The name is absent

SCIENCE AFTER THE WAR

AcERTAIN judge, after trying a patent case in which
■ scientific experts testified on both sides, said that there
were three kinds of liars : liars, unmitigated liars, and ex-
perts. At present I am employed by the United States Navy
as an “expert” on anti-submarine devices, so perhaps you
had better not put too much faith in what I may have to say
on “Science after the War,” for it is really just as hard to
know what is going to happen to science as to anything else.

A traveller once excited the curiosity of his fellow pas-
sengers by the extreme care which he took of a basket which
he had with him. They began to ask him about it, but for a
long time he refused to say what was in it. At last he said
he would tell them what he had in it. He said he was going
to visit his brother, who was in the habit of drinking too
much and frequently saw snakes, so he was taking him a
mongoose, which is an animal that lives on snakes. “But,”
said the passengers, “your brother’s snakes are not real
ones.” “No,” said the traveller, “and it isn’t a real mon-
goose in this basket.” I could tell you some interesting
things about science during the war, especially about the
new devices for catching submarines, but I have to follow
the example of the traveller with the basket. A British
naval officer, when asked what he did when he caught a
submarine, said that, of course, he always put back the little
ones.

Scientific activity during the war has been very largely
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