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million is its membership in the United States alone. Eldredge boasts that after the next
election Congress will be his; and there seems to be more truth than bluff in that. Already
there has been strenuous lobbying in favour of a bill outlawing rocket experiments, and laws
of that type have been enacted in Poland, Portugal and Rumania. Yes, John, we are
perilously close to open persecu- tion of science." He was smoking now in rapid, nervous
puffs.
"But if I succeed, Howard, if I succeed! What then?"
"Bah! You know the chances for that. Your own estimate gives you only one chance in ten of
coming out alive."
"What does that signify? The next experimenter will learn by my mistakes, and the odds will
improve. That's the scien- tific method."
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"The mob doesn't know anything about the scientific method; and they don't want to know.
Well, what do you say? Will you call it off?"
Harman sprang to his feet, his chair tumbling over with a crash. "Do you know what you
ask? Do you want me to give up my life's work, my dream, just like that? Do you think I'm
going to sit back and wait for your dear public to become benevolent? Do you think they'll
change in my lifetime?
"Here's my answer: I have an inalienable right to pursue knowledge. Science has an
inalienable right to progress and develop without interference. The world, in interfering with
me, is wrong; I am right. And it shall go hard; but I -will not abandon my rights."
Winstead shook his head sorrowfully. "You're wrong, John, when you speak of 'inalienable'
rights. What you call a 'right' is merely a privilege, generally agreed upon. What society ac-
cepts, is right; what it does not, is wrong."
"Would your friend, Eldredge, agree to such a definition of his 'righteousness'?" questioned
Harman bitterly.
"No, he would not, but that's irrelevant. Take the case of those African tribes who used to be
cannibals. They were brought up as cannibals, have the long tradition of canni- balism, and
their society accepts the practice. To them, cannibalism is right, and why shouldn't it be? So
you see how relative the whole notion is, and how inane your conception of 'inalienable'
rights to perform experiments is."
"You know, Howard, you missed your calling when you didn't become a lawyer." Harman
was really growing angry. "You've been bringing out every moth-eaten argument you can
think of. For God's sake, man, are you trying to pretend that it is a crime to refuse to run with
the crowd? Do you stand for absolute uniformity, ordinariness, orthodoxy, com-
monplaceness? Science would die far sooner under the pro- gramme you outline than under
governmental prohibition."
Harman stood up and pointed an accusing finger at the other. "You're betraying science
and the tradition of those glorious rebels: Galileo, Darwin, Einstein and their kind. My rocket
leaves tomorrow on schedule in spite of you and every other stuffed shirt in the United
States. That's that, and I refuse to listen to you any longer. So you can just get out."
The head of the Institute, red in the face, turned to me. "You're my witness, young man, that I
warned this obstinate nitwit, this . . . this hare-brained fanatic." He spluttered a bit, and then
strode out, the picture of fiery indignation.
Harman turned to me when he had" gone: "Well, what do you think? I suppose you agree
with him."
There was only one possible answer and I made it: "You're not paying me to do anything
else but follow orders, boss. I'm sticking with you."
Just then Shelton came in and Harman packed us both off to go over the calculations of the
orbit of flight for the ump- teenth time, while he himself went off to bed.
The next day, July 15th, dawned in matchless splendour, and Harman, Shelton, and myself
were in an almost gay mood as we crossed the Hudson to where the Prometheus sur-
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rounded by an adequate police guard lay in gleaming grandeur.
Around it, roped off at an apparently safe distance, rolled a crowd of gigantic proportions.
Most of them were hostile, raucously so. In fact, for one fleeting moment, as our motor- cycle
police escort parted the crowds for us, the shouts and imprecations that reached our ears
almost convinced me that we should have listened to Winstead.
But Harman paid no attention to them at all, after one supercilious sneer at a shout of: [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]