, was
able to show that, when he produced an electric spark across a gap between two metal balls by
applying an electric current to them, a similar spark would jump across a small gap in a metal
ring a few feet away, though the ring was not connected in any way with the other apparatus.
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The experiment made it clear that the second spark was caused by the first, and the fact that
there was no connexion between the balls and the ring suggested that the spark from the first
apparatus must have been transferred through the intervening space between the two pieces of
apparatus in the form of some kind of wave spreading outwards in all directions like light. In
fact, it was clear that those were the electro-magnetic waves of Maxwell's theory.
Marconi began his work by fixing up a simple contraption, similar to the one used by Hertz in
his discovery, and trying this out on a table. Then, when he, too, had succeeded in making a
spark cross from one apparatus to another, he designed a more elaborate set-up and tried to
reproduce a bigger spark and at a greater distance. He spent weeks making and testing new
pieces of equipment, and then breaking them up again when they proved to be useless. He had
so many failures and disappointments that he sometimes felt quite desperate; but he
persevered, and eventually succeeded in sending a spark the full length of a thirty-foot room.
Though Marconi was naturally delighted with this development, it was clearly only a
beginning; he must now try to make his sparks do something useful. This meant more gadgets
and more experiments. Then, one night after the rest of the family had gone to bed, he
succeeded in making the wireless waves start an electric bell ringing in a room two floors
below his laboratory. He was so excited that he rushed to his mother's bedroom and woke her
up to tell her, and the next day he demonstrated his experiment successfully to his father, too.
He extended the arm attached to one of the metal balls of the transmitting instrument into an
elevated aerial and connected the second arm to earth. On the receiving instrument he also
used an elevated aerial and earth. This led to an important advance, for not only did it greatly
extend the range through which the waves could be transmitted, but it also increased the
volume of sound received. Marconi now found that he could transmit Morse Code signals: 'I
actually transmitted and received intelligible signals,' he said.
Marconi was asked to take his equipment on to the roof of the head office of the General Post
Office at St. Martin's-le-Grand (London) and to send a wireless signal from there to the rooftop of another building some 300 yards away, where he set up a receiver. Both these tests
were successful, and so he was then asked to give a third demonstration - this time on
Salisbury Plain - to a group of high-ranking army and naval officers and government officials.
This third demonstration was naturally a very important one for Marconi. He therefore took
immense pains over his preparations, testing and re-testing his apparatus to make certain that
everything was in order. Then, while the important spectators stood by his receiver nearly two
miles away, he tapped out a Morse signal on his transmitter-and waited anxiously for the
result. The signal came through perfectly.
The following March, a German vessel collided in a fog with the East Goodwin lightship off
the Kentish coast, and, for the first time, a distress signal calling for relief was despatched by
wireless - and was answered. This was a remarkable proof of the importance of radio to
shipping, and not long after most of the larger nations were fitting their ships with wireless
equipment.
'He'll be sending messages across the Atlantic next,' people joked, never for a moment
believing that this might really be possible. But it seemed no impossibility to Marconi, and
shortly after a visit to the United States he seriously set to work to achieve the sending of a
signal from Great Britain to America across the Atlantic Ocean.
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He chose a lonely spot on the south coast of Cornwall called Poldhu, high above the cliffs
near Mullion. Work on building the new station began in October 1900. The following
January the elaborate new plant was installed, and then Marconi, with his usual careful
attention to detail, spent several months testing it and suggesting improvements. Then on 27th
November 1901, Marconi with two of his assistants, Kemp and Paget, sailed for
Newfoundland, 2,000 miles away, where they intended setting up both a receiver for the
reception of the signal from Poldhu and a transmitter for sending a second signal back to
Cornwall. The small party successfully installed their receiver at St. John's in a disused
hospital attached to a naval barracks on a 500-foot hill which, strangely enough, was called
'Signal Hill'.
As the weather was growing rapidly worse, Marconi decided to concentrate upon trying to
receive a signal from Cornwall. So he sent a cable back to Poldhu giving instructions for the
three Morse Code dots representing the letter 'S' to be transmitted at frequent intervals each
day, starting on 11 December. He heard nothing on the first day except for the roar of the gale
outside. On the second day, 12 December, the gale was so strong that it blew away the kite
supporting the important aerial and a second kite had to be hoisted. But that afternoon, just as
he was beginning to think that his experiment had failed, Marconi heard, very faintly, the
sound for which he had been listening, the signal from Poldhu ... ... ... ...
(From Great Inventors by Norman Wymer.)
Particles or Waves?
The most obvious fact about a ray of light, at any rate to superficial observation, is its
tendency to travel in a straight line; everyone is familiar with the straight edges of a sunbeam
in a dusty room. As a rapidly-moving particle of matter also tends to travel in a straight line,
the early scientists, rather naturally, thought of light as a stream of particles thrown out from a
luminous source, like shot from a gun. Newton adopted this view, and added precision to it in
his 'corpuscular theory of light'.
Yet it is a matter of common observation that a ray of light does not always travel in a straight
line. It can be abruptly turned by reflection, such as occurs when it falls on the surface of a
mirror. Or its path may be bent by refraction, such as occurs when it enters water or any liquid
medium; it is refraction that makes our oar look broken at the point where it enters the water,
and makes the river look shallower than it proves to be when we step into it. Even in
Newton's time the laws which governed these phenomena were well known. In the case of
reflection the angle at which the ray of light struck the mirror was exactly the same as that at
which it came off after reflection; in other words, light bounces off a mirror like a tennis ball
bouncing off a perfectly hard tennis-court. In the case of refraction, the sine of the angle of
incidence stood in a constant ratio to the sine of the angle of refraction. We find Newton at
pains to skew that his light-corpuscles would move in accordance with these laws, if they
were subjected to certain definite forces at the surfaces of a mirror or a refracting liquid.
Newton's corpuscular theory met its doom in the fact that when a ray of light falls on the
surface of water, only part of it is refracted. The remainder is reflected, and it is this latter part
that produces the ordinary reflections of objects in a lake, or the ripple of moonlight on the
sea. It was objected that Newton's theory failed to account for this reflection, for if light had
consisted of corpuscles, the forces at the surface of the water ought to have treated all
corpuscles alike; when one corpuscle was refracted all ought to be, and this left water with no
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power to reflect the sun, moon or stars. Newton tried to obviate this objection by attributing
'alternate fits of transmission and reflection' to the surface of the water - the corpuscle which
fell on the surface at one instant was admitted, but the next instant the gates were shut, and its
companion was turned away to form reflected light. This concept was strangely and strikingly
anticipatory of modern quantum theory in its abandonment of the uniformity of nature and its
replacement of determinism by probabilities, but it failed to carry conviction at the time.
And, in any case, the corpuscular theory was confronted by other and graver difficulties.
When studied in sufficiently minute details, light is not found to travel in such absolutely
straight lines as to suggest the motions of particles. A big object, such as a house or a
mountain, throws a definite shadow, and so gives as good protection from the glare of the sun
as it would from a shower of bullets. But a tiny object, such as a very thin wire, hair or fibre,
throws no such shadow. When we hold it in front of a screen, no part of the screen remains
unilluminated. In some way, the light contrives to bend round it, and, instead of a definite
shadow, we see an alternation of light and comparatively dark parallel bands, known as
'interference bands'. To take another instance, a large circular hole in a screen lets through a
circular patch of light. But make the hole as small as the smallest of pinholes, and the pattern
thrown on a screen beyond is not a tiny circular patch of light, but a far larger pattern of
concentric rings, in which light and dark rings alternate - 'diffraction rings'. All the light
which is more than a pinhole's radius from the centre has in some way bent round the edge of
the hole.
Newton regarded these phenomena as evidence that his 'light-corpuscles' were attracted by
solid matter. He wrote:
The rays of light that are in our air, in their passage near the angles of bodies, whether
transparent or opaque (such as the circular and rectangular edges of coins, or of knives, or
broken pieces of stone or glass), are bent or inflected round those bodies, as if they were
attracted to them; and those rays which in their passage came nearest to the bodies are the
most inflected, as if they were most attracted.
Here again Newton was strangely anticipatory of present-day science, his supposed forces
being closely analogous to the 'quantum forces' of the modern wave-mechanics. But they
failed to give any detailed explanation of diffraction-phenomena, and so met with no favour.
In time all these and similar phenomena were adequately explained by supposing that light
consists of waves, somewhat similar to those which the wind blows up on the sea, except that,
instead of each wave being many yards long, many thousands of waves go to a single inch.
Waves of light bend round a small obstacle in exactly the way in which waves of the sea bend
round a small rock. A rocky reef miles long gives almost perfect shelter from the sea, but a
small rock gives no such protection - the waves pass round it on either side, and re-unite
behind it, just as waves of light re-unite behind our thin hair or fibre. In the same way seawaves which fall on the entrance to a harbour do not travel in a straight line across the
harbour but bend round the edges of the breakwater, and make the whole surface of the water
in the harbour rough. The seventeenth century regarded light as a shower of particles; the
eighteenth century, discovering that this was inadequate to account for small-scale
phenomena such as we have just described, replaced the showers of particles by trains of
waves.
(From The Mysterious Universe by Sir James Jeans.)
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Matter, Mass and Energy
At the end of last century, physical science recognized three major conservation laws:
A The conservation of matter
B The conservation of mass
C The conservation of energy
Other minor laws, such as those of the conservation of linear and angular momenta, need not
enter our discussion, since they are mere deductions from the three major laws already
mentioned. Of the three major laws, the conservation of matter was the most venerable. It had
been implied in the atomistic philosophy of Democritus and Lucretius, which supposed all
matter to be made up of untreatable, unalterable and indestructible atoms. It asserted that the
matter content of the universe remained always the same, and the matter content of any bit of
the universe or of any region of space remained the same except in so far as it was altered by
the ingress or egress of atoms. The universe was a stage in which always the same actors-the
atoms-played their parts, differing in disguises and groupings, but without change of identity.
And these actors were endowed with immortality.
The second law, that of the conservation of mass, was of more modern growth. Newton had
supposed every body or piece of substance to have associated with it an unvarying quantity,
its mass, which gave a measure of its 'inertia' or reluctance to change its motion. If one motorcar requires twice the engine power of another to give us equal control over its motion we say
that it has twice the mass of the latter car. The law of gravitation asserts that the gravitational
pulls on two bodies are in exact proportion to their masses, so that if the earth's attraction on
two bodies proves to be the same, their 'masses' must be the same, whence it follows that the
simplest way of measuring the mass of any body is by weighing it.
The third principle, that of conservation of energy, is the most recent of all. Energy can exist
in a vast variety of forms, of which the simplest is pure energy of motion-the motion of a train
along a level track, or of a billiard ball over a table. Newton had shown that this purely
mechanical energy is 'conserved'. For instance, when two billiard balls collide, the energy of
each is changed, but the total energy of the two remains unaltered; one gives energy to the
other, but no energy is lost or gained in the transaction. This, however, is only true if the balls
are 'perfectly elastic', an ideal condition in which the balls spring back from one another with
the same speed with which they approached. Under actual conditions such as occur in nature,
mechanical energy invariably appears to be lost; a bullet loses speed on passing through the
air, and a train comes to rest in time if the engine is shut off In all such cases heat and sound
are produced. Now a long series of investigations has shown that heat and sound are
themselves forms of energy. In a classical series of experiments made in 1840-50, Joule
measured the energy of sound with the rudimentary apparatus of a violoncello string.
Imperfect though his experiments were, they resulted in the recognition of 'conservation of
energy' as a principle which covered all known transformations of energy through its various
modes of mechanical energy, heat, sound and electrical energy. They showed in brief that
energy is transformed rather than lost, an apparent loss of energy of motion being
compensated by the appearance of an exactly equal energy of heat and sound; the energy of
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motion of the rushing train is replaced by the equivalent energy of the noise of the shrieking
brakes, and of the heating of wheels, brake-blocks and rails.
These three conservation laws ought of course to have been treated merely as working
hypotheses, to be tested in every conceivable way and discarded as soon as they showed signs
of failing. Yet so securely did they seem to be established that they were treated as
indisputable universal laws. Nineteenth-century physicists were accustomed to write of them
as though they governed the whole of creation, and on this basis philosophers dogmatized as
to the fundamental nature of the universe.
It was the calm before the hurricane. The first rumble of the approaching storm was a
theoretical investigation by Sir J. J. Thomson, which showed that the mass of an electrified
body could be changed by setting it into motion; the faster such a body moved the greater its
mass became, in opposition to Newton's concept of a fixed unalterable mass. For the moment,
the principle of conservation of mass appeared to have abandoned science.
For a time this conclusion remained of merely academic interest; it could not be tested
observationally because ordinary bodies could neither be charged with sufficient electricity,
nor set into motion with sufficient speed, for the variations of mass predicted by theory to
become appreciable in amount. Then, just as the nineteenth century was drawing to a close,
Sir J. J. Thomson and his followers began to break up the atom, which now proved to be no
more uncuttable, and so no more entitled to the name of 'atom' than the molecule to which the
name had previously been attached. They were only able to detach small fragments, and even
now the complete break-up of the atom into its ultimate constituents has not been fully
achieved. These fragments were found to be all precisely similar, and charged with negative
electricity. They were accordingly named electrons.
These electrons are far more intensely electrified than an ordinary body can ever be. A gram
of gold, beaten as thin as it will go, into a gold leaf a yard square, can with luck be made to
hold a charge of about 60,000 electrostatic units of electricity, but a gram of electrons carries
a permanent charge which is about nine million million times greater. Because of this, and
because electrons can be set into motion by electrical means with speeds of more than a
hundred thousand miles a second, it is easy to verify that an electron's mass varies with its
speed. Exact experiments have shown that the variation is precisely that predicted by theory.
(From The Mysterious Universe by Sir James Jeans.)
Structure of Matter
One topic which we shall certainly discuss is the structure of matter. We shall find that there
is a simple, general pattern in the structure of all the solid materials which principally concern
us, and that electrons are a key part of that pattern.
There are ninety-two separate chemical substances from which the world is made; substances
such as oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, iron, sulphur and silicon. Often, of course, they are
combined together to make more elaborate materials, such as hydrogen and oxygen in water.
But these are the ninety-two elements; elements which the chemists have grouped in a list
called the Periodic Table and which, in various combinations, go to make up all the millions
of compounds that exist.
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If, however, an atom of any one of these elements is examined, it will be found to consist of
an assembly of three different kinds of particle: protons, electrons and neutrons. The atoms of
some elements may contain several hundred particles, while other elements may have less
than ten particles in the atom.
Before we look at the way in which these particles makeup an atom, we need to know
something of their two most important properties: mass and electrical charge. The proton and
the neutron both have approximately the same mass, and the mass of the electron is very
much less - about 1/1840 of the mass of the proton. The electron is negatively charged, and
the proton has a charge of the same size but of positive sign. The neutron carries no charge.
Any object, from an atom upwards in size, will normally contain equal numbers of protons
and electrons, and will thus have no net electrical charge. If electrons are removed in some
way from the object, it will be left with a net positive charge. If electrons are added to the
object, it will become negatively charged.
Two objects which are electrically charged exert a force on each other which is inversely
proportional to the square of their distance apart. If the two charges have the same sign, then
the objects repel each other, and if the charges are of opposite sign, then they attract each
other. In particular, a proton and an electron will attract each other, and the closer they are
together, the greater will be the force.
In general, an atom has a central core called the nucleus, which consists of protons and
neutrons. Surrounding this nucleus is a cloud of electrons. The number of protons in the
nucleus is equal to the number of electrons in the cloud. The total positive charge on the
nucleus due to all the protons is just balanced by the total negative charge of all the electrons
in the cloud, and the atom as a whole is electrically neutral.
To get an idea of the principles common to the structure of all atoms we shall start by
considering the simplest atom-that of the element hydrogen.
Hydrogen is the lightest of all the atoms, with a single electron in the electron `cloud' and a
single proton as its nucleus., All other elements have neutrons as well as protons in the
nucleus; for example, helium, the next simplest atom, has two electrons in the cloud, with two
protons and two neutrons in the nucleus.
In the hydrogen atom the electron rotates round the nucleus-in this case a single proton-rather
like the Earth rotates round the Sun. If we think of the circular electron orbit, then its radius is
such that the electrical attraction between the positively charged proton and the negatively
charged electron is just sufficient to provide the force needed to bend the electron path into a
circle, just as a stone whirled round on a string would fly off at a tangent if it were not
constrained to its circular path by the tension in the string.
This simple system with the electron rotating round the nucleus has a certain amount of
energy associated with it. First, there is the kinetic energy of the moving electron. Any
moving body possesses kinetic energy, and the amount of energy is proportional to the mass
of the body and the square of its velocity. Thus a small, high-speed body like a bullet may
have more kinetic energy than a much larger body moving slowly.
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The second kind of energy associated with the hydrogen atom is potential energy, due to the
fact that a positive and negative charge separated by a certain distance attract each other, and
could be organised to do work in coming together. In the same way, a lake of water at the top
of a mountain has potential energy associated with it, because it could be organised to do
work by running through turbines down into the valley. The higher the lake is above the
valley, the greater will be the potential energy. Similarly, the farther the electron is from the
nucleus in the hydrogen atom, the greater will be the potential energy.
The total energy associated with the hydrogen atom. is the sum of the potential energy and the
kinetic energy. This total depends upon the radius of the orbit in which the electron rotates
and has a minimum value for hydrogen atoms in the normal state. If a normal hydrogen atom
is in some way given a little extra energy, then the electron moves out into an orbit of greater
radius, and the total ; energy associated with the atom is now greater than it was in the normal
state. Atoms possessing more than the normal amount of energy are said to be `excited'.
The way in which atoms receive extra energy to go into an excited state, and the way in which
they give up that energy in returning to the normal state, is of fundamental; importance and
we shall discuss it later as the quantum: theory. In particular, we shall find that energy can
only be given to an atom in packets of certain sizes and that energy is emitted by excited
atoms in similar packets. The wrong size packet will not be accepted by an atom, and an
excited atom will never emit anything other than one of a limited set of packet sizes.
The fact that an atom of any particular element can emit or absorb energy only in packets of
certain sizes is' one consequence of a set of rules which governs the behaviour of electrons in
atoms. These rules also give rise to two other important general properties of the' electrons in
atoms.
The first of these is that, within the atom, an electron may only possess certain energies-there
are certain `permitted energy levels' for the electron. This concept of permitted energy levels
is extended later from the single isolated atom to the electrons in solids, where the electrical
properties are largely determined by the permitted energy levels and which of them are
possessed by electrons.
Another consequence of the rules for electron behaviour within the atom is one which
concerns us immediately, because these rules establish a set of patterns into which the
electrons are arranged in more elaborate atoms than those of hydrogen.
The hydrogen atom is very simple, with its single electron rotating in a circular orbit, which is
of a fixed radius for the normal state of the atom.
Helium is the next simplest atom, with two electrons and, of course, two protons in the
nucleus to balance the negative charge of the electrons. The nucleus also contains two
neutrons, and the two electrons circulate round this nucleus in the same orbit.
When we come to the next element, lithium, which has three orbital electrons, the electrons
are arranged in a new way round the nucleus. The nucleus now contains three protons and
some neutrons.
Two of the electrons are in the same orbit, but the third one is in a different orbit, farther away
from the nucleus. The rules say that the innermost orbit, or shell, is completely filled when it
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has two electrons. Atoms like lithium, with more than two electrons, must start a second orbit
of greater radius to accommodate the third; fourth, etc., electrons. When this second orbit has
eight electrons in it, there is no room for more, and a third orbit of still larger radius has to be
started. Thus sodium, which has eleven orbital electrons, has two in the innermost orbit, eight
in the next orbit and one in the outermost orbit.
In the illustrations of electron orbits for various atoms, the number with the positive sign
indicates the number of protons in the nucleus and thus is equal to the number of orbital
electrons. This number is called the atomic number of the element. There are neutrons in all
the nuclei except hydrogen. The chemical properties of an element are determined by the
electrons, and in this respect it is not surprising that the outermost electrons are most
important because, when two atoms come together in a chemical reaction, it is the electrons in
the outside orbits which will first meet and interact. It is worth noting from the illustrations
that hydrogen, lithium and sodium, all with a single electron in their outside shell, have a
general similarity of chemical behaviour. Similarly, many of the atoms with two electrons-or
with three, etc.- in the outer shell, can be grouped together as being related chemically.
Atoms do not normally have a separate existence, and the simplest form in which we meet
matter in the natural world is the gas. This consists of single molecules of the substance
moving about at random and largely independent of each other except when they collide.
Typical gas molecules are oxygen (O2) and hydrogen (H2). In each of these molecules, two
atoms of the element are joined together to make the stable unit found in natural oxygen or
hydrogen. The atoms in a molecule are bound together by forces due to complex interactions
between the electron systems of the individual atoms. The exact nature of these forces does
not concern us as we shall be more interested in solids than in gases. However, it is important
to notice that molecules, like atoms, emit or absorb energy in packets of certain sizes and that
the electrons in the molecular system also have only certain permitted energies.
Gas molecules may contain atoms of more than one element, e.g. carbon dioxide (CO2), and
in the case of some organic gases may contain many atoms of several different elements and
be very large.
The solid is in many ways similar to a very large molecule. Most of the solids that are
important in electronics are crystalline, and the characteristic feature of a crystal is a regular
arrangement of atoms. The atoms may all be of the same element, as in copper, or they may
be of different elements, as in common salt (NaCl) or copper sulphate (CuSO4).
In the crystal, as in the molecule, the interaction of the orbital electrons binds the individual
atoms into the characteristic pattern or lattice.
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There are certain permitted energy levels for electrons in the solid, just as there are in the
atom and the molecule, and these energy levels will be different in different materials.
One special aspect of electron properties in solids is that certain materials, particularly metals,
contain some electrons which are able to move away from their parent atoms. If a battery is
connected to such a material, electrons will flow through the material, and it is called a
conductor of electricity. If the application of a battery to a material does not cause a flow of
electric current, then the material is called an insulator.
As they flow through a conductor, the electrons which make up the current being driven
round the circuit by the battery give up some of their energy to the main solid structure of the
material, which thus becomes hot. If electrons lose much energy in passing through a
conducting material, then that material is said to have a large resistance to current flow. A
given current flowing: through a high-resistance conductor will generate much more heat than
the same current flowing through a low resistance conductor. Thus the heating element of an
electric fire will be made of high-resistance material, usually a metal alloy. The wires carrying
the current under the floor to the fire will be made of low-resistance material, invariably a
metal. Materials which offer low` resistance to the passage of an electric current are called
good electrical conductors.
This, then, is the way in which the chemical energy stored in a battery is converted into heat
through the action of a flow of electrons in a conductor. If a metal is heated to a sufficiently
high temperature by the current, as in the tungsten lamp filament, then the same mechanism
can provide light - another form of energy.
Sometimes, however, it will be necessary to encourage electrons actually to escape from the
surface of the metal so that, for instance, they can be formed into a beam passing' down a
cathode-ray tube to paint a picture on a screen.
The emission of electrons from a material occurs only if the electrons inside are in some way
given sufficient energy to break through the surface where a sort of energy barrier exists,
called the work function of the material. Materials with low work functions emit electrons
easily because less energy is required for an electron to overcome the energy barrier and
escape.
If a solid is heated, then it receives extra energy. This may be shared between the regular
crystal lattice and some of the electrons which can escape from their parent atoms. If the
electrons thereby acquire sufficient energy to escape from the surface of the solid, then the
process is called thermionic emission because it is brought about by heat. Thermionic
emission provides the electrons which move through the vacuum in a radio valve, but not the
electrons in a transistor, which always remain inside the solid material of which the transistor
is made.
Another way in which electrons may be given sufficient energy to escape is by shining light
onto the surface of the material. If electrons escape as a result of receiving energy from
incident light, then the process is called photoelectric emission. This is the basis of many light
sensitive devices using photoelectric cells.
For a material with a given work function there is a certain critical wavelength for
photoelectric emission to occur. If the wavelength is too long, there will be no emission. In
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general, therefore, ultra-violet or blue light, which has a short wavelength, causes
photoelectric emission from more materials than the longer wavelength red or infra-red
radiation.
Whether an electron stays inside a solid or escapes depends on the amount of energy the
electron possesses. But inside the solid the electrons have a number of permitted energy
levels, and very often important properties of the material depend on which of these energy
levels are occupied. Thus a material may be an insulator if its electrons are in low energy
levels, but it can be made to conduct electricity if sufficient energy is given to it to raise the
electrons to higher permitted levels. Furthermore, if electrons in high energy levels give up
energy and fall to lower permitted levels, then the energy emitted may be useful in special
ways - lasers, for instance, depend upon such emission.
We have seen that electrons are fundamental to the structure of matter. Moreover, that the part
played by an electron in the structure is very much connected with the energy levels permitted
to it, and with the energy it actually possesses. In particular, we have seen that the electrons
flowing as electric current through a solid may give up energy to the crystal structure, so that
heat and perhaps light may be given off by the material.
The Quantum Theory of Radiation
Now, before the quantum theory was put forward, there was no notion of natural units of
radiant energy: it was believed that we could have any amount of energy, as small as we
pleased, radiated by a hot body or a luminous atom. It could, however, be shown
mathematically that, if this were true, we should expect a hot body to radiate nearly all its
energy in the violet and ultraviolet end of the spectrum, which we know to be against the facts
of observation.
The problem was solved in the first year of the present century, when Planck showed that, to
get the right result, it was necessary to make a revolutionary hypothesis: to suppose that
radiant energy was sent out in packets, as it were - in units or atoms of energy, just as matter
existed in atomic units. We cannot have less than an atom of lead, say; any minute piece of
lead must consist of a whole number of atoms. We cannot have an electric charge of less than
an electron. In the same way, we cannot have less than a unit - or quantum, as it is called - of
radiant energy, and any body that sends out or absorbs radiation must deal with one quantum
or a whole number of quanta.
The little parcel of light of one particular frequency in which radiant energy is delivered is
sometimes called a 'light dart', a very expressive term, but is more generally known as a
photon. The photon is simply a quantum of radiant energy, the only object of sometimes using
the new term being that 'quantum' is a more inclusive term, which can be applied to other
things as well as light - for instance, to the vibration of whole atoms and molecules.
The quantum of radiant energy differs from the quantum of electricity, the electron, in a very
important way. The amount of charge is the same on all electrons: there is but one unit. The
magnitude of this unit of radiant energy, however, is different for every different kind-that is,
for every different wave-length - of radiation. It is, in fact, proportional to the frequency, so
that the quantum of energy of extreme visible red radiation is only half that of the extreme
visible violet radiation, which, as we have said before, has double the frequency. The
quantum of an X-radiation is very much greater than the quantum of any visible radiation.
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The quantum of energy corresponding to a given species of radiation is found, then, by
multiplying the frequency by a certain fixed number, which is called Planck's universal
constant, and always indicated by h. Planck's constant enters into every aspect of modern
atomic physics and its numerical value has been found by at least ten different methods,
involving such things as X-ray properties, the distribution of energy in black-body radiation,
the frequencies of spectral lines, and so on. All the methods give values agreeing to within a
few parts in ten thousand.
Light, then, or radiation in general, has a packet property as well as a wave property, and this
is one of the paradoxes of modern physics. Newton's conception of light was a stream of
particles, which he endowed with something in the nature of pulsating properties in an attempt
to account for certain phenomena which we can now easily explain on the wave theory. He
felt the need for the double aspect, the particle and the periodic, and provided for it in his
theory.
If white light could be considered to consist of particles of various sizes, corresponding to all
the different colours which it contains, it would be fairly easy to imagine the amount of
energy in each particle to depend upon its size, and the quantum, or atomic, nature of the
energy would be a natural consequence. We could have one or two or three particles of
sodium light, but not a fraction of a particle. However, to account for the various phenomena
of interference and diffraction, we have to admit that light behaves under some conditions as a
stream of particles, each one of which has a fixed energy belonging to it, and under other
conditions as a wave motion. Both wave aspects and particle aspects are included today in a
comprehensive theory known as wave mechanics.
Thus in geometrical optics we usefully treat light as travelling in straight lines through lenses,
although we know that it has wave properties which must be considered when optical
resolution is in question. In the simple kinetic theory of gases - say, for working out the action
of high-vacuum pumps - we can safely treat atoms as small elastic particles and neglect their
structure. The essential is to know which aspect is the dominating one in the problem
concerned.
Take, first of all, the photo-electric effect. We have seen that, when light or any radiation of
short wave-length falls on a metal, electrons are shot off, the number depending on the
strength of the light; but the speed, or more correctly the energy, on the kind of light. If the
radiation is done up in packets of energy, and this energy can be expended in pushing out
electrons, then clearly we should expect each atom of light either to throw out an electron
with a definite speed, or to do nothing; but not to throw out an electron with some greater
speed. According to the quantum theory, a short wave-length - that is, a high-frequency radiation should therefore throw out electrons with an energy of motion greater than that
which characterizes electrons ejected by radiation of long wave-length.
This is just what is observed; red light does not eject electrons at all from most metals, violet
light drives them out with a small speed, ultra-violet light produces greater speed, and X-rays
throw out very fast electrons. Red light, the quanta of which are very small, on account of its
low frequency, has no effect, because a certain minimum energy is required just to jerk an
electron out of an atom: the energy of the red quanta is, for most metals, less than this
minimum. Allowing for the small energy required just to free the electron, the energy which
the electron acquires can be shown experimentally to be exactly proportional to the frequency
of the radiation. This is now so well established that, in cases where it is difficult to measure
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the frequency of very short ultra-violet waves by ordinary means, the energy of the electrons
which they eject from matter has been determined, and taken as a measure of the wave-length.
The same method has been applied to the exceedingly high-frequency gamma rays of radium.
(From An Approach to Modern Physics by E. N. Da C. Andrade.)
Footprints of the Atom
The Cambridge physicist C. T. R. Wilson was studying the formation of fogs in 1898 when he
started on a train of ideas and discoveries which led ultimately to the perfection of the Wilson
Cloud Chamber as a marvellous aid to nuclear physics. This first fog-making apparatus was,
however, very simple just two glass jars connected by a pipe with a tap in it. One jar
contained moist (saturated) air and the other was pumped empty of air. When the tap was
opened the air expanded quickly into the empty jar. When gases expand very quickly they
cool. You may have noticed that the air rushing out of a bicycle tyre when it is suddenly let
down is quite cold. As a result of such cooling, clouds form in the moist air, since only a
smaller amount of water vapour can be held by the air at the lower temperature.
Fogs cannot form unless the cooling is very marked. This is because small drops tend to
evaporate again more easily than the large drops. It is therefore very difficult for any drops to
begin to form at all unless they form immediately into large drops, as they would if the
cooling were pronounced. The dust particles in ordinary air act as a very convenient
beginning for the drops, because they are already of sufficient size for the drops formed on
them to avoid re-evaporation. This explains why fogs and mists are much more common and
more persistent near large manufacturing towns, where there is a lot of smoke and dust, rather
than in the clear air of the countryside.
One of Wilson's cloud chambers, designed in 1912, is shown in figure 1. The moist air is
contained in a glass-topped cylinder B by a close-fitting piston. The air in flask A is pumped
out by a vacuum pump, while the stopper C is kept closed. When you want to operate the
apparatus this stopper is pulled out so that the air beneath the piston rushes out into A. As
there is nothing to hold up the piston it falls, and thus allows the damp air to expand and cool,
and form a cloud.
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Wilson soon discovered that even if he used very clean air he still occasionally got clouds
with only a moderate amount of cooling when there was some radio-active substance or a
source of the then recently discovered X-rays near his cloud chamber. He soon showed that
this was because the air in his chamber was being 'ionized' by their radio-activity or by the Xrays.
Let us see what happens when air is ionized. The atoms of the various gases that make up air
are all built of a heavy positive nucleus surrounded by very light negative electrons. The
amount of positive charge on the nucleus is exactly balanced by the number of negative
electrons surrounding it, so that the atom as a whole is electrically neutral. Although it takes
quite a hard knock by a particle from one of the powerful 'atom-smashing' machines to break
off a bit of the nucleus, the negative electrons are held to the atom only by the electrostatic
attraction of opposite charges between negative electron and positive nucleus. It is therefore
much easier to remove an electron from the atom, either by strong electro-magnetic radiation
(X-rays) or by collision with another atomic particle like those shot by radio-active
substances.
Before impact the atom was neutral, but after it has lost a negative electron it becomes a
positively charged 'ion'. The electron it has lost is a negative ion; it is free to move until it
joins another positive ion to form a neutral atom. When an atom is split in this way into two
ions, positive and negative, we say it is ionized.
If ions of this type are present in moist air their effect is twofold. First, they attract many more
normal atoms to themselves, with the result that a cluster of atoms is formed. Secondly, the
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charge on the ion reduces the tendency of small drops to evaporate. All this means that the
charged ions in moist cooled air act as suitable nuclei, like dust and smoke, on which fog and
clouds can form.
To make this clear we will follow up what happens when an alpha-particle passes through a
cloud chamber immediately after expansion has taken place, and when the moist air has been
cooled so that it is ready to form clouds. An alpha-particle is a fragment shot out of the
nucleus of a radio-active atom. It is about four times as heavy as a hydrogen atom. It has a
double positive charge, and it will travel a few inches in normal air before it is brought to a
stop by repeated collisions with the atoms in the air. While it is travelling very fast through
the air of a cloud chamber, its positive charge attracts many of the outer negative electrons of
the atoms in the air, which may be drawn i out of their original atoms, leaving them ionized.
The passage of one alpha-particle thus leaves a trail of ionized atoms behind it all along its
track, each of which is capable of acting as a centre about which a tiny drop of water can
form. If the alpha-particle is shot into the moist air of a cloud chamber just after a cooling
expansion has taken place, so that the air is supersaturated, a trail of little water drops appears
in its wake, looking just like the cloud trails left by a high-flying aircraft.
The first time that an atomic nucleus was split artificially was in 1919 when Lord Rutherford
turned a nitrogen atom into an oxygen atom by bombardment with alpha-particles. This
nucleus-splitting reaction has been studied by Professor Blackett with the aid of a cloud
chamber. He obtained an actual photo graph of the famous event. In this photograph a beam
of alpha-particles appears as white trails crossing the chamber. One of them stops half-way as
it hits a nitrogen atom in the air and the lighter trail of a proton (a positively charged hydrogen
atom), knocked out of the nitrogen nucleus, moves off to the left, while the resulting oxygen
nucleus gives a thick short trail to the right. We have come as close as we can to actually
seeing the invisible atom.
(From an article by R. R. Campbell in Adventures in Science edited by B. C. Brookes.)
Splitting the Atom
'The experiments started about four in the afternoon,' recalled a scientist whom Rutherford
had invited one day in 1919 to see what he was doing. 'We went into his laboratory to spend a
preliminary half hour in the dark to get our eyes into the sensitive state necessary for
counting. Sitting there, drinking tea, in the dim light of a minute gas jet at the further end of
the laboratory, we listened to Rutherford talking of all things under the sun. It was curiously
intimate, yet impersonal, and all of it coloured by that characteristic of his of considering
statements independently of the person who put them forward.'
Then Rutherford, in his unassuming white coat, made a last minute inspection tour round his
laboratory, a high and wide room with a cement floor. There was, in one corner, the enormous
column of the condenser, which went right up through the ceiling; and at the other end of the
room a large tube, enthroned on top of a work-bench in the midst of a mass of entangled
electric wires. There was an arc-lamp projector behind the tube, and a screen had been set up
in front of it.
'You know, we might go up through the roof,' warned Rutherford, but the boyish smile under
the big greying moustache belied his words. The blinds were now pulled down over the big
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leaded windows, and bluish-green sparks were seen to jump to and fro in the tube. The screen
lit up. At first there was nothing but a thick grey mist. Then some large objects, like the
shadows of enormous fish, flowed across the screen in a steady stream.
The Professor explained. Alpha particles - helium nuclei - were being hurled through the tube,
in which an artificial mist had been created. It was an adaptation of Wilson's cloud chamber,
filled with nitrogen gas. Suddenly a thick streak appeared on the screen, striking off at right
angles at terrific speed. 'That's it,' said Rutherford. 'The atom has been split!'
The performance was repeated - once, twice, a third time at irregular intervals. Millions of
alpha particles went straight through the nitrogen gas without touching any of its atoms. But
now and then there came a direct hit on a nitrogen nucleus, which split it. 'Where are we
going from here?' mused one of Rutherford's guests. 'Who knows?' he replied, 'We are
entering no-man's land.'
What interested Rutherford in these experiments was the transmutation of one element into
another-which furnished the proof that his theory of what the atom looked like was correct.
When an alpha particle hit a nitrogen nucleus it drove out some of its seven protons. And each
of these loose protons became the nucleus of a hydrogen atom, which has only one proton
with an electron revolving around it. Thus nitrogen changed into hydrogen!
But Rutherford proved yet another theory, which was closely connected with Einstein's hotly
disputed claim-that there is no real difference between mass and energy, and that the
destruction of matter would free its latent energy. Already in 1905, Albert Einstein, then a
young man of 26, had startled the scientific world with his Special Theory of Relativity, in
which he gave the phenomenon of radio-activity an important place within the framework of
his new picture of the universe. He explained that, if matter is converted into energy by the
disintegration of atoms, that process would be represented by a simple little equation: E =
mc².
What does it mean? Basically it says that mass and energy are not different things which have
no relation to one another, but that one can be changed into the other. Einstein's equation
connects the two quantities. E is the energy in ergs released when a mass of m grams is
completely disintegrated. And c is the velocity of light in centimetres per second, and
therefore c² is 900 million million ergs.
This sounded completely fantastic. Even if matter could ever be converted into energy, surely
the energy released in this process would not be of such unimaginable magnitude! There was,
of course, no way of proving or disproving Einstein's equation - until Rutherford showed how
to split the atom. In 1905 no one really believed that Einstein's equation would ever be put to
the test; that man could ever release the incredible forces locked up in the atoms of matter.
Today we know that, if one ounce of matter could be completely destroyed and changed into
energy, it would yield as much power as we derive from burning 100,000 tons of coal in a
conventional power station!
'Atom-splitting' became almost a fashion in the physical laboratories of Europe and America,
and in the 1920s most of the lighter nuclei were being split up by bombarding them with alpha
particles. Only beryllium - the fourth lightest of the elements resisted all attempts to break up
its nucleus. Instead of releasing one of its four protons when hit, it gave off a burst of
radiation more penetrating than even the hard gamma rays. Sir James Chadwick, again at the
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Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, proved that this radiation must consist of particles about
as heavy as protons, but without an electric charge. 'If such a neutral particle exists,'
Rutherford had said in 1920, 'it should be able to move freely through matter, and it may be
impossible to contain it in a sealed vessel.' He knew that its discovery would be of great
importance-an electrically neutral particle could be fired into any matter without being
attracted or repelled by protons or electrons.
In 1932 the Joliot-Curies made a radio-active metal bombard beryllium - which is a nonradio-active metal - with its rays. The result was that the beryllium, too, became radio-active even more so than the original source of the rays. Sir James Chadwick's explanation was that
the beryllium nuclei had released their non-electrical particles, which he called neutrons. They
were found to have slightly greater mass than the protons - but neutrons can change to protons
by acquiring a positive electric charge.
The discovery of the neutron not only solved quite a number of problems which had so far
defied the efforts of the scientists, but it also gave an even greater impetus to atom-splitting.
The Americans, true to style, went into the business in a big way. The University of California
built an enormous machine, the cyclotron, for the head of its radiation laboratory, Professor E.
O. Lawrence, who had just come to the conclusion that the heavy hydrogen atom, consisting
of one proton plus one neutron, would make an ideal bullet for shooting up other nuclei.
(From Atomic Energy - A Layman's Guide to the Nuclear Age by E. Larsen.)
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ELECTRICITY
The phenomenon which Thales had observed and recorded five centuries before the birth of
Christ aroused the interest of many scientists through the ages. They made various practical
experiments in their efforts to identify the elusive force which Thales had likened to a 'soul'
and which we now know to have been static electricity.
Of all forms of energy, electricity is the most baffling and difficult to describe. An electric
current cannot be seen. In fact it does not exist outside the wires and other conductors which
carry it. A live wire carrying a current looks exactly the same and weighs exactly the same as
it does when it is not carrying a current. An electric current is simply a movement or flow of
electrons.
Benjamin Franklin, the American statesman and scientist born in Boston in 1706, investigated
the nature of thunder and lightning by flying a child's kite during a thunderstorm. He had
attached a metal spike to the kite, and at the other end of the string to which the kite was tied
he secured a key. As the rain soaked into the string, electricity flowed freely down the string
and Franklin was able to draw large sparks from the key. Of course this could have been very
dangerous, but he had foreseen it and had supported the string through an insulator. He
observed that this electricity had the same properties as the static electricity produced by
friction.
But long before Franklin many other scientists had carried out research into the nature of
electricity.
In England William Gilbert (1544-1603) had noticed that the powers of attraction and
repulsion of two non-metallic rods which he had rubbed briskly were similar to those of
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lodestone and amber - they had acquired the curious quality we call magnetism.
Remembering Thales of old he coined the word 'electricity'.
Otto von Guericke (1602-1686) a Mayor of Magdeburg in Germany, was an amateur scientist
who had constructed all manner of gadgets. One of them was a machine consisting of two
glass discs revolving in opposite directions which produced high voltage charges through
friction. Ramsden and Wimshurst built improved versions of the machine.
A significant breakthrough occurred when Alessandro Volta (1745-1827) in Italy constructed
a simple electric cell (in 1799) which produced a flow of electrons by chemical means. Two
plates, one of copper and the other of zinc, were placed in an acid solution and a current
flowed through an external wire connecting the two plates. Later he connected cells in series
(voltaic pile) which consisted of alternate layers of zinc and copper discs separated by flannel
discs soaked in brine or acid which produced a higher electric pressure (voltage). But Volta
never found the right explanation of why his cell was working. He thought the flow of electric
current was due to the contact between the two metals, whereas in fact it results from the
chemical action of the electrolyte on the zinc plate. However, his discovery proved to be of
incalculable value in research, as it enabled scientists to carry out experiments which led to
the discoveries of the heating, lighting, chemical and magnetic effects of electricity.
One of the many scientists and physicists who took advantage of the 'current electricity' made
possible by Volta's cells was Hans Christian Oersted (1777-1851) of Denmark. Like many
others he was looking for a connection between the age-old study of magnetism and
electricity, but now he was able to pass electric currents through wires and place magnets in
various positions near the wires. His epoch-making discovery which established for the first
time the relationship between magnetism and electricity was in fact an accident.
While lecturing to students he showed them that the current flowing in a wire held over a
magnetic compass needle and at right angles to it (that is east-west) had no effect on the
needle. Oersted suggested to his assistant that he might try holding the wire parallel to the
length of the needle (north- south) and hey presto, the needle was deflected! He had stumbled
upon the electromagnetic effect in the first recorded instance of a wire behaving like a magnet
when a current is passed through it.
A development of Oersted's demonstration with the compass needle was used to construct the
world's first system of signaling by the use of electricity.
In 1837 Charles Wheatstone and William Cooke took out a patent for the world's first Fiveneedle Telegraph, which was installed between Paddington railway station in west London
and West Drayton station a few miles away. The five copper wires required for this system
were embedded in blocks of wood.
Electrolysis, the chemical decomposition of a substance into its constituent elements by the
action of an electric current, was discovered by the English chemists Carlisle and William
Nicholson (1753-1815). If an electric current is passed through water it is broken down into
the two elements of which it is composed -- hydrogen and oxygen. The process is used
extensively in modern industry for electroplating. Michael Faraday (1791-1867) who was
employed as a chemist at the Royal Institution, was responsible for introducing many of the
technical terms connected with electrolysis, like electrolyte for the liquid through which the
electric current is passed, and anode and cathode for the positive and negative electrodes
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respectively. He also established the laws of the process itself. But most people remember his
name in connection with his practical demonstration of electromagnetic induction.
In France Andre-Marie Ampere (1775-1836) carried out a complete mathematical study of the
laws which govern the interaction between wires carrying electric currents.
In Germany in 1826 a Bavarian schoolmaster Georg Ohm (1789- 1854) had defined the
relationship between electric pressure (voltage), current (flow rate) and resistance in a circuit
(Ohm's law) but 16 years had to elapse before he received recognition for his work.
Scientists were now convinced that since the flow of an electric current in a wire or a coil of
wire caused it to acquire magnetic properties, the opposite might also prove to be true: a
magnet could possibly be used to generate a flow of electricity.
Michael Faraday had worked on this problem for ten years when finally, in 1830, he gave his
famous lecture in which he demonstrated, for the first time in history, the principle of
electromagnetic induction. He had constructed powerful electromagnets consisting of coils of
wire. When he caused the magnetic lines of force surrounding one coil to rise and fall by
interrupting or varying the flow of current, a similar current was induced in a neighbouring
coil closely coupled to the first.
The colossal importance of Faraday's discovery was that it paved the way for the generation
of electricity by mechanical means. However, as can be seen from the drawing, the basic
generator produces an alternating flow of current.(A.C.)
Rotating a coil of wire steadily through a complete revolution in the steady magnetic field
between the north and south poles of a magnet results in an electromotive force (E.M.F.) at its
terminals which rises in value, falls back to zero, reverses in a negative direction, reaches a
peak and again returns to zero. This completes one cycle or sine wave. (1Hz in S.I. units).
In recent years other methods have been developed for generating electrical power in
relatively small quantities for special applications. Semiconductors, which combine heat
insulation with good electrical conduction, are used for thermoelectric generators to power
isolated weather stations, artificial satellites, undersea cables and marker buoys. Specially
developed diode valves are used as thermionic generators with an efficiency, at present, of
only 20% but the heat taken away from the anode is used to raise steam for conventional
power generation.
Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829) one of Britain's leading chemists of the 18th century, is best
remembered for his safety lamp for miners which cut down the risk of methane gas explosions
in mines. It was Davy who first demonstrated that electricity could be used to produce light.
He connected two carbon rods to a heavy duty storage battery. When he touched the tips of
the rods together a very bright white light was produced. As he drew the rods apart, the arc
light persisted until the tips had burnt away to the critical gap which extinguished the light. As
a researcher and lecturer at the Royal Institution Davy worked closely with Michael Faraday
who first joined the institution as his manservant and later became his secretary. Davy's
crowning honour in the scientific world came in 1820, when he was elected President of the
Royal Society.
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In the U.S.A. the prolific inventor Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1831) who had invented the
incandescent carbon filament bulb, built a number of electricity generators in the vicinity of
the Niagara Falls. These used the power of the falling water to drive hydraulic turbines which
were coupled to the dynamos. These generators were fitted with a spinning switch or
commutator (one of the neatest gadgets Edison ever invented) to make the current flow in
unidirectional pulses (D.C.) In 1876 all electrical equipment was powered by direct current.
Today mains electricity plays a vital part in our everyday lives and its applications are
widespread and staggering in their immensity. But we must not forget that popular demand
for this convenient form of power arose only about 100 years ago, mainly for illumination.
Recent experiments in superconductivity, using ceramic instead metal conductors have given
us an exciting glimpse into what might be achieved for improving efficiency in the
distribution of electric power.
Historians of the future may well characterise the 20th century as 'the century of electricity &
electronics'. But Edison's D.C. generators could not in themselves, have achieved the
spectacular progress that has been made. All over the world we depend totally on a system of
transmitting mains electricity over long distances which was originally created by an amazing
inventor whose scientific discoveries changed, and are still changing, the whole world. His
name was scarcely known to the general public, especially in Europe, where he was born.
Who was this unknown pioneer? Some people reckon that it was this astonishing visionary
who invented wireless, remote control, robotics and a form of X-ray photography using high
frequency radio waves. A patent which he took out in the U.S.A. in 1890 ultimately led to the
design of the humble ignition coil which energises billions and billions of spark plugs in all
the motor cars of the world. His American patents fill a book two inches thick. His name was
Nicola Tesla (1856-1943).
Nicola Tesla was born in a small village in Croatia which at that time formed part of the great
Austro-Hungarian Empire. Today it is a northern province of Yugoslavia, a state created after
the 1914-1918 war. Tesla studied at the Graz Technical University and later in Budapest.
Early in his studies he had the idea that a way had to be found to run electric motors directly
from A.C. generators. His professor in Graz had assured him categorically that this was not
possible. But young Tesla was not convinced. When he went to Budapest he got a job in the
Central Telegraph Office, and one evening in 1882, as he was sitting on a bench in the City
Park he had an inspiration which ultimately led to the solution of the problem.
Tesla remembered a poem by the German poet Goethe about the sun which supports life on
the earth and when the day is over moves on to give life to the other side of the globe. He
picked up a twig and began to scratch a drawing on the soil in front of him. He drew four coils
arranged symmetrically round the circumference of a circle. In the centre he drew a rotor or
armature. As each coil in turn was energised it attracted the rotor towards it and the rotary
motion was established. When he constructed the first practical models he used eight, sixteen
and even more coils. The simple drawing on the ground led to the design of the first induction
motor driven directly by A.C.electricity.
Tesla emigrated to the U.S.A. in 1884. During the first year he filed no less than 30 patents
mostly in relation to the generation and distribution of A.C. mains electricity. He designed
and built his 'A.C.Polyphase System' which generated three-phase alternating current at 25
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Hz. One particular unit delivered 422 amperes at 12,000 volts. The beauty of this system was
that the voltage could be stepped down using transformers for local use, or stepped up to
many thousands of volts for transmission over long distances through relatively thin
conductors. Edison's generating stations were incapable of any such thing.
Tesla signed a lucrative contract with the famous railway engineer George Westinghouse, the
inventor of the Westinghouse Air Brake which is used by most railways all over the world to
the present day. Their generating station was put into service in 1895 and was called the
Niagara Falls Electricity Generating Company. It supplied power for the Westinghouse
network of trains and also for an industrial complex in Buffalo, New York.
After ten years Tesla began to experiment with high frequencies. The Tesla Coil which he had
patented in 1890 was capable of raising voltages to unheard of levels such as 300,000 volts.
Edison, who was still generating D.C., claimed A.C. was dangerous and to prove it contracted
with the government to produce the first electric chair using A.C. for the execution of
murderers condemned to death. When it was first used it was a ghastly flop. The condemned
man moaned and groaned and foamed at the mouth. After four minutes of repeated
application of the A.C.voltage smoke began to come out of his back. It was obvious that the
victim had suffered a horribly drawn-out death.
Tesla said he could prove that A.C. was not dangerous. He gave a demonstration of high
voltage electricity flowing harmlessly over his body. But in reality, he cheated, because he
had used a frequency of 10,000 cycles (10 kHz) at extremely low current and because of the
skin effect suffered no harm.
One of Tesla's patents related to a system of lighting using glass tubes filled with fluorine (not
neon) excited by H.F.voltages. His workshop was lit by this method. Several years before
Wilhelm Roentgen demonstrated his system of X-rays Tesla had been taking photographs of
the bones in his hand and his foot from up to 40 feet away using H.F.currents.
More astonishing still is the fact that in 1893, two years before Marconi demonstrated his
system of wireless signaling, Tesla had built a model boat in which he combined power to
drive it with radio control and robotics. He put the small boat in a lake in Madison Square
Gardens in New York. Standing on the shore with a control box, he invited onlookers to
suggest movements. He was able to make the boat go forwards and backwards and round in
circles. We all know how model cars and aircraft are controlled by radio today, but when
Tesla did it a century ago the motor car had not been invented, and the only method by which
man could cover long distances was on horseback!
Many people believe that a modification of Tesla's 'Magnifying Transmitter' was used by the
Soviet Union when suddenly one day in October 1976 they produced an amazing noise which
blotted out all radio transmissions between 6 and 20 MHz. (The Woodpecker) The B.B.C., the
N.B.C. and most broadcasting and telecommunication organisations of the world complained
to Moscow (the noise had persisted continuously for 10 hours on the first day), but all the
Russians would say in reply was that they were carrying out an experiment. At first nobody
seemed to know what they were doing because it was obviously not intended as another form
of jamming of foreign broadcasts, an old Russian custom as we all know.
It is believed that in the pursuit of his life's ambition to send power through the earth without
the use of wires, Tesla had achieved a small measure of success at E.L.F. (extremely low
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frequencies) of the order of 7 to 12 Hz. These frequencies are at present used by the military
for communicating with submarines submerged in the oceans of the world.
Tesla's career and private life have remained something of a mystery. He lived alone and
shunned public life. He never read any of his papers before academic institutions, though he
was friendly with some journalists who wrote sensational stories about him. They said he was
terrified of microbes and that when he ate out at a restaurant he would ask for a number of
clean napkins to wipe the cutlery and the glasses he drank out of. For the last 20 years of his
life until he died during World War II in 1943 he lived the life of a semi-recluse, with a
pigeon as his only companion. A disastrous fire had destroyed his workshops and many of his
experimental models and all his papers were lost for ever.
Tesla had moved to Colorado Springs where he built his largest ever coil which was 52 feet in
diameter. He studied all the different forms of lightning in his unsuccessful quest for the
transmission of power without wires.
In Yugoslavia, Tesla is a national hero and a well-equipped museum in Belgrade contains
abundant proof of the genius of this extraordinary man.
(From: The dawn of amateur radio in the U.K. and Greece: a personal view by Norman F.
Joly.)
The Discovery of X-rays
Except for a brief description of the Compton effect, and a few other remarks, we have
postponed the discussion of X-rays until the present chapter because it is particularly
convenient to treat X-ray spectra after treating optical spectra. Although this ordering may
have given the reader a distorted impression of the historical importance of X-rays, this
impression will be corrected shortly as we describe the crucial role played by X-rays in the
development of modern physics.
X-rays were discovered in 1895 by Roentgen while studying the phenomena of gaseous
discharge. Using a cathode ray tube with a high voltage of several tens of kilovolts, he noticed
that salts of barium would fluoresce when brought near the tube, although nothing visible was
emitted by the tube. This effect persisted when the tube was wrapped with a layer of black
cardboard. Roentgen soon established that the agency responsible for the fluorescence
originated at the point at which the stream of energetic electrons struck the glass wall of the
tube. Because of its unknown nature, he gave this agency the name X-rays. He found that Xrays could manifest themselves by darkening wrapped photographic plates, discharging
charged electroscopes, as well as by causing fluorescence in a number of different substances.
He also found that X-rays can penetrate considerable thicknesses of materials of low atomic
number, whereas substances of high atomic number are relatively opaque. Roentgen took the
first steps in identifying the nature of X-rays by using a system of slits to show that (1) they
travel in straight lines, and that (2) they are uncharged, because they are not deflected by
electric or magnetic fields.
The discovery of X-rays aroused the interest of all physicists, and many joined in the
investigation of their properties. In 1899 Haga and Wind performed a single slit diffraction
experiment with X-rays which showed that (3) X-rays are a wave motion phenomenon, and,
from the size of the diffraction pattern, their wavelength could be estimated to be 10-8 cm. In
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1906 Barkla proved that (4) the waves are transverse by showing that they can be polarized by
scattering from many materials.
There is, of course, no longer anything unknown about the nature of X-rays. They are
electromagnetic radiation of exactly the same nature as visible light, except that their
wavelength is several orders of magnitude shorter. This conclusion follows from comparing
properties 1 through 4 with the similar properties of visible light, but it was actually
postulated by Thomson several years before all these properties were known. Thomson
argued that X-rays are electromagnetic radiation because such radiation would be expected to
be emitted from the point at which the electrons strike the wall of a cathode ray tube. At this
point, the electrons suffer very violent accelerations in coming to a stop and, according to
classical electromagnetic theory, all accelerated charged particles emit electromagnetic
radiations. We shall see later that this explanation of the production of X-rays is at least
partially correct.
In common with other electromagnetic radiations, X-rays exhibit particle-like aspects as well
as wave-like aspects. The reader will recall that the Compton effect, which is one of the most
convincing demonstrations of the existence of quanta, was originally observed with
electromagnetic radiation in the X-ray region of wavelengths.
POLITICS
CROWDS
On October 30, 1938, thousands of Americans in the New York area were terror stricken by a
radio broadcast describing an invasion from Mars. The presentation was merely a
dramatisation of H. G. Wells' fantastic novel The War of the Worlds, but it was presented
with such stark realism - including reports from fictitious astronomers, governmental officials,
and 'eye-witnesses' - that many listeners fled their homes and their communities. In London
on January 15, 1955, a thick belt of darkness, caused by an accumulation of smoke under an
extremely thick layer of cloud, suddenly wrapped itself around the city in the early afternoon.
It lasted only ten minutes; but during this time, women screamed in the streets, others fell to
their knees on the sidewalks and prayed. Some cried out hysterically that they had gone blind.
A man at Croydon groped through the inky blackness shouting, 'The end of the world has
come'. These two episodes are at once identified as cases of panic, an extreme type of crowd
behaviour, which in turn is a variety of collective behaviour. In the interests of coherence of
treatment and because of limitation of space, this chapter will treat only two related aspects of
collective behaviour: crowds and publics.
Ordinarily when we think of the crowd, we picture a group of individuals massed in one
place; but as the opening illustration of the chapter indicates, physical proximity is not
essential to crowd behaviour, especially in a society like ours with instruments of mass
communication like the newspaper and radio. What is crucial to the understanding of the
crowd is the highly emotional responses of individuals when they are released from the
restraints that usually inhibit extreme behaviour. What releases the customary restraints and
leads to crowd behaviour?
Crowd emotionality is perhaps best interpreted in terms of heightened suggestibility, that is,
the tendency of an individual in a crowd to respond uncritically to the stimuli provided by the
other members. The individual learns to make almost automatic responses to the wishes of
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others, particularly those in authority and those he greatly respects. From infancy on, he is so
dependent upon the judgment of others for direction in his own affairs that he comes to lean
heavily on the opinions of others. Moreover, he learns to value highly the esteem in which
other persons hold him, and consequently he courts their favour by conforming to their ways
and wishes. For these reasons, among others, when he finds himself in a congenial crowd of
persons, all of whom are excited, it is natural that he, too, should be affected.
The effect of suggestion is to produce a partial dislocation of consciousness. When we are
critical about a matter, we give it close attention, and our whole interest is centred upon it. But
when a suggestion is made by someone whom we esteem, our attention is divided, partly on
the issue at hand, partly on the person who made the suggestion. The more awesome the
source of the suggestion, the greater the degree of dissociation and the greater the amount of
automatic behaviour.
If the crowd has a leader who is admired, the effect of the suggestion is still further
heightened. The situation is illustrated by hypnotism, where the effectiveness of the
suggestion depends on the attitude of the subject towards the hypnotist. No one can be
hypnotized against his will; and the best results are obtained where close co-operation exists
between subject and experimenter. The effect of suggestion should help us to understand the
frenzy of a camp meeting led by an evangelist like the late Billy Sunday, or the hysteria of a
Nazi mass meeting led by Hitler.
The group factor also influences crowd behaviour through the security which an individual
feels when he is part of the mass. Individuals are less reluctant to join a lynching party than to
commit murder on their own. The explanation would seem to lie partly in the fact that the
action seems more defensible when carried out by the group and partly in the fact that
individual responsibility is blotted out. The participants remain anonymous and there is no
one upon whom the authorities can pin the offence. This condition, in which the group does
not identify its members as individuals and which therefore has been called 'de-individuation',
leads to reduction of inner restraint and to more expressive behaviour.
(From A handbook of sociology by William F. Ogburn and Meyer J. Nimkoff)
DIPLOMACY
It is thus essential, at the outset of this study, to define what the word 'diplomacy' really
means and in what sense, or senses, it will be used in the pages that follow.
In current language this word 'diplomacy' is carelessly taken to denote several quite different
things. At one moment it is employed as a synonym for 'foreign policy', as when we say
'British diplomacy in the Near East has been lacking in vigour'. At another moment it signifies
'negotiation', as when we say 'the problem is one which might well be solved by diplomacy'.
More specifically, the word denotes the processes and machinery by which such negotiation is
carried out. A fourth meaning is that of a branch of the Foreign Service, as when one says 'my
nephew is working for diplomacy'. And a fifth interpretation which this unfortunate word is
made to carry is that of an abstract quality or gift, which, in its best sense, implies skill in the
conduct of international negotiation; and, in its worst sense, implies the more guileful aspects
of tact.
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These five interpretations are, in English-speaking countries, used indiscriminately, with the
result that there are few branches of politics which have been exposed to such confusion of
thought. If, for instance, the word 'army' were used to mean the exercise of power, the art of
strategy, the science of tactics, the profession of a soldier and the combative instincts of man we should expect public discussion on military matters to lead to much misunderstanding.
The purpose of this monograph is to describe, in simple but precise terms, what diplomacy is
and what it is not. In the first two chapters a short sketch will be given of the origins and
evolution of diplomatic practice and theory. The purpose of this historical review will be to
show that diplomacy is neither the invention nor the pastime of some particular political
system, but is an essential element in any reasonable relation
between man and man and between nation and nation. An examination will follow of recent
modifications in diplomatic methods, with special reference to the problems of 'open' and
'secret' diplomacy and to the difficulty of combining efficient diplomacy with democratic
control. Other sections will deal with the actual functioning of modern diplomacy, with the
relation between diplomacy and commerce, with the organization and administration of the
Foreign Service, with diplomacy by Conference and with the League of Nations as an
instrument of negotiation. At the end a reasoned catalogue will be given of current diplomatic
phrases such as may assist the student in understanding the technical language (it is something
more than mere jargon) which diplomacy has evolved.
Yet before embarking upon so wide a field of examination, it is, as has been said, necessary to
define in what sense, or senses, the word 'diplomacy' will be used in this study. I propose to
employ the definition given by the Oxford English Dictionary. It is as follows:
'Diplomacy is the management of international relations by negotiation; the method by
which these relations are adjusted and managed by ambassadors and envoys; the
business or art of the diplomatist'.
By taking this precise, although wide, definition as my terms of reference I hope to avoid
straying, on the one hand into the sands of foreign policy, and on the other into the marshes of
international law. I shall discuss the several policies or systems of the different nations only in
so far as they affect the methods by which, and the standards according to which, such
policies are carried out. I shall mention international law only in so far as it advances
diplomatic theory or affects the privileges, immunities, and actions of diplomatic envoys. And
I shall thus hope to be able to concentrate upon the 'executive' rather than upon the 'legislative'
aspects of the problem.
(From Diplomacy by Harold Nicholson)
WHAT FUTURE FOR AFRICA?
Even if the most ambitious programme of studies of the lives and contributions of individual
African rulers, statesmen, religious leaders, scholars, could be carried out, we should still be a
long way from achieving a reasonable understanding of African history. The principle that the
history of a people cannot be adequately understood as the history of its dynasties, kings,
paramount chiefs, nobility, and top people generally, is as valid for Africa as it is for Europe.
Until we know a great deal more about the conditions of the people-vassal tribes, slaves, with
their differing degrees of servitude, free commoners, the rank-and-file of the army-in the
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various African states at successive periods, we shall remain very much in the dark about the
real character of these systems and of the causes of the changes which they have undergone.
But until very recently such questions have scarcely been raised-let alone answered. Hence
belle-lettrist generalizations about 'the African past', and speculations about 'the African
future' derived from them, are likely in present circumstances to be valueless.
A further reason for our incompetence is that we do not, for the most part, see the
contemporary African situation from at all the same standpoint as the majority of African
intellectuals. We have come to make use of the term 'decolonization'; to take for granted that
Western European colonial power is being withdrawn, more or less rapidly, from the African
continent; and to be worried only about the possible consequences of this withdrawal. Few
Africans, even those whose political thinking approximates most closely to that of
Westerners, regard the phase of history through which we are now passing in this way. They
are far more conscious of the survival of unlimited, naked colonial power in a number of
states - Algeria, the Union of South Africa, Southern Rhodesia, the Portuguese territories; and
the emergence of 'neo-colonialism' (meaning the gradual granting of formal independence,
combined with the continuing effective présence of the metropolitan power) in others the
states of the French Community, or, under very different conditions, the Congo. For Africans
who think continentally, or globally-and there are many of these-'colonialism' remains a
dominant aspect of the contemporary situation. indeed, they think with much greater subtlety
than we about such matters, and are skilled in distinguishing the varying degrees of intensity
with which 'le poids du colonialisme' presses upon the peoples of the various African states.
And 'colonialism', in almost every context, means Western colonialism: naturally, since
Africans do not feel themselves confronted with the fact, or likelihood, of domination from
any other quarter. They are not at all impressed by the thesis, favoured by American publicists
- 'European colonial systems are now virtually liquidated; therefore let us, the Free World,
protect you against the dangers of Soviet or Chinese colonialism'.
There is a deeper sense in which we are ill-equipped to understand the processes of political
and social change taking place in modern Africa.
We are too remote, historically, from our own revolutions three centuries away in the British,
almost two centuries in the American, case. And when African intellectuals, interested in our
histories as well as theirs, draw attention to resemblances between their political theories and
those of the English Levellers, or Thomas Jefferson, or Robespierre, we seldom see the point.
Americans in particular, are inclined to argue that Africans must either be democrats in their
sense of the term-meaning 'Western values', anti-Communism, two-party systems, free
enterprise, church-on-Sundays, glossy magazines, etcetera - or, if they claim to be democrats
in some other sense, they must be crypto-Communists. But, I have argued elsewhere, there is
a strong vein of Rousseauian revolutionary democracy running through the ideologies of most
African radical nationalist parties and popular organizations.
There are, I think, five respects in which these similarities are most marked. There is, first, the
tendency to take certain ethical presuppositions as the point of departure: the purpose of
liberation is to recover the dignity, or assert the moral worth, of African man. Second, there is
the classic conception of 'democracy', as involving, primarily, the transfer of political power
from a European dominant minority-an oligarchy of colonial officials, or some combination
of the two-to an undifferentiated African demos. Third, there is the idea of the radical mass
party, and its associated organizations, as expressing - as adequately as it can be expressed-the
desires and aspirations of the demos, the common people; and as having therefore the right,
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once independence is achieved, to take control of the state, and reconstruct it in the party's
own image and in relation to its own objectives. There is also the constant insistence upon
human equality: 'il n'y a pas de surhommes' as Sekou Touré once put it. Hence it is not only
the privileged status of the European minority that is attacked, but also the special privileges
and claims to authority-deriving from the precolonial or colonial period-of groups within
contemporary African society, chiefs, marabouts, 'bourgeois intellectuals'. They can play a
part within the new system only to the extent that they accept its egalitarian assumptions.
Finally, there is the idea of the artificiality, undesirability, and impermanence of barriersethnic, linguistic, territorial, cultural, 'racial', religious - within humanity, 'Pan-Africanism', in
one of its aspects, being an attempt to apply this idea in the modern African context.
(Thomas Hodgkin from an article in Encounter, June 1961)
NATIONALISM
Language alone is not, of course, enough to explain the rise of modern nationalism. Even
language is a shorthand for the sense of belonging together, of sharing the same memories, the
same historical experience, the same cultural and imaginative heritage. When in the
eighteenth century, nationalism began to take form as a modern movement, its forerunners in
many parts of Europe were not soldiers and statesmen but scholars and poets who sought to
find in ancient legends and half forgotten folksongs the 'soul' of the nation. But it was
language that enshrined the memories, the common experience and the historical record.
Nor could the sense of common tongue and culture have become the political battering ram
that it is in our own times, if it had not been inextricably bound up with the modern political
and economic revolutions of the West-the political drive for democracy and the economic
revolution of science and industry.
Three thousand years ago, in one small area of the Mediterranean world, there came a break
with the earlier traditions of state building which were all despotic. The dominance of a strong
local tribe or conquest by foreign groups had turned the old fragmented tribal societies into
centralized dynastic and imperial states in which the inhabitant was subject absolutely to the
ruler's will. But in the Greek City State, for the first time, the idea was formulated that a man
should govern himself under law, and that he should not be a subject but a free citizen.
After the post-Roman collapse, it re-emerged as a seminal idea in the development of later
European history. Even in the Middle Ages, before there were any fully articulated
democratic systems, two or three of the essential foundations of democracy had appeared. The
rule of law was recognized. The right of the subject to be consulted had called into being the
parliaments and 'estates' of the fourteenth century. And the possibility of a plurality of power through State, through Church, through royal boroughs and free municipalities - mitigated the
centralizing tendencies of government. It was in fact for a restoration of these rights after the
Tudor interregnum that the first modern political revolution, the English Civil War, was
fought.
But if a man had a right to take part in his own government, it followed logically that his
government could not be arbitrarily controlled from elsewhere. It was useless to give him
representation if it did not affect the true centre of power. The American Revolution
symbolized the connexion between the rights of the citizen and the rights of the state. The free
citizen had a right to govern himself, ergo the whole community of free citizens had a right to
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govern itself. This was not yet modern nationalism. The American people did not see
themselves as a national group but as a community of free men 'dedicated to a proposition'.
But within two decades, the identification had been made.
The French Revolution, proclaiming the Rights of Man, formed the new style of nation. The
levee-en-masse which defeated the old dynastic armies of Europe was the first expression of
total national unity as the basis of the sovereign state. Men and nations had equally the right
to self-determination. Men could not be free if their national community was not.
The same revolution quickly proved that the reverse might not be true. The nation could
become completely unfettered in its dealings with other states while enslaving its own
citizens. In fact, over-glorification of the nation might lead inevitably to the extinction of
individual rights. The citizen could become just a tool of the national will, of the so-called
'general will'. But in the first explosion of revolutionary ardour, the idea of the Rights of Man
and of the Rights of the Nation went together. And, formally, that is where they have
remained. At the end of the First World War, it was the world's leading democratic statesman,
President Woodrow Wilson, who wrote the right of self-determination, the right of national
groups to form their own sovereign government, into the Peace Treaties and at no time in
human history have so many independent national states been formed as after the Second
World War.
From all this it will be clear that the development of nationalism is a recognizable, historical
process. It happened in certain countries, it happened in a certain way, and it created a certain
mood which became embodied in the national idea. But with the means of communication
open to the modern world, an idea developed in one place can quickly become the possession
of all mankind. What is certain is that, in the twentieth century, nationalism, the historical
product of certain political institutions, geographical facts, and economic developments in
Western Europe, has swept round the world to become the greatest lever of change in our day.
We see it at the United Nations where, in the course of eleven short years, the number of
sovereign states based upon the principle of nationhood has grown by three score and more.
As I have pointed out, it is unprecedented in human history that such a number of separate,
autonomous, sovereign institutions should come into being in so short a space of time.
(From Five Ideas that Change the World by Barbara Ward)
DEMOCRACY
In the last days of 1945 I received a letter from Gothenburg, from a gathering of progressive
Swedish students, begging to be advised by me as to what was the task of intellectuals in the
present condition of the world. Their letter was dated July 26, the day of my defeat at
Berwick, and I sent them an answer from the heart: 'The task of intellectuals in Sweden, as
elsewhere, is to introduce reason and foresight into practical affairs. Only if it is governed by
reason will democracy be sufficiently successful in practical affairs, to make certain of
survival'.
Democracy is better than despotism, offers the only hope for mankind of freedom, of justice,
and of peace. But is democracy, as we know it, good enough? A general election in any of the
larger democracies today, in the United States or in Britain, in France or in Italy, is not
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conspicuously a feast of reason. If democracy is not all that nineteenth-century fancy used to
paint, how should it be made better? Can it be made to do well enough to be sure of survival?
In an Epilogue to another story I can only ask these questions. I cannot attempt the answers.
But, having regard to Britain's internal revolutions since the beginning of my story, it may be
worthwhile to name some of the problems illustrated by the story, and facing us today. We
have to learn as a democracy to choose our governors wisely, by reason, not greed. We have
in an economically flattened society to find men who will undertake office in a public spirit,
not for personal gain or glory; we must carry on the aristocratic tradition without the
aristocrats. We have to keep open channels for new ideas of unknown men to reach and
influence the temporary holders of power. We seem to have solved for the present the
problems of full employment, but we have not solved two of the problems to which full
employment in a free society gives rise-how to preserve the value of our money against
endless rise of costs, wages and prices, and how without fear of unemployment to secure the
maximum of output.
Democracy must be efficient in practical affairs, as efficient as the nearest despotism.
Democracy must be democratic in substance, not only in form. This means that the process of
choosing and changing holders of power shall be unaffected by privilege of established
organization and wealth, that the holders of political power, when an election comes, shall
compete with their opponents on equal terms. Power must not be used to prolong itself.
Power, the stupid necessary mule, should have neither pride of ancestry nor hope of posterity.
In the leading democracies of today many special measures have been taken to secure this.
But, at any risk of causing offence, a question must be asked about Britain. Is it consistent
with democratic principle that organizations like the trade unions which have received special
privileges for industrial work should become tied to a political party? Ought it to be difficult
for an individual to earn his living by employment without contributing from his wages to the
retention of power by one set of politicians rather than another? A one-party State in any form
is the destruction of freedom.
Democracies need to look within. They must look without as well. They must, in one way or
another, abandon and lead others to abandon any claim to absolute sovereignty-the claim to
kill in one's own cause without selection or limit. The headnote of this Epilogue is not a
paradox but a truism. If with our growing control over nature we could abolish war, we
should be in Utopia. If we cannot abolish war, we shall plunge ever deeper into a hell of evil
imagining and evil doing.
The theme of my story returns at its end. Power as a means of getting things done appeals to
that which men share with brutes; to fear and to greed; power leads those who wield it to
desire it for its own sake, not for the service it may render, and to seek its continuance in their
own hands. Influence as a means of getting things done appeals to that which distinguishes
men from brutes. The way out of the world's troubles today is to treat men as men, to enthrone
influence over power, and to make power revocable.
(From Power and influence: An autobiography by Lord Beveridge)
LOCKE'S POLITICAL THEORY
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Locke's political theory is to be found in his Two Treatises of Civil Government, particularly
in the second of these. The immediate aim of that treatise is apparent: to justify the Revolution
of 1688 and to help 'establish the throne of our great restorer, our present King William'. But
this aim is achieved by securing in turn a great and fundamental political principle, true for
the English nation in 1688 and true, in Locke's opinion, for all well regulated communities
everywhere and at all times, that government must be with the consent of the governed, that a
ruler who has lost the confidence of his people no longer has the right to govern them.
The principle involves a particular view of government and of political community. Locke set
himself to refute two theories which were used to justify privilege, oppression, and political
slavery. The first was the theory of the divine right of kings as put forward by Robert Filmer,
that the king is the divinely ordained father of his people, and that the relation between king
and subjects is precisely the same as that between father and child. Locke ridicules the
comparison. In the modern state, a large, highly complex organization, parental or patriarchal
government is no longer possible, and the claim that it is divinely ordained cannot be
substantiated. The second theory is to be found in its most explicit form in the works of
Hobbes, although Locke does not refer to Hobbes by name, at least in the Treatise.
Government, in this theory, necessarily involves the complete subjection of the governed to
the absolute will of the governor, for without such subjection no civil society is possible.
Locke denies this theory categorically. The facts of human experience are against it and
reason is against it. A political community is possible in which the governor is limited; in
which sovereignty ultimately pertains not to the monarch, as opposed to those whom he
governs, but to the people as a whole. Government becomes an instrument for securing the
lives, property, and well-being of the governed, and this without enslaving the governed in
any way. Government is not their master; it is created by the people voluntarily and
maintained by them to secure their own good. Those who, because of their superior talent,
have been set to rule by the community, rule not as masters over slaves, or even as fathers
over children. They are officers elected by the people to carry out certain tasks. Their powers
are to be used in accordance with 'that trust which is put into their hands by their brethren'.
For Locke government is a 'trust' and a political community is an organization of equals, of
'brothers', into which men enter voluntarily in order to achieve what they cannot achieve
apart.
Such was the view of government which Locke adopted, and the second treatise is an effort to
discover a rational justification of this view. Locke might have appealed to experience and to
history, or again he might have contented himself with showing the public utility of the theory
he advocated. But the late seventeenth century was rationalist and would listen to no
arguments other than rationalist ones, and so Locke analysed the notion of political society in
order to prove rationally that it was from the first a community of free individuals and that it
remained so throughout. He spoke in the language of his day and he made use of the theories
of his day. In particular, he borrowed two concepts from earlier political theories, the law of
nature and the social contract.
(From John Locke by Richard I. Aaron)
THE SEARCH FOR WORLD ORDER
Before I leave the subject of disarmament there is one further point of importance. Some
Western writers, and some people in Russia too, argue that the best way to minimize the
explosive quality of the present arms race is somehow to develop a stable balance of terror or
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deterrence. This means developing nuclear weapons and delivery systems so strong and so
varied that no surprise attack could knock out the power to retaliate.
I can see some force in this argument. Effective deterrence depends to some extent on mutual
conviction that the other man can and will do what he threatens if he is attacked. And it may
be that this is, for the time being, the only practical way of curbing hasty action. But, in fact,
attempting to produce stability in this way also means continuing the arms race. Because, as
the power to retaliate increases, there is bound to be a corresponding search for improved
weapons which will increase the element of surprise. In any case, inaction through fear, which
is the basis of deterrence, is not a positive way to secure peace-at any rate in the long run. I
feel bound to doubt whether safety, as Winston Churchill once claimed, can really become the
'sturdy child of terror'.
It is important to remember that neither the League of Nations nor, so far, the United Nations
has contemplated the abolition of all armaments. The Covenant of the League spoke of: 'the
reduction of national armaments to the lowest point consistent with national safety and the
enforcement by common action of international obligations'. The first article of the Charter of
the United Nations charges the Organization with the duty of suppressing 'acts of aggression
and other breaches of the peace', and Article 51 allows the organization to use force for this
purpose. Indeed, right at the beginning a Military Staffs Committee was set up at United
Nations headquarters and charged with the strategic direction of whatever military forces
were to be made available to the Security Council.
In practice, however, the United Nations does not have any military force permanently at its
disposal or any staff to plan operations in advance and direct them when they become
necessary. Whatever operations the Organization has undertaken have been done on an
entirely ad hoc and improvised basis. In fact, in 1958 Mr. Hammarskjold himself argued
against the creation of a permanent United Nations military force. One of the main reasons for
this failure to develop a United Nations peace-keeping capacity in terms of military forces has
undoubtedly been the opposition of some of the Great Powers. And it must be admitted that
there is no prospect of the United Nations coercing the Great Powers into keeping the peace at
present. But perhaps we can make a virtue of necessity here.
I have tried to suggest that international agreements, like any system of municipal law,
demand a sanction of force if observance is normally to be guaranteed and non-observance
controlled before it explodes into general disorder. In other words, legislative decision
demands as its corollary some form of executive action. It was surely this which Mr.
Hammarskjold had in mind in presenting his last annual report as Secretary General. Some
people, he said, wanted the United Nations to work simply as a conference system producing
reconciliation by discussion. Others - and clearly himself among them-looked upon the
Organization primarily as a dynamic instrument of government through which they, jointly
and for the same purpose, should seek such reconciliation but through which they should also
try to develop forms of executive action undertaken on behalf of all members, aiming at
forestalling conflicts and resolving them, once they have arisen, by appropriate diplomatic or
political means. The word 'military' was not used. But at that very moment, the United
Nations had in the Congo, and largely through Mr. Hammarskjold's efforts, a military force
expressly designed to re-establish order and to prevent civil strife from exploding into general
war.
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It seems to me that any international organization designed to keep the peace must have the
power not merely to talk but also to act. Indeed I see this as the central theme of any progress
towards an international community in which war is avoided not by chance but by design. Nor
need our present limitations daunt us. This is a slow process in which experience grows into
habit, and habit into trust. Many people have already suggested how this development could
be encouraged. The United Nations could have a bigger permanent staff to act as observers
and intelligence officers in potential trouble spots. Here would be part of the political basis of
control. It could develop much more detailed methods in advance for drawing on national
armed forces when police action becomes inevitable, even without possessing a big military
establishment of its own. It could prepare training manuals for the police action its forces are
likely to undertake, and for which the ordinary soldier is not normally trained. And it could
begin to hold under its own control small specialist staffs, for example, multilingual
signallers, and some small stocks of equipment such as transport aircraft, which its operations
almost inevitably demand.
The fact that coercion of the Great Powers is impossible does not invalidate any of these
suggestions. If these Powers can, for the time being, avoid major war among themselves by
nuclear deterrence, then the likeliest explosive situations will occur in areas not of vital
interest to them. It is there that the United Nations can experiment and develop. Nor can a
firm beginning be made otherwise. At present the United Nations Organization, in the words
of a recent writer, 'is not ... the parliament and government of mankind but an institution of
international diplomacy'. It can only hope to grow from the one into the other by admitting its
present limitations and, more than that, by beginning to practise its own terms and conditions.
If a start could be made now-and even if only in miniature--international government might
finally emerge.
(Norman Gibbs from an article in The Listener, December 28th, 1961)
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
In Congress, July 4, 1776
THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF THE THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA
When in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the
Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of
the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God
entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare
the causes which impel them to the Separation.
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed
by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the
Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men,
deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that Whenever any Form of
Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to
abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and
organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety
and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not
be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that
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Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by
abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But When a long Train of Abuses and
Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under
absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to
provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these
Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems
of Government. The History of the present King of Great- Britain is a History of repeated
Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny
over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public Good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing Importance, unless
suspended in their Operation till his Assent should be obtained; and When so suspended, he
has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the Accommodation of large Districts of People, unless
those People would relinquish the Right of Representation in the Legislature, a Right
inestimable to them, and formidable to Tyrants only.
He has called together Legislative Bodies at Places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from
the Depository of their public Records, for the sole Purpose of fatiguing them into
Compliance with his Measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly Firmness his
Invasions on the Rights of the People.
He has refused for a long Time, after such Dissolutions, to cause others to be elected;
whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of the Annihilation, have returned to the People at
large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the Dangers of
Invasion from without, and the Convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the
Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations
hither, and raising the Conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for
establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the Tenure of their Offices, and the
Amount and Payment of their Salaries.
He has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harrass our
People, and eat out their Substance.
He has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies, without the consent of our
Legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
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He has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and
unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us;
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should
commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all Parts of the World:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing
therein an arbitrary Government, and enlarging its Boundaries, so as to render it at once an
Example and fit Instrument for introducing the same absolute Rules into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally
the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to
legislate for us in all Cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War
against us.
He has plundered our Seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our Towns, and destroyed the Lives of
our People.
He is, at this Time, transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the Works
of Death, Desolation, and Tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy,
scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized
Nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against
their Country, to become the Executioners of their Friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves
by their Hands.
He has excited domestic Insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the
Inhabitants of our Frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare, is
an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble
Terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury. A Prince, whose
Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a
free People.
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Nor have we been wanting in Attentions to our British Brethren. We have warned them from
Time to Time of Attempts by their Legislature to extend an unwarrantable Jurisdiction over
us. We have reminded them of the Circumstances of our Emigration and Settlement here. We
have appealed to their native Justice and Magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the
Ties of our common Kindred to disavow these Usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt
our Connections and Correspondence. They too have been deaf to the Voice of Justice and of
Consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the Necessity, which denounces our
Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of Mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace,
Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in GENERAL
CONGRESS, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of
our Intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies,
solemnly Publish and Declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be,
FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the
British Crown, and that all political Connection between them and the State of Great-Britain,
is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES, they
have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to
do all other Acts and Things which INDEPENDENT STATES may of right do. And for the
support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we
mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND OF THE CITIZEN
Approved by the National Assembly of France, August 26, 1789
The representatives of the French people, organized as a National Assembly, believing that
the ignorance, neglect, or contempt of the rights of man are the sole cause of public calamities
and of the corruption of governments, have determined to set forth in a solemn declaration the
natural, unalienable, and sacred rights of man, in order that this declaration, being constantly
before all the members of the Social body, shall remind them continually of their rights and
duties; in order that the acts of the legislative power, as well as those of the executive power,
may be compared at any moment with the objects and purposes of all political institutions and
may thus be more respected, and, lastly, in order that the grievances of the citizens, based
hereafter upon simple and incontestable principles, shall tend to the maintenance of the
constitution and redound to the happiness of all. Therefore the National Assembly recognizes
and proclaims, in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following
rights of man and of the citizen:
Articles:
1. Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be
founded only upon the general good.
2. The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural and
imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and
resistance to oppression.
3. The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor
individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the
nation.
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4. Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence
the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which
assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These
limits can only be determined by law.
5. Law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society. Nothing may be
prevented which is not forbidden by law, and no one may be forced to do anything
not provided for by law.
6. Law is the expression of the general will. Every citizen has a right to participate
personally, or through his representative, in its foundation. It must be the same for
all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law,
are equally eligible to all dignities and to all public positions and occupations,
according to their abilities, and without distinction except that of their virtues and
talents.
7. No person shall be accused, arrested, or imprisoned except in the cases and
according to the forms prescribed by law. Any one soliciting, transmitting,
executing, or causing to be executed, any arbitrary order, shall be punished. But any
citizen summoned or arrested in virtue of the law shall submit without delay, as
resistance constitutes an offense.
8. The law shall provide for such punishments only as are strictly and obviously
necessary, and no one shall suffer punishment except it be legally inflicted in virtue
of a law passed and promulgated before the commission of the offense.
9. As all persons are held innocent until they shall have been declared guilty, if arrest
shall be deemed indispensable, all harshness not essential to the securing of the
prisoner's person shall be severely repressed by law.
10. No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious
views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by
law.
11. The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the
rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom,
but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law.
12. The security of the rights of man and of the citizen requires public military forces.
These forces are, therefore, established for the good of all and not for the personal
advantage of those to whom they shall be intrusted.
13. A common contribution is essential for the maintenance of the public forces and for
the cost of administration. This should be equitably distributed among all the
citizens in proportion to their means.
14. All the citizens have a right to decide, either personally or by their representatives,
as to the necessity of the public contribution; to grant this freely; to know to what
uses it is put; and to fix the proportion, the mode of assessment and of collection
and the duration of the taxes.
15. Society has the right to require of every public agent an account of his
administration.
16. A society in which the observance of the law is not assured, nor the separation of
powers defined, has no constitution at all.
17. Since property is an inviolable and sacred right, no one shall be deprived thereof
except where public necessity, legally determined, shall clearly demand it, and then
only on condition that the owner shall have been previously and equitably
indemnified.
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Written by The Marquis de Lafayette, with help from his friend and neighbor, American
envoy to France, Thomas Jefferson.
French King Louis XVI signed this document, under duress, but never intended to support it.
PSYCHOLOGY
Society and Intelligence
Intelligence tests have been constructed of three kinds. Verbal paper-and-pencil tests, nonverbal paper-and-pencil tests, where the tasks are presented by means of pictures and
diagrams, and performance tests which require the manipulation of objects. Some, such as the
Binet test and the performance tests, are given to subjects separately; most verbal and nonverbal tests can be done by a group of subjects writing at the same time.
The subjects are told to do their tasks within a certain time, their results are marked, and the
result of each is compared with a scale indicating what may be expected of children of the
same age, i.e. what marks are expected of the relatively few bright ones, what marks are
expected of the few dull ones, and what marks are expected of the bulk of the population with
whom the comparison is being made. This 'calibration' of the test has been made beforehand
and we are not concerned with the methods employed. One thing, however, we have to notice,
and that is that the assessment of the intelligence of any subject is essentially a comparative
affair.
The results of assessment are expressed in various ways, the most familiar being in terms of
what is called the Intelligence Quotient. For our purposes we need not consider how this has
been devised, it is enough to say that an I.Q. round about 100 is 'average', while more than
105 or less than 95 are above or below the average respectively.
Now since the assessment of intelligence is a comparative matter we must be sure that the
scale with which we are comparing our subjects provides a 'valid' or 'fair' comparison. It is
here that some of the difficulties, which interest us, begin. Any test performed involves at
least three factors: the intention to do one's best, the knowledge required for understanding
what you have to do, and the intellectual ability to do it. The first two must be held equal for
all who are being compared, if any comparison in terms of intelligence is to be made. In
school populations in our culture these assumptions can be made with fair plausibility, and the
value of intelligence testing has been proved up to the hilt. Its value lies, of course, in its
providing a satisfactory basis for prediction. No one is in the least interested in the marks little
Basil gets on his test, what we are interested in is whether we can infer from his mark on the
test that Basil will do better or worse than other children of his age at other tasks which we
think require 'general intelligence'. On the whole such inference can be made with a certain
degree of confidence, but only if Basil can be assumed to have had the same attitude towards
the test as the others with whom he is being compared, and only if he was not penalized by
lack of relevant information which they possessed.
It is precisely here that the trouble begins when we use our tests for people from different
cultures. If, as happens among the Dakota Indians, it is indelicate to ask a question if you
think there is someone present who does not know the answer already, this means that a
Dakota child's test result is not comparable with the results of children brought up in a less
sensitive environment. Porteous found difficulty among the Australian aborigines. They were
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brought up to believe that all problems had to be discussed in the group, and they thought it
very eccentric to be expected to solve one by oneself.
Supposing, however, a satisfactory attitude towards the test can be assumed, what about
equality in relevant knowledge? In a society where children play with bricks, performance
tests involving the manipulation of little cubes present an easier problem than they would in a
society where such toys were unknown. Bartlett reports that a group of East African natives
were unable to arrange coloured pegs in an alternating series, but they planted trees according
to the same plan in everyday life.
Then there is the story of the little boy in Kentucky who was asked a test question: 'If you
went to a store and bought six cents worth of candy and gave the clerk ten cents what change
would you receive?' The boy replied: 'I never had ten cents and if I had I wouldn't spend it on
candy and anyway candy is what mother makes.' The tester reformulated the question: 'If you
had taken ten cows to pasture for your father and six of them strayed away, how many would
you have left to drive home?' The boy replied: 'We don't have ten cows, but if we did and I
lost six I wouldn't dare go home.' Undeterred the tester pressed his question: 'If there were ten
children in your school and six of them were sick with the measles how many would there be
in school?' The answer came: 'None, because the rest would be afraid of catching it too.'
Thus all intercultural comparisons of intelligence are vitiated by the lack of true
comparability, and any generalizations about 'racial' differences in intellectual competence
which do not take account of this are worthless. So are many comparisons which have been
made between children of different social classes.
(From Social Psychology, by W. J. H. Sprott.)
The Pressure to Conform
Suppose that you saw somebody being shown a pair of cards. On one of them there is a line,
and on the other three lines. Of these three, one is obviously longer than the line on the other
card, one is shorter, and one the same length. The person to whom these cards are being
shown is asked to point to the line on the second card which is the same length as the one on
the first. To your surprise, he makes one of the obviously wrong choices. You might suppose
that he, or she, perhaps suffers from distorted vision, or is insane, or perhaps merely cussed.
But you might be wrong in all these suggestions; you might be observing a sane, ordinary
citizen, just like yourself. Because, by fairly simple processes, sane and ordinary citizens can
be induced to deny the plain evidence of their senses-not always, but often. In recent years
psychologists have carried out some exceedingly interesting experiments in which this sort of
thing is done.
The general procedure was first devised by Dr Asch in the United States. What happens is
this: Someone is asked to join a group who are helping to study the discrimination of length.
The victim, having agreed to this seemingly innocent request, goes to a room where a number
of people-about half a dozen-and the experimenter are seated. Unbeknown to our victim, none
of the other people in the room is a volunteer like himself; they are all in league with the
experimenter. A pair of cards, like those I have described, is produced; and everyone in turn is
asked which of the three lines on the second card is equal to the line on the first. They all,
without hesitation, pick-as they have been told to pick-the same wrong line. Last of all comes
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the turn of our volunteer. In many cases the volunteer, faced with this unanimity, denies the
plain evidence of his senses, and agrees.
An ingenious variation of this experiment was devised by Stanley Milgram of Harvard. He
used sounds instead of lines, and the subjects were merely asked to state which of two
successive sounds lasted longer. The volunteer would come into a room where there was a
row of five cubicles with their doors shut, and coats hanging outside, and one open cubicle for
him. He would sit in it and don earphones provided. He would hear the occupants of the other
cubicles tested in turn, and each would give a wrong answer. But the other cubicles were, in
fact, empty, and what he heard were tape-recordings manipulated by the experimenter.
Milgram conducted a whole series of experiments in this way, in which he varied
considerably the pressure put upon the subjects. As expected, their conformity varied with the
pressure, but, over all, he clearly showed that, faced with the unanimous opinion of the group
they were in, people could be made to deny the obvious facts of the case in anything up to 75
per cent of the trials.
The victim of brainwashing can be induced to assert falsehoods, as we well know. But he is
subjected to terrible and continuous stress: to hunger, sleeplessness, cold, and fear. The people
we have been discussing were free of all these things, and subjected to nothing more than the
complete agreement of the group in which they found themselves. Nevertheless, they too
could be made to assert manifest falsehoods. I find this more than a trifle alarming -and very
thought-provoking.
You may reply that there is no cause for alarm, because in real situations the total unanimity
of a group is rare. The more usual case concerns the effects of what we might call a 'pressure
group'. This has been examined, at least partially, by W. M. and H. H. Kassarjian, in
California. They used the 'group in a room' and 'lines on cards' situation; and I imagine that
they must be kindly people, because they made things much easier for their volunteers. In the
first place, the genuine volunteers were in a majority: twenty out of thirty. Secondly, the
volunteers never had to make their selections out loud, but always enjoyed the anonymity of
paper and pencil. The experimenter explained that some people would be asked to declare
their choices publicly, and asked only his primed collaborators. Thus each volunteer heard the
views of only a third of the group he was in. This third was unanimous, and the volunteers
probably concluded that they expressed a majority view, but they were not put in a glaring
minority of one, and their choice was secret. Nevertheless, a substantial distortion was still
produced: almost, though not quite, as large as in the harsher situations we looked at first. So
there is only small comfort here.
I am aware that there is grave danger in taking results obtained in the special and carefully
simplified situation of the laboratory, or of the clinic, and applying them directly to the
immensely complicated affairs of normal life. But these results seem to me so interesting and
so suggestive that, in spite of the obvious risks, it may be worth while to see where they may
shed a little light. In speculating thus, I am stepping outside the proper bounds of scientific
rigour; so, if I only make myself a laughing-stock, it is my own fault.
Whether one line is or is not the same length as another is a matter fairly easy to judge as a
rule. But many things-and many more important things-are by no means so clear cut. If we are
asked which of two cars or two schools is the better, or which of two 'pop' songs or two
politicians is the worse, we may be genuinely perplexed to answer. We may guess that in such
doubtful cases the 'majority effect' or the 'pressure group effect' would be even more
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pronounced. Recent experiments by A. E. M. Seaborne suggest that they would not always be,
but it seems generally likely. Can we observe such effects taking place around us now, or
having taken place in the past? I think we can, and that they help us a little to understand the
massive inertia of commonly held ideas, and the fantastic standing of some more ephemeral
ones.
(From an article by Max Hammerton in The Listener, October 18th, 1962.)
Learning to Live With the Computer
A rapid pace of technological advance has been accepted by many manufacturing industries
for some time now, but for the office worker, who has led a sheltered existence in
comparison, radical changes are a new experience. With the advent of electronic data
processing techniques and, especially, computers, this situation has altered very swiftly.
Office staff are suddenly finding themselves exposed to the traumatic consequences of
scientific progress.
Most offices, by the very nature of their structure and function, are geared to stability or slow
change. Accelerated change of the kind that a computer brings is likely to prove disrupting
and disturbing. This is because people in stable organizations tend to expect a steady
continuation of existing arrangements, and because departments unaccustomed to change
frequently find they have become too inflexible to assimilate it without stress. Social as well
as technical factors are therefore highly relevant to a successful adaptation to new techniques.
Research into the social and organizational problems of introducing computers into offices
has been in progress in the social science department in Liverpool University for the past four
years. My colleagues and I have shown that many firms get into difficulties with their new
computers partly because of lack of technical knowledge and experience, but also because
they have not been sufficiently aware of the need to understand and plan for the social as well
as the technical implications of change. In the firms we have been studying, change has
usually been seen simply as a technical problem to be handled by technologists. The fact that
the staff might regard the introduction of a computer as a threat to their security and status has
not been anticipated. Company directors have been surprised when, instead of cooperation,
they encountered anxiety and hostility.
Once the firm has signed the contract to purchase a computer, its next step, one might expect,
would be to 'sell' the idea to its staff, by giving reassurances about redundancy, and
investigating how individual jobs will be affected so that displaced staff can be prepared for a
move elsewhere. In fact, this may not happen. It is more usual for the firm to spend much time
and energy investigating the technical aspects of the computer, yet largely to ignore the
possibility of personnel difficulties. This neglect is due to the absence from most firms of
anyone knowledgeable about human relations. The personnel manager, who might be
expected to have some understanding of employee motivation, is in many cases not even
involved in the changeover.
Again, because the changeover is seen only as a technical problem, little thought is given to
communication and consultation with staff. Some firms go so far as to adopt a policy of
complete secrecy, telling their staff nothing. One director told us: 'If we are too frank, we may
create difficulties for ourselves.' This policy was applied to managers as well as clerks
because, it was explained, 'our managers will worry if they find out they will lose workers and
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so have their empires reduced'. Several months after the arrival of the computer, the sales
manager in this firm had still not been given full information on the consequences of this
change.
One computer manufacturer with extensive American experience has tried to give advice to
firms purchasing its computers on how and when to communicate. It suggests to customers
that as soon as the contract is signed management should hold a meeting with all office staff
and explain what a computer is, what the firm's plans are, how it proposes to use the
computer, and how staff will be affected. Management should also explain at this meeting that
there will be some redundancy, but that it will be absorbed by the normal processes of people
changing jobs and retiring. This manufacturer tells us that he frequently encounters resistance
to this approach. Directors often take the line: 'No, don't tell anyone.'
The real bogey of the computer is that it is likely-or even intended-to displace staff. So it
constitutes a major threat to staff security, and for this reason alone is likely to be resisted. An
important part of the preparations for a machine must be, therefore, the estimating of the
number of redundancies, and identifying jobs which will be eliminated or reduced in scope by
the machine.
Briefly, I would offer the following advice to firms embarking on computers. First, do not
think your problems will be predominantly technical, because this is unlikely. Secondly, get
as much information as you can on both social and technical problems before you sign the
contract to purchase; other firms' experience can be a useful guide here. And thirdly, plan well
in advance, communicate and consult with all your staff and do not be surprised if they take a
sour view of the proposed change. No one likes to think that he can be replaced by a machine.
(From an article by Enid Mumford in The New Scientist, 18th June, 1964.)
Forgetting
In 1914, Freud published an English edition of his The Psychopathology of Everyday Life. In
this book he endeavours to show that many 'lapses of memory' and 'slips of the tongue' are not
inexplicable accidents but can be readily understood if fitted into the personality picture of the
individual. The reader is recommended to look at this well-written book for himself and
discover the wealth of intriguing anecdotal evidence with which Freud supports and develops
his thesis.
Freud is at his best when discussing those seemingly accidental mistakes of speech and
writing where one word is substituted for another and, especially, where the substitute word
means the opposite of the word intended. A physician is writing out a prescription for an
impecunious patient who asks him not to give her big bills because she cannot swallow themand then says that, of course, she meant pills. An arrogant lecturer says that he could count the
number of real authorities on his subject on one finger - he means the fingers of one hand. A
President of the Austrian House of Deputies is opening a session from which he fears little
good will come and announces that, since such and such a number of gentlemen are present,
he declares the session as closed; amid laughter, he corrects his mistake and declares the
session as opened. All of these examples clearly derive from the person saying what he
actually thinks without checking himself to make his insincere but diplomatic statement. No
doubt we have all encountered similar examples in our everyday life. Certainly writers of
fiction have long been aware of this phenomenon, and have exploited it to good dramatic
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effect by putting such lapsus linguae into the mouths of characters. In Shakespeare's Merchant
of Venice, for example, Portia has lost her affections to Bassanio but is under a vow not to
reveal it. She directs a speech to this welcome suitor in which, throughout, her love for him is
thinly disguised and finishes with the words: 'One half of me is yours, the other half yours Mine own, I would say.' The same expression of our thoughts and wishes is seen in some
erroneously carried-out actions. Thus, one physician reports that he is quite often disturbed in
the midst of engrossing work at home by having to go to hospital to carry out some routine
duty. When this happens he is apt to find himself trying to open the door of his laboratory
with the key of his desk at home. The two keys are quite unlike each other and the mistake
does not occur under normal circumstances but only under conditions where he would rather
be at home. His error seems to express his wish.
When Freud begins to discuss 'lapses of memory' in terms of repression, he seems to move on
less firm ground. He does not, of course, claim that all lapses are due to repression. His
concern is to show that at least some are and, to this end, he gives examples in which a name
or a word is unexpectedly forgotten and proceeds to demonstrate that the forgotten item is
associated either directly or indirectly with unpleasant circumstances. Here we may cite two
of his most convincing examples. The first concerns a man (X) who repeatedly forgot the
name of an old acquaintance and business associate (Y). When he required to correspond with
Y, he had to ask other people for his name. It transpired that Y had recently married a young
woman X himself had hoped to marry. Thus X had good reason to dislike his happy rival and
want to forget all about him. The second example concerns a man who set out to recite a
poem, got so far, and then could recall no more although he knew the poem well. The line on
which he blocked was descriptive of a pine-tree which is covered 'with the white sheet'. Why
should this phrase have been forgotten? Asked to relate what came to his mind when he
thought of this phrase, it was found that it immediately reminded him of the white sheet which
covers a dead body, and of the recent death of his brother from a heart condition which was
common in his family and from which he feared he too might die. The phrase referring to the
white sheet appears to have been forgotten because it was associated with circumstances
which the man did not wish to recall. In Freud's other examples, the link between the
forgotten item and some unpleasant circumstance is not so easily demonstrated.
(From Memory: Facts and Fallacies, by Ian Hunter.)
Adolescence
The period of adolescence has fascinated people of all ages. Even Aristotle turned aside from
his philosophical and ethical speculations to make a study of the adolescent. He realistically
described a boy's voice as 'the bleating of a billy goat'. He also characterized the adolescent as
being 'high-minded', but somewhat cynically put this down to lack of experience! Plato
devoted much time and thought to discovering how best to bring up youth to true citizenship.
Growing-up. Adolescence means 'growing-up' and strictly speaking should apply to a child
from birth to maturity. Why then do we use it for this teenage period alone? Because when we
speak of the adolescent as 'growing-up', we mean that the youth is leaving behind the phase of
protective childhood and is becoming independent, capable of going out to fend for himself.
Girls of this age used to be called 'flappers', a very descriptive term, for they are figuratively
trying out their wings. Very often, like fledglings, both boys and girls require a gentle push
off! Sometimes they push off too soon and hurt themselves.
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Venturesomeness. A characteristic of 'growing-up' is a desire to be venturesome - so unlike
the dependence of the child and the set ways of the adult. The adolescent seeks for new
experience in life, and likes roughing it. In their camps and hiking, for example, boys and
girls seek uncomfortable and difficult conditions-and then set about making themselves
comfortable in them. They deliberately seek difficulties in order to overcome them.
Responsibility. The adolescent also loves responsibility. The boy likes to be given the job of
packing the luggage in the car; the girl, the responsibility of getting the younger children
ready for the trip. This is a natural urge and requires expression.
Relation to life. The healthy adolescent boy or girl likes to do the real things in life, to do the
things that matter. He would rather be a plumber's mate and do a real job that requires doing
than learn about hydrostatics sitting at a desk, without understanding what practical use they
are going to be. A girl would rather look after the baby than learn about child care.
Logically we should learn about things before doing them and that is presumably why the
pundits enforce this in our educational system. But it is not the natural way-nor, I venture to
think, the best way. The adolescent wants to do things first for only then does he appreciate
the problems involved and want to learn more about them.
They do these things better in primitive life, for there at puberty the boy joins his father in
making canoes, patching huts, going out fishing or hunting, and preparing weapons of war.
He is serving his apprenticeship in the actual accomplishments of life. It is not surprising that
anthropologists find that the adolescents of primitive communities do not suffer from the
same neurotic 'difficulties' as those of civilized life. This is not, as some assume, because they
are permitted more sexual freedom, but because they are given more natural outlets for their
native interests and powers and are allowed to grow up freely into a full life of responsibility
in the community.
In the last century this was recognized in the apprenticeship system, which allowed the boy to
go out with the master carpenter, thatcher, or ploughman, to engage in the actual work of
carpentry, roof-mending, or ploughing, and so to learn his trade. It was the same in medicine,
in which a budding young doctor of sixteen learnt his job by going round with the general
practitioner and helping with the blood-letting and physic. In our agricultural colleges at the
present time young men have to do a year's work on a farm before their theoretical training at
college. The great advantage of this system is that it lets the apprentice see the practical
problems before he sets to work learning how to solve them, and he can therefore take a more
intelligent interest in his theoretical work. That is also why a girl should be allowed to give
expression to her natural desire to look after children, and then, when she comes up against
difficulties, to learn the principles of child care.
Since more knowledge of more things is now required in order to cope with the adult world,
the period of growing-up to independence takes much longer than it did in a more primitive
community, and the responsibility for such education, which formerly was in the hands of the
parents, is now necessarily undertaken by experts at school. But that should not make us lose
sight of the basic principle, namely the need and the desire of the adolescent to engage
responsibly in the 'real' pursuits of life and then to learn how-to learn through responsibility,
not to learn before responsibility.
(From Childhood and Adolescence, by J. A. Hadfield)
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Body Language.
What does scientific literature tell us about the idea that body language reflects our real
feelings? One experiment carried out about 10 years ago by Ross Buck from Carnegie-Mellon
University in Pennsylvania suggests that spontaneous facial expression is not a very good
index of real emotional state. Buck and his colleagues tested the accuracy with which people
could identify the emotions felt by another person. They presented one set of subjects with
colour slides involving a variety of emotionally-loaded visual stimuli - such as “scenic” slides
(landscapes, etc), “maternal” slides (mothers and young children), disgusting slides (severe
facial injuries and burns) and unusual slides (art objects). Unknown to these subjects, they
were being televised and viewed by another matched set of subjects, who were asked to
decide, on the basis of the televised facial expressions, which of the four sets of slides had just
been viewed. This experiment involved both male and female pairs, but no pairs comprising
both men and women; that is men observed only men, and women observed women. Buck
found that the female pairs correctly identified almost 40 per cent of the slides used - this was
above the level which would be predicted by chance alone. (Chance level is 25 per cent here,
as there were four classes of slide). But male pairs correctly identified only 28 per cent of
slides - not significantly above chance level. In other words, this study suggests that facial
expression is not a very good index of “real” feeling - and in the case of men watching and
interpreting other men, is almost useless.
Paul Ekman from the University of California has conducted a long series of experiments on
nonverbal leakage (or how nonverbal behaviour may reveal real inner states) which has
yielded some more positive and counter-intuitive results. Ekman has suggested that nonverbal
behaviour may indeed provide a clue to real feelings and has explored in some detail people
actively involved in deception, where their verbal language is not a true indication of how
they really feel. Ekman here agrees with Sigmund Freud, who was also convinced of the
importance of nonverbal behaviour in spotting deception when he wrote: “He that has eyes to
see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are
silent, he chatters with his finger-tips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore.”
Ekman predicted that the feet and legs would probably hold the best clue to deception because
although the face sends out very quick instantaneous messages, people attend to and receive
most feedback from the face and therefore try to control it most. In the case of the feet and
legs the “transmission time” is much longer but we have little feedback from this part of the
body. In other words, we are often unaware of what we are doing with our feet and legs.
Ekman suggested that the face is equipped to lie the most (because we are often aware of our
facial expression) and to “leak” the most (because it sends out many fast momentary
messages) and is therefore going to be a very confusing source of information during
deception. The legs and feet would be the primary source of nonverbal leakage and hold the
main clue to deception. The form the leakage in the legs and feet would take would include
“aggressive foot kicks, flirtatious leg displays, abortive restless flight movements”. Clues to
deception could be seen in “tense leg positions, frequent shifts of leg posture, and in restless
or repetitive leg and foot movements.”
Ekman conducted a series of experiments to test his speculations, some involving psychiatric
patients who were engaging in deception, usually to obtain release from hospital. He made
films of interviews involving the patients and showed these, without sound, to one of two
groups of observers. One group viewed only the face and head, the other group, the body from
the neck down. Each observer was given a list of 300 adjectives describing attitudes,
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emotional state, and so on, and had to say which adjectives best described the patients. The
results indicated quite dramatically that individuals who utilised the face tended to be misled
by the patients, whereas those who concentrated on the lower body were much more likely to
detect the real state of the patients and not be misled by the attempted deception.
These studies thus suggest that some body language may indeed reflect our real feelings, even
when we are trying to disguise them. Most people can, however, manage to control facial
expression quite well and the face often seems to provide little information about real feeling.
Paul Ekman has more recently demonstrated that people can be trained to interpret facial
expression more accurately but this, not surprisingly, is a slow laborious process. Ekman’s
research, suggests that the feet and legs betray a great deal about real feelings and attitudes
but the research is nowhere near identifying the meanings of particular foot movements. Ray
Birdwhistell of the Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute has gone some way towards
identifying some of the basic nonverbal elements of the legs and feet, and as a first
approximation has identified 58 separate elements. But the meanings of these particular
elements is far from clear and neither are the rules for combining the elements into larger
meaningful units. Perhaps in years to come we will have a “language” of the feet provided
that we can successfully surmount the problems described earlier in identifying the basic
forms of movement following Birdwhistell’s pioneering efforts, of how they may combine
into larger units, and in teaching people how they might make sense of apparently
contradictory movements.
In the meantime, if you go to a party and find someone peering intently at your feet - beware.
DISTANCE REGULATION IN ANIMALS
Comparative studies of animals help to show how man's space requirements are influenced by
his environment. In animals we can observe the direction, the rate, and the extent of changes
in behaviour that follow changes in space available to them as we can never hope to do in
men. For one thing, by using animals it is possible to accelerate time, since animal
generations are relatively short. A scientist can, in forty years, observe four hundred and forty
generations of mice, while he has in the same span of time seen only two generations of his
own kind. And, of course, he can be more detached about the fate of animals.
In addition, animals don’t rationalise their behaviour and thus obscure issues. In their natural
state, they respond in an amazingly consistent manner so that it is possible to observe repeated
and virtually identical performances. By restricting our observations to the way animals
handle space, it is possible to learn an amazing amount that is translatable to human terms.
Territoriality, a basic concept in the study of animal behaviour, is usually defined as
behaviour by which an organism characteristically lays claim to an area and defends it against
members of its own species. It is a recent concept, first described by the English ornithologist
H. B. Howard in his Territory in Bird Life, written in 1920. Howard stated the concept in
some detail, though naturalists as far back as the seventeenth century had taken note of
various events which Howard recognised as manifestations of territoriality.
Territoriality studies are already revising many of our basic ideas of animal life and human
life as well. The expression “free as a bird” is an encapsulated form of man’s conception of
his relation to nature. He sees animals as free to roam the world, while he himself is
imprisoned by society. Studies of territoriality show that the reverse is closer to the truth and
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that animals are often imprisoned in their own territories. It is doubtful if Freud, had he
known what is known today about the relation of animals to space, could have attributed
man’s advances to trapped energy redirected by culturally imposed inhibitions.
Many important functions are expressed in territoriality, and new ones are constantly being
discovered. H. Hediger, Zurich’s famous animal psychologist, described the most important
aspects of territoriality and explained succinctly the mechanisms by which it operates.
Territoriality, he says, insures the propagation of the species by regulating density. It provides
a frame in which things are done - places to learn, places to play, safe places to hide. Thus it
coordinates the activities of the group and holds the group together. It keeps animals within
communicating distance of each other, so that the presence of food or an enemy can be
signalled. An animal with a territory of its own can develop an inventory of reflex responses
to terrain features. When danger strikes, the animal on its home ground can take advantage of
automatic responses rather than having to take time to think about where to hide.
The psychologist C. R. Carpenter, who pioneered in the observation of monkeys in a native
setting, listed thirty-two functions of territoriality, including important ones relating to the
protection and evolution of the species. The list that follows is not complete, nor is it
representative of all species, but it indicates the crucial nature of territoriality as a behavioural
system, a system that evolved in very much the same way as anatomical systems evolved. In
fact, differences in territoriality have become so widely recognised that they are used as a
basis for distinguishing between species, much as anatomical features are used.
Territoriality offers protection from predators, and also exposes to predation the unfit who are
too weak to establish and defend a territory. Thus, it reinforces dominance in selective
breeding because the less dominant animals are less likely to establish territories. On the other
hand territoriality facilitates breeding by providing a home base that is safe. It aids in
protecting the nests and the young in them. In some species it localises waste disposal and
inhibits or prevents parasites. Yet one of the most important functions of territoriality is
proper spacing, which protects against over-exploitation of that part of the environment on
which a species depends for its living.
In addition to preservation of the species and the environment, personal and social functions
are associated with territoriality. C. R. Carpenter tested the relative roles of sexual vigour and
dominance in a territorial context and found that even a desexed pigeon will in its own
territory regularly win a test encounter with a normal male, even though desexing usually
results in loss of position in a social hierarchy. Thus, while dominant animals determine the
general direction in which the species develops, the fact that the subordinate can win (and so
breed) on his home grounds helps to preserve plasticity in the species by increasing variety
and thus preventing the dominant animals from freezing the direction which evolution takes.
Territoriality is also associated with status. A series of experiments by the British
ornithologist A. D. Bain on the great tit altered and even reversed dominance relationships by
shifting the position of feeding stations in relation to birds living in adjacent areas. As the
feeding station was placed closer and closer to a bird’s home range, the bird would accrue
advantages it lacked when away from its own home ground.
Man, too, has territoriality and he has invented many ways of defending what he considers his
own land, turf, or spread. The removal of boundary markers and trespass upon the property of
another man are punishable acts in much of the Western world. A man’s home has been his
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castle in English common law for centuries, and it is protected by prohibitions on unlawful
search and seizure even by officials of his government. The distinction is carefully made
between private property, which is the territory of an individual, and public property, which is
the territory of the group.
This cursory review of the functions of territoriality should suffice to establish the fact that it
is a basic behavioural system characteristic of living organisms including man.
An observation and an explanation
It is worth looking at one or two aspects of the way a mother behaves towards her baby. The
usual fondling, cuddling and cleaning require little comment, but the position in which she
holds the baby against her body when resting is rather revealing. Careful American studies
have disclosed the fact that 80 per cent of mothers cradle their infants in their left arms,
holding them against the left side of their bodies. If asked to explain the significance of this
preference most people reply that it is obviously the result of the predominance of righthandedness in the population. By holding the babies in their left arms, the mothers keep their
dominant arm free for manipulations. But a detailed analysis shows that this is not the case.
True, there is a slight difference between right-handed and left-handed females, but not
enough to provide an adequate explanation. It emerges that 83 per cent of right-handed
mothers hold the baby on the left side, but then so do 78 per cent of left-handed mothers. In
other words, only 22 per cent of the left-handed mothers have their dominant hands free for
actions. Clearly there must be some other, less obvious explanation.
The only other clue comes from the fact that the heart is on the left side of the mother’s body.
Could it be that the sound of her heartbeat is the vital factor? And in what way? Thinking
along these lines it was argued that perhaps during its existence inside the body of the mother,
the growing embryo becomes fixated (‘imprinted’) on the sound of the heart beat. If this is so,
then the re-discovery of this familiar sound after birth might have a calming effect on the
infant, especially as it has just been thrust into a strange and frighteningly new world outside.
If this is so then the mother, either instinctively or by an unconscious series of trials and
errors, would soon arrive at the discovery that her baby is more at peace if held on the left
against her heart, than on the right.
This may sound far-fetched, but tests have now been carried out which reveal that it is
nevertheless the true explanation. Groups of new-born babies in a hospital nursery were
exposed for a considerable time to the recorded sound of a heartbeat at a standard rate of 72
beats per minute. There were nine babies in each group and it was found that one or more of
them was crying for 60 per cent of the time when the sound was not switched on, but that this
figure fell to only 38 per cent when the heartbeat recording was thumping away. The
heartbeat groups also showed a greater weight-gain than the others, although the amount of
food taken was the same in both cases. Clearly the beatless groups were burning up a lot more
energy as a result of the vigorous actions of their crying.
Another test was done with slightly older infants at bedtime. In some groups the room was
silent, in others recorded lullabies were played. In others a ticking metronome was operating
at the heartbeat speed of 72 beats per minute. In still others the heartbeat recording itself was
played. It was then checked to see which groups fell asleep more quickly. The heartbeat group
dropped off in half the time it took for any of the other groups. This not only clinches the idea
that the sound of the heart beating is a powerfully calming stimulus, but it also shows that the
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response is a highly specific one. The metronome imitation will not do - at least, not for
young infants.
So it seems fairly certain that this is the explanation of the mother’s left-side approach to
baby-holding. It is interesting that when 466 Madonna and child paintings (dating back over
several hundred years) were analysed for this feature, 373 of them showed the baby on the left
breast. Here again the figure was at the 80 per cent level. This contrasts with observations of
females carrying parcels, where it was found that 50 per cent carried them on the left and 50
per cent on the right.
What other possible results could this heartbeat imprinting have? It may, for example, explain
why we insist on locating feelings of love in the heart rather than the head. As the song says:
‘You gotta have a heart!’ It may also explain why mothers rock their babies to lull them to
sleep. The rocking motion is carried on at about the same speed as the heartbeat, and once
again it probably ‘reminds’ the infants of the rhythmic sensations they became so familiar
with inside the womb, as the great heart of the mother pumped and thumped away above
them.
Nor does it stop there. Right into adult life the phenomenon seems to stay with us. We rock
with anguish. We rock back and forth on our feet when we are in a state of conflict. The next
time you see a lecturer or an after-dinner speaker swaying rhythmically from side to side,
check his speed for heartbeat time. His discomfort at having to face an audience leads him to
perform the most comforting movements his body can offer in the somewhat limited
circumstances; and so he switches on the old familiar beat of the womb.
Wherever you find insecurity, you are liable to find the comforting heartbeat rhythm in one
kind of disguise or another. It is no accident that most folk music and dancing has a
syncopated rhythm. Here again the sounds and movements take the performers back to the
safe world of the womb.
From The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris. (Jonathan Cape and McGraw Hill, 1967)
GESTURES
A gesture is any action that sends a visual signal to an onlooker. To become a gesture, an act
has to be seen by someone else and has to communicate some piece of information to them. It
can do this either because the gesturer deliberately sets out to send a signal - as when he
waves his hand - or it can do it only incidentally - as when he sneezes. The hand-wave is a
Primary Gesture, because it has no other existence or function. It is a piece of communication
from start to finish. The sneeze, by contrast, is a secondary, or Incidental Gesture. Its primary
function is mechanical and is concerned with the sneezer’s personal breathing problem. In its
secondary role, however, it cannot help but transmit a message to his companions, warning
them that he may have caught a cold.
Most people tend to limit their use of the term ‘gesture’ to the primary form - the hand-wave
type - but this misses an important point. What matters with gesturing is not what signals we
think we are sending out, but what signals are being received. The observers of our acts will
make no distinction between our intentional Primary Gestures and our unintentional,
incidental ones. In some ways, our Incidental Gestures are the more illuminating of the two, if
only for the very fact that we do not think of them as gestures, and therefore do not censor and
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manipulate them so strictly. This is why it is preferable to use the term ‘gesture’ in its wider
meaning as an ‘observed action’.
A convenient way to distinguish between Incidental and Primary Gestures is to ask the
question: Would I do it if I were completely alone? If the answer is No, then it is a Primary
Gesture. We do not wave, wink, or point when we are by ourselves; not, that is, unless we
have reached the unusual condition of talking animatedly to ourselves.
INCIDENTAL GESTURES
Mechanical actions with secondary messages
Many of our actions are basically non-social, having to do with problems of personal body
care, body comfort and body transportation; we clean and groom ourselves with a variety of
scratchings, rubbings and wipings; we cough, yawn and stretch our limbs; we eat and drink;
we prop ourselves up in restful postures, folding our arms and crossing our legs; we sit, stand,
squat and recline, in a whole range of different positions; we crawl, walk and run in varying
gaits and styles. But although we do these things for our own benefit, we are not always
unaccompanied when we do them. Our companions learn a great deal about us from these
‘personal’ actions - not merely that we are scratching because we itch or that we are running
because we are late, but also, from the way we do them, what kind of personalities we possess
and what mood we are in at the time.
Sometimes the mood-signal transmitted unwittingly in this way is one that we would rather
conceal, if we stopped to think about it. Occasionally we do become self-consciously aware of
the ‘mood broadcasts’ and ‘personality displays’ we are making and we may then try to check
ourselves. But often we do not, and the message goes out loud and clear.
For instance, if a student props his head on his hands while listening to a boring lecture, his
head-on-hands action operates both mechanically and gesturally. As a mechanical act, it is
simply a case of supporting a tired head - a physical act that concerns no one but the student
himself. At the same time, though, it cannot help operating as a gestural act, beaming out a
visual signal to his companions, and perhaps to the lecturer himself, telling them that he is
bored.
In such a case his gesture was not deliberate and he may not even have been aware that he
was transmitting it. If challenged, he would claim that he was not bored at all, but merely
tired. If he were honest - or impolite - he would have to admit that excited attention easily
banishes tiredness, and that a really fascinating speaker need never fear to see a slumped,
head-propped figure like his in the audience.
In the schoolroom, the teacher who barks at his pupils to ‘sit up straight’ is demanding, by
right, the attention-posture that he should have gained by generating interest in his lesson. It
says a great deal for the power of gesture-signals that he feels more ‘attended-to’ when he
sees his pupils sitting up straight, even though he is consciously well aware of the fact that
they have just been forcibly un-slumped, rather than genuinely excited by his teaching.
Many of our Incidental Gestures provide mood information of a kind that neither we nor our
companions become consciously alerted to. It is as if there is an underground communication
system operating just below the surface of our social encounters. We perform an act and it is
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observed. Its meaning is read, but not out loud. We ‘feel’ the mood, rather than analyse it.
Occasionally an action of this type becomes so characteristic of a particular situation that we
do eventually identify it - as when we say of a difficult problem: ‘That will make him scratch
his head’, indicating that we do understand the link that exists between puzzlement and the
Incidental Gesture of head-scratching. But frequently this type of link operates below the
conscious level, or is missed altogether.
Where the links are clearer, we can, of course, manipulate the situation and use our Incidental
Gestures in a contrived way. If a student listening to a lecture is not tired, but wishes to insult
the speaker, he can deliberately adopt a bored, slumped posture, knowing that its message will
get across. This is a Stylized Incidental Gesture - a mechanical action that is being artificially
employed as a pure signal. Many of the common ‘courtesies’ also fall into this category - as
when we greedily eat up a plate of food that we do not want and which we do not like, merely
to transmit a suitably grateful signal to our hosts. Controlling our Incidental Gestures in this
way is one of the processes that every child must learn as it grows up and learns to adapt to
the rules of conduct of the society in which it lives.
EXPRESSIVE GESTURES
Biological gestures of the kind we share with other animals
Primary Gestures fall into six main categories. Five of these are unique to man, and depend on
his complex, highly evolved brain. The exception is the category I called Expressive Gestures.
These are gestures of the type which all men, everywhere, share with one another, and which
other animals also perform. They include the important signals of Facial Expression, so
crucial to daily human interaction.
All primates are facially expressive and among the higher species the facial muscles become
increasingly elaborate, making possible the performance of a whole range of subtly varying
facial signals. In man this trend reaches its peak, and it is true to say that the bulk of nonverbal signalling is transmitted by the human face.
The human hands are also important, having been freed from their ancient locomotion duties,
and are capable, with their Manual Gesticulations, of transmitting many small mood changes
by shifts in their postures and movements, especially during conversational encounters. I am
defining the word ‘gesticulation’, as distinct from ‘gesture’, as a manual action performed
unconsciously during social interactions, when the gesticulator is emphasizing a verbal point
he is making.
These natural gestures are usually spontaneous and very much taken for granted. Yes, we say,
he made a funny face. But which way did his eyebrows move? We cannot recall. Yes, we say,
he was waving his arms about as he spoke. But what shape did his fingers make? We cannot
remember. Yet we were not inattentive. We saw it all and our brains registered what we saw.
We simply did not need to analyse the actions, any more than we had to spell out the words
we heard, in order to understand them. In this respect they are similar to the Incidental
Gestures of the previous category, but they differ, because here there is no mechanical
function - only signalling. This is the world of smiles and sneers, shrugs and pouts, laughs and
winces, blushes and blanches, waves and beckons, nods and glares, frowns and snarls. These
are the gestures that nearly everyone performs nearly everywhere in the world. They may
differ in detail and in context from place to place, but basically they are actions we all share.
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We all have complex facial muscles whose sole job it is to make expressions, and we all stand
on two feet rather than four, freeing our hands and letting them dance in the air evocatively as
we explain, argue and joke our way through our social encounters. We may have lost our
twitching tails and our bristling fur, but we more than make up for it with our marvellously
mobile faces and our twisting, spreading, fluttering hands.
In origin, our Expressive Gestures are closely related to our Incidental Gestures, because their
roots also lie in primarily non-communicative actions. The clenched fist of the gesticulator
owes its origin to an intention movement of hitting an opponent, just as the frown on the face
of a worried man can be traced back to an ancient eye-protection movement of an animal
anticipating physical attack. But the difference is that in these cases the link between the
primary physical action and its ultimate descendant, the Expressive Gesture, has been broken.
Smiles, pouts, winces, gapes, smirks, and the rest, are now, for all practical purposes, pure
gestures and exclusively communicative in function.
Despite their worldwide distribution, Expressive Gestures are nevertheless subject to
considerable cultural influences. Even though we all have an evolved set of smiling muscles,
we do not all smile in precisely the same way, to the same extent, or on the same occasions.
For example, all children may start out as easy-smilers and easy-laughers, but a local tradition
may insist that, as the youngsters mature, they must hide their feelings, and their adult
laughter may become severely muted as a result. These local Display Rules, varying from
place to place, often give the false impression that Expressive Gestures are local inventions
rather than modified, but universal, behaviour patterns.
MIMIC GESTURES
Gestures which transmit signals by imitation
Mimic Gestures are those in which the performer attempts to imitate, as accurately as
possible, a person, an object or an action. Here we leave our animal heritage behind and enter
an exclusively human sphere. The essential quality of a Mimic Gesture is that it attempts to
copy the thing it is trying to portray. No stylized conventions are applied. A successful Mimic
Gesture is therefore understandable to someone who has never seen it performed before. No
prior knowledge should be required and there need be no set tradition concerning the way in
which a particular item is represented. There are four kinds of Mimic Gesture:
First, there is Social Mimicry, or ‘putting on a good face’. We have all done this. We have all
smiled at a party when really we feel sad, and perhaps looked sadder at a funeral than we feel,
simply because it is expected of us. We lie with simulated gestures to please others. This
should not be confused with what psychologists call ‘role-playing’. When indulging in Social
Mimicry we deceive only others, but when role-playing we deceive ourselves as well.
Second, there is Theatrical Mimicry - the world of actors and actresses, who simulate
everything for our amusement. Essentially it embraces two distinct techniques. One is the
calculated attempt to imitate specifically observed actions. The actor who is to play a general,
say, will spend long hours watching films of military scenes in which he can analyse every
tiny movement and then consciously copy them and incorporate them into his final portrayal.
The other technique is to concentrate instead on the imagined mood of the character to be
portrayed, to attempt to take on that mood, and to rely upon it to produce, unconsciously, the
necessary style of body actions.
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In reality, all actors use a combination of both these techniques, although in explaining their
craft they may stress one or other of the two methods. In the past, acting performances were
usually highly stylized, but today, except in pantomime, opera and farce, extraordinary
degrees of realism are reached and the formal, obtrusive audience has become instead a
shadowy group of eavesdroppers. Gone are the actor’s asides, gone are the audience
participations. We must all believe that it is really happening. In other words, Theatrical
Mimicry has at last become as realistic as day-to-day Social Mimicry. In this respect, these
first two types of mimic activity contrast sharply with the third, which can be called Partial
Mimicry.
In Partial Mimicry the performer attempts to imitate something which he is not and never can
be, such as a bird, or raindrops. Usually only the hands are involved, but these make the most
realistic approach to the subject they can manage. If a bird, they flap their ‘wings’ as best they
can; if raindrops, they describe a sprinkling descent as graphically as possible. Widely used
mimic gestures of this kind are those which convert the hand into a ‘gun’, an animal of some
sort, or the foot of an animal; or those which use the movements of the hand to indicate the
outline shape of an object of some kind.
The fourth kind of Mimic Gesture can best be called Vacuum Mimicry, because the action
takes place in the absence of the object to which it is related. If I am hungry, for example, I
can go through the motions of putting imaginary food into my mouth. If I am thirsty, I can
raise my hand as if holding an invisible glass, and gulp invisible liquid from it.
The important feature of Partial Mimicry and Vacuum Mimicry is that, like Social and
Theatrical Mimicry, they strive for reality. Even though they are doomed to failure, they make
an attempt. This means that they can be understood internationally. In this respect they
contrast strongly with the next two types of gesture, which show marked cultural restrictions.
SCHEMATIC GESTURES
Imitations that become abbreviated or abridged
Schematic Gestures are abbreviated or abridged versions of Mimic Gestures. They attempt to
portray something by taking just one of its prominent features and then performing that alone.
There is no longer any attempt at realism.
Schematic Gestures usually arise as a sort of gestural shorthand because of the need to
perform an imitation quickly and on many occasions. Just as, in ordinary speech, we reduce
the word ‘cannot’ to ‘can’t’, so an elaborate miming of a charging bull becomes reduced
simply to a pair of horns jabbed in the air as a pair of fingers.
When one element of a mime is selected and retained in this way, and the other elements are
reduced or omitted, the gesture may still be easy to understand, when seen for the first time,
but the stylization may go so far that it becomes meaningless to those not ‘in the know’. The
Schematic Gesture then becomes a local tradition with a limited geographical range. If the
original mime was complex and involved several distinctive features, different localities may
select different key features for their abridged versions. Once these different forms of
shorthand have become fully established in each region, then the people who use them will
become less and less likely to recognize the foreign forms. The local gesture becomes ‘the’
gesture, and there quickly develops, in gesture communication, a situation similar to that
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found in linguistics. Just as each region has its own verbal language, so it also has its own set
of Schematic Gestures.
To give an example: the American Indian sign for a horse consists of a gesture in which two
fingers of one hand ‘sit astride’ the fingers of the other hand. A Cistercian monk would
instead signal ‘horse’ by lowering his head slightly and pulling at an imaginary tuft of hair on
his forehead. An Englishman would probably crouch down like a jockey and pull at imaginary
reins. The Englishman’s version, being closer to a Vacuum Mimic Gesture, might be
understood by the other two, but their gestures, being highly schematic, might well prove
incomprehensible to anyone outside their groups.
Some objects, however, have one special feature that is so strongly characteristic of them that,
even with Schematic Gestures, there is little doubt about what is being portrayed. The bull,
mentioned above, is a good example of this. Cattle are nearly always indicated by their horns
alone, and the two horns are always represented by two digits. In fact, if an American Indian,
a Hindu dancer, and an Australian Aborigine met, they would all understand one another’s
cattle signs, and we would understand all three of them. This does not mean that the signs are
all identical. The American Indian’s cattle sign would represent the bison, and the horns of
bison do not curve forward like those of domestic cattle, but inward, towards each other. The
American Indian’s sign reflects this, his hands being held to his temples and his forefingers
being pointed inward. The Australian Aborigine instead points his forefingers forward. The
Hindu dancer also points forward, but rather than using two forefingers up at the temples,
employs the forefinger and little finger of one hand, held at waist height. So each culture has
its own variant, but the fact that horns are such an obvious distinguishing feature of cattle
means that, despite local variations, the bovine Schematic Gesture is reasonably
understandable in most cultures.
SYMBOLIC GESTURES
Gestures which represent moods and ideas
A Symbolic Gesture indicates an abstract quality that has no simple equivalent in the world of
objects and movements. Here we are one stage further away from the obviousness of the
enacted Mimic Gesture.
How, for instance, would you make a silent sign for stupidity? You might launch into a fullblooded Theatrical Mime of a drooling village idiot. But total idiocy is not a precise way of
indicating the momentary stupidity of a healthy adult. Instead, you might tap your forefinger
against your temple, but this also lacks accuracy, since you might do precisely the same thing
when indicating that someone is brainy. All the tap does is to point to the brain. To make the
meaning more clear, you might instead twist your forefinger against your temple, indicating ‘a
screw loose’. Alternatively, you might rotate your forefinger close to your temple, signalling
that the brain is going round and round and is not stable.
Many people would understand these temple-forefinger actions, but others would not. They
would have their own local, stupidity gestures, which we in our turn would find confusing,
such as tapping the elbow of the raised forearm, flapping the hand up and down in front of
half-closed eyes, rotating a raised hand, or laying one forefinger flat across the forehead.
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The situation is further complicated by the fact that some stupidity signals mean totally
different things in different countries. To take one example, in Saudi Arabia stupidity can be
signalled by touching the lower eyelid with the tip of the forefinger. But this same action, in
various other countries, can mean disbelief, approval, agreement, mistrust, scepticism,
alertness, secrecy, craftiness, danger, or criminality. The reason for this apparent chaos of
meanings is simple enough. By pointing to the eye, the gesturer is doing no more than stress
the symbolic importance of the eye as a seeing organ. Beyond that, the action says nothing, so
that the message can become either: ‘Yes, I see’, or ‘I can’t believe my eyes’, or ‘Keep a
sharp look-out’, or ‘I like what I see’, or almost any other seeing signal you care to imagine.
In such a case it is essential to know the precise ‘seeing’ property being represented by the
symbolism of the gesture in any particular culture.
So we are faced with two basic problems where Symbolic Gestures are concerned: either one
meaning may be signalled by different actions, or several meanings may be signalled by the
same action, as we move from culture to culture. The only solution is to approach each culture
with an open mind and learn their Symbolic Gestures as one would their vocabulary.
As part of this process, it helps if a link can be found between the action and the meaning, but
this is not always possible. In some cases we simply do not know how certain Symbolic
Gestures arose. It is clear that they are symbolic because they now represent some abstract
quality, but how they first acquired the link between action and meaning has been lost
somewhere in their long history. A good instance of this is the ‘cuckold’ sign from Italy. This
consists of making a pair of horns, either with two forefingers held at the temples, or with a
forefinger and little finger of one hand held in front of the body. There is little doubt about
what the fingers are meant to be: they are the horns of a bull. As such, they would rate as part
of a Schematic Gesture. But they do not send out the simple message ‘bull’. Instead they now
indicate ‘sexual betrayal’. The action is therefore a Symbolic gesture and, in order to explain
it, it becomes necessary to find the link between bulls and sexual betrayal.
Historically, the link appears to be lost, with the result that some rather wild speculations have
been made. A complication arises in the form of the ‘horned hand’, also common in Italy,
which has a totally different significance, even though it employs the same motif of bull’s
horns. The Y horned hand is essentially a protective gesture, made to ward off imagined
dangers. Here it is clear enough that it is the bull’s great power, ferocity and masculinity that
is being invoked as a symbolic aid to protect the gesturer. But this only makes it even more
difficult to explain the other use of the bull’s-horns gesture as a sign of a ‘pathetic’ cuckold.
A suggested explanation of this contradiction is that it is due to one gesture using as its
starting point the bull’s power, while the other - the cuckold sign - selects the bull’s frequent
castration. Since the domestication of cattle began, there have always been too many bulls in
relation to cows. A good, uncastrated bull can serve between 50 and 100 cows a year, so that
it is only necessary to retain a small proportion of intact bulls for breeding purposes. The rest
are rendered much more docile and easy to handle for beef production, by castration. In folklore, then, these impotent males must stand helplessly by, while the few sexually active bulls
‘steal their rightful females’; hence the symbolism of: bull = cuckold.
A completely different explanation once offered was that, when the cuckold discovers that his
wife has betrayed him, he becomes so enraged and jealous that he bellows and rushes
violently about like a ‘mad bull’.
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A more classical interpretation involves Diana the Huntress, who made horns into a symbol of
male downfall. Actaeon, another hunter, is said to have sneaked a look at her naked body
when she was bathing. This so angered her that she turned him into a horned beast and set his
own hounds upon him, who promptly killed and ate him.
Alternatively, there is the version dealing with ancient religious prostitutes. These ladies
worshipped gods who wore ‘horns of honour’ - that is, horns in their other role as symbols of
power and masculinity - and the gods were so pleased with the wives who became sacred
whores that they transferred their godly horns on to the heads of the husbands who had
ordered their women to act in this role. In this way, the horns of honour became the horns of
ridicule.
As if this were not enough, it is also claimed elsewhere, and with equal conviction, that
because stags have horns (antlers were often called horns in earlier periods) and because most
stags in the rutting season lose their females to a few dominant males who round up large
harems, the majority of ‘horned’ deer are unhappy ‘cuckolds’.
Finally, there is the bizarre interpretation that bulls and deer have nothing to do with it.
Instead, it is thought that the ancient practice of grafting the spurs of a castrated cockrel on to
the root of its excised comb, where they apparently grew and became ‘horns’, is the origin of
the symbolic link between horns and cuckolds. This claim is backed up by the fact that the
German equivalent word for ‘cuckold’ (hahnrei) originally meant ‘capon’.
If, after reading these rival claims, you feel that all you have really learned is the meaning of
the phrase ‘cock-and-bull story’, you can be forgiven. Clearly, we are in the realm of fertile
imagination rather than historical record. But this example has been dealt with at length to
show how, in so many cases, the true story of the origin of a Symbolic Gesture is no longer
available to us. Many other similarly conflicting examples are known, but this one will suffice
to demonstrate the general principle.
There are exceptions, of course, and certain of the Symbolic Gestures we make today, and
take for granted, can easily be traced to their origins. ‘Keeping your fingers crossed’ is a good
example of this. Although used by many non-Christians, this action of making the cross,
using only the first and second fingers, is an ancient protective device of the Christian church.
In earlier times it was commonplace to make a more conspicuous sign of the cross (to cross
oneself) by moving the whole arm, first downwards and then sideways, in front of the body,
tracing the shape of the cross in the air. This can still be seen in some countries today in a
non-religious context, acting as a ‘good luck’ protective device. In more trivial situations it
has been widely replaced, however, by the act of holding up one hand to show that the second
finger is tightly crossed over the first, with the crossing movement of the arm omitted.
Originally this was the secret version of ‘crossing oneself’ and was done with the hand in
question carefully hidden from view. It may still be done in this secret way, as when trying to
protect oneself from the consequences of lying, but as a ‘good luck’ sign it has now come out
into the open. This development is easily explained by the fact that crossing the fingers lacks
an obvious religious character. Symbolically, the finger-crossing may be calling on the
protection of the Christian God, but the small finger action performed is so far removed from
the priestly arm crossing action, that it can without difficulty slide into everyday life as a
casual wish for good fortune. Proof of this is that many people do not even realize that they
are demanding an act of Christian worship - historically speaking - when they shout out:
‘Keep your fingers crossed!’
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TECHNICAL GESTURES
Gestures used by specialist minorities
Technical Gestures are invented by a specialist minority for use strictly within the limits of
their particular activity. They are meaningless to anyone outside the specialization and operate
in such a narrow field that they cannot be considered as playing a part in the mainstream of
visual communication of any culture.
Television-studio signals are a good example of Technical Gestures in use today. The studio
commentator we see on our screens at home is face to face with a ‘studio manager’. The
manager is linked to the programme director in the control room by means of headphones and
conveys the director’s instructions to the commentator by simple visual gestures. To warn the
commentator that he will have to start speaking at any moment, the manager raises a forearm
and holds it stiffly erect. To start him speaking, he brings the forearm swiftly down to point at
the commentator. To warn him that he must stop speaking in a few seconds, the manager
rotates his forearm, as if it were the hand of a clock going very fast - ‘Time is running out
fast.’ To ask him to lengthen the speaking time and say more, he holds his hands together in
front of his chest and pulls them slowly apart, as if stretching something – ‘stretch it out.’ To
tell the speaker to stop dead this instant, the manager makes a slashing action with his hand
across his throat - ‘Cut!’ There are no set rules laid down for these signals. They grew up in
the early days of television and, although the main ones listed here are fairly widespread
today, each studio may well have its own special variants, worked out to suit a particular
performer.
Other Technical Gestures are found wherever an activity prohibits verbal contact. Skindivers,
for instance, cannot speak to one another and need simple signals to deal with potentially
dangerous situations. In particular they need gestures for danger, cold, cramp and fatigue.
Other messages, such as yes, no, good, bad, up and down, are easily enough understood by
the use of everyday actions and require no Technical Gestures to make sense. But how could
you signal to a companion that you had cramp? The answer is that you would open and close
one hand rhythmically - a simple gesture, but one that might nevertheless save a life.
Disaster can sometimes occur because a Technical Gesture is required from someone who is
not a specialist in a technical field. Suppose some holiday-makers take out a boat, and it sinks,
and they swim to the safety of a small, rocky island. Wet and frightened, they crouch there
wondering what to do next, when to their immense relief a small fishing-boat comes chugging
towards them. As it draws level with the island, they wave frantically at it. The people on
board wave back, and the boat chugs on and disappears. If the stranded holiday-makers had
been marine ‘specialists’, they would have known that, at sea, waving is only used as a
greeting. To signal distress, they should have raised and lowered their arms stiffly from their
sides. This is the accepted marine gesture for ‘Help!’
Ironically, if the shipwrecked signallers had been marine experts and had given the correct
distress signal, the potential rescue boat might well have been manned by holiday-makers,
who would have been completely nonplussed by the strange actions and would probably have
ignored them. When a technical sphere is invaded by the non-technical, gesture problems
always arise.
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Firemen, crane-drivers, airport-tarmac signalmen, gambling-casino croupiers, dealers at
auctions, and restaurant staff, all have their own special Technical Gestures. Either because
they must keep quiet, must be discreet, or cannot be heard, they develop their own sets of
signals. The rest of us can ignore them, unless we, too, wish to enter their specialized spheres.
CODED GESTURES
Sign-language based on a formal system
Coded Gestures, unlike all others, are part of a formal system of signals. They interrelate with
one another in a complex and systematic way, so that they constitute a true language. The
special feature of this category is that the individual units are valueless without reference to
the other units in the code. Technical Gestures may be systematically planned, but, with them,
each signal can operate quite independently of the others. With Coded Gestures, by contrast,
all the units interlock with one another on rigidly formulated principles, like the letters and
words in a verbal language.
The most important example is the Deaf-and-dumb Sign Language of hand signals, of which
there is both a one-handed and a two-handed version. Also, there is the Semaphore Language
of arm signals, and the Tic-tac Language of the race course. These all require considerable
skill and training and belong in a totally different world from the familiar gestures we employ
in everyday life. They serve as a valuable reminder, though, of the incredibly sensitive
potential we all possess for visual communication. It makes it all the more plausible to argue
that we are all of us responding, with greater sensitivity than we may realize, to the ordinary
gestures we witness each day of our lives.
(From Manwatching by Desmond Morris.)
Adaptive control of reading rate
One important factor in reading is the voluntary, adaptive control of reading rate, i.e. the
ability to adjust the reading rate to the particular type of material being read.
Adaptive reading means changing reading speed throughout a text in response to both the
difficulty of material and one’s purpose in reading it. Learning how to monitor and adjust
reading style is a skill that requires a great deal of practice.
Many people, even college students are unaware that they can learn to control their reading
speed. However, this factor can be greatly improved with a couple of hundred hours of work,
as opposed to the thousands of hours needed to significantly alter language comprehension.
Many college reading skills programmes include a training procedure aimed at improving
students’ control of reading speed. However, a number of problems are involved in successfully implementing such a programme. The first problem is to convince the students that they
should adjust their reading rates. Many students regard skimming as a sin and read everything
in a slow methodical manner. On the other hand some students believe that everything,
including difficult mathematical texts, can be read at the rate appropriate for a light novel.
There seems to be evidence that people read more slowly than necessary. A number of studies
on college students have found that when the students are forced to read faster than their selfimposed rate, there is no loss in retention of information typically regarded as important.
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The second problem involved in teaching adaptive reading lies in convincing the students of
the need to be aware of their purposes in reading. The point of adjusting reading rates is to
serve particular purposes. Students who are unaware of what they want to get out of a reading
assignment will find it difficult to adjust their rates appropriately. They should know in
advance what they want.
Once these problems of attitude are overcome, a reading skills course can concentrate on
teaching the students the techniques for reading at different rates. Since most students have
had little practice at rapid reading, most of the instruction focuses on how to read rapidly.
Scanning is a rapid reading technique appropriate for searching out a piece of information
embedded in a much larger text - for example a student might scan this passage for an
evaluation of adaptive reading. A skilled scanner can process 10,000 or more words per
minute. Obviously, at this rate scanners only pick up bits and pieces of information and skip
whole paragraphs. It is easy for scanners to miss the target entirely, and they often have to
rescan the text. Making quick decisions as to what should be ignored and what should be
looked at takes practice. However, the benefits are enormous. I would not be able to function
as an academic without this skill because I would not be able to keep up with all the
information that is generated in my field.
Skimming is the processing of about 800-1500 words a minute - a rate at which identifying
every word is probably impossible. Skimming is used for extracting the gist of the text. The
skill is useful when the skimmer is deciding whether to read a text, or is previewing a text he
wants to read, or is going over material that is already known.
Both scanning and skimming are aided by a knowledge of where the main points tend to be
found in the text. A reader who knows where an author tends to put the main points can read
selectively. Authors vary in their construction style, and one has to adjust to author
differences, but some general rules usually apply. Section headings, first and last paragraphs
in a section, first and last sentences in a paragraph, and highlighted material all tend to convey
the main points.
Students in reading skills programmes often complain that rapid reading techniques require
hard work and that they tend to regress towards less efficient reading habits after the end of
the programme. Therefore, it should be emphasised that the adaptive control of the reading
rate is hard work because it is a novel skill. Older reading habits seem easy because they have
been practised for longer. As students become more practised in adjusting reading rate, they
find it easier. I can report that after practising variable reading rates for more than ten years, I
find it easier to read a text using an adjustable rate than to read at a slow methodical word by
word rate. This is something of a problem for me because part of my professional duties is to
edit papers that I would not normally process word by word. I find it very painful to have to
read at this rate.
SOCIOLOGY
RATIONAL AND IRRATIONAL ELEMENTS IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY
Imagine yourselves standing at a street corner of a large and busy city. Everything in front of
you is bustling, moving. Here, to your left, a man laboriously pushes a wheelbarrow. There in
measured trot, a horse is pulling a carriage; on all sides you see a constant stream of cars and
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buses. Above you, somewhere in the distance, can be heard the buzzing noise of an aeroplane.
In all this there is nothing unusual; nothing that would to-day call for surprise or
astonishment; it is only when concentrated analysis has revealed the problematic aspect of
even the most obvious things in life that we discover sociological problems underlying these
everyday phenomena. Wheelbarrow, carriage, automobile, and aeroplane are each typical of
the means of conveyance in different phases of historical development. They originate in
different times, thus they represent different phases of technical development; and yet they are
all used simultaneously. This particular phenomenon has been called the law of the
'contemporaneousness of the non-contemporaneous'. However well these different phases of
history seem to exist side by side in the picture before us, in certain situations and under
particular circumstances they can lead to the most convulsive disturbances in our social life.
No sooner does this thought occur to us than we can see a different picture unfolding itself.
The pilot who only a minute ago seemed to be flying quietly above us hurls a hurricane of
bombs and in the twinkle of an eye lays waste everything and annihilates everybody
underneath him. You know that this idea is far from being a figment of the imagination, and
the uneasiness which its horror awakens in you leads involuntarily to a modification of your
previous admiration of human progress. In his scientific and technical knowledge man has,
indeed, made miraculous strides forward in the span of time that separates us from the days
when the carriage came into use; but is human reason and rationality, in other than the
technical field, today so very different from what it was in the distant past of which the
wheelbarrow is a symbol? Do our motives and impulses really operate on a higher plane than
those of our ancestors? What, in essence, does the action of the pilot who drops bombs
signify?
Surely this: that man is availing himself of the most up-to-date results of technical ingenuity
in order to satisfy ancient impulses and primitive motives. If, therefore, the city is destroyed
by the deadly means of modern warfare this must be attributed solely to the fact that the
development of man's technical powers over nature is far ahead of the development of his
moral faculties and his knowledge of the guidance and government of society. The
phenomenon suggested by this whole analogy can now be given a sociological designation; it
is the phenomenon of a disproportionate development of human faculties. This phenomenon
of a disproportionate development can be observed not only in the life of groups but also in
that of individuals. We know from child-psychology that a child may be intellectually
extremely precocious, whilst the development of his moral or temperamental qualities has
been arrested at an infantile stage. Such an unevenly balanced development of his various
faculties may be a source of acute danger to an individual; in the case of society, it is nothing
short of catastrophic.
(From Hobhouse Memorial Lecture, 1940, by Karl Mannheim)
SOCIAL LIFE IN A PROVINCIAL UNIVERSITY
A number of assumptions about the way of life in a pro-vincial university are current today. I
used myself to hold a number of them but in the course of an inquiry in King's College,
Newcastle, on which this paper is based, I modified my views considerably.
It was with a view to seeing how much truth there was in these assumptions that an inquiry
was undertaken at King's College, Newcastle, during the academic years 1952-54. One-tenth
of the undergraduate population was interviewed; in order to check whether conditions in
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Newcastle were peculiar, or common to other northern university cities, a small sample of
Liverpool students living at home were also seen, which made a total of 373.
First the question of the students' homes: university teachers may find it deplorable that many
of the students live at home with parents or other guardians, but this is by no means the
unanimous view of the students themselves. Nearly half of them, both at Liverpool and
Newcastle, consciously prefer it, and think it has many advantages over going away to
another university. About an equal number regret it, and a small number are undecided either
way. Those who prefer living at home ascribe their preference to a number of factors,
principally home cooking, good facilities for working, without the distractions of resident life,
and the companionship of those for whom they feel affection.
Not a few of those who wished themselves away said 'It's hopeless to try and work at home';
and indeed the first question we must ask, if we wish to get a true picture of the home
student's life, is: how good a place is the home for a young man or woman who needs to
spend many hours each week in quiet, uninterrupted reading? It might be supposed that
household chores would affect the picture, and students were asked to say how much time
they spent on them daily. The results were classified as 'Heavy', 'Negligible' and 'Neither'.
Counted under negligible were those who replied 'None at all' or 'Hardly any' or 'I wash up
occasionally'. These accounted for just 44 per cent of the Newcastle and the Liverpool
students. The criterion by which to judge of 'Heavy' chores was whether the student himself
felt his share to be a heavy one. It is possible that some of the others, not so classified, spent
as many hours on house-work; but what is undertaken from choice, rather as a hobby and
relaxation, is bound to seem different from a regular responsibility, undertaken from
necessity. In this category were found 12 per cent Newcastle students and only 5 out of the 67
in Liverpool. As one would expect, more women than men are found in this group, and with
both, those whose responsibilities are heavy are usually the victims of some kind of family
emergency, such as the illness of the mother or (occasionally) the father, or the death of the
mother. The remainder, though spending an amount of time on domestic chores which is by
no means negligible, are not oppressed by it, and do not feel it a hindrance to their work. It
may be taken that their own instinct is sound in this, and that if they had not been doing
house-work they would have been doing something other than reading.
Much more fundamental to the matter we are considering is the question of where they do
their work when they are at home. The students interviewed, then, were asked the question
'Where do you usually work when at home?' In Newcastle 30 Out of 152 give the family
living-room as their usual place, and another 18 say they sometimes work there. But 95, or 62
per cent, have special provision made for them, either by some heating arrangement in their
bedroom, or by the putting of a fire in another living-room. Much depends on how one looks
at it. In comparison with the Oxford college or the hall of residence, where every student has
his own room, it seems regrettable that as many as a third of these students worked in the
family room, either sometimes or always. But if one reflects that in all probability most of
these people, when they were grammar school pupils, worked in the family room, then the
figure of 62 per cent for whom special provision is made indicates a real effort on the part of
these families to meet the felt needs of a university student, for heating is a heavy item in a
family budget. The question also arises in connection with students living in lodgings, who
will be considered later. The culprit seems to be chiefly that unique social institution the
English bedroom, on account of which about half the available living space in a house is
unheated and unfurnished so as to render it unusable for anything but sleeping.
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(Alice Eden From an article in The British Journal of Sociology, December 1959)
THE MENACE OF OVER-POPULATION
The essential fact about the population problem is well known. It is simply that world
population is increasing at a rate with which food and other production may not be able to
keep pace and will certainly not be able to overtake sufficiently to raise the standard of living
in the underdeveloped countries. World population is thought to have increased by 1,000
million since 1800 - that is, by more than 60 per cent (Figure 1) - to raise the estimated total in
1956 to about 2,700 million, and the present rate of increase, which far exceeds the estimates
of 25 years ago, is such as to conjure up visions of staggering numbers in the foreseeable
future.
The total, now thought to be approaching 3,000 million, is not, of course, equally distributed
in proportion to the land areas. Europe, including the U.S.S.R., is about averagely populated,
Africa, North and South America and Oceania are under-populated and Asia is greatly overpopulated (Figure 2 a, b). The rate of increase is also very uneven. Figure 3 shows birth-rates
and death-rates since 1947 for four contrasting areas, the difference in the two rates
representing natural increase. In Singapore a very high and almost static birth-rate, coupled
with a rapid decline in the death-rate, is giving rise to serious alarm. Many other regions, such
as Malaya, Ceylon and Mexico, are in the same position to a greater or lesser extent. In Japan
a decline in the death-rate has been offset by a dramatic drop of nearly 50 per cent in the
birth-rate brought about mainly by quasi-legalized abortion. In the United States a low and
slightly declining death-rate has combined with a substantial and recently static birth-rate to
give a formidable rate of natural increase. In Great Britain a death-rate which is not
particularly low combines with a low birth-rate to give a very small rate of increase. Those
Asian countries in which the rate of increase is still slow are being held back by a high deathrate rather than a low birth-rate, and the same applies to Africa. Unless steps are taken now, it
is only a matter of time before the population explosion extends also to these areas.
The differing patterns of birth-rates and death-rates cause differences in the age structure of
populations (Figure 4). A high death-rate and a high, static birth-rate mean that each age
group comprises fewer people than the one before, giving the pyramidal 'profile' typical of
India and many other countries today and of Great Britain a century ago. The same applies as
a whole to South America, which demographically is essentially a country of the young. The
profile for the United Kingdom, in which five years ago there were about as many people
aged 40 to 45 as there were infants 0 to 5 years old, shows the effect of an erratic but overall
decrease in the birth-rate over many years.
The explosive growth of world-population has not been caused by a sudden increase in human
fertility, and probably owes little in any part of the world to an increase in birth-rate. It has
been caused almost entirely by advances in the medical and ancillary sciences, and the
consequent decrease of the death-rate in areas where the birth-rate remains high. This is of
some biological interest. Nature takes as her motto that nothing succeeds like excess, and any
living thing, including Man, if able to reproduce without restraint to the limit of its capacity,
would soon inundate all parts of the world where it could exist. As it is, biological populations
are kept severely in check by limiting factors, of which the most important are limitations of
food supply, disease and enemies, and fluctuations in natural populations are determined by
fluctuations in these limiting factors. Generally speaking relaxation of one factor, after a
period of expansion, brings into operation one of the other two.
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In the l00 years before the second World War, the expectation of life at birth in England and
Wales rose from about 40 years to over 60 years - that is, one year every five years. In India
the expectation of life at birth is about 40 years, and is said to be increasing by 2½ years every
five years. Even if the birth-rate were at no more than replacement level, the increasing
expectation of life would add enormously to the population of India. True, the expectation of
life is not likely to increase indefinitely at the present velocity, but it has a very long way to
go in many countries of the world. Even in the developed countries it has some way to go
before everyone dies essentially of senility, and in the meantime increasing longevity will
reinforce natural reproductivity. With present birth-rate and death-rate trends, the world is
threatened with astronomical numbers of people. To quote from the preface of a United
Nations report, The Future Growth of World Population (1958) : '. . . it took 200,000 years for
the world's human population to reach 2,500 million; it will now take a mere 30 years to add
another 2,000 million. With the present rate of increase, it can be calculated that in 600 years
the number of human beings on Earth will be such that there will be only one square metre for
each to live on. It goes without saying that this can never take place, something will happen to
prevent it.' The human race will have to decide whether that 'something' is to be pleasant or
unpleasant.
(A. S . Parkes from an article in The New Scientist )
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CHANGES IN ENGLISH SOCIAL LIFE AFTER 1918
The most remarkable outward change of the Twenties was in the looks of women in the
towns. The prematurely aged wife was coming to be the exception rather than the rule.
Children were fewer and healthier and gave less trouble; labour-saving devices were
introduced, especially for washing, cleaning, and cooking-the introduction of stainless plate
and cutlery saved an appreciable amount of time daily and this was only one of a hundred
such innovations. Provisioning also had become very much easier. The advertising of branded
goods was simplifying shopping problems. Housewives came to count on certain brands of
goods, which advertisers never allowed them to forget. The manufacturers' motto was: 'Swear
not by the moon, the inconstant moon, but swear by constant advertising'. They made things
very easy for the housewives by selling their foods in the nearest possible stage to tablereadiness: the complicated processes of making custard, caramel, blanc-mange, jelly, and
other puddings and sweets, were reduced to a single, short operation by the use of prepared
powders. Porridge had once been the almost universal middle class breakfast food. It now no
longer took twenty minutes to cook, Quick Quaker Oats reducing the time to two; but even so,
cereals in the American style, eaten with milk, began to challenge porridge and bacon and
eggs in prosperous homes, and the bread and margarine eaten by the poor. At first the only
choice was Force and Grape-Nuts; but soon there was a bewildering variety of different
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'flakes'; and grains of rice, wheat and barley 'puffed' by being fired at high velocity from a sort
of air gun. Bottled and tinned goods grew more and more various and plentiful. When the war
ended the only choice was soup, salmon, corned beef, Californian fruits, and potted meat; but
by the Thirties almost every kind of domestic and foreign fruit, meat, game, fish, vegetable
could be bought, even in country groceries. Foodstuffs that needed no tin-opener were also
gradually standardized: eggs, milk, and butter were graded and guaranteed and greengrocers
began selling branded oranges and bananas. Housewives could send or ring up for goods
without inspecting them; more and more shops called daily or weekly for orders and delivered
free of charge as light commercial vans displaced the horse and cart. The fish-van brought
fresh fish to the door even in inland towns and villages. The cleanest and neatest shops
secured the best custom; flies and wasps disappeared from grocers' counters, finding no open
pots of treacle or boxes of sugar to attract them, and the butchers began keeping their carcases
in refrigerators out of sight, not suspended bleeding from hooks in the full glare of the sun. By
the Thirties cellophane, a cheap wood-pulp product, was coming into general use for keeping
dry groceries and cigarettes fresh and clean, and soon also covered baskets of strawberries,
lumps of dates, and even kippers and other cured fish.
Woolworth's stores were the great cheap providers of household utensils and materials. There
had been a few '6½d. Bazaars' before the war, but the Woolworth system was altogether new.
It worked by small profits and quick returns in a huge variety of classified and displayed cutprice goods; some, such as excellent glass and hardware, were even sold below cost price to
attract custom. The Daily Herald reported in 1924 that the T.U.C. was reviewing complaints
about working conditions in Woolworth's-'the well-known bazaar-owners'-and that this was
the more serious because the stores were patronized chiefly by the working-class. But the firm
never had any difficulty in engaging unskilled sales-girls at a low wage; for 'the local
Woolworth's' was increasingly the focus of popular life in most small towns. And the name of
Woolworth was a blessed one to the general public; wherever a new branch was opened the
prices of ironmongers, drapers, and household furnishers in the neighbourhood would drop
twopence in the shilling. The middle class at first affected to despise Woolworth's goods, but
they soon caught the working-class habit and would exclaim brightly among themselves: 'My
dear - guess where I got this amazing object - threepence at Maison Woolworth! I don't know
how they do it!'
Woolworth's, the Building Societies, and the Instalment System made it financially possible
for people of small means to take over new houses. The instalment or 'never-never' system
was being applied to all major household purchases, such as furniture, sewing-machines,
vacuum-cleaners, gas-ovens, wireless sets. A Punch illustration showed a young mother,
watching her husband writing out the monthly cheque to pay off the maternity-home debt:
'Darling, only one more instalment and Baby will be ours'.
(From The Long Weekend by Robert Graves and Alan Hodge)
SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
Even the social scientist who is occupied with the study of what are called institutions must
draw his ultimate data (with one important exception mentioned below) from the experience
of the senses. Suppose, for instance, that he is engaged on a study of the role of trade unions
in contemporary England. The abstract conception 'trade union' is simply a shorthand for
certain types of behaviour by certain people, of which we can only be aware by sensory
perception. It means men sitting in a room and making certain sounds in the conduct of a
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'trade union meeting', or handing over to other persons tangible objects (money) as their
subscriptions to the union. Anyone who wishes to make a study of trade unions, or even of the
more abstract conception 'trade unionism', can only do so by personally observing such
behaviour, or by using his eyes and ears on books and speeches made by other people who
have themselves made such observations (or who have in their turn heard or seen records of
such observations made by others). Even such comments on a union meeting as that it was
'orderly' or 'peaceful' are fundamentally statements about its physical properties: an orderly
meeting is presumably one in which people do not make noises by banging upon the table or
speaking very loudly.
This dependence of social studies upon sense perception is certainly a wholesome reminder of
the fundamental homogeneity of the original data of science. For knowledge of the external
world, whether of things or of people, we continually come back to our five senses in the end.
Nevertheless, if a great mass of data relevant to social science is sensory, we have, I think,
also to admit an important collection that is not namely the whole body of primary mental or
psychological experience. Perception of mental pleasure and pain appears to have the same
universality as sensory experience. At all levels of culture, sensations of simple happiness and
unhappiness are as general as are the experiences of seeing and hearing. It is of course true
that no person can experience the feelings of anyone other than himself; but equally no one
can see with another's eyes or hear with another's ears. The grounds for belief in the sense
experiences of other people and the grounds for belief in their primitive psychological
experiences are thus both equally shaky, or equally firm. We derive our conviction that other
people experience emotion from the fact that they say so, and from analogies between their
behaviour and our own: we derive our conviction that they see and hear from exactly the same
evidence.
The irresistibility of psychological experience is perhaps slightly more disputable. If one's
eyes are open and one looks in a certain quarter one cannot help seeing. Is it equally true that
one cannot help a feeling of pleasure or pain or shock or excitement? Essentially, I should say
that it is. But it is clear that primitive emotional reactions can be inhibited: one can, for
example contrive not to be depressed by an event. Nevertheless, if we stand back from all
philosophical niceties and ask ourselves whether psychological sensation ought to be omitted
from the data of the social sciences on the ground that it is doubtfully 'primitive', there cannot,
I think, be much doubt about the answer. We must conclude with Bertrand Russell 'that there
is knowledge of private data, and there is no reason why there should not be a science of
them'. Equally, if we consider whether the similarities or the differences, in this matter of
universality-plus-irresistibility, between psychological and sensory experience are the more
impressive, we are surely bound to come down on the side of the similarities. Certainly, social
studies which consistently ignored human feelings would be worse than laughable.
(From Testament for Social Science by Barbara Wootton)
The Troubles of shopping in Russia
A large crowd gathered outside a photographic studio in Arbat Street, one of the busiest.
shopping streets in Moscow, recently. There was no policeman within sight and the crowd
was blocking the pavement. The centre of attraction - and amusement - was a fairly welldressed man, perhaps some official, who was waving his arm out of the ventilation window of
the studio and begging to be allowed out. The woman in charge of the studio was standing
outside and arguing with him. The man had apparently arrived just when the studio was about
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to close for lunch and insisted upon taking delivery of some prints which had been promised
to him. He refused to wait so the staff had locked the shop and gone away for lunch. The
incident was an extreme example of the common attitude in service industries in the Soviet
Union generally, and especially in Moscow. Shop assistants do not consider the customer as a
valuable client but as a nuisance of some kind who has to he treated with little ceremony and
without concern for his requirements.
For nearly a decade, the Soviet authorities have been trying to improve the service facilities.
More shops are being opened, more restaurants are being established and the press frequently
runs campaigns urging better service in shops and places of entertainment. It is all to no avail.
The main reason for this is shortage of staff. Young people are more reluctant to make a
career in shops, restaurants and other such establishments. Older staff are gradually retiring
and this leaves a big gap. It is not at all unusual to see part of a restaurant or a shop roped off
because there is nobody available to serve. Sometimes, establishments have been known to be
closed for several days because of this.
One reason for the unpopularity of jobs in the service industries is their low prestige. Soviet
papers and journals have reported that people generally consider most shop assistants to be
dishonest and this conviction remains unshakeable. Several directors of business
establishments, for instance, who are loudest in complaining about shortage of labour, are also
equally vehement that they will not let their children have anything to do with trade.
The greatest irritant for the people is not the shortage of goods but the time consumed in
hunting for them and queuing up to buy them. This naturally causes ill-feeling between the
shoppers and the assistants behind the counters, though often it may not be the fault of the
assistants at all. This too, damages hopes of attracting new recruits. Many educated
youngsters would be ashamed to have to behave in such a negative way.
Rules and regulations laid down by the shop managers often have little regard for logic or
convenience. An irate Soviet journalist recently told of his experiences when trying to have an
electric shaver repaired. Outside a repair shop he saw a notice: ‘Repairs done within 45
minutes.’ After queuing for 45 minutes he was asked what brand of shaver he owned. He
identified it and was told that the shop only mended shavers made in a particular factory and
he would have to go to another shop, four miles away. When he complained, the red-faced
girl behind the counter could only tell him miserably that those were her instructions.
All organisations connected with youth, particularly the Young Communist League
(Komsomo1), have been instructed to help in the campaign for better recruitment to service
industries. The Komsomol provides a nicely-printed application form which is given to
anyone asking for a job. But one district head of a distribution organisation claimed that in the
last in years only one person had come to him with this form. ‘We do not need fancy paper.
We do need people!’ he said. More and more people are arguing that the only way to solve the
problem is to introduce mechanisation. In grocery stores, for instance, the work load could be
made easier with mechanical devices to move sacks and heavy packages.
The shortages of workers are bringing unfortunate consequences in other areas. Minor rackets
flourish. Only a few days ago, Pravda, the Communist Party newspaper, carried a long
humorous feature about a plumber who earns a lot of extra money on the side and gets
gloriously drunk every night. He is nominally in charge of looking after 300 flats and is paid
for it. But whenever he has a repair job to do, he manages to screw some more money from
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the flat dwellers, pretending that spare parts are required. Complaints against him have no
effect because the housing board responsible is afraid that they will be unable to get a
replacement. In a few years’ time, things could be even worse if the supply of recruits to these
jobs dries up altogether.
TECHNOLOGY
SEDUCED BY TECHNOLOGY
My neighbour, Nick, is a soft-spoken, easy-going fellow who owns a big, ungainly dog
named Duffy and has a passion for music. He has been a freelance musician all his adult life
and plays the double bass for a living. But things have changed in the music business: it's not
easy to earn a living as a freelance musician today as it was a few years ago.
A lot of the well-paid 'session work' has disappeared and been replaced by pre-programmed,
computerised synthesizers. Nick still plays in the 'pit' when he can, in touring musicals like
Miss Saigon or Phantom of the Opera. But today he also works part-time in a music shop,
helping to ship out trumpets and French horns to school bands and re-stocking inventory
when new shipments arrive.
Nick is not untypical these days. In fact his story is just one of millions that unveil the other
side of the computer revolution - the human costs and consequences of the new 'wired world'
which receive little attention from government bureaucrats or industry boosters.
Fantastic, science-fiction tinged claims about the benefits of the coming 'information age' are
hard to escape. The press is full of hacks extolling the liberating virtues of electronic mail and
tub-thumping about how the Internet will unite the masses in a sort of electronic, Jeffersonian
democracy (at least those with a personal computer, modem and enough spare cash to pay the
monthly hook-up fee).
'If you snooze, you lose' is the underlying message. Jump on board now or be brushed aside as
the new high-tech era reshapes the contours of modern life. This is not the first time that
technology has been packaged as a panacea for social progress. I can still recall a youthful
Ronald Reagan touting for General Electric on American television back in the 1950s:
'Progress is our most important product,' the future President intoned.
That ideology of progress is welded as firmly now as it was to the power-loom in the early
nineteenth century, the automobile in the 1920s or nuclear power in the 1960s. Yet the
introduction of all these technologies had disastrous side effects. The power-loom promised
cheap clothing and a wealthier Britain but produced catastrophic social dislocation and job
loss. The car promised independence and freedom and delivered expressways choked with
traffic, suburbanization, air pollution and destructive wars fought over oil supplies. Nuclear
power promised energy 'too cheap to meter' and produced Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.
There is a lesson here that can and should be applied to all new technologies - and none more
so than computers. One of the last century's more astute analysts of communications
technologies, Marshall McLuhan, said it best: 'We shape our tools and thereafter our tools
shape us.' In his cryptic way McLuhan was simply summing up what a small band of dogged
critics have been saying for decades. Technology is not just hardware - whether it's a hammer,
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an axe or a desk-top PC with muscular RAM and a pentium chip. Limiting it in this way
wrenches technology from its social roots. The conclusion? It's not 'things' that are the
problem, it's people.
This has the simple attraction of common sense. Yet the more complex truth is that
technologies carry the imprint of the cultures from which they issue. They arise out of a
system, a social structure: They are grafted on to it,' argues Canadian scientist Ursula
Franklin, 'and they may reinforce or destroy it, often in ways that are neither foreseen or
foreseeable.' What this means is that technology is never neutral. Even seemingly benign
technologies can have earth-shaking, unintended, social consequences.
The American writer Richard Sclove outlines what happened when water was piped into the
homes of villagers in Ibieca in north eastern Spain in the early 1970s. The village fountain
soon disappeared as the centre of community life when families gradually bought washing
machines and women were released from scrubbing laundry by hand. But at the same time the
village's social bonds began to fray. Women no longer shared grievances and gossip together;
when men stopped using their donkeys to haul water the animals were seen as uneconomical.
Tractors began to replace donkeys for field work, thus increasing the villager's dependence on
outside jobs to earn cash needed to pay for their new machines. The villagers opted for
convenience and productivity. But, concludes Sciove: 'They didn't reckon on the hidden costs
of deepening inequality, social alienation and community dissolution.'
When it comes to introducing new technologies we need to look less at how they influence
our lives as individuals and more at how they impact on society as a whole.
Let's consider computers for a moment. Over the last decade new technologies based on
micro-electronics and digitized data have completely changed the way information is
transmitted and stored, And word processors and electronic mail have made writing and
sending messages around the globe both cheap and quick. 'Surfing the net' (clicking around
the Internet in a random fashion for fun and entertainment) has become the fashionable way to
spend your leisure time. But these are benefits filtered through the narrow prism of personal
gain.
What happens when we step back and examine the broad social impact? How else are
computers used? Let's look at just four examples:
The money maze: The computer that allows us to withdraw cash from an automatic teller, day
or night, is the same technology that makes possible the international capital market. Freed
from the shackles of government regulation corporate money managers now shift billions of
dollars a day around the globe. 'Surfing the yield curve,' big money speculators can move
funds at lightning speed, day and night - destabilizing national economies and sucking
millions out of productive long-term investment. The global foreign exchange trade alone is
now estimated at more than $1.3 billion a day.
Computer games: They come in all shapes and sizes and you can find them as easily in Kuala
Lumpur as in Santiago or Harare. They vary from the jolt-a-second, shoot -'em-up games
(often offensively sexist) to the mesmerizing hand-held and usually more innocuous variety.
Now think of 'Desert Storm', the world's first (and certainly not the last) electronic war. Lethal
firepower as colourful blips on our TV screens, charred bodies reduced to the arching trail of
an explosive starburst.
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The ability to kill and maim large numbers of our fellow human beings is not a new skill.
We've been able to destroy human life many times over for more than half a century and
computers have not changed that reality. What they have done is sideline human decisionmaking in favour of computer programs - making catastrophe ever more likely. As one
software engineer has pointed out, complex computer programs require maintenance just like
mechanical systems. The problem is that 'every feature that is added and every bug that is
fixed adds the possibility of some new interaction between parts of the program' - thus
making the software less rather than more reliable.
Information as power: This is the mantra of those who suggest that both the Internet and the
World Wide Web will establish a new on-line paradigm of decentralized power, placing real
tools for liberation into the hands of the marginalized and the poor. That's a tall order but it is
nonetheless true that the new communications technologies can be used positively by political
dissidents and human-rights activists. Examples abound. At the 1995 UN Conference on
Women in Beijing the proceedings were posted instantaneously over the Net thus bringing
thousands of women, who would have otherwise been left out, into the discussions.
This 'high-tech jujitsu', as critic Jerry Mander calls it is both valiant and necessary. But it
doesn't change the key fact that computers contribute more to centralization than to
decentralization. They help activists, but they help the centralizing forces of corporate
globalization even more. This is what the communications theorist Harold Tunis described as
the 'bias' of technology in the modern era. Computers, as the most powerful of modern
communications tools, reflect their commercial and military origins.
Efficiency and employment:
Technology has always destroyed jobs. In the economy of industrial society that is its main
purpose - to replace labour with machines, thereby reducing the unit cost of production while
increasing both productivity and efficiency. In theory this spurs growth: producing more and
better jobs, higher wages and an increased standard of living. This is the credo of orthodox
economics and there are still many true believers.
But evidence to support this view in the real world of technology is fading fast. More
widespread is the pattern detailed in a recent Statistics Canada report which underlined the
growth of a 'two-tiered' labour market in that country. On the top tier: long hours of overtime
by educated, experienced and relatively well-paid workers. And on the bottom: a large group
of low- paid, unskilled and part-time workers 'who can be treated as roughly interchangeable' .
And then there are those who miss out altogether - the chronic jobless, the socially
marginalized who form a permanent and troubling underclass.
This same trend is repeated throughout the industrialized world. In the US author Jeremy
Rifkin says less than 12 per cent of Americans will work in factories within a decade and less
than two per cent of the global work force will be engaged in factory work by the year 2020.
'Near-workerless factories and virtual companies' are already looming on the horizon, Rifkin
claims. The result? 'Every nation will have to grapple with the question of what to do with the
millions of people whose labour is needed less or not at all in an ever-more-automated
economy.'
Computerization is at the core of the slimmed down, re-engineered workplace that freemarket boosters claim is necessary to survive the new, lean-and-mean global competition.
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Even factory jobs that have relocated to the Third World are being automated quickly. In the
long run machines will do little to absorb the millions of young people in Asia, Africa and
Latin America who will be searching for work in the coming decades. Slowly, that sobering
fact is beginning to strike home. A Chinese government official recently warned that
unemployment in the world's most populous nation could soon leap to 268 million as Chinese
industries modernize and automate.
In the long run computers don't eliminate work, they eliminate workers. But in a social system
based on the buying and selling of commodities this may have an even more pernicious effect.
With fewer jobs there is less money in circulation; market demand slackens, reinforcing
recession and sending the economy into a tailspin. The impact of automation on jobs is a
dilemma which can no longer be ignored.
Though thinkers in the green movement have been grappling with this issue for over a decade,
most governments and even fewer business people are prepared to grasp the nettle. Both cling
to the increasingly flimsy belief that economic growth spurred by an increasing consumption
of the earth's finite resources will solve the problem. It won't. And serious questions need now
to be raised about alternatives.
First, we need to think about democratizing the process of introducing new technologies into
society and into the workplace. At the moment these decisions are left typically in the hands
of bureaucrats and corporations who base their decisions on the narrow criteria of profit and
loss. This bunkered mindset that equates technological innovation with social progress needs
to be challenged.
But there is also the critical issue of the distribution of work and income in a world where
waged labour is in a steady, inexorable decline. We can't continue to punish and stigmatize
those who are unable to find jobs just because there aren't enough to go around. Instead, we
need to think creatively about how to redefine work so that people can find self-esteem and
social acceptance outside of wage labour. This may mean redesigning jobs so that workers
have more control and input into decisions about which technologies to adopt and what
products to make. Up to now this has been exclusively a management prerogative. But it also
means developing strategies to cut the average work week - without cutting pay. This would
be one way of sharing the wealth created by new technology and of creating jobs at the same
time, Hard work also needs to go into designing a plan for a guaranteed annual social wage.
This is a radical (some would say outrageous) idea for societies like ours that have anchored
their value systems on the bedrock of wage labour.
But how can we deny people the basic rights of citizenship and physical well-being simply
because the economic system is no longer capable of providing for them?
(By: Wayne. Elwood, New Internationalist, 12,1996)
Blowing hot and cold on British windmills
Last year the Department of Energy and the Science Research Council together spent less
than £1 million in research into wind energy, although £100 million each year goes into
nuclear research and development. In sharp contrast the USA has been spending some 60
million dollars each year on wind energy and now plans a 1,000 million dollar demonstration
and "commercialisation" programme.
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In Germany, Denmark, and Sweden large programmes are under way and a number of
megawatt size windmills have been or are being built. In the USA, competitive electricity
prices are already envisaged when the present models of machines can be produced in large
numbers (bringing down costs). The British Wind Energy Association brings together
scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs from industry, universities, and various Government
bodies. With some 120 members, it now presents a respected view on the subject of wind
energy.
But the activity has remained small, and in my view seriously under-funded compared with
many of the other developed countries of the world. The UK is still without a single really
large windmill (in the megawatt range) and this means that we are failing to build up the
practical experience which is essential if any serious progress is to be made.
We in the UK are doing some very nice work on many of the associated problems of wind
energy. But none of these "generic studies" can replace real life experience with one or two
very big windmills.
It is in the light of this background that we must examine the CEGB decision to press ahead
with a rather complete and ambitious programme.
1. An island site is to be sought and a megawatt size windmill is to be purchased and
erected by 1985.
2. A smaller (100kW) windmill is to be bought and set up, as soon as possible, so that
an early experience may be built up in the CEGB of windmill operation and
integration into the grid.
3. International collaboration will be sought for research on offshore windmills.
It is my guess that the CEGB might well wish to build its first windmill group or "cluster" in
the period 1985-1990. This first cluster might have 10 machines in it. In the long term we are
thinking, of course, of clusters of 400-1,000 machines (each of about 4MW). Such a cluster
would provide an output similar in magnitude to a modern coal fired or nuclear powered
station.
The importance of this CEGB decision is that the United Kingdom is at last moving forward
towards the building of its first multi-megawatt windmill station. This is a milestone for those
who believe that the so called "renewable" energy sources (wind, wave and sun) have an
important part to play in our energy future. Even more important from the point of view of
UK industry is the fact that it is the potentially largest UK customer (the CEGB) who is taking
the initiative.
Meanwhile, why has the CEGB opted for a lowland windmill? Good lowland sites offer
average wind speeds of about six metres per second, whereas hilltop and offshore sites can
offer average wind speeds in excess of eight metres/second. This ratio of 1.33 in windspeed
actually represents a factor of 1.33 cubed (i.e. about 2.5) in available energy, for a given size
of windmill.
Three or four years ago UK interest centred on hilltop and coastal sites. Developments since
1977 have greatly changed the picture. Dr Peter Musgrove pioneered in the UK the idea of
putting windmills in the shallow waters of the North Sea. He pointed out that there are vast
areas of shallow waters (less than 30 metres deep) off the east coast of the UK. He showed
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that a number of windmill clusters in these shallow waters could meet up to 30 per cent of UK
annual electricity needs.
To their credit the Department of Energy took up these ideas and funded a detailed study. No
insuperable technical difficulties were found and the estimated building and running costs
would indicate a price for electricity which could become competitive in the near future with
nuclear or coal-generated electricity.
The CEGB has given the production costs for electricity for stations currently being built.
Nuclear power from Dungeness B is put at 2.62p/kWh: coal at Drax B is 3.59p/kWh: oil at
Littlebrook D is 6.63p/kWh.
The Taylor Woodrow led study came up with a number of different figures for the cost of
North Sea electricity depending on the assumptions made. Let me pick out the figure of
4.20p/kWh which was based on the windmills having a diameter of 100 metres (which is the
largest size presently being built in the world). The figure taken for average wind speed is
9.5m/s.
Thus North Sea-generated electricity looks like being close to competitive on present fuel
costs. This figure of 4.2p/kWh could come down dramatically if we find that we are able to
build much larger diameter windmills than the present 100 metres. This is because foundation
and lower costs were dominating the picture. Larger windmills would mean fewer windmills
and hence lower overall foundation and tower expenditure.
The CEGB has chosen, in the meantime, to go for the on-land option for their initial
programme. This is an eminently sensible decision. A number of windmill designs have been
developed in the USA and elsewhere for machines to operate in moderate wind regions. The 6
metres/second average wind speeds that we get in many lowland areas of the UK are
considered to be satisfactory speeds for wind turbine operation in the USA. Given a lower
wind speed you simply design a larger diameter wind turbine.
What now remains to be seen is not so much whether you can build large windmills or
whether they will be economically viable, but whether they will be environmentally and
socially acceptable, placed for example in the windy lowlands of Lincolnshire and East
Anglia. The CEGB search for its first site should bring out some interesting attitudes.
I have seen the 200 ft. Mod 1 Windmill which is on a hilltop near the small town of Boone in
North Carolina. Even from a distance of only two miles it is far from obtrusive. In fact I found
it a most attractive sight - but perhaps I am biased. The locals nonetheless are very proud of it!
Professor N. H. Lipman of the Department of Engineering at Reading University, is a member
of the Reading Energy Group.
(From an article by Norman Lipman in The Guardian)
Direct use of solar radiation
Simply because a very large energy flux falls on Britain through the year, it is wrongly
assumed by many that the life to which they have become accustomed can be supported with
solar energy. Even with the reduced level of energy use we managed to achieve with proper
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insulation, the average level of radiation occurring during the two months when we need
warmth most - December and January - is down to an average over the period of 15 watts per
square metre. This is vanishingly small. To make any use of such small radiation requires that
correspondingly very large areas be set aside to low temperature collection, which will be
redundant during the summer months when average radiation, over the month of June for
example, is 225 watts per square metre. Thus, unless you can set aside at least 40 square
metres of cheap solar collecting surface, facing due south at an angle of around 70° to the
horizontal, it is best to forget energy self-sufficiency from the sun alone.
It is not so silly, however, to use the sun when it does shine hot to provide between 50 and
90% of your hot water, usually during the months of April to September when it is warm
enough. 4 square metres of collecting surface plumbed into the hot water system of your
house can provide up to 100kw-h/m² per year. At 1p per kw-h this could be worth £24 a year,
and at 2p per kwh, which is the price we are likely to be paying soon, it would be worth £48 a
year.
For anyone wishing to embark on this course it should be remembered that while solar
collectors are very efficient in the lower temperature ranges up to around 10-17°C, this
'efficiency' falls off very quickly when the temperature of the heat transfer fluid inside the
collector rises above 35-40°C. In tests carried out on an unglazed solar collector we found that
we could achieve an average of about 50% efficiency at 40°C. By putting a clear plastic
glazing on top we increased the average efficiency from about 50 to 60% in the higher
temperature ranges. It is really not worth spending a great deal on glazing, since the extra
energy you collect will take years to pay back the additional cost of the framing and glazing,
in terms of hot water.
I doubt whether it is worth spending money on making your own solar collector. The cheapest
do-it-yourself collector is a scrap steel radiator stripped down and painted black. Insulation
and aluminium foil underneath stops radiation and conduction losses. So far as possible,
collectors should face south. The cheapest place to site them is on the south wall of the house.
The most expensive place is on the south roof, since you will need the services, or skills, of a
roofer and carpenter, in addition to those of a plumber and electrician, unless you have these
skills yourself.
Industrial Robots
There are few micro-electronic applications more likely to raise fears regarding future
employment opportunities than robots for the very obvious reason that such machines directly
replace human labour. The emotive nature of the subject inevitably gives rise to
misapprehensions.
It is necessary first to define an industrial robot. Alternative definitions and classifications
abound but basically a robot is a machine which moves, manipulates, joins or processes
components in the same way as human hand or arm. It consists basically of three elements:
the mechanical structure (including the artificial wrist and gripper), the power unit (hydraulic,
pneumatic or, increasingly, electrical) and the control system (increasingly mini-computers
and microprocessors). However, the essential characteristic of a robot is that it can be
programmed. Thus many devices (often called robots) would be better termed 'numerically
controlled arms', since they are mechanical arms controlled by rudimentary (non-computer)
software and as such are not radically different to much existing automation equipment. There
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are reportedly about 20,000 of the latter in use in Japan, and perhaps several thousand in the
United Kingdom. A robot, however, is here defined as a hybrid of mechanical, electrical and
computing engineering.
Most robots in current use handle fairly straightforward tasks such as welding and spraying
where the software programmes controlling the machines are not very complex. However, the
newer machines, usually referred to as 'universal' but which are still under development, will
be able to perform more complex assembly tasks (for example, carburettor assembly).
Table 1 gives some world-wide estimates of robot diffusion. The table is based on a number
of different studies and must be treated with caution since there are problems of definition:
some companies producing medium technology robots do not classify them as robots; and
many large companies are known to have developed robots in-house, but there is little
statistical information on them.
Table l Estimates of the international diffusion of robots in 1978
Japan
3500
USA
2500
Europe
2000
of which
West Germany
600
Sweden
600
Italy
300-400
France
200
United Kingdom
100
World-wide
8000
The distribution of robots according to applications is again very difficult to estimate, but
figures released by the Unimate Company of America indicate that by June 1977 they had
installed around 1600 machines world-wide. Of these, virtually 50 per cent were used for spot
welding, about 11 per cent for die-casting and another 5 per cent for machine loading. Other
surveys have suggested that a significant proportion of robots are used for coating, mainly for
paint spraying.
What is clear from surveys to date is that the automobile and metal working and forming
industries have been the biggest users of robots. Indeed, the relative decline of these industries
in Britain is probably a significant cause of the relatively small use of robots in this country.
With so little happening in Britain, and indeed only marginal penetration world-wide, it is
difficult to generalize either upon current motives for investment in them or indeed the likely
pattern of future applications; but obviously these are the matters that will determine the
employment impact.
The reasons most commonly cited for the introduction of robots into the work place are:
1. improvement in productivity both in work-rate and quality of output;
2. improvement of working conditions, most usually where health hazards are
involved;
3. improved flexibility of production systems;
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4. greater effective management for production control.
Balanced against these, however, are factors limiting the spread of robots such as:
1.
2.
3.
4.
high price;
hardware and software problems;
lack of knowledge, and perhaps even fear of robots;
competition from alternative automation systems.
It might be thought that union resistance should be added to the list; but it does not appear to
be a restraining influence overseas, and in our discussions on the subject with British
manufacturers it has not been placed high on their list of constraints. More often it has been
stressed that the relatively low cost of labour in this country greatly reduces the economic
justification for investment in robots.
(From The Manpower Implications of Micro-Electronic Technology, MSC.)
Tomorrow's Phone Calls
One day we all may find it useful to have a facility for sending documents, writing and
pictures across the telephone lines. A detector at the sending end would quickly transmit the
signals representing the document to a printer at the receiving end where the documents
would be accurately and quickly reproduced.
View-phone would become an easy facility to provide; not that the findings in America
indicate an overwhelming demand for us all to be seen as well as heard on the telephone.
Conference telephone facilities could become widely available and multi-channel cable
television could also consume some of that capacity, but perhaps the greatest use, initially at
least, will be in what our Post Office now calls Prestel.
The system will link the subscriber's television set to a public computer via his telephone. By
dialling the appropriate number on the telephone and connecting the television receiver to the
circuit, the user will have at his disposal sixty thousand or so pages of information, and all
sorts of services which the telephone and the television on their own could never provide.
The television receiver is fitted with a small memory capable of storing the digital
information necessary to generate one page of display. The conversion to Prestel also requires
fitting the television with a key pad, rather like the finger panel of a pocket calculator.
On dialling the central computer the massive memory there transmits the signals to the small
memory on the television set. These signals generate the first page of the instruction
sequence. The picture welcomes you to Prestel and gives you any message it has stored for
you in its memory. You, of course, can leave a message for someone else to pick up. Prestel
talks to you in that strange computer fashion of asking you questions to which you can answer
'Yes', 'No', or give a number.
By asking questions the Prestel computer finds out what services you require, whether you
want to find out the closing prices on the Stock Exchange, what is on at the theatre or
something more complicated. Your answers on your key pad dictate when the memory in
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your set will receive a new set of instructions from central control and what those instructions
will be.
Leaving a complicated message may prove difficult but as long as you are prepared to accept
the alternatives Prestel offers, your wife can, for instance, learn whilst you are on your way,
that you are arriving at the station at the time you have keyed in from your number pad, or
that you are not coming home at all.
Then there are more subtle applications. On file in the main memory could be a whole host of
valuable data ranging from, for instance, the Highway Code, to when you are likely to be
approved for a mortgage. Because the computer can respond to your 'Yes', 'No' or number
answers, it can actually give you advice.
One programme I tried was designed to help those anxious to adopt a child. The first question
was, 'Are you applying on behalf of yourself only? If so key zero, if not key one.' I keyed
zero, for the sake of argument, and up came question two. 'Are you the parent of the child?'
Again zero for no. 'Are you over twenty-five?' I lied a little and said 'no' again and this proved
too much for the computer. 'You are not eligible to adopt,' came back the answer.
If I had told the truth about being over twenty-five that would have made a difference and
another question might have emerged before a final answer was given. Exactly the same
technique is being used in some hospitals now for routine diagnosis of patients' complaints.
The computers in this case are not public ones on an open network, but maybe the time will
come when the Prestel computer will also tell you what is the matter with you, even if it takes
a while longer for it actually to prescribe a treatment.
Prestel will also play games with you. Computerised noughts and crosses, mazes, and
problems like balancing fuel consumption in the retro-rockets of your Mars lander against the
gravitational pull of the planet so that you land at a comfortable speed without running out of
fuel, are all in the compendium at computer headquarters.
In fact it is easy to forget that what Prestel is really trying to do is get you to use the phone,
The Post Office does not want to engage in games or even take over completely from the
Citizen's Advice Bureau, but it is in business to sell telephone calls, and the advent of Prestel
gives it a mighty potent marketing weapon. But Prestel and all other new services which will
emerge in its wake can only work if the capacity for these extra services is built into the
system. It is optical fibre communication which promises to make that possible.
(From Tomorrow's World by M. Blackstad, BBC Publications)
Coal
The rapid growth of steam power relied directly on large supplies of its only fuel: coal. There
was a great increase in the amount of coal mined in Britain.
Coal was still cut by hand and the pits introduced few really new techniques. The increased
demand was met by employing more miners and by making them dig deeper. This was made
possible by more efficient steam pumps and steam-driven winding engines which used wire
ropes to raise the coal to the surface, by better ventilation and by the miner's safety lamp
which detected some dangerous gases. By the 1830s scams well below 1000 feet were being
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worked in south Durham and the inland coalfields of Lancashire and Staffordshire. Central
Scotland and south Wales were mined more intensively later. By the end of the nineteenth
century the best and most accessible seams were worked out. As the miners followed the
eastern scams of the south Yorkshire-north Midlands area, which dipped further below the
surface, shafts of 3,000 feet were not uncommon.
Some of the work in mines was done by women and children. Boys and girls were often put in
charge of the winding engines or of opening and shutting the trap doors which controlled the
ventilation of the mines. Then they had to crouch all day in the same spot by themselves in the
dark. When these evils were at last publicized in 1842 by a Royal Commission, many mines
no longer employed women, but Parliament made it illegal for them all. It also forbade them
to employ boys under the age of ten. The limit, which was very difficult to enforce, was
increased to twelve in the 1870s. Subsequently it rose with the school leaving age.
Mining was very dangerous. Loose rocks were easily dislodged and the risk of being killed or
injured by one was always greater in the tall scams where they had further to fall. In the north
of England fatal accidents were not even followed by inquests to discover why they had
happened until after 1815. Few safety precautions were taken before the mid-nineteenth
century. The mine owners insisted that they were not responsible. The men were most
reluctant to put up enough props to prevent the roof from falling in and to inspect the winding
gem: and other machinery on which their lives depended. If they did, they spent less time
mining and so earned less money because the miners' pay was based not on how long they
worked but on how much coal they extracted. They preferred to take risks.
The deeper seams contained a dangerous gas called 'fire-damp' which could be exploded by
the miners' candles. The safety lamp, which was invented in the early nineteenth century, did
not really solve this problem, but it was often used to detect gas and so made the mining of
deeper seams possible. There the air was more foul, the temperature higher (one pit paid the
men an extra 6d a day for working in 130°F) and the risk of fire-damp even greater. In the
1840s a series of terrible explosions in the deeper mines led to stricter regulations, which
inspectors helped enforce. The inspectors were particularly keen on proper ventilating
machines and, although deeper shafts were sunk, they did not become more dangerous.
However, many serious accidents still occurred.
(From Britain Transformed, Penguin Books)
The Medium Is the Message
In a culture like ours, long accustomed to splitting and dividing all things as a means of
control, it is sometimes a bit of a shock to be reminded that, in operational and practical fact,
the medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of
any medium - that is, of any extension of ourselves - result from the new scale that is
introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology. Thus,
with automation, for example, the new patterns of human association tend to eliminate jobs, it
is true. That is the negative result. Positively, automation creates roles for people, which is to
say depth of involvement in their work and human association that our preceding mechanical
technology had. destroyed. Many people would be disposed to say that it was not the
machine, but what one did with the machine, that was its meaning or message. In terms of the
ways in which the machine altered our relations to one another and to ourselves, it mattered
not in the least whether it turned out cornflakes or Cadillacs. The restructuring of human work
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and association was shaped by the technique of fragmentation that is the essence of machine
technology. The essence of automation technology is the opposite. It is integral and
decentralist in depth, just as the machine was fragmentary, centralist, and superficial in its
patterning of human relationships.
The instance of the electric light may prove illuminating in this connection. The electric light
is pure information. It is a medium without a message, as it were, unless it is used to spell out
some verbal ad or name. This fact, characteristic of all media, means that the "content" of any
medium is always another medium. The content of writing is speech, just as the written word
is the content of print, and print is the content of the telegraph. If it is asked, "What is the
content of speech?," it is necessary to say, "It is an actual process of thought, which is in itself
nonverbal." An abstract painting represents direct manifestation of creative thought processes
as they might appear in computer designs. What we are considering here, however, are the
psychic and social consequences of the designs or patterns as they amplify or accelerate
existing processes. For the "message" of any medium or technology is the change of scale or
pace or pattern that it introduces into human ; affairs. The railway did not introduce
movement or transportation or wheel or road into human society, but it accelerated and
enlarged the scale of previous human functions, creating totally new kinds of cities and new
kinds of work and leisure. This happened whether the railway functioned in a tropical or a
northern environment, and is quite independent of the freight or content of the railway
medium. The airplane, on the other hand, by accelerating the rate of transportation, tends to
dissolve the railway form of city, politics, and association, quite independently of what the
airplane is used for.
Let us return to the electric light. Whether the light is being used for brain surgery or night
baseball is a matter of indifference. It could be argued that these activities are in some way the
"content" of the electric fight, since they could not exist without the electric light. This fact
merely underlines the point that "the medium is the message" because it is the . medium that
shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action. The content or uses
of such media are as diverse as they are ineffectual in shaping the form of human association.
Indeed, it is only too typical that the "content" of any medium blinds us to the character of the
medium. It is only today that industries have become aware of the various kinds of business in
which they are engaged. When IBM discovered that it was not in the business of making
office equipment or business machines, but that it was in the business of processing
information, then it began to navigate with clear vision. The General Electric Company makes
a considerable portion of its profits from electric light bulbs and lighting systems. It has not
yet discovered that, quite as much as A.T.&T., it is in the business of moving information.
The electric light escapes attention as a communication medium just because it has no
"content." And this makes it an invaluable instance of how people fail to study media at all.
For it is not till the electric light is used to spell out some brand name that it is noticed as a
medium. Then it is not the light but the "content" (or what is really another medium) that is
noticed. The message of the electric light is like the message of electric power in industry,
totally radical, pervasive, and decentralized. For electric light and power are separate from
their uses, yet they eliminate time and space factors in human association exactly as do radio,
telegraph, telephone, and TV, creating involvement in depth.
(From Understanding media by Marshall McLuhan)
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ELECTRICITY
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The phenomenon which Thales had observed and recorded five centuries before the birth of
Christ aroused the interest of many scientists through the ages. They made various practical
experiments in their efforts to identify the elusive force which Thales had likened to a 'soul'
and which we now know to have been static electricity.
Of all forms of energy, electricity is the most baffling and difficult to describe. An electric
current cannot be seen. In fact it does not exist outside the wires and other conductors which
carry it. A live wire carrying a current looks exactly the same and weighs exactly the same as
it does when it is not carrying a current. An electric current is simply a movement or flow of
electrons.
Benjamin Franklin, the American statesman and scientist born in Boston in 1706, investigated
the nature of thunder and lightning by flying a child's kite during a thunderstorm. He had
attached a metal spike to the kite, and at the other end of the string to which the kite was tied
he secured a key. As the rain soaked into the string, electricity flowed freely down the string
and Franklin was able to draw large sparks from the key. Of course this could have been very
dangerous, but he had foreseen it and had supported the string through an insulator. He
observed that this electricity had the same properties as the static electricity produced by
friction.
But long before Franklin many other scientists had carried out research into the nature of
electricity.
In England William Gilbert (1544-1603) had noticed that the powers of attraction and
repulsion of two non-metallic rods which he had rubbed briskly were similar to those of
lodestone and amber - they had acquired the curious quality we call magnetism.
Remembering Thales of old he coined the word 'electricity'.
Otto von Guericke (1602-1686) a Mayor of Magdeburg in Germany, was an amateur scientist
who had constructed all manner of gadgets. One of them was a machine consisting of two
glass discs revolving in opposite directions which produced high voltage charges through
friction. Ramsden and Wimshurst built improved versions of the machine.
A significant breakthrough occurred when Alessandro Volta (1745-1827) in Italy constructed
a simple electric cell (in 1799) which produced a flow of electrons by chemical means. Two
plates, one of copper and the other of zinc, were placed in an acid solution and a current
flowed through an external wire connecting the two plates. Later he connected cells in series
(voltaic pile) which consisted of alternate layers of zinc and copper discs separated by flannel
discs soaked in brine or acid which produced a higher electric pressure (voltage). But Volta
never found the right explanation of why his cell was working. He thought the flow of electric
current was due to the contact between the two metals, whereas in fact it results from the
chemical action of the electrolyte on the zinc plate. However, his discovery proved to be of
incalculable value in research, as it enabled scientists to carry out experiments which led to
the discoveries of the heating, lighting, chemical and magnetic effects of electricity.
One of the many scientists and physicists who took advantage of the 'current electricity' made
possible by Volta's cells was Hans Christian Oersted (1777-1851) of Denmark. Like many
others he was looking for a connection between the age-old study of magnetism and
electricity, but now he was able to pass electric currents through wires and place magnets in
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various positions near the wires. His epoch-making discovery which established for the first
time the relationship between magnetism and electricity was in fact an accident.
While lecturing to students he showed them that the current flowing in a wire held over a
magnetic compass needle and at right angles to it (that is east-west) had no effect on the
needle. Oersted suggested to his assistant that he might try holding the wire parallel to the
length of the needle (north- south) and hey presto, the needle was deflected! He had stumbled
upon the electromagnetic effect in the first recorded instance of a wire behaving like a magnet
when a current is passed through it.
A development of Oersted's demonstration with the compass needle was used to construct the
world's first system of signaling by the use of electricity.
In 1837 Charles Wheatstone and William Cooke took out a patent for the world's first Fiveneedle Telegraph, which was installed between Paddington railway station in west London
and West Drayton station a few miles away. The five copper wires required for this system
were embedded in blocks of wood.
Electrolysis, the chemical decomposition of a substance into its constituent elements by the
action of an electric current, was discovered by the English chemists Carlisle and William
Nicholson (1753-1815). If an electric current is passed through water it is broken down into
the two elements of which it is composed -- hydrogen and oxygen. The process is used
extensively in modern industry for electroplating. Michael Faraday (1791-1867) who was
employed as a chemist at the Royal Institution, was responsible for introducing many of the
technical terms connected with electrolysis, like electrolyte for the liquid through which the
electric current is passed, and anode and cathode for the positive and negative electrodes
respectively. He also established the laws of the process itself. But most people remember his
name in connection with his practical demonstration of electromagnetic induction.
In France Andre-Marie Ampere (1775-1836) carried out a complete mathematical study of the
laws which govern the interaction between wires carrying electric currents.
In Germany in 1826 a Bavarian schoolmaster Georg Ohm (1789- 1854) had defined the
relationship between electric pressure (voltage), current (flow rate) and resistance in a circuit
(Ohm's law) but 16 years had to elapse before he received recognition for his work.
Scientists were now convinced that since the flow of an electric current in a wire or a coil of
wire caused it to acquire magnetic properties, the opposite might also prove to be true: a
magnet could possibly be used to generate a flow of electricity.
Michael Faraday had worked on this problem for ten years when finally, in 1830, he gave his
famous lecture in which he demonstrated, for the first time in history, the principle of
electromagnetic induction. He had constructed powerful electromagnets consisting of coils of
wire. When he caused the magnetic lines of force surrounding one coil to rise and fall by
interrupting or varying the flow of current, a similar current was induced in a neighbouring
coil closely coupled to the first.
The colossal importance of Faraday's discovery was that it paved the way for the generation
of electricity by mechanical means. However, as can be seen from the drawing, the basic
generator produces an alternating flow of current.(A.C.)
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Rotating a coil of wire steadily through a complete revolution in the steady magnetic field
between the north and south poles of a magnet results in an electromotive force (E.M.F.) at its
terminals which rises in value, falls back to zero, reverses in a negative direction, reaches a
peak and again returns to zero. This completes one cycle or sine wave. (1Hz in S.I. units).
In recent years other methods have been developed for generating electrical power in
relatively small quantities for special applications. Semiconductors, which combine heat
insulation with good electrical conduction, are used for thermoelectric generators to power
isolated weather stations, artificial satellites, undersea cables and marker buoys. Specially
developed diode valves are used as thermionic generators with an efficiency, at present, of
only 20% but the heat taken away from the anode is used to raise steam for conventional
power generation.
Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829) one of Britain's leading chemists of the 18th century, is best
remembered for his safety lamp for miners which cut down the risk of methane gas explosions
in mines. It was Davy who first demonstrated that electricity could be used to produce light.
He connected two carbon rods to a heavy duty storage battery. When he touched the tips of
the rods together a very bright white light was produced. As he drew the rods apart, the arc
light persisted until the tips had burnt away to the critical gap which extinguished the light. As
a researcher and lecturer at the Royal Institution Davy worked closely with Michael Faraday
who first joined the institution as his manservant and later became his secretary. Davy's
crowning honour in the scientific world came in 1820, when he was elected President of the
Royal Society.
In the U.S.A. the prolific inventor Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1831) who had invented the
incandescent carbon filament bulb, built a number of electricity generators in the vicinity of
the Niagara Falls. These used the power of the falling water to drive hydraulic turbines which
were coupled to the dynamos. These generators were fitted with a spinning switch or
commutator (one of the neatest gadgets Edison ever invented) to make the current flow in
unidirectional pulses (D.C.) In 1876 all electrical equipment was powered by direct current.
Today mains electricity plays a vital part in our everyday lives and its applications are
widespread and staggering in their immensity. But we must not forget that popular demand
for this convenient form of power arose only about 100 years ago, mainly for illumination.
Recent experiments in superconductivity, using ceramic instead metal conductors have given
us an exciting glimpse into what might be achieved for improving efficiency in the
distribution of electric power.
Historians of the future may well characterise the 20th century as 'the century of electricity &
electronics'. But Edison's D.C. generators could not in themselves, have achieved the
spectacular progress that has been made. All over the world we depend totally on a system of
transmitting mains electricity over long distances which was originally created by an amazing
inventor whose scientific discoveries changed, and are still changing, the whole world. His
name was scarcely known to the general public, especially in Europe, where he was born.
Who was this unknown pioneer? Some people reckon that it was this astonishing visionary
who invented wireless, remote control, robotics and a form of X-ray photography using high
frequency radio waves. A patent which he took out in the U.S.A. in 1890 ultimately led to the
design of the humble ignition coil which energises billions and billions of spark plugs in all
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the motor cars of the world. His American patents fill a book two inches thick. His name was
Nicola Tesla (1856-1943).
Nicola Tesla was born in a small village in Croatia which at that time formed part of the great
Austro-Hungarian Empire. Today it is a northern province of Yugoslavia, a state created after
the 1914-1918 war. Tesla studied at the Graz Technical University and later in Budapest.
Early in his studies he had the idea that a way had to be found to run electric motors directly
from A.C. generators. His professor in Graz had assured him categorically that this was not
possible. But young Tesla was not convinced. When he went to Budapest he got a job in the
Central Telegraph Office, and one evening in 1882, as he was sitting on a bench in the City
Park he had an inspiration which ultimately led to the solution of the problem.
Tesla remembered a poem by the German poet Goethe about the sun which supports life on
the earth and when the day is over moves on to give life to the other side of the globe. He
picked up a twig and began to scratch a drawing on the soil in front of him. He drew four coils
arranged symmetrically round the circumference of a circle. In the centre he drew a rotor or
armature. As each coil in turn was energised it attracted the rotor towards it and the rotary
motion was established. When he constructed the first practical models he used eight, sixteen
and even more coils. The simple drawing on the ground led to the design of the first induction
motor driven directly by A.C.electricity.
Tesla emigrated to the U.S.A. in 1884. During the first year he filed no less than 30 patents
mostly in relation to the generation and distribution of A.C. mains electricity. He designed
and built his 'A.C.Polyphase System' which generated three-phase alternating current at 25
Hz. One particular unit delivered 422 amperes at 12,000 volts. The beauty of this system was
that the voltage could be stepped down using transformers for local use, or stepped up to
many thousands of volts for transmission over long distances through relatively thin
conductors. Edison's generating stations were incapable of any such thing.
Tesla signed a lucrative contract with the famous railway engineer George Westinghouse, the
inventor of the Westinghouse Air Brake which is used by most railways all over the world to
the present day. Their generating station was put into service in 1895 and was called the
Niagara Falls Electricity Generating Company. It supplied power for the Westinghouse
network of trains and also for an industrial complex in Buffalo, New York.
After ten years Tesla began to experiment with high frequencies. The Tesla Coil which he had
patented in 1890 was capable of raising voltages to unheard of levels such as 300,000 volts.
Edison, who was still generating D.C., claimed A.C. was dangerous and to prove it contracted
with the government to produce the first electric chair using A.C. for the execution of
murderers condemned to death. When it was first used it was a ghastly flop. The condemned
man moaned and groaned and foamed at the mouth. After four minutes of repeated
application of the A.C.voltage smoke began to come out of his back. It was obvious that the
victim had suffered a horribly drawn-out death.
Tesla said he could prove that A.C. was not dangerous. He gave a demonstration of high
voltage electricity flowing harmlessly over his body. But in reality, he cheated, because he
had used a frequency of 10,000 cycles (10 kHz) at extremely low current and because of the
skin effect suffered no harm.
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One of Tesla's patents related to a system of lighting using glass tubes filled with fluorine (not
neon) excited by H.F.voltages. His workshop was lit by this method. Several years before
Wilhelm Roentgen demonstrated his system of X-rays Tesla had been taking photographs of
the bones in his hand and his foot from up to 40 feet away using H.F.currents.
More astonishing still is the fact that in 1893, two years before Marconi demonstrated his
system of wireless signaling, Tesla had built a model boat in which he combined power to
drive it with radio control and robotics. He put the small boat in a lake in Madison Square
Gardens in New York. Standing on the shore with a control box, he invited onlookers to
suggest movements. He was able to make the boat go forwards and backwards and round in
circles. We all know how model cars and aircraft are controlled by radio today, but when
Tesla did it a century ago the motor car had not been invented, and the only method by which
man could cover long distances was on horseback!
Many people believe that a modification of Tesla's 'Magnifying Transmitter' was used by the
Soviet Union when suddenly one day in October 1976 they produced an amazing noise which
blotted out all radio transmissions between 6 and 20 MHz. (The Woodpecker) The B.B.C., the
N.B.C. and most broadcasting and telecommunication organisations of the world complained
to Moscow (the noise had persisted continuously for 10 hours on the first day), but all the
Russians would say in reply was that they were carrying out an experiment. At first nobody
seemed to know what they were doing because it was obviously not intended as another form
of jamming of foreign broadcasts, an old Russian custom as we all know.
It is believed that in the pursuit of his life's ambition to send power through the earth without
the use of wires, Tesla had achieved a small measure of success at E.L.F. (extremely low
frequencies) of the order of 7 to 12 Hz. These frequencies are at present used by the military
for communicating with submarines submerged in the oceans of the world.
Tesla's career and private life have remained something of a mystery. He lived alone and
shunned public life. He never read any of his papers before academic institutions, though he
was friendly with some journalists who wrote sensational stories about him. They said he was
terrified of microbes and that when he ate out at a restaurant he would ask for a number of
clean napkins to wipe the cutlery and the glasses he drank out of. For the last 20 years of his
life until he died during World War II in 1943 he lived the life of a semi-recluse, with a
pigeon as his only companion. A disastrous fire had destroyed his workshops and many of his
experimental models and all his papers were lost for ever.
Tesla had moved to Colorado Springs where he built his largest ever coil which was 52 feet in
diameter. He studied all the different forms of lightning in his unsuccessful quest for the
transmission of power without wires.
In Yugoslavia, Tesla is a national hero and a well-equipped museum in Belgrade contains
abundant proof of the genius of this extraordinary man.
(From: The dawn of amateur radio in the U.K. and Greece: a personal view by Norman F.
Joly.)
The Autonomous House
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The autonomous house on its site is defined as a house operating independently of any inputs
except those of its immediate environment. The house is not linked to the mains services of
gas, water, electricity or drainage, but instead uses the income-energy sources of sun, wind
and rain to service itself and process its own wastes. In some ways it resembles a land-based
space station which is designed to provide an environment suitable for life but unconnected
with the existing life-support structure of Earth. The autonomous house uses the life-giving
properties of the Earth but in so doing provides an environment for the occupants without
interfering with or altering these properties.
Although the self-serviced house provides a useful starting-point for experiments in
autonomy, as it forms a small unit that can be designed, built and tested within a relatively
short time, the idea can be expanded to include self-sufficiency in food, the use of on-site
materials for building and the reduction of the building and servicing technology to a level
where the techniques can be understood and equipment repaired by a person without recourse
to specialized training. Although it is possible to survive with pre-industrial technology, this
is not what is proposed by autonomous living. At present, however, technology appears to be
exploited for its own sake, without thought to its benefits, uses or effects on people or the
external environment. We are persuaded to expect a higher material standard of living when,
for the majority, the standard that we already have in the West is perfectly adequate. A
marginal increase in this standard can only be made with the use of yet greater quantities of
the existing resources of the Earth. What are essentials for the American way of life (full
central heating, air conditioning, a car per person) are considered, albeit less so now, as
luxuries for Europeans, and what are considered necessary for a satisfactory European life
(enough to eat, a home and fuel to heat it, access to transport) would be luxuries for the ‘third
world’. If we cannot find a way of levelling standards rationally while there is time left to
consider the problem, then the levelling may be forced on us as the lack of fossil fuels on
which western economy so critically depends precipitates a collapse which must change our
way of living if we are to survive at all.
The autonomous house is not seen as a regressive step. It is not simply a romantic vision of
‘back to the land’, with life again assuming a rural pace and every man dependent upon
himself and his immediate environment for survival. Rather, it is a different direction for
society to take. Instead of growth, stability is the aim; instead of working to earn money to
pay other people to keep him alive, the individual is presented with the choice of selfautonomy or working to pay for survival. No such choice exists at present. ‘Dropping out’
now is a game for those with private means.
Stability would be an obvious goal were it not for the fact that society is so geared to growth
in every sense. A stable population, making only what it actually needs, with each article
being considered with regard to the material it is made of and what is to be done with it once
its useful life is over, and finding all its power from what can be grown or from the sun,
would give man back a true place in the world’s system. However, a consumer society can
exist only by living off the capital resources of the Earth, whether the stored fuels or the
reserves of oxygen for running the machinery of the growth economy; and, as has frequently
been shown, these reserves are not infinite. The oil shortage in 1974 gave a taste of enforced
‘no growth’ economy, and our survival at whatever price or hardship will be a first lesson in
stability. Whether this lesson will provide the impetus for yet more growth from a nuclearbased economy, or whether it could form the basis of a more rational society, remains to be
seen. The autonomous house would only form a very small part of this total picture, but it is
an object that can be grasped and realized in material terms at present.
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However, the attractive idea of a house generating its own power and recycling its own wastes
is almost as difficult to realize as the idea of a stable economy. Apart from the physical
limitations of income-energy sources, the system can be made only marginally competitive
with existing methods of servicing houses. This difficulty could be removed if autonomy did
not have to fit within the present system. At the moment, however, with houses already more
expensive than most people can afford, the idea of an increased capital cost for houses, even
though future running costs would be reduced, could never be accepted.
The idea of autonomy probably arose from two quests. The first was to gain free power for
house heating, etc., so that conventional fuels need not be bought, and the second was to free
the planning of communities. At present any new building must link to an existing or purposebuilt service network. Cities, therefore, expand around their edges in order to keep houses on
the mains, although expansion is limited by the size of the existing servicing plants. Removal
of this restraint would enable houses to be built virtually anywhere, and communities would
be formed for a more logical reason than the need to be fed and watered at a central point.
Existing cities can be likened to babies in that they are serviced completely from the outside
and the control of their functions is at the will of a very few people. If any one person declares
a state of emergency, half a million people may sit in the dark unable to help themselves.
Autonomy could provide for every community to become adult. Each person or community
would be in control of his own heating, lighting, food production, etc. A real decentralization
of control would be achieved and every person would become self-governing.
How desirable such decentralization is in political terms, with removal of choice from the few
to the many, is open to discussion. An autonomous country would mean one where there
would be no growth in the economy, where population size was strictly controlled, where a
higher standard of living could not be expected, where resources were shared equally between
every man, where freedom to act was curtailed by the need to survive. The society would be
unlike any that we know at the moment. It would encompass something of many previous
political doctrines but it would be aimed at providing for the survival of mankind, given that
our present method of living off capital cannot go on for all time.
Any acceptance of the desirability of autonomy can only be based on faith. If you believe that
it is important for man to be part of his natural ecology, to know how survival is
accomplished, to be in control of his own life, then autonomy is a logical outcome. If,
however, you believe that mankind has always solved every problem that arises, that
eventually some way will be found for dealing with nuclear waste after a given number of
years of research and that the benefits of cheap nuclear power outweigh the possible dangers,
then there is no case for autonomy and the status quo will be maintained.
(From The autonomous house - design and planning for self-sufficiency by Brenda and
Robert Vale)
TWENTIETH CENTURY DISCOVERY
1 - War Against The Six-Legs: The Discovery of insecticides and pesticides
Just about the greatest problem we all face now is our own numbers. We crowd the earth
more thickly now than we ever have before and this is creating strains.
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Before the invention of agriculture about 8500 B.C., man lived on the animals he could catch
and kill and on the plants he could find that were good to eat. At that time, there weren't many
human beings on Earth. One careful guess is that there were only eight million people on the
whole planet. (That's about the population of New York City today. Imagine New Yorkers
being the only people alive and that they were spread over the entire planet.)
The reason there were so few then was that there are only so many animals to be caught and
only so many plants to be found. If, for some reason, there were suddenly more people, some
of them would be sure to starve to death. The population would shrink again.
Once agriculture was developed, people deliberately grew large quantities of plants that could
be eaten. There was more food to be found in one spot and more people could eat well.
Population increased.
By the time of Julius Caesar, in 50 B.C., there were fifty million people living on agriculture
around the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Another fifty million were living in China and
another fifty million in the rest of the world. The total for the world was 150 million but that
was still less than the population of the United States alone today.
Population continued to increase and by 1600 A.D., it had reached 500 million.
After that, the increase became so rapid that we can speak of a "population explosion." New
continents had been discovered with large tracts of land into which people could push and
where they could begin to farm. The Industrial Revolution came and made it possible to farm
more efficiently and ship food greater distances.
By 1800, the world population was 900 million; by 1900, it was 1,600,000,000. Now, it is
about 3,500,000,000. Three and a half billion people are alive today.
In recent years, medical advances have placed many diseases under control. The death rate
has dropped and with fewer people dying, population is increasing faster than ever. The world
population doubled between 1900 and 1969, a period of sixty-nine years. It will double again,
in all likelihood, between 1969 and 2009, a period of only forty years.
When the twenty-first century opens, and the youngsters of today are in middle life and
raising a family, the world population will be something like 6,500,000,000. The United
States alone will have a population of 330 million.
Naturally, this can't continue forever. There comes a point when the number of men, women,
and children is too great to feed and take care of. If the numbers become too great, there will
be famine and disease. Desperate, hungry men will fight and there will be wars and revolts.
With this in mind, many people are trying to discover ways of limiting the population by
controlling the number of births. It seems to make sense that no more children should be born
than we can feed and take care of. It is no act of kindness to bring a child into the world who
must starve, or live a miserable, stunted life.
It is possible that kind and intelligent ways of controlling birth will be accepted and that
human population will reach some reasonable level and stay there. It will take time for this to
come to pass, however, and no matter what we do the figure of 6,500,000,000 will probably
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be reached. Even if it goes no higher, we will have to count on feeding and taking care of this
number.
This will be difficult. At this very time, when the world population is only 3,500,000,000, we
are having difficulty. Large sections of the world are poorly fed. There are perhaps 300
million children in the world who are so badly underfed that they may have suffered
permanent brain damage and will therefore never be quite as intelligent and useful as they
might have been if they had only received proper food. Nations such as India face famine and
would have seen millions die already if it were not that the United States shipped them huge
quantities of grain out of its own plentiful supplies. But American supplies are dwindling fast,
and when they are gone, what will happen to nations like India?
There are no longer large empty spaces of good land which farmers can utilize. The fertile
areas of the world are all in use. We have to try to find less easy solutions. We can bring
water to dry areas. We can use chemicals to restore the fertility of soil which has been fading
out after centuries of farming. We can use more fish from the ocean; and perhaps we can even
grow plants in the sea.
Actually, mankind has been steadily increasing food production since World War II. The
trouble is that this food increase has barely matched the population increase. Despite all the
extra food, each individual today gets no more than he used to get twenty years ago. The
percentage of hungry people in the world stays the same.
And as the population rises ever faster, it is important that the food supply increase ever faster
also. It is important to feed the ever-increasing numbers of human beings until such time as
the population can come under control.
One way of doing so, without having to increase the size of our farmlands one bit, would be
to prevent any of our precious food from being eaten by creatures other than humans. Farmers
are always on the watch for hawks that eat their chickens, coyotes that eat their lambs, crows
that eat their corn.
These are creatures we can see and do something about. We can lay traps, or shoot, or set up
scarecrows.
But hawks, and coyotes, and crows are nothing at all compared to an enemy that is much
smaller, much more dangerous, and until very recently, almost impossible to fight.
These are the insects; the little buzzing, flying six-legged creatures that we find everywhere.
Insects are the most successful form of animal life on earth. There are nearly a million
different kinds (or "species") of insects known, and perhaps another two million species exist
that have not yet been discovered and described. This is far more than the total number of
different species of all other animals put together.
The number of individual insects is incredible. In and above a single acre of moist soil there
may be as many as four million insects of hundreds of different species. There may be as
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many as a billion billion (1,000,000,000,000,000,000) insects living in the world right nowover 300 million insects for each man, woman, and child alive.
Almost all the different species of insects are harmless to man. They are, indeed, useful in the
scheme of life. Many insects serve as the food supply for the pleasant songbirds we all enjoy.
Other insects help pollinate plants, and without that the plants would die.
Some insects are directly useful to man. The bee produces honey and wax, the silkworm
produces silk, and certain scale insects produce a brilliant red dye. Some insects, such as
locusts, are even eaten by men in some areas of the world. To be sure, there are some species
of insects that are troublesome. Perhaps 3,000 species at most (out of a possible three million)
are nuisances. These include the mosquitoes, flies, fleas, lice, wasps, hornets, weevils,
cockroaches, carpet beetles, and so on.
As a result, people come to dislike "bugs" and get the urge to swat or crush anything with six
legs that flies or crawls. This is wrong, though. We don't want really to wipe out all insects
because a few are bothersome. Insects, as I said, are necessary to the scheme of life.
In fact, all the different species of creatures are useful to each other. Even killer animals are
useful to the creatures they kill.
As an example, mountain lions kill deer. Now deer are pretty animals while mountain lions
seem to be dangerous killers that deserve to be wiped out. It has happened that men have
killed the mountain lions in some areas and freed the deer from the danger.
That does not do the deer a favour!
While the mountain lions were active they killed some deer but never very many. What's
more, they usually killed old or sick deer, for the strong young ones had a better chance to get
away. The mountain lions kept the numbers of deer down and there was that much more food
for those that were left.
Once the mountain lions were gone, the deer population increased quickly. Even the old and
sick had a chance to live. All the deer searched the countryside for food and in no time the
area was stripped bare. Starvation gripped the herd and all became weak and sick. They began
to die and in the end there were far fewer deer than there had been in the days when the
mountain lions were active.
So you see, the deer depend for their life and health on the very animals that seem to be
killing them.
The way in which different species of animals depend upon one another results in a "balance
of nature." The numbers of any particular species stay about the same for long periods of time
because of this balance. Even if the balance is temporarily upset, when one species grows
unusually numerous or unusually rare, the food supplies drop, or increase, in. such a way that
the proper number is restored.
The study of this balance of nature is called "ecology" and it has grown to be one of the
branches of science that is of greatest interest to mankind, for we have badly upset the balance
of nature and are upsetting it worse each year.
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In the end, we might suffer as the deer suffer when the mountain lions are gone, and scientists
are anxious to prevent this if possible. By studying the principles of ecology, they hope to
learn how best to prevent it.
Actually, insects wouldn't have grown to be such nuisances, if mankind hadn't upset the
balance of nature many thousands of years ago when he first developed agriculture. Once he
began to plant barley, for instance, he saw to it that many acres of land produced hardly
anything but barley, barley, barley. All the other plants that might have been growing on those
acres he wiped out as much as possible. They were "weeds."
Animals that lived on those weeds were starved out. On the other hand, animals that lived on
barley multiplied, for suddenly they had a huge food supply.
In this way, agriculture encouraged certain insects to multiply and what had been just a
nuisance became a great danger. As an example, locusts may suddenly multiply and swarm
down on fields in gigantic armies of billions. This happened frequently in ancient times and
even the Bible describes such a locust plague in the book of Joel. Locusts would sweep across
the fields, eating everything green. When they left, a barren waste would remain.
This would be a disaster, for large numbers of people would be depending upon those
vanished crops. Widespread famine would be the result.
Nor could anything be done about it. People were completely helpless as they watched their
food disappear. They might go out and try to kill locusts, but no matter how hard they worked
at it, there would be ten thousand left alive for every one they killed.
Even today, although scientists have discovered ways of fighting insects, there is serious
trouble in some places and at some times. This is especially true in the less-developed
countries where scientific methods of fighting insects are least available-and where the
population can least afford the loss.
In India, for instance, there is an insect called the "red cotton bug" which lives on the cotton
plant. If cotton plants were growing wild, some of them might be affected by the bug, but the
plants would be few in number and would be spread widely apart. The bugs would not have
much to eat and would find it difficult to get from one plant to the other. The number of red
cotton bugs would therefore remain small and the cotton plants themselves would be only
slightly damaged. They would continue to grow quite well.
In large cotton fields, however, the bugs have a tremendous food supply, with one plant right
on top of the other. The bugs increase in numbers, therefore, and become a huge horde. Each
year, half of all the cotton grown in India is destroyed by them.
Even in the United States, we have trouble. An insect called the "boll weevil" feeds on the
cotton plant in this country. We can fight the boll weevil better than the Indians can fight the
cotton bug. Still, as a result of the boll weevil damage, each pound of cotton produced in the
United States costs ten cents (about 10d.) more than it would if the boll weevil didn't exist.
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The losses resulting from insect damage in the United States alone run to something like eight
billion dollars each year. Man himself has also vastly increased in numbers since agriculture
was developed. Before that, small groups of men hunted through wide stretches of forests.
They offered only a small target for fleas and lice.
After the appearance of agriculture, farming communities were established. These were much
larger than hunting bands, and in such communities, men lived huddled together. Fleas and
lice multiplied and men had to do a great deal more scratching. Mosquitoes, too, gained a
much larger food supply and increased in numbers.
You might think that insects like termites and boll weevils did real damage and that fleas and
lice were just nuisances, but that is wrong. The insects that bite and sting human beings can be
terrible dangers; and this was something that wasn't discovered until the opening of the
twentieth century.
The discovery came in connection with yellow fever. This is a rapidly spreading disease that
can kill vast numbers of people. Nowadays it is rarely heard of in the United States but in
previous centuries, it would suddenly flare up in huge epidemics that would lay whole cities
low. Twenty times in the history of the city of Philadelphia, yellow fever epidemics raged
across it. New York had fifteen epidemics.
There seemed no way of preventing the epidemics. They struck out of nowhere and suddenly
people were dying on every side. The United States military forces grew particularly
interested in the problem in 1898.
That year they fought a short war with Spain. Most of the fighting took place in Cuba where
few Americans were killed by Spanish guns, but many died of yellow fever. What people
didn't understand was how the yellow fever passed from one person to another. Was it by
infected clothing, by polluted water, or how?
In 1899, the American government sent to Cuba a team of doctors headed by Walter Reed.
Their mission was to find out how yellow fever was spread. Yellow fever does not attack
animals so the mission had to work with human beings, and that meant using themselves as
guinea pigs.
They handled the clothing and bedding of people sick with yellow fever yet didn't come down
with it themselves. Walter Reed remembered that a few people had advanced the notion some
years before that mosquitoes might carry the disease. They would bite sick men and suck in
infected blood, then pass the infection to the next person they bit.
Reed's group checked this. They introduced mosquito netting to keep mosquitoes away from
certain houses. Sure enough, they found that people protected by mosquito netting usually
didn't get the disease even when it was striking all around.
They went on to something more daring. They captured mosquitoes in rooms where there
were men sick with yellow fever and then allowed those mosquitoes to bite them. Some of the
group soon came down with yellow fever and one of them, Jesse William Lazear, died.
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A mosquito bite is more than a nuisance, then. Mosquitoes of a certain species can pass on a
deadly disease with their bite.
Yellow fever struck the United States again, for the last time, in 1904, with New Orleans the
victim. But Reed had shown how to fight the disease. The mosquitoes were kept away with
netting. The places where they bred were wiped out. As a result, yellow fever is no longer a
serious danger in the United States. There hasn't been an epidemic in this country in over
sixty years.
Another species of mosquito was found to spread the disease called malaria. Malaria isn't as
dramatic as yellow fever. It isn't as rapid a killer. Besides, there is a drug, quinine (obtained
from the bark of a South American tree), that, for centuries now, has been known to control
the disease.
Even so, malaria is the most widespread disease in the world-or it was. As late as 1955, there
were estimated to be no less than 250 million people in the world who were ill with malaria.
Each year 2,500,000 people died of it. Those who didn't die were greatly weakened and
couldn't work as healthy people could. Entire nations were greatly reduced in vigour and in
the ability to help themselves because so many individuals among them were malarial. And
all the result of mosquito bites.
Certain species of insects in Africa, called the "tsetse fly," spread sleeping sickness, a brain
infection that usually ends in death. This disease spread into eastern Africa at the beginning of
the twentieth century and between 1901 and 1906 it killed 200,000 people in Uganda. About
two out of every three people in the affected areas died.
The disease also affects horses and cattle. It is the tsetse fly more than anything else-more
than the heat, the jungle, or the large wild animals-that keeps sections of Africa from
advancing.
Naturally, men were anxious to kill insects. Insects were starving mankind, eating his grain
and fruits and fibres, too Insects were killing men with their infected bites. Men had to strike
back.
One way was to poison insects. Suppose, for instance, you sprayed your crops with a solution
of "Paris green," a deadly poison compound containing copper and arsenic.
Paris green did not affect the plants. The plants lived on carbon dioxide in the air and on
certain minerals which they absorbed from the soil. If there was some poison on their leaves,
that made no difference.
Any insect trying to feed on the leaves that were coated with Paris green would, however, die
at once. Insects simply could not live on sprayed plants and the plants grew large and ripe
without being bothered. Paris green was an "insecticide," a word meaning "insect-killer."
(Nowadays, the word is used less often because insects are not the only kind of creature we
want to kill. There are also worms and snails, mice and rats, even rabbits-all of which become
serious problems if they grow too numerous. They are all lumped together as "pests" and any
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chemical used to kill any of them is a "pesticide." In this chapter, though, I will be talking
chiefly about insects and I will continue to use the word insecticide.)
Paris green and other mineral insecticides have their drawbacks. For one thing, they are just as
poisonous to human beings as they are to insects. Foods which have been sprayed with these
solutions must be carefully washed, or they could be deadly.
And, of course, plants are washed, naturally, by rain. The rain tends to remove some of the
mineral poison and drip it down to the soil. Little by little, the soil accumulates copper,
arsenic, and other elements which will reach the roots of the plants eventually. There they do
affect plants and the soil will after a while become poisonous to them.
What's more, such mineral insecticides can't be used on human beings themselves. Sometimes
it would be most useful if we could use them so, to destroy insects that live directly on people.
Mosquitoes and flies may bite people and annoy them (or sometimes transmit diseases that
kill them) but at least they don't actually live on people. If we want to attack them, we can
keep them off by netting, spray the places where they land with poison, or find the stagnant
pools or garbage where they breed and either remove or spray them.
But what about the fleas and lice that live in human clothing or hair? In many parts of the
world even today there are no automatic washers in which clothes can be washed every
couple of days. There isn't even a supply of soap or of clean running water. The poorer people
have very little in the way of clothing and- if there is a cold season they must simply wear the
same clothes all winter long.
Naturally, the fleas and lice in that clothing have a happy hunting ground all winter long. This
was all the more true if people were forced to crowd into small dirty hovels or tenements. If
anyone happened not to have fleas and lice, he quickly caught them from others.
This could be extremely serious because typhus, a disease always present among the poor,
every once in a while became epidemic and spread everywhere. It was most likely to be found
among poor, dirty people huddled together on ships, for instance, or in jails. It was
particularly dangerous during wars when many thousands of soldiers might be penned up in a
besieged town or in lines of trenches or in prisoners' camps.
When thousands of Irish emigrated to America after the potato blight brought famine to
Ireland in the 1840s, half of them sickened with typhus on the way here. In World War I,
typhus did more damage among the miserable soldiers in eastern and south-eastern Europe
than the guns did.
The little country of Serbia drove back the armies of much larger Austria-Hungary several
times in 1914 and 1915, but then typhus struck and crippled the small nation. The Austrians
dared not invade while the epidemic was raging but afterwards they marched in and what was
left of the Serbian army could not stop them.
By the time of World War I, however, doctors knew very well what was causing the spread of
typhus. They had learned that from a French physician, Charles Nicolle, who, in 1903, had
been appointed director of a medical institute in Tunis in North Africa. (Tunis belonged to
France at the time.)
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Tunis was riddled with typhus but Nicolle noticed a very curious thing. The disease was
infectious only outside the hospital, not inside. Doctors visiting patients in their homes caught
typhus. Medical attendants who admitted patients into the hospital caught it. But once the
patients were in the hospital, they stopped being infectious, even though they might
be sicker than ever. Doctors and nurses who tended typhus patients inside the hospital never
caught typhus themselves. Nicolle decided that something happened at the moment that
patients entered the hospital that changed everything. For one thing, the patient had removed
the clothes he was wearing and took a bath. The clothes were got rid of and the infectiousness
disappeared.
By that time the word was about that mosquitoes spread yellow fever and malaria, so it didn't
seem hard to believe that maybe typhus fever was spread by the lice in the dirty clothes.
Nicolle worked with animals, first with chimpanzees, and then with guinea pigs, and he
proved his case completely. Typhus would spread by a louse bite, not otherwise.
Nor is typhus the only disease to be spread by such body insects. There is a dreaded disease
called "plague." In the fourteenth century, it spread all across Europe and killed one out of
every three human beings on the continent. It was called "the Black Death" then.
This disease is spread by fleas. The fleas that are most dangerous live on rats and wherever
the rats spread, so do the fleas. When a flea bites a sick rat, then jumps on a human being and
bites him, it is usually all up with the human.
These are hard diseases to conquer. Rats are difficult creatures to get rid of. Even today they
infest American slums and are a downright danger to sleeping babies. Body lice or fleas are
even harder to eliminate.
After all you can't avoid lice and fleas by something as simple as mosquito netting. You must
wash clothes and body regularly, but how can you ask people to do that who have no soap and
no clean water?
It would be helpful if you could spray the bodies and clothes with insecticide, but you would
have to find one that would kill the insects without killing the person. Certainly Paris green
wouldn't do.
Instead of minerals, then, the search was on for some suitable organic substance. An organic
substance is one that has a structure similar to the compounds contained in living tissue. There
are many millions of different organic substances, and no two species of creatures act exactly
alike in response to particular organic substances.
Might it not be possible to find an organic substance which would interfere with some of the
chemical reactions that go on in insects, but not in other kinds of animals.
In 1935, a Swiss chemist, Paul Muller, began to search for such a compound. He wanted one
that could be easily made and would therefore be cheap. It had to be without an unpleasant
odour. It had to kill insects but be reasonably harmless to other kinds of life.
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He narrowed down the search by studying different classes of organic compounds and then
following up those classes that showed at least a little promise. He would study the chemical
structure of those compounds that showed a little promise and would then try a slightly
different compound to see if that had more promise. If it did, he would study the difference in
structure and see how to make a still further difference that would be better still.
It took four years but in September of 1939 (the very month in which World War II started),
Muffler came across a compound called "dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane." That is a long
name even for chemists and it is usually referred to by its initials, as DDT. This compound
had first been prepared and described in 1874 but at that time there seemed nothing unusual
about it. Now, however, Muller discovered that DDT was the very thing he was looking for. It
was cheap, stable, and odourless, fairly harmless to most forms of life, but meant death to
insects.
By 1942, preparations containing DDT were beginning to be manufactured for sale to the
public, and in 1943, it had its first dramatic use. The city of Naples, in Italy, had been
captured by Allied forces and, as winter came on, typhus began to spread.
It wasn't possible to make the population strip off their clothes, burn them, and put on new
clothes, so something else was done. Soldiers and civilians were lined up and sprayed with a
DDT solution. The lice died and typhus died with them. For the first time in human history, a
winter epidemic of typhus had been stopped in its tracks.
To show that this was no accident the same thing was done in Japan in late 1945, after the
American occupation. Since World War II, DDT and other organic insecticides have been
used in large quantities. Tens of thousands of tons are produced each year. The United States
alone spent over a billion dollars for such insecticides in the single year of 1966. Not only are
our crops saved but the various insect-spread diseases are all but wiped out. Since DDT wipes
out mosquitoes and flies, as well as lice, malaria is now almost unknown in the United States.
Less than a hundred cases a year are reported and almost all are brought in from abroad.
Yet this does not represent a happy ending. The use of organic insecticides has brought
troubles in its train. Sometimes such insecticides don't work because they upset the balance of
nature.
For instance, DDT might be fairly deadly to an insect we want to kill, but even more deadly to
another insect that lives on the first one. Only a few harmful insects survive but their insect
enemies are now all dead. In a short time, the insects we don't want are more numerous than
they were before the use of DDT.
Then, too, organic insecticides don't kill all species of insects. Some insects have a chemical
machinery that isn't affected by these poisons; they are "resistant." It may happen that a
resistant insect could do damage to our crops but usually doesn't because some other insect is
more numerous and gets the lion's share of the food.
If DDT kills the damaging insect, but leaves the resistant insect behind, then that resistant
insect can multiply enormously. It then becomes a great danger and DDT can't touch it.
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In fact, even among those species of insects that are killed by DDT there are always a few
individuals that differ chemically from the rest and are resistant. They survive when all other
individuals are killed. They multiply and then a whole species of resistant insects comes into
existence.
Thus, as the years pass, DDT has become less effective on the house fly, for instance. Some
resistance was reported as early as 1947, and this has been growing more serious. By now
almost every species of insect has developed resistance, including the body louse that spreads
typhus.
Finally, even though organic insecticides are not very poisonous to creatures other than
insects, they are not entirely harmless either. If too much insecticide is used, some birds can
be poisoned. Fish are particularly easy to kill, and if insecticides are used on water to kill
young insects, young fish may also go in great numbers.
Organic insecticides are also washed into the soil. Eventually, they are broken down by
bacteria but not very quickly. Some accumulates in the soil, then in the plants that grow in the
soil, then in the animals that eat the plants. All animals, including man, have a little bit of
DDT inside ourselves. Not enough to hurt us so far, but it is there.
For that reason, attempts have been made to control insects by means that don't involve
chemicals.
For one thing, there are certain strains of plants which are naturally resistant to particular
insects. These strains might be cultivated.
Then, too, crops might be rotated; one crop might be grown one year, another crop the next.
In this way, an insect which flourished one year might drop to very low levels the next when
the wrong plants were grown, plants it could not eat. It would have to start from scratch again
and its numbers would stay low. Or else one might break up the fields so that not too large an
area would be devoted to a single crop. That would make it harder for an insect to spread.
Here's something else-insects have their enemies. The enemy might exist in one part of the
world but not in another. It might be another insect or some kind of parasite. If it could be
introduced in places where the insect we were after was flourishing, the numbers of that insect
might be brought under control.
Modern science has worked up a number of additional devices for killing insects. Bats eat
insects and locate them by emitting very shrill squeaks, squeaks too shrill for us to hear. The
sound waves of these squeaks bounce off the insect, and the bat, by listening for the echo,
knows where the insect is.
Naturally, insects have developed an instinctive avoidance of such a sound. If a device is set
up to send out these shrill "ultrasonic" squeaks, insects stay away from a wide area near it.
Another device is just the opposite-to attract rather than to repel. Insects can find each other
over large distances because they can smell each other. Female moths give off an odour that a
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male moth of the same species can detect many hundreds of yards away. Female moths can
tell by smell a good spot on which to lay eggs.
Chemists have worked to isolate the chemicals that give off this attractive odour. Once they
isolate it, they can place it on certain spots to attract insects. If those spots are sprayed with
insecticide, too, insects could die in great numbers. Only a little insecticide would have to be
used; it wouldn't have to be spread everywhere; and it would be less likely to affect other
forms of life.
Or else a female could be induced to lay eggs in an unsuitable place by means of a sprayed
odour, so that the eggs would not develop.
Then, too, male insects can be subjected to radioactivity that destroys some of their internal
organs so they cannot fertilize the female's eggs. If such sterilized males are released, the
females end up laying eggs that cannot develop. An insect called the "screwworm," which
infests cattle in south-eastern United States, was almost wiped out by this method.
But all that mankind is doing today is not yet enough. The insecticides are too poisonous and
the other methods are a little too fancy for undeveloped countries where the insect menace is
greatest. Is there something better we can do to help feed the doubled population of 2000?
Actually, the 1960s are seeing the development of an exciting new way of battling insects, a
way that makes the insects fight themselves, so to speak. To understand how this should be,
let's consider how insects grow.
An insect has two chief stages to its life. In its young form, it is a "larva"; later on, it is an
"adult." The two forms are very often completely different in appearance.
Consider the caterpillar, for instance. It is a larva, a wingless, wormlike creature with stumpy
little leg-like structures. Eventually, though, it becomes a moth or butterfly, with the usual six
legs of the insect, and often with gorgeous wings. Similarly, the housefly develops out of its
egg as a tiny, wormlike "maggot."
The reason for two such different forms is that the two have widely different specialities. The
larva spends almost all its time eating and growing. It is almost what we might call an eating
machine with all its makeup concentrated on that. The adult, on the other hand, is an egglaying machine. Sometimes adult insects do nothing but lay eggs. Mayflies live less than a
day after they reach the adult stage and don't even have proper eating apparatus. In their short
adult life they just lay eggs; they don't have to eat.
The change from larva to adult is called "metamorphosis." Sometimes the metamorphosis is
not a very startling one. A young grasshopper looks quite grasshopperish, for instance.
Where the metamorphosis is a thoroughgoing one, as in the case of the caterpillar, the insect
must pause in its life cycle to make the enormous change within its body. It is almost as
though it must go back into an original egg stage and start again. It becomes a motionless,
apparently dead object, slowly changing within and making itself over until it is ready to step
forth as an adult. In this motionless intermediate stage it is called a "pupa."
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There are insect species which act in such a way as to protect this defenceless pupa stage. In
its final period as a larva, it will produce thin jets of liquid from special openings in its
abdomen. These jets harden into a tough fibre which the larva weaves round about itself until
it is completely enclosed. This is the "cocoon" within which the pupa remains hidden till
metamorphosis is done. It is the fibre from the cocoon of the silkworm moth that provides
mankind with silk.
All this requires careful organization. For instance, it is a problem for a larva just to grow.
The larva is surrounded by a thin, but tough, cuticle made of a substance called "chitin." This
protects it and gives it an anchor for its muscles, but chitin doesn't expand with the body.
As a larva grows, its cuticle becomes tighter and tighter about it. Finally, the cuticle splits and
is shed. The larva is said to "moult." From the split cuticle, the larva wriggles. It is expanded
now and is distinctly bigger now that the cuticle which had been holding it in like a tight
girdle is gone. A new, but roomier, cuticle quickly forms and within it the larva grows again.
But what makes the cuticle split at just the right time? The answer is that there is an automatic
chemical control involved. Any living creature is a complex setup of automatic self-regulating
chemical machinery. This is true even of the human being and it was only at the very opening
of-the twentieth century that biologists began to have an inkling as to how some of this
machinery worked.
In the human being there is a large gland called the pancreas. It manufactures a digestive juice
which enters the small intestine and mixes with food emerging from the stomach. The
interesting thing is that the pancreas doesn't bother wasting its juice when the small intestine
is empty. Nothing happens until food enters the small intestine and then, instantly, the
pancreatic juice starts flowing.
Something automatic must be involved and in 1902, two English biologists, William
Maddock Bayliss and Ernest Henry Starling, discovered what it was.
The food in the stomach is mixed with a strongly acid juice. When the food emerges from the
stomach and enters the small intestine, the touch of its acidity has a chemical effect on the
intestinal lining and causes it to produce a substance which Bayliss and Starling called
"Secretin."
Secretin is discharged into the bloodstream and is carried to all the body. When it reached the
pancreas, it brings about a chemical effect that causes the pancreas to begin to manufacture
and discharge its juice.
Secretin is a substance which rouses the pancreas to activity. In 1905, Bayliss suggested that
secretin, and all other substances like it, be called "hormones," from a Greek word meaning
"to arouse."
The process of moulting seems to be an automatic process controlled by a hormone. As the
larva grows, there is growing pressure from the cuticle. When the pressure reaches a certain
point, a hormone is triggered. It pours into the larva's bloodstream and when it reaches the
cuticle that cuticle is made to split.
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The hormone that does this has been given the name "ecdysone," from a Greek word meaning
"to moult."
But moulting doesn't go on forever. After a certain number of moults, there is a sudden
change. Instead of continuing to grow in order to prepare the way for still another moult, the
larva begins to undergo metamorphosis instead.
Can this be because a second hormone is involved? Is there a second hormone that suddenly
appears after a certain number of moults and brings about the metamorphosis?
Not quite. In 1936, an English biologist, Vincent Brian Wigglesworth, was working with a
certain disease-spreading, blood-sucking bug called Rhodnius. In the course of his
experiments, he thought it would be useful to see what would happen if he cut off the head of
the larva of these bugs.
Naturally, if you cut off the head of a mammal or a bird, the creature would die and that
would be all. An insect, however, is far less dependent on its head, and life could continue in
some ways.
But different parts of the body produce different hormones and some can be produced in the
head. By cutting off the head of a larva, Wigglesworth could tell what hormones the insect
head might be producing. After all, the headless larva would grow differently than one with a
head would and the differences might be at least partly due to the missing head-hormones.
Wigglesworth did indeed notice a change. As soon as he had cut off the head, the larva went
into a moult and emerged as an adult. (Rhodnius was not one of the bugs that went through a
pupa stage.)
It did this even when it was nowhere near ready for such a change. It hadn't moulted enough
times; it was far too small. Yet it did change and a miniature adult would appear.
But if metamorphosis was caused by the production of a hormone, how could cutting off the
head produce it? Cutting off the head should cause the loss of a hormone, not its production.
Wigglesworth argued that the head produced a hormone that prevented metamorphosis. As
long as it was produced ecdysone, the moulting hormone, did its work; the larva moulted and
grew, moulted and grew. At a certain point, though, in the course of the life of the normal
insect, something happened which cut off the supply of this head hormone. Without that
hormone, ecdysone couldn't work even though it was present, and metamorphosis began.
If the head were cut off, the supply of the hormone was destroyed at once and metamorphosis
began even though the insect body wasn't really ready for it.
Wigglesworth called this hormone from the insect head "juvenile hormone" because it kept
the insect in its juvenile, or youthful, form. He also located tiny glands, barely visible without
a microscope, behind the brain of the larva and these, Wigglesworth was certain, produced the
hormone.
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What Wigglesworth found to be true of Rhodnius was true of other insects, too; of the
silkworm caterpillar, for instance. It seems that all insects that undergo metamorphosis do so
because the supply of juvenile hormone stops at a certain time.
Wigglesworth's suggestion about the glands in the head was quickly shown to be correct. In
1938, a French biologist, Jean Bounhiel, worked out a delicate technique for removing the
tiny hormone-producing glands from a small silkworm caterpillar and placing them in a large
one.
The large silkworm caterpillar was about ready to enter its pupal stage, which meant that its
glands had stopped producing juvenile hormone. The glands from the small caterpillar,
however, were still capable of producing the hormone. When the glands from the small
caterpillar were grafted into
the large one, the large caterpillar suddenly found itself with a new supply of juvenile
hormone. Instead of entering the pupal stage, it continued to moult one or two extra times.
Naturally, it continued to grow, too, and when it finally did switch to the pupa, it was a
considerably larger-than-normal one, and out of it emerged a considerably larger-than-normal
adult moth.
At this point, Carroll Williams of Harvard University stepped onto the scene. He transferred
hormone-producing glands, not to another larva, but to the pupa of a silkworm. The pupa was
well along in metamorphosis. It wasn't supposed to be exposed to any juvenile hormone at all;
it was past that stage. But what if juvenile hormone were forced upon it?
Williams had his answer at once. The presence of juvenile hormone seemed to stop the
metamorphosis, or at least slow it down. When the adult moth finally appeared it was
incomplete. Some of it had not changed over.
Williams found that the more gland material he inserted into the pupa, the more incomplete
the metamorphosis. He could use the amount of incompleteness of metamorphosis to judge
how much juvenile hormone were present in the glands at different stages in the life of the
larva.
He could also determine if there were juvenile hormone anywhere else in an insect body, and
here he stumbled over something that was a complete surprise.
In 1956, Williams found that an insect called the "Cecropia moth" produced a large quantity
of juvenile hormone just before entering the adult stage, after having passed through the pupa
stage entirely without it. Why they do this nobody knows.
This juvenile hormone is stored in the abdomen of the moth for some reason. Only the male
moth does it, not the female. Only one other kind of moth, as far as is known, stores juvenile
hormone in this fashion. All other insects do not.
Even if biologists don't know the reason for any of this, it still turned out to be a useful fact.
The tiny glands that produce juvenile hormone in larvas contain so little that it is just about
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impossible to extract a useful amount. The reserve supply in the abdomen of the male
Cecropia moth is so large, on the other hand, that the hormone can be produced in visible
quantities.
Williams produced an extract from the abdomens of many such moths; a few drops of golden
oil that contained huge quantities of juvenile hormone. Now he had plenty of material with
which he could experiment further.
One Cecropia abdomen supplied enough hormone to block completely the metamorphosis of
ten pupas of almost any kind of moth or butterfly. The extract did not even have to be injected
into the pupa. If some were just applied to the skin of the pupa, enough hormone leaked into
the inner tissues to upset the metamorphosis.
The metamorphosis could be so badly upset, if enough juvenile hormone were used, that the
pupa could not develop at all. It simply died.
The thought at once occurred to Williams that here might be a potential insecticide that would
have great advantages over every other kind known. After all, it turned the insect's own
chemistry against itself.
An insect couldn't grow resistant to juvenile hormone, as it could to any other sort of
insecticide. It had to respond to its own hormones. If it didn't, it would die.
In other words, an insect had to respond to juvenile hormone at the right time or it would die.
And if it did respond at the right time, then it would also respond at the wrong time and still
die. Either way, the insect was dead.
Even more important, the juvenile hormone would be no danger to forms of life other than
insects. It affected only insects and has no effect whatever (as far as has been found so far) on
any form of life other than insects.
Of course, it is one thing to kill a few pupas in a laboratory and quite another to kill vast
quantities out in the fields. Thousands of tons of insecticides are needed for the work that
must be done and it would be impossible to get thousands of tons out of Cecropia moths.
If only the chemical structure of the juvenile hormone were known. It would then be possible
to manufacture it from other chemicals; or else manufacture something that was close enough
to do the job. Unfortunately, the structure was not known.
Williams and a colleague, John Law, sat in their Harvard Laboratories one summer day in
1962, wondering if they could reason out what the structure might be. A lab assistant,
listening to them, suggested a particular type of compound as a joke.
John Law thought he would go along with the gag. It wouldn't be too difficult to make the
compound, or something with a name very like the lab assistant's joke. With scarcely any
trouble at all, he produced an oily solution of a mixture of substances which he intended to
show the young assistant and say, "Well, here is the compound you joked about."
Still as long as he had it, he tried it first on insect pupas. To John Law's everlasting surprise, it
worked! It worked unbelievably well. It was over a thousand times as powerful as the extract
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from Cecropia abdomens. An ounce of Law's solution would kill all the insects over an area
of two and one-half acres-at least all the insects that were metamorphosing.
This substance is "synthetic juvenile hormone." It contains at least four different chemicals,
and none of them seems to have a structure like that of the natural hormone.
Synthetic juvenile hormone works on all insects tested, including the mosquito that spreads
yellow fever and the louse that spreads typhus. Yet it doesn't affect any creature other than
insects. It would be no danger to birds, fish, mammals, or man.
Still, killing all insects is a little too much. That would upset the balance of nature.
We want to kill only certain insects, only one species out of a thousand. This could be done
perhaps with the natural juvenile hormone. Each different group of species of insects
manufactures its own kind of juvenile hormone which works for itself but not for others.
Perhaps then, you can use a particular juvenile hormone and get just the insect you're after
and no other kind.
For instance, a biologist in Prague, Czechoslovakia, named Karel Sláma, was trying to make
natural juvenile hormone work on a harmless insect called the "red linden bug." He used the
technique developed by Carroll Williams, but the extract from Cecropia moths didn't affect
the red linden bugs. It might kill moths and butterflies but it had no effect at all on the red
linden bugs. The red linden bugs must have a juvenile hormone so different from those of
moths and butterflies that the effects didn't cross.
Williams heard of these experiments and was most curious. In the summer of 1965, Williams
asked Sláma to bring his red linden bugs to Harvard and to come with them. Sláma came, and
together the two men began to grow the bugs. In Prague, Sláma had grown them by the tens
of thousands and their way of growing was always the same. The larvas went through exactly
five moults and then moved into the adult stage. (The red linden bug does not go through a
pupa stage.)
Yet at Harvard this did not happen. Bug after bug went through the fifth moult. Then, instead
of changing into an adult, they stayed larvas and tried to moult a sixth time. Usually, they
didn't make it, but died. In the few cases where a bug survived the sixth moult, they died
when they attempted a seventh moult. About 1,500 insects died in the Harvard laboratories,
where none had died in Prague.
Why? It was as though the bugs had received a dose of juvenile hormone and couldn't stop
being larvas-but no juvenile hormone had been given them.
Williams and Sláma tried to think of all possible differences between the work at Harvard and
the work in Prague. In Harvard, the red linden bugs were surrounded by all sorts of other
insects which were involved in juvenile hormone experiments. Perhaps some of the hormone
got across somehow. The other insects were therefore removed but the red linden bugs still
died.
Could the glassware have been contaminated during cleaning? Maybe. So Williams ordered
new glassware that had never been used. The bugs still died.
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Could there be something wrong with the city water? Williams got spring water, but the bugs
still died.
Altogether fourteen different possibilities were thought of and thirteen were cancelled out.
One thing remained, and one only Strips of paper were placed into the jars in which the red linden bugs were grown. They were
slanted against the sides, as a kind of path for the bugs to scurry along. (That seemed to keep
them more active and in better health.) Of course, the paper used at Harvard was not the same
as the paper used in Prague. Williams was, in fact, using strips of ordinary paper towels
produced by a local manufacturer.
Williams proceeded to check that. He used strips of chemically pure filter paper instead. At
once, the bugs stopped dying.
There was something in the paper towels that acted like juvenile hormone and upset the
chemical machinery of the larvas. It kept them moulting after they should have stopped doing
so and that killed them. Williams called the mysterious substance that did this the "paper
factor." Later, it received the more chemical sounding name of "juvabione."
Williams and Sláma went on to try all kinds of paper. They found that almost any American
newspaper and magazine contained the factor. Red linden bug larvas that crawled over them
never made it to the adult stage. On the other hand, paper from Great Britain, the European
continent, or Japan, did not have it and the bugs lived well on such paper. (That's why they
lived in Prague.)
Could it be that American manufacturers put something in paper that other manufacturers did
not? A check with the manufacturers showed they didn't. Well, then, what about the trees
from which the paper was made.
They began to test extracts from the trees and found one called the "balsam fir" which was
much used for American paper but which did not grow in Europe. It was particularly rich in
paper factor, and this paper factor could be obtained from the tree in large quantities.
Here is an interesting point. The paper factor works on only one group of insect species, the
one to which the red linden bug happens to belong. If Sláma had brought with him some
insect from another group of species, the paper factor might have gone undiscovered.
The paper factor is an example of an insecticide that will kill only one small group of insects
and won't touch anything else. Not only are fish, birds, and mammals safe, but so are all
insects outside that one group of species.
To be sure, the red linden bug is harmless and there is no purpose in killing it, but the red
cotton bug, which eats up half of India's cotton crop, is closely related to it. The red cotton
bug can also be hit by the paper factor and experiments are underway to see how well it will
work in India's cotton fields.
Paper factor catches bugs at the time of their metamorphosis. This is better than nothing but it
still isn't quite as good as it might be. By the time the metamorphosis is reached, the insect has
spent a lot of time as a larva-eating, eating, eating.
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Then any insects that happen to survive the paper factor for some reason can lay a great many
eggs. They will develop into larvas that will eat and eat and eat and will only be caught at the
metamorphosis.
It would be better if insects were caught at the beginning of the larval stage rather than at the
end.
And they can be! It turns out that the eggs, like the period of metamorphosis, must be free of
juvenile hormone. In 1966, Sláma placed eggs of the red linden bug on paper containing the
factor and-if the eggs were fresh enough and weren't already on the point of hatching-they
didn't hatch.
Then he tried it on adult females that were ready to lay eggs but hadn't laid them yet. He
placed a drop of the factor on the adult's body and found that it worked its way inside and,
apparently, even into the eggs. At least such a female laid eggs that didn't hatch.
The paper factor was more valuable than ever now, for it could be used to catch the insects at
the very beginning of their life.
But why should the balsam fir possess a compound that acts like juvenile hormone? The
answer seems clear. Insects eat plants and plants must have developed methods of selfprotection over the millions of years of evolution.
A good method of self-protection is for the plants to develop substances that taste bad to
insects or that kill them. Plants which happen to develop such substances live and flourish
better than those that don't.
Naturally, a plant would develop a substance that would affect the particular insects that are
dangerous to it. It seemed that if biologists were to make extracts from a large variety of
plants, they might find a variety of substances that would kill this type of insect or that. In the
end, they would have, perhaps, a whole collection of insecticides to use on particular insect
pests. We would be able to attack only the insects we want to attack and leave the rest of
nature alone. By 1968, indeed, some fifteen such plant self-defence chemicals were located.
Then, too, in 1967, Williams took another step in this direction, while with an expedition
exploring the interior of the South American country Brazil. There the large river Rio Negro
flows into the Amazon. The name means "Black River" because its waters are so dark.
Williams -noticed there were surprisingly few insects about the banks of the river and
wondered if the trees might not contain considerable paper factor of different kinds. Then he
wondered if the darkness of the river water might not come from its soaking substances out of
the trees that lined its bank. If so, the river water might contain all kinds of paper factors.
Tests have shown that the Rio Negro does have insecticide properties. Perhaps many different
paper factors will be extracted from it in endless supply. Perhaps other rivers may be found to
be as useful.
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In 1968, Sláma synthesized a hormone like compound which was the most powerful yet. An
insect treated with such a hormone would pass a bit of it on to any other insect with which it
mated. One treated insect could sterilize hundreds of others.
So things look quite hopeful. Between the supplies found in nature and between the chemicals
that can be formed in the laboratory, we may get our insect enemies at last.
This will mean that man's supply of food and fibre will increase. It will mean that a number of
diseases will no longer threaten him, and he will be able to work harder to produce goods.
In that case, we may well be able to feed, clothe, and take care of all the billions who will
swell Earth's population in the next forty years or so.... And by that time we may have learned
to control our own numbers and we will then be safe.
From: Twentieth Century Discovery by Isaac Azimov
2 - In The Beginning: The Origin Of Life
The first chapter dealt with a scientific search that had a very practical goal-ways of killing
dangerous insects. When you solve the problem, there is no mistake about it; the insects die.
But there are also problems that are much more difficult to tackle; problems that are so
complicated it is even hard to tell whether we are on the road to solving them, or just in a
blind alley. Yet they are problems so important that man's curiosity forces him to tackle them
anyway.
Consider the question: What is life?
There is no plain answer yet and some scientists wonder if there ever can be. Even the
simplest form of life is composed of very complex substances that are involved in so many
numerous complicated chemical changes that it is almost hopeless to try to follow them. What
parts of those changes make up the real basis of life? Do any of them?
The problem is so enormous that it is like a continent that must be explored at different points.
One group of explorers follows a huge river inland; another group may follow jungle trails
elsewhere; while a third sets up a camel caravan into the desert.
In the same way, some biologists analyze the behaviour of living animals under various
conditions; others study the structure of portions of tissue under microscopes while still others
separate certain chemicals from tissue and work with them. All such work contributes in its
own way to increasing knowledge concerning life and living things.
Enormous advances have indeed been made. The two greatest biological discoveries of the
nineteenth century were 1) that all living creatures are constructed of cells, and 2) that life has
slowly developed from simple creatures to more complex ones.
The first discovery is referred to as the "cell theory," the second as the "theory of evolution."
Both theories made the problem of life seem a little simpler. Cells are tiny droplets of living
substance marked off from the rest of the world by a thin membrane. They are surprisingly
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alike no matter what creature they are found in. A liver cell from a fish and one from a dog
are much more similar than the whole fish and dog are.
Perhaps if one could work out all the details of what makes individual cells alive, it would not
be so difficult to go on and get an understanding about whole creatures.
Then, too, consider that there was a gradual development of complex organisms from simpler
ones. In that case, it might well be that all creatures that exist today developed from the same
very simple one that existed long ages ago. There would then be only one form of life,
existing in many different varieties. If you understood what made a housefly alive, or even a
germ, you ought then understand what makes a man alive.
But these nineteenth century theories also raised a new problem. The more people
investigated cells and evolution, the more clear it became that all living creatures came from
other living creatures; all cells came from other cells. New life, in other words, is only formed
from old life. You, for example, are born of your parents.
Yet there must have been a time in the early history of the Earth when there was no life upon
it. How, then, did life come to be? This is a crucial question, for if scientists knew how the
first life was formed on a world that had no life on it, they might find they had taken a big
step forward in understanding what life is.
Some nineteenth century scientists were aware of this question and understood its importance.
Charles Darwin, the English biologist who first presented the theory of evolution to the world
in its modern form, speculated on the subject. In a letter written to a friend in 1871, he
wondered if the kind of complex chemicals that make up living creatures might not have been
formed somewhere in a "warm little pond" where all the ingredients might be present.
If such complex compounds were formed nowadays, tiny living creatures existing in that
pond would eat them up at once. In a world where there was no life, however, such
compounds would remain and accumulate. In the end, they might perhaps come together in
the proper way to form a very simple kind of life.
But how can one ever find out? No one can go back billions of years into the past to look at
the Earth as it was before life was on it. Can one even be sure what conditions were like on
such an Earth, what chemicals existed, how they would act?
So fascinating was the question of life's origin, however, that even if there was no real
information, some scientists were willing to guess.
The twentieth century opened with a very dramatic guess that won lots of attention. The
person making the guess was a well-known Swedish chemist, Svante August Arrhenius. In
1908, he published a book, Worlds in the Making, in which he considered some new
discoveries that had recently been made.
It had just been shown that light actually exerted a push against anything it shone upon. This
push was very small, but if the light were strong and an object were tiny, the light-push would
be stronger than gravity and would drive the object away from the Sun.
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The size of particles that could most easily be pushed by sunlight was just about the size of
small cells. Suppose cells were blown, by air currents, into the thin atmosphere high above the
Earth's surface. Could they then be caught by the push of sunlight and driven away from the
Earth altogether? Could they then go wandering through space?
That might be so but wouldn't the cells then die after having been exposed to the vacuum of
outer space?
Not necessarily. It had also been discovered that certain bacterial cells could go into a kind of
suspended animation. If there was a shortage of food or water, they could form a thick wall
about themselves. Within the wall, the bit of life contained in the cell could wait for years, if
necessary, without food or water from the outside. They could withstand freezing cold or
boiling heat. Then, when conditions had improved, the wall would break away and the
bacterial cell could start to live actively once more.
Such walled cells in suspended animation are called "spores." Arrhenius argued that such
spores, driven by the push of light, could wander through space for many years, perhaps for
millions of years, without dying.
Eventually, such spores might strike some object. It might be some tiny asteroid or some other
cold world without air or water. The spore would have to remain a spore forever, until even its
patient spark of life winked out. Or it might strike a world so hot as to cause it to scorch to
death.
But what if the spore struck a world with a warm, pleasant atmosphere and with oceans of
water? Then it would unfold and begin to live actively. It would divide and redivide and form
many cells like itself. Over long periods of time, these cells would grow more complicated.
They would evolve and form many-celled creatures. In the end, the whole planet would
become a home for millions of species of life.
Is that how life originated on Earth itself, perhaps? Once long ago; billions of years ago; did a
spore from a far distant planet make its way into Earth's atmosphere? Did it fall into Earth's
ocean and begin to grow? Is all the life on Earth, including you and I, the descendant of that
little spore that found its way here?
It was a very attractive theory and many people were pleased with it, but alas, there were two
things wrong with it.
In the first place, it wouldn't work. It was true that bacterial spores would survive many of the
conditions of outer space, but not all. After Arrhenius' book had been published, astronomers
began to learn more about what it was like in outer space. They learned more about the sun's
radiation for instance.
The sun gives out not visible light alone, but all kinds of similar radiation that might be less
energetic or more energetic than light itself.
It radiates infrared waves and radio waves, which are less energetic than ordinary light. It also
radiates ultraviolet waves and x rays, which are more energetic than ordinary light. The more
energetic radiation is dangerous to life.
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Much of the energetic radiation is absorbed by Earth's atmosphere. None of the x rays and
very little ultraviolet manage to make their way down to Earth's surface, under a blanket of air
miles and miles thick. Even so, if we stand on the beach on a sunny summer day, enough
ultraviolet light reaches us to penetrate the outer layers of the skin and to give us sunburn (if
we are fair-skinned).
In outer space, the ultraviolet light and x rays are present in full force. They easily penetrate a
spore wall and kill the spark of life inside.
If spores were drifting towards our solar system from other stars, they might strike the
outermost planets without harm, but on Pluto or on Neptune they would find conditions too
cold for development. As they drifted inward towards Earth, they would be coming into
regions where sunlight was stronger and stronger. Long before they could actually reach our
planet, the energetic radiation in sunlight would have killed them.
It would seem then that spores, giving rise to the kind of life we now have on Earth, couldn't
possibly have reached Earth alive.
Then, too, another flaw in Arrhenius's theory is that it doesn't really answer the question of
how life began. It just pushes the whole problem back in time. It says that life didn't begin on
Earth but on some other planet far away and long ago and that it reached our world from that
other planet. In that case, how did life start on that other planet? Did it reach that other planet
from still another planet?
We can go back and back that way but we must admit that originally life must have started on
some planet from nonliving materials. Now that is the question. How did life do that? And if
life started somewhere from non-living materials, it might just as well have done so on Earth.
So don't let's worry about the possibility of life starting elsewhere and reaching Earth. Let us
concentrate on asking how life might have started on earth itself from non-living materials.
Naturally, we ought to try to make the problem as simple as possible. We wouldn't expect
non-living substances to come together and suddenly form a man, or even a mouse, or even a
mosquito. It would seem reasonable that before any creature even as complicated as a
mosquito was formed, single cells would have come into existence; little bits of life too small
to be seen except under a microscope.
Creatures exist, even today, that are made up of just one cell. The amoeba is such a creature.
Thousands of different species of one-celled plants and animals exist everywhere. There are
also the bacteria, which are composed of single cells even smaller than those of the one-celled
plants and animals.
But these cells are complicated, too; very complicated. They are surrounded by membranes
made up of many thousands of complex molecules arranged in very intricate fashion. Inside
that membrane are numerous small particles that have a delicately organized structure.
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It seems hopeless to expect the chemicals in a non-living world to come together and
suddenly form even as much as a modern bacterial cell. We must get down to things that are
even simpler.
Every cell contains chemicals that don't seem to exist in the non-living world. When such
chemicals are found among non-living surroundings, we can be sure that those surroundings
were once alive, or that the substances were originally taken from living cells.
This seems to be so clear that early in the nineteenth century chemists began to speak of two
kinds of substances. Chemicals that were associated with living creatures, or organisms, were
called "organic." Those that were not were "inorganic."
Thus, wood and sugar are two very common organic substances. They are certainly not alive
in themselves. You may be sitting in a wooden chair, and you can be sure that it is no more
alive than if it were made of stone. However, that wood, as you know very well, was once
part of a living tree.
Again, the sugar you put on your morning cereal is certainly not alive. Still, it was once part
of a living sugar cane or sugar beet plant.
Salt and water, on the other hand, are inorganic substances. They are found in all living
organisms, to be sure; your own tears, for instance, are nothing but a solution of salt in water.
However, they are not found only in organisms and did not originate only in organisms. There
is a whole ocean of salt water that we feel pretty sure existed in some form or other before life
appeared on this planet.
(Beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century, chemists began to form new compounds
that were not to be found in nature. They were very similar in many ways to organic
compounds, though they were never found in living organisms or anywhere else outside the
chemists' test tubes. These "synthetic" compounds were, nevertheless, lumped together with
the organic group because of the similarity in properties.)
It would seem then we could simplify our problem. Instead of asking how life began out of
non-living substances, we could begin by asking how organic substances came to be formed
out of inorganic substances in the absence of life.
To answer that question, we ought to know in what way organic substances differ from
inorganic ones.
Both organic and inorganic substances are made up of "molecules"; that is, of groups of atoms
that cling together for long periods of time. Organic molecules are generally larger and more
complicated than inorganic ones. Most inorganic molecules are composed of a couple of
dozen atoms at most; sometimes only two or three atoms. Organic molecules, however,
usually contain well over a dozen atoms and may, indeed, be made up of hundreds, thousands,
or even millions of atoms.
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When we ask how organic compounds may be formed from inorganic compounds, then, we
are really asking how large and complicated molecules might be formed from small and
simple ones.
Chemists know that to force small and simple molecules to join together to form large and
complicated ones, energy must be added. This is no problem, really, for a very common
source of a great deal of energy is sunlight, and in the early lifeless Earth, sunlight was
certainly blazing down upon the ocean. We will come back to that later.
It is also true that the different kinds of atoms within molecules cannot change their nature
under ordinary circumstances. The large organic molecules in living matter must be formed
from small and simple molecules that contain the same kinds of atoms.
We must ask ourselves what kinds of atoms organic molecules contain.
There are over a hundred different kinds of atoms known today (each kind making up a
separate "element"). Over eighty are found in reasonable quantities in the inorganic
substances making up the Earth's crust. Only half a dozen of these elements, however, make
up the bulk of the atoms in organic molecules.
The six types of atoms occurring most frequently in organic molecules are carbon, hydrogen,
oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulphur. We can let each one be represented by its initial
letter: C, H, O, N, P,. and S. The initial letters could also stand for a single atom of each
element. C could be a carbon atom, H a hydrogen atom, and so on.
Of these elements, carbon is, in a way, the crucial one. Carbon atoms can combine with each
other to form long chains, which can branch in complicated ways. They can also form single
rings or groups of rings; or, for that matter, rings with chains attached. To the carbon atoms
arranged in any of these ways, other atoms can be attached in different manners.
These complicated chains and rings of carbon atoms are found only in organic compounds,
never in inorganic compounds. It is this which makes organic molecules larger and more
complicated than inorganic ones.
Carbon atoms can be hooked together in so many ways, and can attach other atoms to
themselves in so many ways that there is almost no end to the different variations. And
each different variation is a different substance with different properties.
Hundreds of thousands of different organic compounds are known today. Every year many
more organic compounds are discovered and there is no danger of ever running out of new
ones. Uncounted trillions upon trillions of such compounds can exist.
This seems to make the problem of the origin of life more difficult again. If we are trying to
find out how organic substances are formed from inorganic ones, and if there are uncounted
trillions upon trillions of organic substances possible, how can we decide which organic
substance ought to be formed and which were formed in the past.
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Suppose, though, we can narrow down the choice. Not all organic compounds are equally
vital to life. Some of them seem to be more central to the basic properties of life than others
are.
All cells without exception, whether plant, animal, or bacterial, seem to be built about two
kinds of substances that are more important than any others. These are "proteins" and "nucleic
acids."
Even viruses can be included here. They are tiny objects, far smaller than even the smallest
cells, yet they seem to be alive since they can invade cells and multiply there. They, too,
contain proteins and nucleic acids. Some viruses, in fact, contain practically nothing else but
proteins and nucleic acids.
Now we have narrowed the problem. We must not ask how organic compounds were built up
out of inorganic ones, but how proteins and nucleic acids were built up out of them.
That still leaves matters complicated enough. Both proteins and nucleic acids are made up of
very large molecules, often containing millions of atoms. It is too much to expect that small
inorganic molecules would come together suddenly to form a complete molecule of protein or
nucleic acid.
Let's look more closely at such giant molecules. Both proteins and nucleic acids are composed
of simpler structures strung together like beads on a necklace. Both protein and nucleic acid
molecules can be treated chemically in such a way that the string breaks and the individual
"building blocks" separate. They can then be studied separately.
In the case of the protein molecule, the building blocks are called "amino acids." The
molecule of each amino acid is built around a chain of three atoms, two of which are carbon
and one nitrogen. We can write this chain as -C-C-N-.
There would be different atoms attached to each of these. The atoms attached to the carbon
and nitrogen atoms at the end are always the same in all the amino acids obtained from
proteins (with a minor exception we needn't worry about). The carbon atom in the middle,
however, can have any of a number of different atom-groupings attached to it. If we call this
atom-grouping R, then the amino acid would look like this:
Each different structure for R results in a slightly different amino acid. Altogether there are
nineteen different amino acids that are found in almost every protein molecule. The simplest
R consists of just a hydrogen atom. The rest all contain different numbers of carbon and
hydrogen atoms, while some contain one or two oxygen atoms in addition, or one or two
nitrogen atoms, or even one or two sulphur atoms. Individual amino acids are made up of
from eleven to twenty-six atoms.
Although there are only nineteen different amino acids in most proteins, they can be put
together in many different ways, each way making up a slightly different molecule. Even a
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middle-sized protein molecule is made up of several hundred of these amino acids and the
number of different combinations is enormous.
Imagine yourself to be given several hundred beads of nineteen different colours and that you
set to work to string them. You could make necklaces of many trillions of different colour
combinations. In the same way, you could imagine protein molecules of many trillions of
different amino acid combinations.
In thinking of the origin of life, then, you don't have to worry, just at first, about forming
complicated protein molecules. That would come later. To begin with, it would be satisfying
to know whether the amino acid building blocks could be formed and, if so, how.
The nucleic acids are both simpler and more complicated than the protein. Nucleic acid
molecules are made up of fewer different kinds of building blocks but the individual building
block is more complicated.
The huge nucleic acid molecule is made up of long chains of smaller compounds known as
"nucleotides," each of which is made up of about three dozen atoms. These include carbon,
hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and phosphorus.
An individual nucleotide molecule is made up of three parts. First there is a one-ring or tworing combination made up of carbon and nitrogen atoms. If there is only one ring, this portion
is called a "pyrimidine"; two rings is a "purine."
The second portion is made up of a ring of carbon and oxygen atoms. This comes in two
varieties. One is called "ribose"; the other, with one fewer oxygen atom, is "deoxyribose."
Both these compounds belong to the class called sugars.
Finally, the third part is a small atom group containing a phosphorus atom. It is the
"phosphate group."
We might picture a nucleotide as follows:
purine or
pyrimidine
-
ribose or
phosphate
deoxyribose
group
There are two kinds of nucleic acid molecules. One of them is built up of nucleotides that all
contain ribose. This is, there fore, "ribosenucleic acid" or RNA. The other is built up of
nucleotides that all contain deoxyribose; "deoxyribosenucleic acid" or DNA.
In both cases, individual nucleotides vary in the particular kind of purine or pyrimidine they
contain. Both RNA and DNA are made up of chains of four different nucleotides. Even
though there are only four different nucleotides, so many of them are present in each
enormous nucleic acid molecule that they can be arranged in trillions upon trillions of
different ways.
Now that we have decided we want to form amino acids and nucleotides out of inorganic
compounds, we must ask out of what inorganic compounds we can expect them to be formed.
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We must have inorganic compounds, to start with, that contain the right atoms: carbon,
hydrogen, oxygen, and the rest.
To begin with, there is the water molecule in the oceans. That is made up of two hydrogen
atoms and an oxygen atom and it can therefore be written H2O. Then there is the carbon
dioxide of the air, which dissolves in the ocean water and which is made up of a carbon atom
and two oxygen atoms, C02. Water and carbon dioxide can supply carbon, hydrogen, and
oxygen, three of the necessary elements.
Also dissolved in ocean water are substances that are called nitrates, sulphates, and
phosphates. They contain nitrogen atoms, sulphur atoms, and phosphorus atoms respectively.
These substances all have certain properties in common with ordinary table salt and can be
lumped together as "salts."
What we have to ask ourselves now is this: Is it possible that once long ago, when the world
was young, water, carbon dioxide, and salts combined to form amino acids and nucleotides. If
so, how was it done?
There are certain difficulties in this thought.
To begin with, in order for water, carbon dioxide, and salts to form amino acids and
nucleotides, oxygen atoms must be discarded. There is much more oxygen in water, carbon
dioxide, and salts, than there is in amino acids and nucleotides.
But Earth's atmosphere contains a great deal of oxygen. To discard oxygen, when oxygen is
already all about, is very difficult. It is like trying to bail the water out of a boat that is resting
on the lake bottom.
Secondly, it takes energy to build up amino acids and nucleotides out of simple inorganic
molecules and the most likely source is sunlight. Just sunlight isn't enough, however. To get
enough energy, you must use the very energetic portion of the sunlight; you must use
ultraviolet waves.
But very little of the ultraviolet waves gets down to the surface of the Earth. The air absorbs
most of it. When scientists studied the situation more closely it turned out that it was the
oxygen in the air that produced the substance that absorbed the ultraviolet.
So oxygen was a double villain. It kept the ultraviolet away from the surface of the Earth and
its presence made it very difficult to discard excess oxygen.
To be sure, the plant life that covers the land and fills the sea is carrying through just the sort
of thing we are talking about and doing it right now. Plants absorb water, carbon dioxide, and
salts and use the energy of sunlight to manufacture all sorts of complicated organic
compounds out of them. In doing so, they discard oxygen and pour it into the atmosphere.
However, to do this, plants make use of visible light, not ultraviolet waves. Visible light
(unlike ultraviolet waves) can penetrate the atmosphere easily, so that it is available for the
plants to use. Visible light has considerably less energy than ultraviolet waves but the plants
make use of it anyway.
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You might wonder if this could not have happened on the early Earth. Suppose the energy of
visible light had been used to build up the amino acids and nucleotides.
It doesn't seem likely, though, that it could have happened that way. The reason it happens
now is that plants make use of a complicated chemical system that includes a substance
known as "chlorophyll." Chlorophyll is an organic compound with a most complicated
molecule that is formed only by living organisms.
In thinking of the early Earth, a planet without life on it, we must suppose that chlorophyll
was absent. Without chlorophyll, the energy of visible light is not enough to form amino acids
and nucleotides. The more energetic ultraviolet waves are necessary and that can't pass
through our atmosphere.
We seem to be stuck.
But then, in the 1920s, an English biochemist, John Burdon Sanderson Haldane, suggested
that oxygen had not always existed in Earth's atmosphere.
After all, plant life is always using up carbon dioxide and producing oxygen, as it forms
organic substances from inorganic substances. Might it not be that all the oxygen that is now
in the Earth's atmosphere is the result of plant action? Before there was life, and therefore
before there were plants, might not the atmosphere have been made up of nitrogen and carbon
dioxide, instead of nitrogen and oxygen, as today?
If that were the case, ultraviolet waves could get right down to the Earth's surface without
being much absorbed. And, of course, oxygen could be discarded with much greater ease.
The suggestion turned the whole question in a new direction. It wasn't proper to ask how
amino acids and nucleotides might be formed from small compounds that are now available
under conditions as they exist now. Instead we must ask how amino acids and nucleotides
might be formed from small compounds that would be available when the Earth was a young
and lifeless planet under conditions as they existed then.
It became necessary to ask, then, what kind of an atmosphere and ocean the Earth had before
life developed upon it.
That depends on what the universe is made up of, generally. In the nineteenth century, ways
were worked out whereby the light from the stars could be analyzed to tell us what elements
were to be found in those stars (and even in the space between the stars).
Gradually, during the early decades of the twentieth century, astronomers came more and
more to the conclusion that by far the most common atoms in the universe were the two
simplest: hydrogen and helium. In general, you can say that 90 percent of all the atoms in the
universe are hydrogen and 9 percent are helium. All the other elements together make up only
1 percent or less. Of these other elements, the bulk was made up of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen,
sulphur, phosphorus, neon, argon, silicon, and iron.
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If that is so, then you might expect that when a planet forms out of the dust and gas that fills
certain sections of space, it ought to be mostly hydrogen and helium. These are the gases that
would make up most of the original atmosphere.
Helium atoms do not combine with any other atoms, but hydrogen atoms do. Because
hydrogen atoms are present in such quantities, any type of atom that can combine with
hydrogen will do so.
Each carbon atom combines with four hydrogen atoms to form "methane" (CH4). Each
nitrogen atom combines with three hydrogen atoms to form "ammonia" (NH3). Each sulphur
atom combines with two hydrogen atoms to form "hydrogen sulphide" (H2S). And, of course,
oxygen atoms combine with hydrogen to form water.
These hydrogen-containing compounds are all gases, or liquids that can easily be turned into
gases, so they would all be found in the primitive atmosphere and ocean.
The silicon and iron atoms, together with those of various other fairly common elements such
as sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium, don't form gases. They make up the solid
core of the planet.
This sort of logic seems reasonable, for a large, cold planet like Jupiter was found, in 1932, to
have just this sort of atmosphere. Its atmosphere is chiefly hydrogen and helium, and it
contains large quantities of ammonia and methane.
Jupiter is a huge planet, however, with strong gravitation. Smaller planets like Earth, Venus,
or Mars, have gravitation that is too weak to hold the very small and very nimble helium
atoms or hydrogen molecules. (Each hydrogen molecule is made up of two hydrogen atoms,
H2.)
On Earth, therefore, we would expect the very early atmosphere to contain mostly ammonia,
methane, hydrogen sulphide, and water vapour. Most of the water would go to make up the
ocean and in that ocean would be dissolved ammonia and hydrogen sulphide. Methane is not
very soluble but small quantities would be present in the ocean also.
If we began with such an atmosphere, would it stay like that forever? Perhaps not. Earth is
fairly close to the sun and a great deal of ultraviolet waves strike the Earth's atmosphere.
These ultraviolet waves are energetic enough to tear apart molecules of water vapour in the
upper atmosphere and produce hydrogen and oxygen.
The hydrogen can't be held by Earth's gravity and drifts off into space, leaving the oxygen
behind. (Oxygen forms molecules made up of two oxygen atoms each, 02, and these are heavy
enough to be held by Earth's gravity.)
The oxygen does not remain free, however. It combines with the carbon and hydrogen atoms
in methane to form carbon dioxide and water. It wouldn't combine with the nitrogen atoms of
ammonia, but it would combine with the hydrogen to form water, leaving the nitrogen over to
form molecules made up of two atoms each (N2).
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Little by little, as more and more water is broken apart by ultraviolet light, all the ammonia
and methane in the atmosphere is converted to nitrogen and carbon dioxide. In fact, the
planets Mars and Venus seem to have a nitrogen plus carbon dioxide atmosphere right now.
You might wonder, though, what could happen if all the ammonia and methane were
converted to nitrogen and carbon dioxide and if water molecules continued to break up into
hydrogen and oxygen. The oxygen would not have anything more to combine with. Perhaps it
would gradually accumulate in the air.
This, however, would not happen. As free oxygen accumulates, the energy of sunlight turns
some of it into a three-atom combination called "ozone" (O3). This ozone absorbs the
ultraviolet light of the sun and because the ozone layer forms about fifteen miles high in the
atmosphere, the ultraviolet light is shielded from the regions of the atmosphere where water
vapour exists.
No further water molecules can be broken up and the whole process comes to an end before
oxygen can really fill the atmosphere. It is only later on when plants develop and make use of
chlorophyll to tap the energy of visible light which can get through the ozone layer that the
process begins again. After plants come on the scene, the atmosphere fills with oxygen.
So we have three atmospheres for Earth. The first, "Atmosphere I" was chiefly ammonia,
methane, and water vapour, with an ocean containing much ammonia in solution.
"Atmosphere II" was chiefly nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and water vapour, with an ocean
containing much carbon dioxide in solution. Our present atmosphere "Atmosphere III," is
chiefly nitrogen, oxygen, and water vapour, with an ocean in which only small quantities of
gas are dissolved.
Atmosphere III formed only after life had developed, so life must have originated in the first
place in either Atmosphere I or Atmosphere II (or possibly while Atmosphere I was changing
into Atmosphere II) .
Haldane had speculated that life had originated in Atmosphere II, but a Russian biochemist,
Alexander Ivanovich Oparin, thought otherwise.
In 1936, he published a book called The Origin of Life, which was translated into English in
1938. Oparin was the first to go into the problem of the origin of life in great detail, and he
felt that life must have originated in Atmosphere I.
How was one to decide which was the correct answer? How about experiment? Suppose you
were actually to start with a particular mixture of gases that represents an early atmosphere
and add energy in the way it might have been added on the early Earth. Will more
complicated compounds be formed out of simple ones? And if they are, will they be the kind
of compounds that are found in living creatures?
The first scientist who actually tried the experiment was Melvin Calvin at the University of
California.
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In 1950, he began to work with a portion of Atmosphere 11- carbon dioxide and water
vapour. The fact that he left out nitrogen meant that he couldn't possibly form nitrogen
containing molecules, like amino acids and nucleotides. However, he was curious to see what
he would get.
What he needed, to get anything at all, was a source of energy. He might have used ultraviolet
waves, the most likely source on the early Earth, but he preferred not to.
Instead, he made use of the energy of certain kinds of atoms that were always exploding.
They were "radioactive" atoms. The radioactive elements on Earth are very slowly breaking
down so that every year there are very slightly less than the year before. Several billion years
ago there must have been twice as much radioactivity in the Earth's crust as there is now. The
energy of radioactivity could therefore have been important in forming life.
Since Melvin Calvin was engaged in experimental work that made use of radioactive
substances, he had a good supply
of them to work with. He bombarded his gas mixture with flying particles released by
radioactive atomic explosions. After a while, he tested the gas mixture and found that in
addition to carbon dioxide and water, he had some very simple organic molecules in solution.
He had, for instance, a molecule containing one carbon atom, two hydrogen atoms, and one
oxygen atom (CH2O), which was well known to chemists under the name of "formaldehyde."
He also had formic acid, which has a second oxygen atom, and has a formula written HCOOH
by chemists.
This was just a beginning but it showed a few important things. It showed that molecules
could be made more complicated under early Earth conditions. For another the complicated
molecules contained less oxygen than the original molecules, so that oxygen was being
discarded.
In 1953 came an important turning point, something that was the key discovery in the search
for the origin of life. It came in the laboratories of Harold Clayton Urey at the University of
Chicago.
Urey was one of those who had tried to reason out the atmosphere of the early Earth, and, like
Oparin, he felt it was in Atmosphere I that life might have got its start. He suggested to one of
his students, Stanley Lloyd Miller, that he set up an experiment in which energy would be
added to a sample of Atmosphere I. (At the time Miller was in his early twenties, working for
his Ph.D. degree.)
Miller set up a mixture of ammonia, methane, and hydrogen in a large glass vessel. In another
glass vessel, he boiled water. The steam that was formed passed up a tube and into the gas
mixture. The gas mixture was pushed by the steam through another tube back into the boiling
water. The second tube was kept cool so that the steam turned back into water before dripping
back into the hot water.
The result was that a mixture of ammonia, methane, hydrogen, and water vapour was kept
circulating through the system of vessels and tubes, driven by the boiling water. Miller made
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very certain that everything he used was completely sterile; that there were no bacteria or
other cells in the water or in the gases. (If he formed complicated compounds he wanted to
make sure they weren't formed by living cells.)
Next, energy had to be supplied. Urey and Miller reasoned that two likely sources of energy
were ultraviolet light from the sun and electric sparks from lightning. (There may have been
numerous thunderstorms in Earth's early days.)
Of the two, ultraviolet light is easily absorbed by glass and there was a problem as to how to
get enough energy through the glass into the chemicals within. Miller therefore thought that as
a first try he would use an electric spark like a small bolt of lightning. Through the gas in one
portion of the system he therefore set up a continuing electric spark.
Now it was only necessary to wait.
Something was happening. The water and gases were colourless to begin with, but by the end
of one day, the water had turned pink. As the days continued to pass, the colour grew darker
and darker, till it was a deep red.
After a week, Miller was ready to see what he had formed in his water reservoir. Fortunately,
he had at his disposal a new technique for separating and identifying tiny quantities of
chemical substances. This is called "paper chromatography" and it had been first developed in
1944 by a group of English chemists.
Like Calvin, Miller found that the simple gas molecules had combined with each other to
form more complicated molecules, discarding oxygen atoms.
Again like Calvin, Miller found that formic acid was an important product. He also found,
however, that compounds had been formed which were similar to formic acid but were more
complicated. These included acetic acid, glycolic acid,
and lactic acid, all substances that were intimately associated with life.
Miller had begun with a nitrogen-containing gas, ammonia, which Calvin had lacked. It is not
surprising, therefore, that Miller ended up with some molecules that contained nitrogen as
well as carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. He found some hydrogen cyanide, for instance, which
is made up of a carbon atom, a hydrogen atom, and a nitrogen atom in its molecule (HCN).
He also found urea, which has molecules made up of two nitrogen atoms, four hydrogen
atoms, a carbon atom, and an oxygen atom (NH2CONH2).
Most important of all, though, Miller discovered among his products two of the nineteen
amino acid building blocks that go to make up the various protein molecules. These were
"glycine" and "alanine," the two simplest of all the amino acids, but also the two that appear
most frequently in proteins.
With a single experiment, Miller seemed to have accomplished a great deal. In the first place,
these compounds had formed quickly and in surprisingly large quantities. One-sixth of the
methane with which he had started had gone into the formation of more complex organic
compounds.
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He had only worked for a week, and with just a small quantity of gas. How must it have been
on the early Earth, with its warm ocean, full of ammonia, and with winds of methane blowing
over it, all baking under the sun's ultraviolet radiation or being lashed by colossal lightning
bolts for a billion years?
Millions of tons of these complex compounds must have been formed, so that the ocean
became a kind of "warm soup." Secondly, the kind of organic molecules formed in Miller's
experiment proved particularly interesting. Among the first compounds formed were simple
amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. In fact, the path taken by the simple molecules as
they grew more complex seemed pointed directly towards life. No molecules were formed
that seemed to point in an unfamiliar direction.
Suppose that, as time went on, more and more complicated molecules were built up, always in
the direction of compounds now involved with life and not in other directions. Gradually,
bigger and bigger molecules would form as building blocks would join together. Finally,
something like a real protein molecule and nucleic acid molecule would form and these would
eventually associate with each other in a very simple kind of cell.
All this would take a lot of time, to be sure. But then, there was a whole ocean of chemicals to
work with, and there was lots of time - a billion years, at least.
Miller's experiment was only a beginning, but it was an extremely hopeful beginning. When
its results were announced, a number of biochemists (some of whom were already thinking
and working in similar directions) began to experiment in this fashion.
In no time at all, Miller's work was confirmed; that is, other scientists tried the same
experiment and got the same results. Indeed, Philip Hauge Abelson, working at the Carnegie
Institution of Washington, tried a variety of experiments with different gases in different
combinations.
It turned out that as long as he began with molecules that included atoms of carbon, hydrogen,
oxygen, and nitrogen somewhere in their structure, he always found amino acids included
among the substances formed. And they were always amino acids of the kind that served as
protein building blocks.
Nor were electric discharges the only source of energy that would work. In 1959, two German
scientists, Wilhelm Groth and H. von Weyssenhoff, tried ultraviolet waves and they also got
amino acids.
It could be no accident. There was a great tendency for atoms to click together in such a way
as to produce amino acids. Under the conditions that seemed to have prevailed on the early
Earth, it appeared impossible not to form amino acids.
By 1968, every single amino acid important to protein structure had been formed in such
experiments. The last to be formed were certain important sulphur-containing amino acids,
according to a report from Pennsylvania State University and from George Williams
University in Montreal.
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Perhaps other important compounds also couldn't help but form. Perhaps they would just
naturally come together to form the important large molecules of living tissue.
If that is so, life may be no "miracle." It couldn't help forming, any more than you can help
dropping downward if you jump off a building. Any planet that is something like the Earth,
with a nearby sun and a supply of water and an atmosphere full of hydrogen compounds,
would then have to form life. The kinds of creatures that eventually evolved on other worlds
would be widely different and might not resemble us any more than an octopus resembles a
gorilla. But, the chances are, they would be built up of the same chemical building blocks as
we.
More and more, scientists are beginning to think in this way, and they are beginning to
speculate that life may be very common in the universe.
Of course, on planets that are quite different from Earth; much bigger and colder, like Jupiter,
or much smaller and hotter, like Mercury, our kind of life could not form. On the other hand,
other kinds of life, based on other types of chemistry, might be formed. We have no way of
telling.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves. Miller's experiments were enough to start speculation
of this sort, but it was still important to check matters. A couple of amino acids weren't
enough. What about the nucleotides, which served as building blocks for nucleic acids? (Since
the 1940s, biochemists have come to believe that nucleic acids are even more important than
proteins.)
One could repeat Miller's experiment for longer and longer periods, hoping that more and
more complicated molecules would be formed. However, as more and more kinds of
compounds were formed, there would be less and less of each separate kind, and it would
become more difficult to spot each one.
Possibly, one could start with bigger and bigger quantities of gases in the first place. Even so,
the large number of complicated molecules that would be formed would confuse matters.
It occurred to some experimenters to begin not at the beginning of Miller's experiment, but at
its end. For instance, one of the most simple products of Miller's experiment was hydrogen
cyanide, HCN.
Suppose you assumed that this gas was formed in quantity in Earth's early ocean and then
started with it. In that way you would begin partway along the road of development of life and
carry it on further.
At the University of Houston, a Spanish-born biochemist, Juan Oro, tried just this in 1961. He
found that not only amino acids were formed once he added HCN to the starting mixture, but
individual amino acids were hooked together in short chains, in just the way in which they are
hooked together in proteins.
Even more interesting was the fact that purines were formed, the double rings of carbon and
nitrogen atoms that are found in nucleotides. A particular purine called "adenine" was
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obtained. This is found not only in nucleic acids but in other important compounds associated
with life.
As the 1960s opened, then, imitations of the chemical environment of the early Earth were
being made to produce not only the building blocks of the proteins, but the beginnings of the
nucleotide building blocks of the nucleic acids.
It was just the beginnings in the latter case. The nucleotides contained not only purines but
also the somewhat similar, but simpler, one-ringed compounds, the pyrimidines. Then there
were the sugars, ribose and deoxyribose. And, of course, there was the phosphate group.
The experimenters bore on. All the necessary purines and pyrimidines were formed. The
sugars proved particularly easy. Sugar molecules are made up of carbon, hydrogen, and
oxygen atoms only. No nitrogen atoms are needed. That reminded one of Calvin's original
experiment. Calvin had obtained formaldehyde (CH20) from carbon dioxide and water. What
if one went a step farther and began with formaldehyde and water.
In 1962, Oro found that if he began with formaldehyde in water and let ultraviolet waves fall
upon it, a variety of sugar molecules were formed, and among them were ribose and
deoxyribose.
What next?
Purines and pyrimidines were formed. Ribose and deoxyribose were formed. Phosphate
groups didn't have to be formed. They existed in solution in the ocean now, and very likely
did then, in just the form they existed in inorganic molecules.
One researcher who drove onward was a Ceylon-born biochemist, Cyril Ponnamperuma, at
Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California. He had conducted experiments in which
he had, as a beginning, formed various purines with and without hydrogen cyanide. He had
formed them through the energy of beams of electrons (very light particles) as well as
ultraviolet waves.
In 1963, he, along with Ruth Mariner and Carl Sagan, began a series of experiments in which
he exposed a solution of adenine and ribose to ultraviolet waves. They hooked together in just
the fashion they were hooked together in nucleotides. If the experimenters began with
phosphate also present in the mixture, then the complete nucleotide was
formed. Indeed, by 1965, Ponnamperuma was able to announce that he had formed a double
nucleotide, a molecule consisting of two nucleotides combined in just the fashion found in
nucleic acids.
By the middle 1960s, then, it seemed clear to biochemists that the conditions on the early
Earth were capable of leading to the formation of a wide variety of substances associated with
life. These would certainly include the amino acids and nucleotides, those building blocks that
go to make up the allimportant proteins and nucleic acids. Furthermore, these building blocks
hook together under early conditions to make up the very chains out of which proteins and
nucleic acids are formed.
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All the raw materials for life were there on the early Earth, all the necessary chemicals. But
life is more than just chemicals. There are all sorts of chemical changes going on in living
organisms, and they must be taken into account. Atoms and groups of atoms are shifting here,
shifting there, coming apart and reuniting in different ways.
Many of these changes won't take place unless energy is supplied. If we're dealing with the
ocean, the energy is supplied by the sun's ultraviolet radiation, or in other ways. But what
happens inside the tiny living creatures once they come into existence?
Actually, there are certain chemicals in living creatures which break up easily, releasing
energy. Such chemicals make it possible for important chemical changes to take place that
would not take place without them. Without such chemicals life as we know it would be
impossible no matter how many proteins and nucleic acids built up in the early ocean.
Could it be that some of the energy of sunlight went into the production of these energy-rich
compounds? In that case, everything necessary for life might really be supplied.
The best-known of the energy-rich compounds is one called "adenosine triphosphate," a name
that is usually abbreviated as ATP. It resembles a nucleotide to which two additional
phosphate groups (making three altogether) have been added.
If, then, adenine, ribose, and phosphate groups are exposed to ultraviolet waves and if they
hook together to form a nucleotide containing one phosphate group, perhaps we can go
farther. Perhaps longer irradiation or the use of more phosphate to begin with will cause them
to hook together to form ATP, with three phosphate groups. Ponnamperuma tried, and it
worked. ATP was formed.
In 1967 a type of molecule belonging to a class called "porphyrins" was synthesized from
simpler substances by Ponnamperuma. Belonging to this class is the important chlorophyll
molecule in green plants.
No one doubts now that all the necessary chemicals of life could have been produced in the
oceans of the early Earth by chemical reactions under ultraviolet.
To be sure, the life that was formed at first was probably so simple that we might hesitate to
call it life. Perhaps it consisted of a collection of just a few chemicals that could bring about
certain changes that would keep the collection from breaking apart. Perhaps it would manage
to bring about the formation of another collection like itself.
It may be that life isn't so clear-cut a thing that we can point a finger and say: Right here is
something that was dead before and is now alive.
There may be a whole set of more and more complex systems developing over hundreds of
millions of years. To begin with, the systems would be so simple that we couldn't admit they
were alive. To end with, they would be so complex that we would have to admit they were
indeed alive. But where, in between, would be the changeover point?
We couldn't tell. Maybe there is no definite changeover point. Chemical systems might just
slowly become more and more "alive" and where they passed the key point, no one could say.
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With all the successful production of compounds that followed the work of Calvin and Miller,
there still remained the question of how cells were formed. The experimenters who formed
compounds recognized that that question would have to be answered somehow.
No one type of compound is living, all by itself. Everything that seems living to us is a
mixture of all sorts of substances which are kept close together by a membrane and which
react with each other in a very complicated way.
There are viruses, to be sure, which are considered alive and which sometimes consist of a
single nucleic acid molecule wrapped in a protein shell. Such viruses, however, don't really
get to work in a truly living way till they can get inside some cell. In there, they make use of
cell machinery.
Haldane, who had started the modern attack on the problem, wondered how cells might have
formed. He pointed out that when oil is added to water, thin films of oil sometimes form
bubbles in which tiny droplets of water are enclosed.
Some of the compounds formed by the energy of ultraviolet light are oily and won't mix with
water. What if they were to form a little bubble and just happen to enclose a proper mixture of
protein, nucleic acid, and other things? Today's cell membrane may be the development of
that early oily film.
Oparin, the Russian biochemist, went into further detail. He showed that proteins in solution
might sometimes gather together into droplets and form a kind of skin on the outside of those
droplets.
The most eager experimenter in this direction, once Miller's work had opened up the problem,
was Sidney W. Fox at the University of Miami. It seemed to him that the early Earth must
have been a hot planet indeed. Volcanoes may have kept the dry land steaming and brought
the ocean nearly to a boil.
Perhaps the energy of heat alone was sufficient to form complex compounds out of simple
ones.
To test this, Fox began with a mixture of gases like that in Atmosphere I (the type that Oparin
suggested and Miller used) and ran them through a hot tube. Sure enough, a variety of amino
acids, at least a dozen, were formed. All the amino acids that were formed happened to be
among those making up proteins. No amino acids were formed that were not found in
proteins.
Fox went a step farther. In 1958, he took a bit of each of the various amino acids that are
found in protein, mixed them together, and heated the mixture. He found that he had driven
the amino acids together, higgledy-piggledy, into long chains which resembled the chains in
protein molecules. Fox called these chains "proteinoids" (meaning "protein-like"). The
likeness was a good one. Stomach juices, which digest ordinary protein, would also digest
proteinoids. Bacteria, which would feed and grow on ordinary protein, would also feed and
grow on proteinoids.
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Most startling of all, when Fox dissolved the proteinoids in hot water and let the solution cool,
he found that the proteinoids clumped together in little spheres about the size of small
bacteria. Fox called these "microspheres."
These microspheres are not alive, but in some ways they behaved as cells do. They are
surrounded by a kind of membrane. Then, by adding certain chemicals to the solution, Fox
could make the microspheres swell or shrink, much as ordinary cells do. The microspheres
can produce buds, which sometimes seem to grow larger and break off. Microspheres can
divide in two or cling together in chains.
Not all scientists accept Fox's arguments, but what if, on the early Earth, more and more
complicated substances were built up, turning the ocean into the "warm soup" we spoke of.
What if these substances formed microspheres? Might it not be that, little by little, as the
substances grew more complicated and the microspheres grew more elaborate, that eventually
an almost-living cell would be formed? And after that, a fully living one?
Before life began, then, and before evolutionary changes in cells led to living creatures that
were more and more complicated, there must first have been a period of "chemical evolution."
In this period, the very simplest gases of the atmosphere and ocean gradually become more
and more complicated until life and cells formed.
All these guesses about the origin of life, from Haldane on, are backed up by small
experiments in the laboratory and by careful reasoning. Is it possible that we might find traces
of what actually happened on the early Earth if we look deep into the Earth's crust.
We find out about ordinary evolution by studying fossils in the crust. These are the remains of
ancient creatures, with their bones or shells turned to stone. From these stony remains we can
tell what they looked like and how they must have lived.
Fossils have been found deep in layers of rock that must be 600 million years old. Before that
we find hardly anything. Perhaps some great catastrophe wiped out the earlier record. Perhaps
forms of life existed before then that were too simple to leave clear records.
Actually, in the 1960s discoveries were reported of traces left behind by microscopic one-cell
creatures in rocks that are more than two billion years old. Prominent in such research is Elso
Sterrenberg Barghoorn of Harvard. It is a good guess that there were simple forms of life on
Earth at least as long as three billion years ago.
If we are interested in discovering traces of the period of chemical evolution, then, we must
search for still older rocks. In them, we might hope to find chemicals that seem to be on the
road to life.
But will chemicals remain unchanged in the Earth for billions of years? Can we actually find
such traces if we look for them?
Certainly the important chemicals of life, the proteins and nucleic acids, are too complex to
remain unchanged for long after the creature they were in dies and decomposes. In a very
short time, it would seem, they must decompose and fall apart.
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And yet, it turns out, sometimes they linger on, especially when they are in a particularly
well-protected spot. Abelson, one of the people who experimented with early atmospheres,
also worked with fossils. He reasoned that living bones and shell contain protein. Bones may
be 50 percent protein. Clam shells have much less, but there is some. Once such bones and
shells are buried deep in the Earth's crust, remaining there for millions of years while they
turned to stone, it might be that some of the protein trapped between thin layers of mineral
might survive.... Or at least they might break down to amino acids or short chains of amino
acids that might survive.
Painstakingly, Abelson dissolved these ancient relics and analyzed the organic material he
extracted. There were amino acids present all right, exactly the same amino acids that are
present in proteins of living creatures. He found some even in a fossil fish which might have
been 300 million years old.
Apparently, then, organic compounds last longer than one might think and Melvin Calvin
began the search for "chemical fossils" in 1961.
In really old rocks, it is unlikely that the organic chemicals would remain entirely untouched.
The less hardy portions would be chipped away. What would linger longest would be the
chains and rings of carbon atoms, with hydrogen atoms attached. These compounds of carbon
and hydrogen only are called "hydrocarbons."
Calvin has isolated hydrocarbons from ancient rocks as much as three billion years old. The
hydrocarbons have molecules of a complicated structure that looked very much as though
they could have originated from chemicals found in living plants.
J. William Schopf of Harvard, a student of Barghoorn, has gone even further. He has detected
traces of 22 different amino acids in rocks more than three billion years old.
They are probably the remnants of primitive life. It is necessary now to probe farther back and
find chemical remnants that precede life and show the route actually taken.
Very likely it will be the route worked out by chemists in their experiments, but possibly it
won't be.
We must wait and see. And perhaps increasing knowledge of what went on in the days of
Earth's youth will help us understand more about life now.
From: Twentieth Century Discovery by Isaac Azimov
3 - Littler And Littler: The Structure Of Matter
One of the words that fascinates scientists in the 1960s is "quark."
No one has ever seen a quark or come across one in any way. It is far too small to see and no
one is even sure it exists. Yet scientists are anxious to build enormous machines costing
hundreds of millions of dollars to try to find quarks, if they exist.
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This is not the first time scientists have looked for objects they weren't sure existed, and were
too small to see even if they did exist. They were doing it as early as the very beginning of the
nineteenth century.
In 1803, an English chemist, John Dalton, suggested that a great many chemical facts could
be explained if one would only suppose that everything was made up of tiny particles, too
small to be seen under any microscope. These particles would be so small that there couldn't
be anything smaller. Dalton called these particles "atoms" from Greek words meaning "not
capable of being divided further." Dalton's suggestion came to be called the "atomic theory."
No one was sure that atoms really existed, to begin with, but they did turn out to be very
convenient. Judging by what went on in test tubes, chemists decided that there were a number
of different kinds of atoms.
When a particular substance is made up of one kind of atom only, it is an "element." Iron is an
element, for instance, and is made up only of iron atoms. Gold is an element; so is the oxygen
in the air we breathe.
Atoms can join together into groups and these groups are called "molecules." Oxygen atoms
get together in groups of two and these two-atom oxygen groups are called oxygen molecules.
The oxygen in the air is made up of oxygen molecules, not of separate oxygen atoms.
Atoms of different elements can come together to form molecules of "compounds." Water is a
compound with molecules made up of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom.
Dalton and the nineteenth century chemists who followed him felt that every atom was just a
round little ball. There was no reason to think there was anything more to it than that. They
imagined that if an atom could be seen under a very powerful microscope, it would turn out to
be absolutely smooth and shiny, without a mark.
They were also able to tell that the atom was extremely small. They weren't quite certain
exactly how small it was but nowadays we know that it would take about 250 million atoms
laid side by side to stretch across a distance of only one inch.
The chief difference between one kind of atom and another kind, in the nineteenth century
view, lay in their mass, or weight. Each atom had its own particular mass, or "atomic weight."
The hydrogen atom was the lightest of all, and was considered to have an atomic weight of l.
An oxygen atom was about sixteen times as massive as a hydrogen atom, so it had an atomic
weight of 16. A mercury atom had an atomic weight of 200, and so on.
As the nineteenth century wore on, the atomic theory was found to explain more and more
things. Chemists learned how atoms were arranged inside molecules and how to design new
molecules so as to form substances that didn't exist in nature.
By the end of the century, the atomic theory seemed firmly established. There seemed no
room for surprises.
And then, in 1896, there came a huge surprise that blew the old picture into smithereens. The
chemists of the new twentieth century were forced into a new series of investigations that led
them deep into the tiny atom.
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What happened in 1896 was that a French physicist, Antoine Henri Becquerel, discovered
quite by accident that a certain substance had properties no one had ever dreamed of before.
Becquerel had been interested in x rays, which had only been discovered the year before. He
had samples of a substance containing atoms of the heavy metal uranium in its molecules.
This substance gave off light of its own after being exposed to sunlight and Becquerel
wondered if this light might include x rays.
It didn't, but Becquerel found it gave off mysterious radiations of some kind; radiations that
went right through black paper and fogged a photographic film. It eventually turned out that it
was the uranium atoms that were doing it. The uranium atoms were exploding and hurling
small fragments of themselves in every direction.
Scientists had never expected atoms could explode, but here some of them were doing it. A
new word was invented. Uranium was "radioactive."
Other examples of radioactivity were found and physicists began to study the new
phenomenon with great interest as the twentieth century opened.
One thing was clear at once. The atom was not just a hard, shiny ball that could not be divided
into smaller objects. Small as it was, it had a complicated structure and was made up of many
objects still smaller than atoms. This had to be, for the uranium atom, in exploding, hurled
outward some of these still smaller "subatomic particles."
One of the most skillful of the new experimenters was a New Zealander, Ernest Rutherford.
He used the subatomic particles that came flying out of radioactive elements and made them
serve as bullets. He aimed them at thin films of metal and found they passed right through the
metal without trouble. Atoms weren't hard shiny balls at all. Indeed, they seemed to be mostly
empty space.
But then, every once in a while, one of the subatomic bullets would bounce off sharply. It had
hit something hard and heavy somewhere in the atom.
By 1911, Rutherford was able to announce that the atom was not entirely empty space. In the
very centre of the atom was a tiny "atomic nucleus" that contained almost all the mass of the
atom. This nucleus was so small that it would take about 100,000 of them, placed side by side,
to stretch across the width of a single atom.
Outside the nucleus, filling up the rest of the atom, were a number of very light particles
called "electrons." Each different kind of atom had its own particular number of electrons.
The hydrogen atom had only a single electron; the oxygen atom had eight; the iron atom had
twenty-six; the uranium atom had ninety-two, and so on.
All electrons, no matter what atom they are found in, are alike in every way. All of them, for
instance, carry an electric charge. There are two kinds of electric charges-positive and
negative. All electrons carry a negative electric charge and the charge is always of exactly the
same size. We can say that every electron has a charge of just -1.
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The atomic nucleus has an electric charge, too, but a positive one. The charge on the nucleus
just balances the charge on the electrons. A hydrogen atom has a single electron with a charge
of -l. Therefore, the charge on the hydrogen nucleus is +1.
An oxygen atom has eight electrons with a total charge of -8. The oxygen nucleus has a
charge of +8, therefore. You can see, then, that the iron nucleus would have to have a charge
of +26, the uranium nucleus one of +92, and so on.
Both parts of the atom-the tiny nucleus at the centre and the whirling electrons outside-have
been involved in unusual discoveries since Rutherford made his announcement in 1911. In
this chapter, however, we are going to be concerned only with the nucleus.
Naturally, physicists were interested in knowing whether the atomic nucleus was a single
particle. It was so much smaller than the atom that it would seem reasonable to suppose that
here at last was something as small as it could be. The atom had proved a surprise, however,
and scientists were not going to be too sure of the nucleus either.
Rutherford bombarded atoms with subatomic particles, hoping to discover something about
the nucleus if he hit them enough times.
He did. Every once in a while, when one of his subatomic bullets hit a nucleus squarely, that
nucleus changed its nature. It became the nucleus of a different variety of atom. Rutherford
first discovered this in 1919.
This change of one nucleus into another made it seem as though the nucleus had to be a
collection of still smaller particles. Changes would come about because the collection of still
smaller particles was broken apart and rearranged.
The smallest nucleus was that of the hydrogen atom. That had a charge of +1 and it did indeed
seem to be composed of a single particle. Nothing Rutherford did could break it up (nor have
we found a way to do so even today). Rutherford therefore considered it to be composed of a
single particle which he called a "proton."
The proton's charge, +1, was exactly the size of the electron's, but it was of the opposite kind.
It was a positive electric charge, rather than a negative one.
The big difference between the proton and electron, however, was in mass. The proton is
1,836 times as massive as the electron though to this day physicists don't know why that
should be so.
It soon seemed clear that the nuclei of different atoms had different electric charges because
they were made up of different numbers of protons. Since an oxygen nucleus had a charge of
+8, it must contain eight protons. In the same way, an iron nucleus contained twenty-six
protons and a uranium nucleus ninety-two protons.
This is why the nucleus contains just about all the mass of the atom, by the way. The nucleus
is made up of protons which are so much heavier than the electrons that circle about outside
the nucleus.
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But a problem arose at this point that plagued physicists all through the 1920s. The protons
could account for the electric charge of the nucleus, but not for all its mass. Because the
oxygen nucleus had a charge of +8, it therefore had to contain eight protons, but it also had a
mass that was sixteen times as great as a single proton and therefore twice as great as all eight
protons put together. Where did the extra mass come from?
The uranium nucleus had a charge of +92 and therefore had to contain ninety-two protons.
However, the mass of the uranium nucleus was two and a half times as great as all those
ninety-two protons put together. Where did that come from?
Physicists tried to explain this in several ways that proved to be unsatisfactory. A few,
however, speculated that there might be particles in the nucleus that were as heavy as protons
but that didn't carry an electric charge.
Such uncharged particles, if they existed, would add to the mass of the nuclei without adding
to the electric charge. They would solve a great many puzzles concerning the nucleus, but
there was one catch.
There seemed no way of detecting such uncharged particles, if they existed. To see why this is
so, let's see how physicists were detecting ordinary charged particles in the 1920s.
Physicists used a number of techniques for the purpose, actually, but the most convenient had
been invented in 1911 by a Scottish physicist, Charles Thomson Rees Wilson.
He had begun his career studying weather and he grew interested in how clouds came to form.
Clouds consist of very tiny droplets of water (or particles of ice) but these don't form easily in
pure air. Instead, each one forms about a tiny piece of dust or grit that happens to be floating
about in the upper air. In the absence of such dust, clouds would not form even though the air
was filled with water vapour to the very limit it would hold, and more.
It turned out also that a water droplet formed with particular ease, if it formed about a piece of
dust that carried an electric charge.
With this in mind, Wilson went about constructing a small chamber into which moist air
could be introduced. If the chamber were expanded, the air inside would expand and cool.
Cold air cannot hold much water vapour, so as the air cooled the vapour would come out as a
tiny fog.
But suppose the moist air introduced into the chamber were completely without dust. Then
even if the chamber were expanded and the air cooled, a fog would not form.
Next suppose that a subatomic particle comes smashing through the glass and streaks into the
moist air in the chamber. Suppose also that the particle is electrically charged.
Electric charges have an effect on one another. Similar charges (two negatives or two
positives) repel each other; push each other away. Opposite charges (a negative and a
positive) attract each other.
If a negatively charged particle, like an electron, rushes through the air, it repels other
electrons it comes near. It pushes electrons out of the atoms with which it collides. A
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positively charged particle, like a proton, attracts electrons and pulls them out of the atom. In
either case, atoms in the path of electrically charged particles lose electrons.
What is left of the atom then has a positive electrical charge, because the positive charge on
the nucleus is now greater than the negative charge on the remaining electrons. Such an
electrically charged atom is called an "ion."
Water droplets, which form with particular ease about electrically charged dust particles, also
form with particular ease about ions. If a subatomic particle passes through the moist air in the
cloud chamber just as that air is cooled, droplets of water will form about the ions that the
subatomic particle leaves in its track. The path of the subatomic particle can be photographed
and the particle can be detected by the trail it leaves.
Suppose a cloud chamber is placed near a magnet. The magnet causes the moving subatomic
particle to curve in its path. It therefore leaves a curved trail of dewdrops.
The curve tells volumes. If the particle carries a positive electric charge, it curves in one
direction and if it carries a negative electric charge it curves in the other. The more massive it
is, the more gently it curves. The larger its charge, the more sharply it curves.
Physicists took many thousands of photographs of cloud chambers and studied the trails of
dewdrops. They grew familiar with the kind of tracks each particular kind of particle left.
They learned to tell from those tracks what was happening when a particle struck an atom, or
when two particles struck each other.
Yet all of this worked well only for charged particles. Suppose a particle didn't carry an
electric charge. It would have no tendency to pull or push electrons out of an atom. The atoms
would remain intact and uncharged. No ions would be formed and no water droplets would
appear. In other words, an uncharged particle would pass through a cloud chamber without
leaving any sign.
Still, might it not be possible to detect an uncharged particle indirectly? Suppose you faced
three men, one of whom was invisible. You would only see two men and if none of them
moved you would have no reason to suspect that the third man existed. If, however, the
invisible man were suddenly to push one of his neighbours, you would see one of the men
stagger. You might then decide that a third man was present but invisible.
Something of the sort happened to physicists in 1930. When a certain metal called beryllium
was exposed to a spray of subatomic particles, a radiation was produced by it which could not
be detected by cloud chamber.
How did anyone know there was that radiation present then? Well, if paraffin were placed
some distance away from the beryllium, protons were knocked out of it. Something had to be
knocking out those protons.
In 1932, an English physicist, James Chadwick, argued that the radiation from beryllium
consisted of uncharged particles. These particles were electrically neutral and they were
therefore called "neutrons."
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Neutrons were quickly studied, not by cloud chamber, but by the manner in which they
knocked atoms about, and much was learned. It was found that the neutron was a massive
particle, just a trifle more massive than the proton. Where the proton was 1,836 times as
massive as the electron, the neutron was 1,839 times as massive as the electron.
Physicists now found that they had a description of the structure of the nucleus that was better
than anything that had gone before. The nucleus consisted of both protons and neutrons. It
was the neutrons that accounted for the extra mass of the nucleus.
Thus, the oxygen nucleus had a charge of +8 but a mass of 16. That was because it was made
up of 8 protons and 8 neutrons. The uranium nucleus had a charge of +92 and a mass of 238;
it was made up of 92 protons and 146 neutrons. The atomic nucleus, small as it was, did
indeed consist of still smaller particles (except in the case of hydrogen). Indeed, the nuclei of
the more complicated atoms were made up of a couple of hundred smaller particles.
This does not mean that there weren't some serious questions raised by this proton-neutron
theory of nucleus structure. For instance, protons are all positively charged and positively
charged particles repel each other. The closer they are, the more strongly they repel each
other. Inside the atomic nucleus, dozens of protons are pushed together so closely they are
practically touching. The strength of the repulsion must be enormous and yet the nucleus
doesn't fly apart.
Physicists began to wonder if there was a special pull, or force, that held the protons together.
This force had to be extremely strong to overcome the "electromagnetic force" that pushed
protons apart. Furthermore, the new force had to operate only at very small distances, for
when protons were outside nuclei, they repelled each other with no sign of any attraction.
Such a strong attraction that could be felt only within nuclei is called a "nuclear force."
Could such a nuclear force exist? A Japanese physicist, Hideki Yukawa, tackled the problem
shortly after the neutron was discovered. He carefully worked out the sort of thing that would
account for such an extremely strong and extremely short-range force.
In 1935, he announced that if such a force existed, then it might be built up by the constant
exchange of particles by the protons and neutrons in the nucleus. It would be as though the
protons and neutrons were tossing particles back and forth and held firmly together as long as
they were close enough to toss and catch. As soon as the neutrons and protons were far
enough apart so that the particles couldn't reach, then the nuclear force would be no longer
effective.
According to Yukawa, the exchange particle should have a mass intermediate between that of
the proton and the electron. It was therefore eventually named a "meson" from a Greek work
meaning "intermediate."
But did the meson really exist?
The best way of deciding whether it existed and if Yukawa's theory was actually correct was
to detect the meson inside the nucleus, while it was being tossed back and forth between
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protons and neutrons. Unfortunately, that seemed impossible. The exchange took place so
quickly and it was so difficult to find out what was going on deep inside the nucleus, that
there seemed no hope.
But perhaps the meson could be somehow knocked out of the nucleus and detected in the
open. To do that the nucleus would really have to be made to undergo a hard collision.
According to a theory worked out by the German-Swiss physicist, Albert Einstein, in 1905,
matter and energy are two different forms of the same thing. Matter is, however, a very
concentrated form of energy. It would take the energy produced by burning twenty million
gallons of petrol to make one ounce of matter.
To knock a meson out of the nucleus of an atom would be very much like creating the amount
of matter in a meson. To produce that quantity of matter doesn't really take much energy, but
that energy has to be concentrated into a single tiny atomic nucleus and doing that turns out to
be very difficult.
All through the 1930s and 1940s, physicists devised machines for pushing subatomic particles
by electromagnetic forces and making them go faster and faster, piling up more and more
energy, until finally, crash-they were sent barreling into a nucleus.
Gradually, more and more energy was concentrated into these speeding particles. Such energy
was measured in "electron volts" and by the 1940s particles with energies of ten million
electron volts (10 Mev) were produced. This sounds like a great deal, and it is, but it still
wasn't enough to form mesons.
Fortunately, physicists weren't entirely stopped. There is a natural radiation ("cosmic rays")
striking the Earth all the time. This is made up of subatomic particles of a wide range of
energies; some of them are enormously energetic.
They originate somewhere deep in outer space. Even today, physicists are not entirely certain
as to the origin of cosmic rays or what makes them possess so much energy. Still, the energy
is there to be used.
Cosmic rays aren't the perfect answer. When physicists produce energetic particles, they can
aim them at the desired spot. When cosmic rays bombard Earth, they do so without aiming.
Physicists must wait for a lucky hit; when a cosmic ray particle with sufficient energy just
happens to hit a nucleus in the right way. And then he must hope that someone with a
detecting device happens to be at the right place and at the right moment.
For a while, though, it seemed that the lucky break had taken place almost at once. Even
while Yukawa was announcing his theory, an American physicist, Carl David Anderson, was
high on Pike's Peak in Colorado, studying cosmic rays.
The cosmic ray particles hit atoms in the air and sent other particles smashing out of the atoms
and into cloud chambers. When there was finally a chance to study the thousands of
photographs that had been taken, tracks were found which curved in such a way as to show
that the particle that caused them was heavier than an electron but lighter than the proton. In
1936, then, it was announced that the meson had been discovered.
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Unfortunately, it quickly turned out that this meson was a little too light to be the particle
called for by Yukawa's theory. It was wrong in several other ways, too.
Nothing further happened till 1947. In that year, an English physicist, Cecil Frank Powell,
was studying cosmic rays far up in the Bolivian Andes. He wasn't using cloud chambers, but
special photographic chemicals which darkened when a subatomic particle struck them.
When he studied the tracks in these chemicals, he found that he, too, had a meson, but a
heavier one than had earlier been found. Once there was a chance to study the new meson it
turned out to have just the properties predicted by Yukawa.
The first meson that had been discovered, the lighter one, was named the "mu-meson." The
heavier one that Powell had discovered was the "pi-meson." ("Mu" and "pi" are letters of the
Greek alphabet. Scientists often use Greek letters and Greek words in making up scientific
names.)
It is becoming more and more common to abbreviate the names of these mesons. The light
one is called the "muon" and the heavy one the "pion."
The new mesons are very unstable particles. They don't last long once they are formed. The
pion only lasts about twenty-five billionths of a second and then it breaks down into the
lighter muon. The only reason the pion can be detected at all is that when it is formed it is
usually travelling at enormous speed, many thousands of miles a second. Even in a billionth
of a second it has a chance to travel a few inches, leaving a trail as it does so. The change in
the kind of trail it leaves towards the end shows that the pion has disappeared and a muon has
taken its place.
The muon lasts much longer, a couple of millionths of a second, and then it breaks down,
forming an electron. The electron is stable and, if left to itself, will remain unchanged forever.
By the end of the 1940s, then, the atomic nucleus seemed to be in pretty good shape. It
contained protons and neutrons and these were held together by pions flashing back and forth.
Chemists worked out the number of protons and neutrons in every different kind of atom and
all seemed well.
But it did seem that there ought to be two kinds of nucleithe kind that exists all about us and a
sort of mirror image that in the late 1940s, no one had yet seen.
That possibility had first been suggested in 1930 by an English physicist, Paul Adrien
Maurice Dirac. He calculated what atomic structure ought to be like according to the latest
theories and it seemed to him that every particle ought to have an opposite number. This
opposite could be called an "antiparticle."
In addition to an electron, for instance, there ought also to be an "antielectron" that would
have a mass just like that of an electron but would be opposite in electric charge. Instead of
having a charge of -1, it would have one of +1.
In 1932, C. D. Anderson (who was later to discover the muon) was studying cosmic rays. He
noticed on one of his photographs a cloud-chamber track which he easily identified as that of
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an electron. There was only one thing wrong with it; it curved the wrong way. That meant it
had a positive charge instead of a negative one.
Anderson had discovered the antielectron. Because of its positive charge, it is usually called a
"positron." The existence of the antielectron was strong evidence in favor of Dirac's theory,
and as time went on more and more antiparticles were uncovered.
The ordinary muon, for instance, has a negative charge of -l, like the electron, and it is usually
called the "negative muon." There is an antimuon, exactly like the muon except that it has a
positive charge of +1 like the positron. It is the "positive muon."
The ordinary pion is a "positive pion" with a charge of +1. The antipion is the "negative pion"
with a charge of -1.
By the close of the 1940s, it seemed quite reasonable to suppose that there were ordinary
nuclei made up of protons and neutrons with positive pions shifting back and forth among
them; and that there were also "antinuclei" made up of "antiprotons" and "antineutrons" with
antipions shifting back and forth.
Physicists didn't really feel they actually had to detect antiprotons and antineutrons to be sure
of this but, of course, they would have liked to.
To detect antiprotons is even more difficult than to detect pions. An antiproton is as massive
as a proton, which means it is seven times as massive as a pion. To form an antiproton
requires a concentration of seven times as much energy as to form a pion.
To form a pion required several hundred million electron volts, but to form an antiproton
would require several billion electron volts. (A billion electron volts is abbreviated "Bev.")
To be sure, there are cosmic ray particles that contain several Bev of energy, even several
million Bev. The higher the energy level required, however, the smaller the percentage of
cosmic ray particles possessing that energy. The chances that one would come along energetic
enough to knock antiprotons out of atoms just when a physicist was waiting to take a picture
of the results were very small indeed.
However, the machines for producing man-made energetic particles were becoming ever
huger and more powerful. By the early 1950s, devices for producing subatomic particles with
energies of several Bev were built. One of these was completed at the University of California
in March 1954. Because of the energy of the particles it produced, it was called the
"Bevatron."
Almost at once, the Bevatron was set to work in the hope that it might produce antiprotons. It
was used to speed up protons until they possessed 6 Bev of energy and then those protons
were smashed against a piece of copper. The men in charge of this project were an Italianborn physicist, Emilio Segré, and a young American, Owen Chamberlain.
In the process, mesons were formed; thousands of mesons for every possible antiproton. The
mesons, however, were much lighter than antiprotons and moved more quickly. Segré's group
set up detecting devices that would react in just the proper manner to pick up heavy, slow-
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moving, negatively charged particles. When the detecting devices reacted properly, only
something with exactly the properties expected of an antiproton could have turned the trip.
By October 1955, the detection devices had been tripped sixty times. It could be no accident.
The antiproton was there and its discovery was announced.
The antiproton was the twin of the proton. The great difference was that the proton had a
charge of +l and the antiproton had a charge of -1.
Once enough antiprotons were produced for study, it was found that occasionally one would
pass close by a proton and the opposite charges would cancel. The proton would become a
neutron and the antiproton would become an antineutron.
You might wonder how you could tell an antineutron from a neutron since both are
uncharged. The answer is that although the neutron and antineutron have no electric charge,
they spin rapidly in a way that causes them to behave like tiny magnets. The neutron is like a
magnet that points in one direction while the antineutron is like a magnet that points in the
opposite direction.
By the mid-1950s, it was clear that antiprotons and antineutrons existed. But could they
combine to form an antinucleus?
Physicists were sure they could but the final answer did not come till 1965. In that year, at
Brookhaven National Laboratories in Long Island, New York, protons with energies of 7 Bev
were smashed against a beryllium target. Several cases of an antiproton and antineutron in
contact were produced and detected.
In the case of ordinary particles, there is an atomic nucleus that consists of one proton and one
neutron. This is the nucleus of a rare variety of hydrogen atom that is called "deuterium." The
proton-neutron combination is therefore called a "deuteron."
What had been formed at Brookhaven was an "antideuteron." It is the very simplest
antinucleus that could be formed of more than one particle, but that is enough. It proved that it
could be done. It was proof enough that matter could be built up out of antiparticles just as it
could be built of ordinary particles. Matter built up of antiparticles is "antimatter."
When the existence of antiparticles was first proposed, it was natural to wonder why if they
could exist, they weren't anywhere around us. When they were detected at last, they were
found only in tiny quantities and even those quantities didn't last long.
Consider the positron, or antielectron. All around us, in every atom of all the matter we can
see and touch on Earth, are ordinary electrons. Nowhere are there any antielectrons to speak
of. Occasionally, cosmic ray particles produce a few or physicists form a few in the
laboratory. When they do, those antielectrons disappear quickly.
As an antielectron speeds along, it is bound to come up against one of the trillions of ordinary
electrons in its immediate neighbourhood. It will do that in perhaps a millionth of a second.
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When an electron meets an antielectron, both particles vanish. They are opposites and cancel
out. It is like a peg falling into a hole which it fits exactly. Peg and hole both disappear and
nothing is left but a flat surface.
In the case of the electron and antielectron, however, not everything disappears. Both electron
and antielectron have mass, exactly the same amount of the same kind of mass. (We only
know of one kind of mass so far.) When the electron and antielectron cancel out, the mass is
left over and that turns into energy.
This happens with all other particles and antiparticles. A positive muon will cancel a negative
muon; a negative pion will cancel a positive pion; an antiproton will cancel a proton, and so
on. In each case both particles disappear and energy takes their place. Naturally, the more
massive the particles, the greater the amount of energy that appears.
It is possible to reverse the process, too. When enough energy is concentrated into a small
space, particles may be formed out of it. A particle is never formed out of energy by itself,
however. If an electron is formed, an antielectron must be formed at the same time. If a proton
is formed, an antiproton must be formed at the same time.
When Segré and Chamberlain set about forming antiprotons, they had to allow for twice as
much energy as would be sufficient just for an antiproton. After all, they had to form a proton
at the same time.
Since this is so, astronomers are faced with a pretty problem. They have worked up many
theories of how the universe came to be, but in all the theories, it would seem that
antiparticles ought to be formed along with the particles. There should be just as much
antimatter as there is matter.
Where is all this antimatter? It doesn't seem to be around. Perhaps it has combined with
matter and turned into energy. In that case, why is there all the ordinary matter about us left
over. There should be equal amounts of each, and each set should cancel out the other
completely.
Some astronomers suggest that there are two separate universes, one made out of matter (our
own) and another made out of antimatter. Other astronomers think there is only one universe
but that some parts of it (like the parts near ourselves) are matter, while other parts are
antimatter.
What made the matter and antimatter separate into different parts of the universe, or even into
different universes, no one can yet say. It may even be possible that for some reason we don't
understand, only matter, and no antimatter, was formed to begin with.
The problem of the universe was something for astronomers to worry about, however.
Physicists in 1947 were quite satisfied to concentrate on particles and antiparticles and leave
the universe alone.
And physicists in that year seemed to have much ground for satisfaction. If they ignored the
problem of how the universe began and just concentrated on how it was now, they felt they
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could explain the whole thing in terms of a little over a dozen particles altogether. Some of
these particles they had actually detected. Some they had not, but were sure of anyway.
Of course, not everything was absolutely clear, but what mysteries existed ought to be cleared
up, they hoped, without too much trouble.
The particles they knew, or strongly suspected they were soon going to know, fell into three
groups, depending on their mass. There were the light particles, the middle-sized particles,
and the heavy particles. These were eventually given Greek names from words meaning light,
middle-sized, and heavy: "leptons," "mesons," and "baryons."
The leptons, or light particles, include the electron and the antielectron, of course. In order to
explain some of the observed facts about electrons, the Austrian physicist Wolfgang Pauli
suggested, in 1931, that another kind of particle also existed. This was a very small one,
possibly with no mass at all, and certainly with no charge. It was called a "neutrino." This tiny
particle was finally detected in 1956. There was not only a neutrino but also an "antineutrino."
Although the muon was considered a meson, to begin with, it was soon recognized as a kind
of heavy electron. All its properties but mass were identical with those of the electron. Along
with the muon, a neutrino or antineutrino is also formed as in the case of the electron. In 1962,
this muonneutrino was found to be different from the electron-neutrino.
Two other particles might be mentioned. Light, together with other radiation similar to it (like
x rays, for instance) behaves in some ways as though it were composed of particles. These
particles are called "photons."
There is no antiparticle for a photon; no antiphoton. The photon acts as its own opposite. If
you were to fold a sheet of paper down the middle and put the particles on one side and the
antiparticles on the other, you would have to put the photon right on the crease.
Then, too, physicists speculate that the reason different objects pull at each other
gravitationally is because there are tiny particles called "gravitons" flying between them.
Some of the properties of the graviton have been worked out in theory; for instance, it is its
own antiparticle. The graviton is so tiny, however, and so hard to pin down, that it has not yet
been detected.
This is the total list of leptons so far, then:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
the graviton
the photon
the electron and the antielectron
the electron-neutrino and the electron-antineutrino
the negative muon and the positive muon
the muon-neutrino and the muon-antineutrino
The leptons pose physicists some problems. Does the graviton really exist? Why does the
muon exist; what is the purpose of something that is just a heavy electron? Why and how are
the muon-neutrinos different from the electron-neutrinos? These puzzles are intriguing but
they don't drive physicists to despair.
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In 1947, only three particles were coming to be known which would now be considered
mesons. Two of them were the positive pion and the negative antipion. The third was a
neutral pion which, like the photon and the graviton, was its own antiparticle.
Only four particles were known in 1947 that would now be classified as baryons. These are
the proton, antiproton, neutron, and antineutron. Both antiproton and antineutron had not yet
actually been detected, but physicists were quite sure they existed.
The situation with regard to the nucleus seemed particularly well settled. There was the
nucleus made up of protons and neutrons held together by pions, and the antinucleus made up
of antiprotons and antineutrons held together by antipions. All seemed well.
But in 1947, the very year which saw the discovery of the pion and the apparent solution of
the problem of the nucleus, there began a new series of discoveries that upset the applecart
again.
Two English physicists, George Dixon Rochester and Clifford Charles Butler, studying
cosmic rays with cloud chambers in 1947, came across an odd V-shaped track. It was as
though some neutral particle, which left no track, had suddenly broken into two particles,
which each had a charge and left a track, and which hastened away in different directions.
The particle that moved off in one direction and formed one branch of the V seemed to be a
pion, but the other was something new. From the nature of the track it left, it seemed to be as
massive as a thousand electrons, or as three and a half pions. It was half as massive as a
proton.
Nothing like such a particle had ever been suspected of existing. It caught the world of
physicists by surprise, and at first all that could be done was to give it a name. It was called a
"V-particle," and the collision that produced it was a "V-event."
Once physicists became aware of V-events, they began to watch for them and, of course, soon
discovered additional ones. By 1950, V-particles were found which seemed to be actually
more massive than protons or neutrons. This was another shock. Somehow physicists had
taken it for granted that protons and neutrons were the most massive particles there were.
The astonished physicists began to study the new particles carefully. The first V-particle to be
discovered, the one that was only half as massive as a proton, was found to have certain
properties much like those of the pion. The new particle was therefore classified as a meson.
It was called a "K-meson" and the name was quickly abbreviated to "kaon." There were four
of these: a positive kaon, a negative antikaon, a neutral kaon, and a neutral antikaon.
The other V-particles discovered in the early 1950s were all more massive than the proton and
were grouped together as "hyperons." There were three kinds of these and each kind was
given the name of a Greek letter. The lightest were the "lambda particles," which were about
20 percent heavier than protons. These came in two varieties, a lambda and an antilambda,
both of them uncharged.
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Next lightest were the "sigma particles," which were nearly 30 percent heavier than the
proton. There was a positive sigma, a negative, and a neutral, and each had its antiparticle.
That meant six sigma particles altogether.
Finally, there were the "xi particles," which were 40 percent heavier than the proton. There
was a negative xi particle and a neutral one (no positive variety) and each had its antiparticle,
making four altogether.
All these hyperons, an even dozen of them, had many properties that resembled those of the
proton and neutron. They were therefore lumped with them as baryons. Whereas there had
been four baryons known, or suspected, in 1947, there were sixteen in 1957.
But then things grew rapidly more complicated still. Partly, it was because physicists were
building machines capable of producing particles with more and more energy. This meant that
nuclei were being smashed into with greater and greater force and it was possible to turn the
energy into all sorts of particles.
What's more, physicists were developing new and better means of detecting particles. In 1952,
a young American physicist, Donald Arthur Glaser, got an idea for something that turned out
to be better than the cloud chamber. It was, in fact, rather the reverse of the cloud chamber.
A cloud chamber contains gas that is on the point of turning partly liquid. Charged particles,
racing through, help the liquid to form and leave trails of water droplets.
But suppose it were the reverse. Suppose there was a chamber which contained liquid that
was on the point of boiling and turning into gas. Charged particles passing through the liquid
would form ions. The liquid immediately around the ion would boil with particular ease and
form small bubbles of gas. The tracks would be gas bubbles in liquid, instead of liquid drops
in gas.
This new kind of detecting device was called a "bubble chamber."
The advantage of a bubble chamber is that the liquid it contains is much denser than the air in
a cloud chamber. There are more atoms and molecules in the liquid for a flying particle to
collide with. More ions are formed and a clearer trail is left behind. Particles that could
scarcely be seen in a cloud chamber are seen very clearly in a bubble chamber.
By using bubble chambers and finding many more kinds of tracks, physicists began to
suspect, by 1960, that there were certain particles that came into existence very briefly. They
were never detected but unless they existed there was no way of explaining the tracks that
were detected.
These new particles were very short-lived indeed. Until now the most unstable particles that
had been detected lasted for a billionth of a second or so. That was a long enough time for
them to make visible tracks in a bubble chamber.
The new particles, however, broke down in something like a hundred thousandth of a billionth
of a billionth of a second. In that time, the particle has only a chance to travel about the width
of a nucleus before breaking down.
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These new particles were called "resonance particles" and different varieties have been
deduced in great numbers since 1960. By now there are over a hundred baryons known that
are heavier than protons. The heaviest are over twice as massive as protons.
Some of the new particles are mesons, all of them heavier than the pion. There are about sixty
of these.
In the 1960s then, physicists were faced with the problem of finding some way of accounting
for a large number of massive particles for which they could think of no uses and whose
existence they couldn't predict.
At first all that physicists could do was to study the way in which one particle broke down
into another; or the way in which one particle was built up into another when energy was
added. Some changes could take place, while some changes could not. Particle A might
change into particles B and C, but never into particles D and E.
Physicists tried to work out rules which would explain why some changes could take place
and some could not. For instance, a neutron couldn't change into only a proton, because the
proton has a positive electric charge and that can't be made out of nothing.
A neutron might, however, change into a proton plus an electron. In that case, a positive and a
negative charge would be formed simultaneously. Together, they might be considered as
balancing each other, so it would be as though no charge at all were formed.
But then to balance certain other qualities, such as the particle spin, more was required. In the
end, it turned out that a neutron had to break down to three particles: a proton, an electron,
and an antineutrino.
Matters such as electric charge and particle spin were enough to explain the events that were
known in the old days when only a dozen or so different particles were known. In order to
explain all the events that took place among nearly 200 particles, more rules had to be worked
out. Quantities such as "isotopic spin," "hypercharge," "parity," and so on, had to be taken
into account.
There is even something called "strangeness." Every particle is given a "strangeness number"
and if this is done correctly, it turns out that whenever one group of particles changes into
another group, the total strangeness number isn't altered.
The notion of strangeness made it plainer that there were actually two kinds of nuclear forces.
The one that had first been proposed by Yukawa and that involved pions was an extremely
strong one. In the course of the 1950s, however, it became clear that there was also a much
weaker nuclear force, only about a hundred trillionths as strong as the strong one.
Changes that took place under the influence of the strong nuclear force took place extremely
rapidly-just long enough to allow a resonance particle to break down. Changes that took place
under the influence of the weak nuclear force took much longer-at least a billionth of a second
or so.
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Only the baryons and the mesons could take part in strong force changes. The leptons took
part only in weak-force changes. The baryons and mesons are therefore lumped together
sometimes as "hadrons."
Even when physicists gradually worked out the rules that showed what particle changes could
take place and what couldn't take place, they were very unsatisfied. They didn't understand
why there should be so many particles.
More and more physicists began to wonder if the actual number of particles was unimportant.
Perhaps particles existed in families and they ought to concentrate on families of particles.
For instance, the first two baryons discovered were the proton and the neutron. They seemed
two completely different particles because there was an important unlikeness about them. The
proton had a positive electric charge and the neutron had no electric charge at all.
This seemed to be an enormous difference. Because of it, a proton could be detected easily in
a cloud chamber and a neutron couldn't. Because of it a proton followed a curved path when
brought near a magnet but a neutron didn't.
And yet when the strong nuclear force was discovered, it was found that it affected protons
and neutrons exactly the same, as though there were no difference between them. If the proton
and neutron are considered from the standpoint of the strong nuclear force only, they are
twins.
Could it be, then, that we ought to consider the proton and neutron as two forms of a single
particle which we might call the "nucleon" (because it is found in the nucleus)? Certainly, that
might simplify matters.
You can see what this means if you consider people. Certainly, a husband and a wife are two
different people, very different in important ways. To the income tax people, however, they
are just one tax-paying combination when they file a joint return. It doesn't matter whether the
husband makes the money, or the wife, or both make half; in the return it is all lumped
together. For tax purposes we simply have a taxpayer in two different forms, husband and
wife.
After 1960, when the resonance particles began to turn up, physicists began to think more and
more seriously of particle families. In 1961, two physicists, Murray Gell-Mann in the United
States and Yuval Ne'eman in Israel, working separately, came up with very much the same
scheme for forming particle families.
To do this, one had to take all the various particle properties that physicists had worked out
and arrange them in a very regular way. There were eight different kinds of properties that
Gell-Mann worked with in order to set up a family pattern. Jokingly, he called his system the
"Eightfold Way," after a phrase in the teachings of the Indian religious leader Buddha. The
more formal name of his scheme is "SU (3) symmetry."
In what turned out to be the most famous example of SU (3) symmetry, Gell-Mann prepared a
family of ten particles. This family of ten can be pictured as follows. Imagine a triangle made
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up of four objects at the bottom, three objects above them, two objects above them, and one
object all by itself at the apex.
The four objects at the bottom are four related "delta particles" each about 30 percent heavier
than a proton. The chief difference among them is the electric charge. The four delta particles
have charges of -1, 0, +1, and +2.
Above these are three "sigma particles" more massive than the deltas and with charges of -1,
0, and +1. Above that are two "xi particles," which are still more massive and which have
charges of -1, and 0. Finally, at the apex of the triangle is a single particle that is most massive
of all and that has a charge of -1. Gell-Mann called this last particle the "omegaminus"
particle, because "omega" is the last letter in the Greek alphabet and because the particle has a
negative electric charge.
Notice that there is a regular way in which mass goes up and the number of separate particles
goes down. Notice also that there is a regular pattern to the electric charges: -1, 0, +1, +2 for
the first set; then -1, 0, +l; then -1, 0; finally -1.
Other properties also change in a regular way from place to place in the pattern. The whole
thing is very neat indeed. There was just one problem. Of the ten particles in this family, only
nine were known. The tenth particle, the omegaminus at the apex, had never been observed. If
it did not exist the whole pattern was ruined. Gell-Mann suggested that it did exist; that if
people looked for it and knew exactly what they were looking for, they would find it.
If Gell-Mann's pattern was correct, one ought to be able to work out all the properties of the
omega-minus by taking those values that would fit into the pattern. When this was done, it
was found that the omega-minus would have to be a most unusual particle for some of its
properties were like nothing yet seen.
For one thing, if it were to fit into its position at the top of the triangle it would have to have
an unusual strangeness number. The deltas at the bottom of the triangle had a strangeness
number of 0, the sigmas above them a strangeness number of -1, and the xis above them one
of -2. The omega-minus particle at the top would therefore have to have a strangeness number
of -3. No strangeness number that large had ever been encountered and physicists could
scarcely bring themselves to believe that one would be.
Nevertheless, they began to search for it.
The instrument for the purpose was at Brookhaven, where, as the 1960s opened, an enormous
new device for speeding particles was put into operation. It could speed up particles to the
point where they would possess energies as high as 33
Bev. This was more than five times the quantity of energy that was enough to produce
antiprotons some years before.
In November 1963, this instrument was put to work in the search for the omega-minus
particle. Along with it was a new bubble chamber that contained liquid hydrogen. Hydrogen
was liquid only at very frigid temperatures, hundreds of degrees below the ordinary zero.
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The advantage to the use of liquid hydrogen was that hydrogen nuclei were made up of single
protons (except for the very rare deuterium form of the element). Nothing else could supply
so many protons squeezed into so small a space without any neutrons present to confuse
matters.
The liquid hydrogen bubble chamber was nearly seven feet across and contained over 900
quarts of liquid hydrogen. There would be very little that would escape it.
Physicists had to calculate what kind of particle collisions might possess sufficient energy
plus all the necessary properties to form an omega-minus particle, if one could be formed at
all. You would have to have a collision that would supply the necessary strangeness number
of -3, for instance. It would also have to be a collision that would supply no quantity of
something called "isotopic spin," for the isotopic spin of omega-minus would have to be 0 if it
were to fit Gell-Mann's pattern.
It was finally decided that what was needed was to smash high-energy negative kaons into
protons. If everything went right, an occasional collision should produce a proton, a positive
kaon, a neutral kaon, and an omega-minus particle.
A beam of 5 Bev negative kaons was therefore shot into the liquid hydrogen bubble chamber
and by January 30, 1964, fifty thousand photographs had been taken. Nothing unusual was
found in any of them.
On January 31, however, a photograph appeared in which a series of tracks were produced
which seemed to indicate that an omega-minus particle had been formed and had broken
down to form other particles. If certain known and easily recognized particles were followed
backward, and it were calculated what kind of particles they must have come from, and then
those were followed backward, one reached the very brief existence of an omega-minus
particle.
A few weeks later, another photograph showed a different combination of tracks which could
be worked backward to an omega-minus particle.
In other words, a particle had been detected which had broken down in two different ways.
Both breakdown routes were possible for the omega-minus particle if it had exactly the
properties predicted by Gell-Mann. Since then, a number of other omega-minus particles have
been detected, all with exactly the predicted properties.
There seemed no question about it. The omega-minus particle did exist. It had never been
detected because it was formed so rarely and existed so briefly. Now that physicists had been
told exactly what to look for and where to look for it, however, they had found it.
Physicists are now satisfied that they must deal with particle families. There are arguments as
to exactly how to arrange these families, of course, but that will probably be straightened out.
But can matters become simpler still? It has often happened in the history of science that
when matters seemed to grow very complicated, it could all be made simpler by some basic
discovery.
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For instance, there are uncounted millions of different kinds of materials on Earth, but
chemists eventually found they were all formed out of a hundred or so different kinds of
elements, and that all the elements were made up, in the main, of three kinds of particles:
protons, neutrons, and electrons.
In the twentieth century, as physicists looked more and more closely at these subatomic
particles and found that nearly two hundred of them existed altogether, naturally they began to
think of going deeper still. What lies beyond the protons and neutrons?
It is a case of digging downward into the littler and littler and littler. First to atoms, then
beyond that to the nucleus, then beyond that to the proton and neutron, and now beyond that
to-what?
Gell-Mann, in working out his family patterns, found that he could arrange them by letting
each particle consist of three different symbols in different combinations. He began to wonder
if these different symbols were just mathematical conveniences or if they were real objects.
For instance, you can write one dollar as $1.00, which is the same as writing 100¢. This
would make it seem that there are one hundred cents in a dollar, and there certainly are. But
does this mean that if you were to take a paper dollar bill and tear it carefully apart you would
find a hundred one-cent pieces in it? Of course not!
The question was, then, if you tore a proton apart, would you find the three smaller objects
that represented the three symbols used by Gell-Mann.
Gell-Mann decided to give the particles a name at least. He happened to think of a passage in
Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce. This is a very difficult book in which words are
deliberately twisted so as to give them more than one meaning. The passage he thought of was
a sentence that went "Three quarks for Muster Mark."
Since three of these simple particles were needed for each of the different baryons, Gell-Mann
decided, in 1963, to call them "quarks."
If the quarks were to fit the picture, they would have to have some very amazing properties.
The most amazing was that they would have to have fractional electric charges.
When the electron was first discovered, its electric charge was set at -1 for simplicity's sake.
Since then, all new particles discovered have either no electric charge at all or have one that is
exactly equal to that of the electron or to an exact multiple of that charge. The same held for
positive charges.
In other words, particles can have charges of 0, -1, +1, -2, +2, and so on. What has never been
observed has been any fractional charge. No particle has ever yet been found to have a charge
of +11/2 or -21/3.
Yet a fractional charge was exactly what the quarks would have to have. Charges of -1/3 and
+2/3s would have to be found among them.
An immense search is now on for the quarks, for if they are found, they will simplify the
physicist's picture of the structure of matter a great deal.
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There is one important difficulty. Gell-Mann's theory makes it quite plain that when quarks
come together to form ordinary subatomic particles, the process gives off a great deal of
energy. In fact, almost all the mass of the quarks is given off as energy and only about onethirtieth is left to form the particle. This means that quarks are thirty times as massive as the
particles they produce.
(This sounds strange, but think about it. Suppose you see three balloons blown up almost to
bursting. Would you suppose it were possible to squeeze them into a small box just an inch
long in each direction? All you would have to do would be to let the air out of the balloons
and what is left can easily be packed away in a small box. Similarly, when three quarks
combine, you "let the mass out" and what is left can easily fit into a proton.)
If you want to form a quark by breaking apart a proton or some other particle, then you have
to supply all the energy that the quarks gave up in the first place. You have to supply enough
energy to form a group of particles thirty times as massive as a proton. You would need at
least fifteen times as much energy as was enough to form a proton and antiproton in the
1950s, and probably even more.
There is no instrument on Earth, not even Brookhaven's 33-Bev colossus, that can supply the
necessary energy. Physicists have two things they can do. First, they can turn to the
astronomers and ask them to watch for any sign of quarks in outer space. There are cosmic
ray particles with sufficient energy to form quarks. Most cosmic ray particles are protons and
if two of them smash together hard enough they may chip themselves into quarks.
However, this would happen very rarely and so far astronomers have detected nothing they
could identify as quarks. The second possibility is to build a device that will produce particles
with sufficient energy to form quarks. In January 1967, the government of the United States
announced plans to build such an instrument in Weston, Illinois.
This will be a huge device, nearly a mile across. It will take six or seven years to build and
will cost 375 million dollars. Once it is completed, it will cost 60 million dollars a year to run.
But when it is done, physicists hope it will produce streams of particles with energies up to
200 Bev. This may be enough to produce quarks-or to show that they probably don't exist.
Physicists are awaiting the completion of the new instrument with considerable excitement
and the rest of us should be excited, also. So far, every new advance in the study of the atom
has meant important discoveries for the good of mankind.
By studying atoms in the first place, chemists learned to put together a variety of dyes and
medicines, fertilizers and explosives, alloys and plastics that had never existed in nature.
By digging inside the atom and studying the electron, physicists made possible the production
of such devices as radio and television.
The study of the atomic nucleus gave us the various nuclear bombs. These are not very
pleasant things, to be sure, but the same knowledge also gave us nuclear power stations. It
may make possible the production of so much cheap energy that our old planet may possibly
reach towards a new era of comfort and ease.
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Now physicists are trying to find the quarks that lie beyond the subatomic particle. We can't
predict what this will result in, but it seems certain there will be results that may change the
world even more than plastics, and television, and atomic power.
We will have to wait and see. Once. the new device is put into action at Weston, it is just
possible we may not have to wait long.
From: Twentieth Century Discovery by Isaac Azimov
4 - A New Look At The Planets: Distance In Our Solar System
The study of the planets reached a peak in the nineteenth century and then, towards its end,
seemed to die down. Other subjects began to interest astronomers much more. There was
nothing left, it would appear, for twentieth century astronomers to do about planets.
If, indeed, the planets seemed worked out by 1900, that is not surprising. After all,
astronomers had been dealing with them for over 2,000 years, and what more could be left?
To be sure, the ancients had got off on the wrong foot. The Greeks had worked out careful
and interesting theories concerning the motions of the pl