The conclusion of the World War is the closing of the period of the
childhood of humanity. This childhood, as any childhood, can be
characterized as devoid of any real understanding of values, as is that of
a child who uses a priceless chronometer to crack nuts.
This childhood has been unduly long, but happily we are near to the end of
it, for humanity, shaken by this war, is coming to its senses and must
soon enter its manhood, a period of great achievements and rewards in the
new and real sense of values dawning upon us.
The sacred dead will not have died for naught; the “red wine of youth,”
the wanton waste of life, has shown us the price of life, and we will have
to keep our oath to make the future worthy of their sweat and blood.
Early ideas are not necessarily true ideas.
There are different kinds of interpretations of history and different
schools of philosophy. All of them have contributed something to human
progress, but none of them has been able to give the world a basic
philosophy embracing the whole progress of science and establishing the
life of man upon the abiding foundation of Fact.
Our life is bound to develop according to evident or else concealed laws
of nature. The evident laws of nature were the inspiration of genuine
science in its cradle; and their interpretations or misinterpretations
have from the earliest times formed systems of law, of ethics, and of
philosophy.
Human intellect, be it that of an individual or that of the race, forms
conclusions which have to be often revised before they correspond
approximately to facts. What we call progress consists in coordinating
ideas with realities. The World War has taught something to everybody. It
was indeed a great reality; it accustomed us to think in terms of reality
and not in those of phantom speculation. Some unmistakable truths were
revealed. Facts and force were the things that counted. Power had to be
produced to destroy hostile power; it was found that the old political and
economic systems were not adequate to the task put upon them. The world
had to create new economic conditions; it was obliged to supplement the
old systems with special boards for food, coal, railroads, shipping,
labor, etc. The World War emergency compelled the nations to organize for
producing greater power in order to conquer power already great.
If there is anything which this war has proved, it is the fact that the
most important asset a nation or an individual can have, is the ability
“to do things.”
“In Flanders Fields the poppies blow ...,” that is too true; they blow and
they are strong and red. But the purpose of this writing is not the
celebration of poetry, but the elucidation and right use of facts.
Normally, thousands of rabbits and guinea pigs are used and killed, in
scientific laboratories, for experiments which yield great and tangible
benefits to humanity. This war butchered millions of people and ruined the
health and lives of tens of millions. Is this climax of the pre-war
civilization to be passed unnoticed, except for the poetry and the
manuring of the battle fields, that the “poppies blow” stronger and better
fed? Or is the death of ten men on the battle field to be of as much worth
in knowledge gained as is the life of one rabbit killed for experiment? Is
the great sacrifice worth analysing? There can be only one answer—yes.
But, if truth be desired, the analysis must be scientific.
In science, “opinions” are tolerated when and only when facts are lacking.
In this case, we have all the facts necessary. We have only to collect
them and analyse them, rejecting mere “opinions” as cheap and unworthy.
Such as understand this lesson will know how to act for the benefit of
all.
At present the future of mankind is dark. “Stop, look, and listen”—the
prudent caution at railroad crossings—must be amended to read “stop, look,
listen, and THINK”; not for the saving of a few lives in railroad
accidents, but for the preservation of the life of humanity. Living
organisms, of the lower and simpler types, in which the differentiation
and the integration of the vital organs have not been carried far, can
move about for a considerable time after being deprived of the appliances
by which the life force is accumulated and transferred, but higher
organisms are instantly killed by the removal of such appliances, or even
by the injury of minor parts of them; even more easily destroyed are the
more advanced and complicated _social_ organizations.
The first question is: what are to be the scientific methods that will
eliminate diverse opinions and creeds from an analysis of facts and ensure
correct deductions based upon them? A short survey of facts concerning
civilization will help to point the way.
Humanity, in its cradle, did not have science; it had only the faculties
of observation and speculation. In the early days there was much
speculative thinking, but it was without any sufficient basis of facts.
Theology and philosophy flourished; their speculations were often very
clever, but all their primitive notions about facts—such as the structure
of the heavens, the form of the earth, mechanical principles,
meteorological or physiological phenomena—were almost all of them wrong.
What is history? What is its significance for humanity? Dr. J. H. Robinson
gives us a precise answer: “Man’s abject dependence on the past gives rise
to the continuity of history. Our convictions, opinions, prejudices,
intellectual tastes; our knowledge, our methods of learning and of
applying for information we owe, with slight exceptions, to the past—often
to the remote past. History is an expansion of memory, and like memory it
alone can explain the present and in this lies its most unmistakable
value.”(2)
The savage regards every striking phenomenon or group of phenomena as
caused by some personal agent, and from remotest antiquity the mode of
thinking has changed only as fast as the relations among phenomena have
been established.(3)
Human nature was always asking “why”? and not being able to answer why,
they found their answer through another factor “who.” The unknown was
called, Gods or God. But with the progress of science the “why” became
more and more evident, and the question came to be “how.” From the early
days of humanity, dogmatic theology, law, ethics, and science in its
infancy, were the monopolies of one class and the source of their
power.(4)
The first to break this power were the exact sciences. They progressed too
rapidly to be bound and limited by obscure old writings and prejudices;
life and realities were their domain. Science brushed aside all sophistry
and became a reality. Ethics is too fundamentally important a factor in
civilization to depend upon a theological or a legal excuse; ethics must
conform to the _natural_ laws of human _nature_.
Laws, legal ideas, date from the beginning of civilization. Legal
speculation was wonderfully developed in parallel lines with theology and
philosophy before the natural and exact sciences came into existence. Law
was always made by the few and in general for the purpose of preserving
the “existing order,” or for the reestablishment of the old order and the
punishment of the offenders against it.
Dogmatic theology is, by its very nature, unchangeable. The same can be
said in regard to the spirit of the law. Law was and is to protect the
past and present status of society and, by its very essence, must be very
conservative, if not reactionary. Theology and law are both of them static
by their nature.(5)
Philosophy, law and ethics, to be effective in a dynamic world must be
dynamic; they must be made vital enough to keep pace with the progress of
life and science. In recent civilization ethics, because controlled by
theology and law, which are static, could not duly influence the dynamic,
revolutionary progress of technic and the steadily changing conditions of
life; and so we witness a tremendous downfall of morals in politics and
business. Life progresses faster than our ideas, and so medieval ideas,
methods and judgments are constantly applied to the conditions and
problems of modern life. This discrepancy between facts and ideas is
greatly responsible for the dividing of modern society into different
warring classes, which do not understand each other. Medieval legalism and
medieval morals—the basis of the old _social_ structure—being by their
nature conservative, reactionary, opposed to change, and thus becoming
more and more unable to support the mighty social burden of the modern
world, must be adjudged responsible in a large measure for the
circumstances which made the World War inevitable.
Under the flash of explosives some of the workings of those antiquated
ideas were exposed or crushed. The World War has profoundly changed
economic conditions and made it necessary to erect new standards of
values. We are forced to realize that evolution by transformation is a
cosmic process and that reaction, though it may retard it, can not
entirely stop it.(6)
The idea that organic species are results of special creation has no
scientific standard whatever. There is not one fact tending to prove
special or separate creation; the evidence, which is overwhelming, is all
of it on the other side. The hypothesis of special creation is a mere
fossil of the past. Evolution is the only theory which is in harmony with
facts and with all branches of science: life is dynamic, not static.
Philosophy, as defined by Fichte, is the “science of sciences.” Its aim
was to solve the problems of the world. In the past, when all exact
sciences were in their infancy, philosophy had to be purely speculative,
with little or no regard to realities. But if we regard philosophy as a
Mother science, divided into many branches, we find that those branches
have grown so large and various, that the Mother science looks like a hen
with her little ducklings paddling in a pond, far beyond her reach; she is
unable to follow her growing hatchlings. In the meantime, the progress of
life and science goes on, irrespective of the cackling of metaphysics.
Philosophy does not fulfill her initial aim to bring the results of
experimental and exact sciences together and to solve world problems.
Through endless, scientific specialization scientific branches multiply,
and for want of coordination the great world-problems suffer. This failure
of philosophy to fulfill her boasted mission of scientific coordination is
responsible for the chaos in the world of general thought. The world has
no collective or organized higher ideals and aims, nor even fixed general
purposes. Life is an accidental game of private or collective ambitions
and greeds.(7)
Systematic study of chemical and physical phenomena has been carried on
for many generations and these two sciences now include: (1) knowledge of
an enormous number of facts; (2) a large body of natural laws; (3) many
fertile working hypotheses respecting the causes and regularities of
natural phenomena; and finally (4) many helpful theories held subject to
correction by further testing of the hypotheses giving rise to them. When
a subject is spoken of as a science, it is understood to include all of
the above mentioned parts. Facts alone do not constitute a science any
more than a pile of stones constitutes a house, not even do facts and laws
alone; there must be facts, hypotheses, theories and laws before the
subject is entitled to the rank of a science.
The primal function of a science is to enable us to anticipate the future
in the field to which it relates. Judged by this standard, neither
philosophy nor its kindred—the so-called social sciences—have in the past
been very effective. There was, for example, no official warning of the
coming of the World War—the greatest of catastrophes. The future was not
anticipated because political philosophers did not possess the necessary
basis of knowledge. To be just we must admit that philosophy has been but
little aided financially because it is commonly regarded as unnecessary.
The technical branches of science have been strongly backed and generally
supported by those to whom they have brought direct profit; and so they
have had better opportunities for development.
Ethics in the stifling grip of myth and legalism is not convincing enough
to exercise controlling influence. Such is the situation in which we find
ourselves. Being still in our childhood and thinking like savages, we
looked upon the World War as a personal creation of a “war-lord,” because
those interested in it told us so. We neglected to use our common sense
and look deeper into its origins; to perform for ourselves the duty which
political philosophy did not perform for us—the duty of thinking in terms
of facts and not in terms of metaphysical speculations. Knowledge of facts
would have told us that the war lords were only the representatives of the
ruling classes. A system of social and economic order built exclusively on
selfishness, greed, “survival of the fittest,” and ruthless competition,
must cease to exist, or exist by means of war. The representatives of this
system determined to continue to exist, and so war was the consequence.
The ruling classes carried the whole system under which they lived to its
logical conclusion and natural issue, which is “grab what you can.” This
motto is not peculiar to any one country; it is the motto of our whole
civilization and is the inevitable outcome of our stupid philosophy
regarding the characteristic nature of man and the proper potentialities
of human life. Where are we to find the true doctrines? Where the true
philosophy? If we go back over the history of civilization, we find that
in all “sciences,” except the exact ones, private opinions and theories
have shaped our beliefs, colored our mental processes and controlled our
destinies; we see, for example, pessimism opposed to optimism, materialism
to spiritualism, realism to idealism, capitalism to socialism, and so on
endlessly. Each of the disputatious systems has a large number of
followers and each faction looks upon the others as deprived of truth,
common sense and knowledge. All of them play with the words “natural law”
which they ignorantly presume to have as the basis and content of their
own particular doctrine.
It is the same in the realm of religions; there are approximately 291
million Confucianists, or Taoists, 261 million Roman Catholics, 211
million Mohammedans, 209 million Hindus, 177 million Protestants, 157
million Animists, 137 million Buddhists, 115 million Orthodox
Christians—to speak only of the most important religions. Each group, and
they are rather large groups, believes its theory or its faith to be
infallible and all the others to be false.
Bacon seems a bit remote, but the idols and medieval fetishes which he so
masterfully describes are equally venerated to-day.
(_Novum Organum_, by Francis Bacon.)
34. “Four species of idols beset the human mind, to which (for
distinction’s sake) we have assigned names, calling the first
Idols of the Tribe, the second Idols of the Den, the third Idols
of the Market, the fourth Idols of the Theatre.
40. “The information of notions and axioms on the foundation of
true induction is the only fitting remedy by which we can ward off
and expel these idols. It is, however, of great service to point
them out; for the doctrine of idols bears the same relation to the
interpretation of nature as that of the confutation of sophisms
does to common logic.
41. “The idols of the tribe are inherent in human nature and the
very tribe or race of man; for man’s sense is falsely asserted to
be the standard of things; on the contrary, all the perceptions
both of the senses and the mind bear reference to man and not to
the Universe, and the human mind resembles these uneven mirrors
which impart their own properties to different objects, from which
rays are emitted and distort and disfigure them.
42. “The idols of the den are those of each individual; for
everybody (in addition to the errors common to the race of man)
has his own individual den or cavern, which intercepts and
corrupts the light of nature, either from his own peculiar and
singular disposition, or from his education and intercourse with
others, or from his reading, and the authority acquired by those
whom he reverences and admires, or from the different impressions
produced on the mind, as it happens to be preoccupied and
predisposed, or equable and tranquil, and the like; so that the
spirit of man (according to its several dispositions), is
variable, confused, and, as it were, actuated by chance; and
Heraclitus said well that men search for knowledge in lesser
worlds, and not in the greater or common world.
43. “There are also idols formed by the reciprocal intercourse and
society of man with man, which we call idols of the market, from
the commerce and association of men with each other; for men
converse by means of language, but words are formed at the will of
the generality, and there arises from a bad and unapt formation of
words a wonderful obstruction to the mind. Nor can the definitions
and explanations with which learned men are wont to guard and
protect themselves in some instances afford a complete
remedy—words still manifestly force the understanding, throw
everything into confusion, and lead mankind into vain and
innumerable controversies and fallacies.
44. “Lastly, there are idols which have crept into men’s minds
from the various dogmas of peculiar systems of philosophy, and
also from the perverted rules of demonstration, and these we
denominate idols of the theatre: for we regard all the systems of
philosophy hitherto received or imagined, as so many plays brought
out and performed, creating fictitious and theatrical worlds. Nor
do we speak only of the present systems, or of the philosophy and
sects of the ancients, since numerous other plays of a similar
nature can be still composed and made to agree with each other,
the causes of the most opposite errors being generally the same.
Nor, again, do we allude merely to general systems, but also to
many elements and axioms of sciences which have become inveterate
by tradition, implicit credence, and neglect.”(8)
Metaphysical speculation and its swarming progeny of blind and selfish
political philosophies, private opinions, private “truths,” and private
doctrines, sectarian opinions, sectarian “truths” and sectarian doctrines,
querulous, confused and blind—such is characteristic of the _childhood_ of
humanity. The period of humanity’s _manhood_ will, I doubt not, be a
scientific period—a period that will witness the gradual extension of
scientific method to all the interests of mankind—a period in which man
will discover the essential nature of man and establish, at length, the
science and art of directing human energies and human capacities to the
advancement of human weal in accordance with the laws of human nature.