Can Prophecy be a science? Science at any rate, appears to aim at
prophecy. We are often told that the test of an hypothesis lies in
the events that it predicts; but it is a test that is much too rarely
applied. We are surprised when Biologists apply it in a systematic way
to the theory of evolution. Historians also tell us that the study of
the past will help us to foresee the future, but in their practice they
hardly succeed in catching up to the present.
The organum of human knowledge, in fact, presents a curious spectacle――a
vast system of foundations but no sign of the edifice these foundations
are to bear. At least such was the case until recently. In the little
prophetic volumes recently published we can see, perhaps, the
preliminary sketch of its imposing elevation.
And so another question occurs. What is the future of prophecy?
Psychical research may even yet surprise us. Latent powers of divination
may lurk in the human mind, but it is premature no doubt to look for
enlightenment here. Less sensational but more significant is the
emergence of the prophetic function in the work of science itself, and
in the pedestrian progress of our general intellectual life in the
twentieth century.
It was this prophetic function of scientific thought which the author
set out in this little book to investigate, but like other writers
in the series he was tempted to “try out” some tentative principles
which seemed to promise well. Perhaps the future will reveal some
inaccuracies in his forecast, but the digression has been worth while.
One thing, at least, is certain. Large scale organization extends to
the work of science. In our past experiments we have been too much
concerned with events of short duration, with the kind of results we
could obtain for rapid publication, and with cycles that fall within
the span of an individual life. Even now we have insufficient data to
decide whether cold winters come in periods of seventy or eighty years,
a ridiculously easy problem which a little organization would have
solved. But every year will add to the fund of carefully recorded data.
Men are learning to co-operate through time. Experiments initiated by
the father are continued by the son, and succeeding generations will
record the results.
Organization provides a workable alternative to the invention
of Methuselahs; though it would simplify things considerably if
Nature could see her way to adopt the suggestion of Mr Shaw. More
than anywhere else perhaps this kind of organization is needed for
sociological and biological experiment. By that way we shall obtain
the knowledge upon which scientific prophecy may be based. In the
meantime, let us speculate. Speculation is not a deadly sin, but an
aid to true perspective, and it is suggestive of good hypotheses.
Nor need our speculations, even now, be wholly in the air. We have
the broad tendencies of the past on which to base our forecast. The
danger lies in a premature attempt to elucidate the details. The older
prophets tried to foresee particular events, the newer are content with
the general tendencies. Knowledge grows not like a crystal by minute
accretions, but like a work of art, from outline down to detail guided
by inspiration――which, in science, is speculation.