I think I know a little of what Huxley must have felt at that famous moment because I heard Lord Marshall, Head of the Central Electricity Generating Board, say on TV last week in connection with the troubles at a whole string of nuclear power plants "You can't run a nuclear plant unless everything is absolutely perfect". Readers may remember last month's editorial which included the words "This industry would be acceptable only if its plant design and operating practice were both perfect."
Lord Marshall may think that human endeavour, in the nuclear industry at least, can become perfect. If he thinks this, he is a fool; if he does not think it then he is, on his own say-so, asserting that you cannot be justified in going on with the nuclear industry. It is a choice between perfection and phase-out. Only the second of these options belongs among real people working in the real world.