It would be an entertaining pursuit to compile the characteristics of
the man of science--usually a Professor--as he is depicted in popular
fiction, on the stage, and in the writings of exasperated conservatives
in religious and social matters. It would be found that these
characteristics combine to give one dominant and entirely untruthful
impression: the man of science is represented as being scientific on
all occasions. We may ignore the inferior school that portrays him as
being constantly obsessed by his work--like Dickens’ learned gentleman
who mistook the nature of a dark lantern--and confine our attention
to the Professor who is represented, not as imbecile, but merely as
homogeneous. This imaginary individual is never to be diverted from his
passion for precise statement and strictly logical inference. Whether
the subject be politics or the state of the weather, he brings the same
preliminary scepticism, the same demands for verification, that he
carries into his scientific researches. As we have said, this picture
is untruthful; we think, however, that this is an unfortunate fact,
and that it is highly desirable that men of science should begin to
live up to the story-teller’s conception of them.
We think that, at the present stage of man’s evolution, science is the
one activity in which he displays himself as a truly rational creature.
The reason is, of course, that success is granted on no other terms; in
everything else, philosophy, theology, politics, reason is usually the
handmaid to prejudice. The penalties that visit error in these fields
are not so swift nor so unambiguous. The ideal of truthfulness is
probably more rigorous with the scientist, _qua_ scientist, than
with any other kind of man. But it would appear that this dispassionate
rationality is hardly won and precariously maintained. Outside his
laboratory the scientist may, and usually does, show himself as
simple, as kindly, as credulous, as irrational as any other man. On
Bolshevism, Disestablishment, the Morality of the Public Parks, his
opinions will be indistinguishable from those of any other comfortable
member of the lower middle class; that is to say that opinions on all
such matters are “distributed” amongst scientific men according to
the same statistical rules as they are distributed amongst ordinary
citizens. Outside their views on purely scientific matters there is
nothing _characteristic_ of men of science. The Royal Society may
conceivably issue a unanimous report on some scientific matter; it
would issue a unanimous report on nothing else whatever. Now on the
assumption that men of science are truly rational beings this is a very
strange state of affairs. Dispassionate attempts to sift evidence,
to argue correctly and to base judgments solely on the outcome of
these processes could hardly result in so remarkable a multiplicity
of opinions. We must assume that, for scientific men as a body, their
“scientific” methods of thought function only within very narrow
limits. As a distinct community they are far less coherent than, for
instance, the community of artists--musicians, poets, painters. The
community of artists, with the exception of a few prosperous members,
exhibits a really remarkable homogeneity in matters outside art.
Doubtless this homogeneity is based on feeling--unless we are prepared
to admit that artists, as a whole, are more rational than are men of
science--and it is probable that the scientist’s difference from his
fellow-citizens is more an intellectual than an emotional difference.
But it is surprising that greater emotional sensitiveness should prove
so much more pervasive and dominating a peculiarity than greater
intellectual subtlety.
It is time that men of science assumed a greater position in the
general community. If a scientific training has a tithe of the
_general_ educational value that is claimed for it, it is time
we had some evidence of that fact. Men of science must adopt a higher
ideal of personal honour. At present the man who will conduct a
laboratory experiment with meticulous precision and describe his
results in an agony of honesty will be content to be a prejudiced
observer and a slovenly and inaccurate thinker in all other matters.
This is the chief reason, we are convinced, why men of science count
for so little in public affairs. If the Royal Society elected its own
member of Parliament, who would bother about the political opinion so
expressed? What greater weight would it have than the political opinion
of an equal number of moderately prosperous ordinary citizens? Does not
the scientific man waggle his head just as solemnly over his morning
newspaper as does any unsophisticated voter?
We plead for the development of a class consciousness on the part
of the man of science. We want scientific men to regard their ideal
of evidence, their conception of proof, their really admirable
scientific detachment, not merely as rules making for success in their
particular game, but as principles applicable to every subject that
concerns a citizen. Why should a man of science be merely a Liberal
or a Conservative in politics? The alternative belongs to the stage
of mental development that explained the material universe by saying
that its moving principle was fire, or, alternatively, water. We
expect a more sober contribution to political questions from, say, a
distinguished physicist, than the panacea “Shoot the miners.” All the
questions on which scientific men now adopt “sides” as uncritically
as any simple dupe of the daily press are amenable to scientific
investigation. They can reach a solution only by the application of
scientific methods, and the modern world badly needs deliverance from
the method of charms and incantations by which these questions are at
present treated. How long are these vital matters to remain in the
hands of the witch-doctors? With scientific men content to sit in the
circle and help beat the tom-toms what hope is there of real advance
founded on real knowledge? The artists cannot help us; they are useful
indicators of the value of the product, as it were; they look pleased
or they look disgusted, and that is very helpful in showing us where
we are. It is the scientific man who must show us how to go somewhere
else. So we plead for the conscious formation of a community of men
of science, for scientific men who are at least as pervasively and
constantly scientific as a good Jesuit is Roman Catholic.