Quam sine fictione didici, et sine invidia communico, et honestatem illius non abscondo; infinitus enim thesaurus est hominibus.—’ The lessons she taught me are lessons honestly won, shared without stint, openly proclaimed; a treasure men will find inexhaustible ‘(Wis. vii).

At any time during the early years of this century, if you consulted Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, and turned up the reference under ‘Angelic Doctor,’ you would read this : ‘Angelic Doctor, The, Thomas of Aquino, so called because he discussed how many angels could dance on the point of a pin.’ Whether, in fact, any schoolmen did devote attention to this rather specialised subject, I have often tried to discover, but have never managed to trace the legend further back than Tristram Shandy, where I strongly suspect that it originated. I only use that quotation here to draw your attention to a singular fact; namely that in the last twenty-five years or so the great saint whom we commemorate to-day has, in a way, come into his own—even in these days of loose thought, and of unlaborious reading. To-day, even Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable has been, corrected, and wherever you meet a man who professes interest in things of the mind, you will find that St. Thomas means something to him. Possibly he will use the name ‘Aquinas,’ to indicate that this is not an author with whom he is on friendly terms; almost certainly he will admit that he has never tried to read ‘Aquinas.’ But there will be respect in his voice; he will know that he is referring, not to a medieval quibbler, but to an author whose works are one of the milestones in the history of human thought.

It is probable that since the beginning of civilisation there has never been a high culture without some kind of systematic study of matter. The Egyptians and Babylonians were metallurgists, architects, physicians, astronomers and mathematicians. The Greeks inherited some part of their tradition and transformed it from technique to philosophy. A scientific world-view emerged; theoretical systems of the sciences and natural histories, good and bad, expressed this view and the facts which it attempted to explain; and the corpus of Greek scientific writings remained as the chief inspiration and fountain of science until the seventeenth century, nor is its influence extinct to-day. Between 150 b.c. and 450 a.d. Greek science gradually died, but the record of it, preserved in Greek manuscripts, remained known to those who spoke that tongue. Thus in the sixth and seventh centuries there was considerable philosophical and scientific activity in Byzantium, Syria and Persia, and this later inspired the culture of Islam; but since very little had been translated into Latin, the knowledge of science in the Western world sunk to a low ebb.

Natural science is concerned with understanding the working of material nature. The subject of this paper is the positive contribution which natural science, given its true place among the other activities of man, might make to the world. At the outset, it is essential to distinguish between science and the applications of science. When a certain knowledge of nature has been won, it is often possible to apply it to the control and manipulation of nature—to devise new techniques for handling matter. Modern industry is becoming more and more dominated by technology based in this way on applied science. The emphasis on the use of science in modern life is such that most of those who write on the ‘place of science in society’ are thinking primarily of the place of technics in society, and treat science only in relation to technics. But the question of the place of technics in society raises problems wholly different from that of the place of science in society, and a lack of clear distinctions here can lead to a wholly false conceptions of the functions of science. That technics (which presupposes science) will be of major importance to this nation, it is impossible to deny; that science has significance only as a basis for material prosperity is not, however, a legitimate conclusion. Science is concerned with understanding nature, not with manipulating it for economic purposes. The great human problems centreing round the rapid growth of industrial technology must here be left aside, as being only indirectly, connected with the functions of science in modern culture.

The annexation by Soviet Russia of certain territory which after 1920 had again been part of the Polish State is now a thing not only accomplished in fact but recognised by those powers strong enough to have a say in the matter. We have heard a great deal about it (and doubtless shall hear more) from the several sides and from various aspects. The only people whose views we have not been able to hear are those most affected, the inhabitants of ‘Eastern Poland ’; the great powers have not asked them to express their choice.

It is not easy to estimate what would have been the result of a free plebiscite (a really free plebiscite would probably have been un attainable in the circumstances). The people east of the Curzon Line are mixed, and accurate statistics of the ethnic elements are not easy to come by. A Polish estimate (quoted by Konovalov in Russo-Polish Relations, Cresset Press), based on the 1931 Polish census, gives a total population of 10¾ millions, of whom 36.4 per cent, were Poles, 40.6 per cent. Ukrainians, 11.8 per cent. Byelorussians, 8.4 per cent. Jews and 2.8 per cent, others. These groups are largely, but not entirely, localised : Byelorussians in the north, Ukrainians in the south, Poles in both; in the provinces of Stanislawow, Volhynia and Polesia, Poles are a minority of under 25 per cent.