Knowledge and Progress

更新：2023-11-22

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[00:01.48]Lesson 22
[00:03.33]Knowledge and progress
[00:11.27]In what two areas have people made no 'progress' at all?
[00:17.72]Why does the idea of progress loom so large in the modern world?
[00:23.60]Surely because progress of a particular kind is actually taking place around us
[00:28.81]and is becoming more and more manifest.
[00:32.63]Although mankind has undergone no general improvement in intelligence or morality,
[00:38.47]it has made extraordinary progress in the accumulation of knowledge.
[00:43.75]Knowledge began to increase as soon as the thoughts of one individual
[00:48.13]could be communicated to another by means of speech.
[00:52.37]With the invention of writing, a great advance was made,
[00:56.23]for knowledge could then be not only communicated but also stored.
[01:02.16]Libraries made education possible, and education in its turn added to libraries:
[01:09.42]the growth of knowledge followed a kind of compound interest law,
[01:13.65]which was greatly enhanced by the invention of printing.
[01:18.19]All this was comparatively slow until, with the coming of science,
[01:22.79]the tempo was suddenly raised.
[01:26.01]Then knowledge began to be accumulated according to a systematic plan.
[01:31.82]The trickle became a stream: the stream has now become a torrent.
[01:37.31]Moreover, as soon as new knowledge is acquired, it is now turned to practical account.
[01:44.16]What is called 'modern civilization'
[01:47.09]is not the result of a balanced development of all man's nature,
[01:51.16]but of accumulated knowledge applied to practical life.
[01:56.28]The problem now facing humanity is:
[01:58.81]What is going to be done with all this knowledge?
[02:02.01]As is so often pointed out, knowledge is a two-edged weapon
[02:06.46]which can be used equally for good or evil.
[02:10.14]It is now being used indifferently for both.
[02:13.86]Could any spectacle, for instance, be more grimly whimsical
[02:17.76]than that of gunners using science to shatter men's bodies
[02:21.41]while, close at hand, surgeons use it to restore them?
[02:25.26]We have to ask ourselves very seriously
[02:27.91]what will happen if this twofold use of knowledge,
[02:30.79]with its ever-increasing power, continues.