URS is an age of open-mindedness. Scientists, with their improbable theories that This does not exist and That is impossible, are dismissed as narrow-minded and old-fashioned. The modern philosopher who has captured attention and acquiescence is Goedel, whose Incompleteness Theorem proves that a mathematical proof cannot exist. The Supreme Court of the United States excuses its divisions by saying that "Nothing is more certain [sic] in modern society than that there are no absolutes . . . . All concepts are relative" [see Dennis vs. U. S. (1951) 341 U. S. 494, 508]; wisdom, it seems, consists in admitting that everything is opinion, in avoiding the labels Black and White. Generations of philosophers have assured us that our only certain knowledge is of abstractions, such as numbers and triangles, and that all theories about molecules or men are mere conjectures.

I am happy to admit that there are things that are not understood, and that I cannot imagine anyone ever understanding. We do not understand how the universe began, why it has elements of widely different atomic numbers instead of being mostly light gases. We do not understand how life began: anything that can replicate itself is quite "unnaturally" complex. We do not understand how the numerous distinct species originated; at least among animals, those who are the fittest are those who reproduce cells without even the least changes. We do not understand the phenomenon of consciousness; everyone who writes a book assumes that the words on his page, or disk, can somehow affect the memories in the mind of another person, but it is obscure how what is merely material can act upon what is not material.

And on the other hand, we have discursive reasoners, particularly economists, who assure us at one and the same time that economics (or, strictly, catallactics, the study of intelligent actors) can be established a priori , and also that no other body of knowledge, such as ethics or law, can be known beyond question. It is one thing to say "There is no X" but quite another to say "This is the only example of X."

The familiar phrase "Nothing is more certain . . . " is bad English, because "certain" is an absolute, and not open to being qualified by "more" or "less" or "almost;" we can see that the bad English was adopted by the 18th.-century British philosopher David Hume [in his celebrated "Essay Concerning Human Understanding" of 1748] to avoid saying "There are no absolutes (except this one.)" And while I am open to being convinced that all Cretans are liars, I do not find it convincing that a Cretan has assured us of the fact: if we are to have a disproof of mathematics, the disproof cannot itself rely upon mathematics. Indeed, it may well be that God has not read Goedel . . . . We notice that the physicists construct credible mathematical models of the Big Bang by assuming that the laws of nature were in effect even before the electron had begun to orbit round the proton in the first atom of hydrogen— before time was.

It is, in fact, plain that the skeptics know not of what they speak. We hear the claim that there are no absolutes. But both the Michelson-Morley experiment and Einstein's theory of relativity agree that the velocity of light is an absolute, identical for all observers, whether they are falling or standing still. There is hardly an excuse for not having heard of these ideas; the experiment was reported in 1887, Einstein's theory dates from 1905.

It is, I shall be told, not correct to speak of masses "falling;" the truth is that mass distorts space-time. I do not claim to know whether Einstein's theories are satisfactory or otherwise; I suppose that, in due course, they will be superceded by other theories which make even-more-accurate predictions. But to find even a single absolute disproves the claim that there are no absolutes. And there are known at least two other absolutes, the charge on the electron and Planck's quantum of action. Thus we do not need any National Bureau of Standards to define meters to which other lengths are to be relative; we could measure length, and mass, and time, and consequently everything else in absolute terms. Of course, this would be the opposite of convenient; in even the fastest cars, the speedometer would read only up to 0.0000004.

We hear on every side that quantum mechanics has shown that the act of observing affects the matter observed—thus, every observation is subjective. However, in truth the claim of quantum mechanics is quite otherwise: it is that the action of the observer affects the outcome, not that the personal equation of the observer affects it. An observer from the patrician class and another from the proletarian class would arrive at the same results; either could find that quantum mechanics had given the wrong answer.

Thus my position is, that it is far from true that we cannot measure, that we cannot agree together. The problem is only to recognise which questions can be settled once and for all, and which must always be left open.

I shall, perhaps, hear objections based on "values," possibly that it is wise to believe that certainty is impossible, that opinions are all that we can have - that this is a safe belief, which avoids arguments and quarrels. I reply that this suggestion is exactly false. I yield to no man in my respect for the values of others—I insist that all values are only subjective, only matters of opinion. However, I see that one must not only say that others are entitled to their own opinions, one must ensure that in fact no-one denies the right of others to their own opinions.

What we see today is that some individuals suppose that their opinions may indeed be put to the test of action, but that other people's opinions can be rejected without testing. Unless there exists a proof —good in the eyes of all men—that this belief is untenable, then the society must be riven by conflict.