PHILOSOPHIES
BY RONALD ROSS
K.C.B., F.R.C.S., D.Sc., LL.D., F.R.S., C.B.
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1923
FIRST EDITION....... _September, 1910_
_Reprinted_..... _December, 1910_
_Reprinted_..... _June, 1911_
_Reprinted_..... _August, 1923_
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
_Printed in Great Britain by_
_Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._
PREFACE
These verses were written in India between the years 1881 and 1899,
mostly during my researches on malaria. Friends who have read that part
of them which is called _In Exile_ complained that they could not easily
follow the movement of it; and as I am now publishing the poems together
with a text-book on malaria—and also because I desire very strongly to
rid my mind of this subject which has occupied it for twenty years—I
take the opportunity to give such explanation of the work as I can find
expression for.
In 1881 I joined the military medical service of India, and was called
upon to serve during the next seven years in Madras, Bangalore, Burma,
and the Andaman Islands. Having abundant leisure, I occupied most of it
in the study of various sciences and arts, in all of which I attempted
some works to the best of my ability. For this I make no excuse to my
conscience, since to my mind art and science are the same, and efforts
in both, however poor the result may be, are to be commended more than
idleness. Near the end of the seven years, however, I began to be drawn
toward certain thoughts which from the first had occurred to me in my
profession, especially as to the cause of the widespread sickness and of
the great misery and decadence of the people of India. Racked by
poverty, swept by epidemics, housed in hovels, ruled by superstitions,
they presented the spectacle of an ancient civilisation fallen for
centuries into decay. One saw there both physical and mental
degeneration. Since the time of the early mathematicians science had
died; and since that of the great temples art had become ornament, and
religion dogma. Here was the living picture of the fate which destroyed
Greece, Rome, and Spain; and I saw in it the work of nescience—the
opposite of science. . . . Returning to Britain in 1888, I qualified
myself for pathological researches, and about 1890 or 1891 entered upon
a careful study of malarial fever, in the hope of finding out accurately
how it is caused and may be prevented. On August 20, 1897, I was
fortunate enough to find the clue to the problem—which, I believe,
would not have been discovered but for such good fortune; and the next
year I ascertained the principal facts which I had been in search of.
These poems are the notes of the wayside. As for _In Exile_, I do not
remember the date—but it was early in the course of the labour—when my
thoughts began to shape themselves into a kind of sonnet of three short
stanzas. It was a pleasure and relief after the day’s work to mould them
thus, for each set of stanzas required a different balance and structure
within its narrow limits, and was, so to speak, inscribed on small
squares of stone, to be put away and arranged thereafter. Later, when my
researches had attained to success, a sudden disastrous interruption of
them compelled me to set aside the verses also, and it was not until
nine years afterwards that I found time to arrange them for rough
printing. They were then put nearly in the order of writing, some
fragments being finished but most omitted. I have blamed myself for
this, because the omissions give to the whole a more sombre cast than is
natural to me, or than I had intended; but now I judge I was right in
it. The poem, such as it is, is not a diary in verse, but rather the
figure of a work and of a philosophy. . . . I find I cannot rise with
those who would soar above reason in the chase of something supernal.
Infinities and absolutes are still beyond us; though we may hope to come
nearer to them some day by the patient study of little things. Our first
duty is the opposite of that which many prophets enjoin upon us—or so I
think. We must not accept any speculations merely because they now
appear pleasant, flattering, or ennobling to us. We must be content to
creep upwards step by step; planting each foot on the firmest finding of
the moment; using the compass and such other instruments as we have;
observing without either despair or contempt the clouds and precipices
above and beneath us. Especially our duty at present is to better our
present foothold; to investigate; to comprehend the forces of nature; to
set our state rationally in order; to stamp down disease in body, mind,
and government; to lighten the monstrous misery of our fellows, not by
windy dogmas, but by calm science. The sufferings of the world are due
to this, that we despise those plain earthly teachers, reason, work, and
discipline. Lost in many speculations, we leave our house disordered,
unkept, and dirty. We indulge too much in dreams; in politics which
organise not prosperity but contention; in philosophies which expressly
teach irrationalism, fakirism, and nescience. The poor fakir seated
begging by the roadside; with his visions—and his sores! Such is
man. . . . An old philosophy this—like the opposite one. The poem
gathers itself under it and attempts to use the great symbols of that
wonderful Land, the drought, the doubt, the pains of self, the arid
labour, the horrors of whole nations diseased, the crime of Nescience,
parodying God’s words, and the victory of His thunder and rain.
The dated stanzas near the end, except the first two lines of the second
quatrain, were written the day after the discovery of the parasites of
malaria in mosquitos. There are some repetitions, and I fear worse
faults; but it is too late to mend them. I am much indebted to Mr. John
Masefield and Mrs. Masefield for assisting me in the correction of the
proofs.
THE AUTHOR.
DECEMBER 2, 1909.
CONTENTS
PRELUDES
INDIA.............................. 1
THOUGHT............................ 2
SCIENCE............................ 2
POWER.............................. 3
DOGMA.............................. 4
FROTH.............................. 4
LIBERTY............................ 5
THE THREE ANGELS................... 5
APOLOGUES
RETURN............................. 6
THE STAR AND THE SUN............... 6
THE WORLD’S INHERITORS............. 7
DEATH-SONG OF SAVAGERY............. 9
OCEAN AND THE DEAD................. 10
OCEAN AND THE ROCK................. 11
THE BROTHERS....................... 12
ALASTOR............................ 13
LABOURS
SONNET............................. 15
VISION............................. 16
THOUGHT AND ACTION................. 18
THE INDIAN MOTHER.................. 20
GANGES-BORNE....................... 20
INDIAN FEVERS...................... 21
THE STAR........................... 21
PETITION........................... 22
IN EXILE
PART I............................. 23
DESERT......................... 23