The Way Things Are

BRIDGMAN has made a noble effort to employ the rigorous critique of a scientist on some of the pressing problems of everyday life of which mankind has almost unique talents for making a mess. The book must be studied and pondered over. Here are some of his themes: It seems to me that one of the most sweeping dicta which society asks the individual to accept is the dictum that in the long run, and from the broad point of view, all things considered, the interests of society and the interests of the individual are identical. This dictum played an appreciable role in my own bringing up. Such a dictum may have been tenable with the assistance of the concept of a future life in which the individual may expect to be rewarded or punished in accordance with the social value of his actions on earth. But without such a