A genial critic detects a note of exaggeration in my praise of
Ignorance. It is, he declares, a bit of "Yellow Journalism." The
reader's attention is attracted by a glaring headline which leads him to
suppose that a crime has been committed, when in reality nothing out of
the ordinary has happened. That a person who has emerged from the state
of absolute illiteracy far enough to appear in print should express a
preference for Ignorance would be important if true. After perusing the
chapter, however, he is of the opinion that it is not Ignorance, at all,
that is described, but something much more respectable. It is akin to a
state of mind which literary persons have agreed to praise under the
name of Culture.
It is very natural that these literary persons should prefer a
high-sounding name, and one free from vulgar associations, but I do not
think that their plea will stand the test of scientific analysis.
Science will not tolerate half knowledge nor pleasant imaginings, nor
sympathetic appreciations; it must have definite demonstration. The
knowledge of the best that has been said and thought may be very
consoling, but it implies an unscientific principle of selection. It can
be proved by statistics that the best things are exceptional. What about
the second best, not to speak of the tenth rate? It is only when you
have collected a vast number of commonplace facts that you are on the
road to a true generalization.
In the Smithsonian Institution at Washington there is a children's room,
in which there is a case marked "Pretty Shells." The specimens fully
justify the inscription. The very daintiest shapes, and the most
intricate convolutions, and the most delicate tints are represented.
They are pretty shells, which have not left their beauty on the shore.
But the delight in all this loveliness is not scientific. The kind
gentleman who arranged the shells according to this classification
acted not in his capacity as a conchologist, but as the father of a
family.
Nor does the enjoyment of the most beautiful thoughts or words satisfy
the requirements of those sciences which deal with humanity. The
distinction between Literature and Science is fundamental. What is a
virtue in one sphere is a vice in the other. After all that has been
said about the scientific use of the imagination it remains true that
the imagination is an intruder in the laboratory. Even if it were put to
use, that would only mean that it is reduced to a condition of slavery.
In its own realm it is accustomed to play rather than to work. It is
also true that the attempts to introduce the methods of the laboratory
into literature have been dismal failures. That way dullness lies.
Now and then, indeed, Nature in a fit of prodigality endows one person
with both gifts.--Was not Oliver Wendell Holmes a Professor of Anatomy?
In such a case there is a perpetual effervescence. But even Dr. Holmes
could not insinuate a sufficient knowledge of Anatomy by means of a
series of discursive essays; nor could he give scientific value to the
reflections of the "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table."
There was a time when the ability to read was such a rare accomplishment
that it seemed to furnish the key to all knowledge. Men of the baser
sort had to learn by experience, but the reader followed a royal path to
the very fountain head of wisdom. Ordinary rules were not for him; he
could claim the benefit of clergy. Only a generation ago young men of
parts prepared themselves for the bar--and very good lawyers they
made--by "reading Blackstone." Blackstone is a pleasant author, with a
fund of wise observations, and many pleasant afternoons were spent in
his company. In like manner other young men "read medicine."
It is now coming to be understood that one cannot read a science; it
must be studied in quite a different fashion. "Book-learning" in such
matters has been discredited.
The Gentle Reader has learned this lesson. It may be that he has
cultivated some tiny field of his own, and has thus come to know how
different this laborious task is from the care-free wandering in which
at other hours he delights. But though he cannot read his way into the
domains of strict science, yet there is an adjacent territory which he
frequents. Into this territory, though he holds an ambiguous position,
and finds many to molest and make him afraid, he is drawn by an
insatiable curiosity. In a border-land danger has attractions and
mystery is alluring. There is pleasant reading in spite of many
threatening technicalities which seem to bar further progress.
On the coasts of the Dark Continent of Ignorance the several sciences
have gained a foothold. In each case there is a well-defined country
carefully surveyed and guarded. Within its frontiers the laws are
obeyed, and all affairs are carried on in an orderly fashion. Beyond it
is a vague "sphere of influence," a Hinter-land over which ambitious
claims of suzerainty are made; but the native tribes have not yet been
exterminated, and life goes on very much as in the olden time. Into the
Hinter-land the Gentle Reader wanders, and he is known to the scientific
explorer as a friendly native, whose good-will is worth cultivating. He
is often confounded with the "General Reader," a very different person,
whose omnivorous appetite and intemperance in the use of miscellaneous
information are very offensive to him. Unscrupulous adventurers carry on
a thriving trade with the General Reader in damaged goods, which are
foisted on him under the name of Popular Science.
* * * * *
In the Hinter-land there is dense ignorance of the achievements and even
of the names of most of those who are recognized as authorities in their
several sciences. They are as unknown as is the Lord Mayor of London to
the natives on the banks of the Zambesi. The heroes of the Hinter-land
are the bold explorers who in militant fashion have made their way into
regions as yet unsubdued.
In the middle of the nineteenth century there was an heroic period
during which scientific investigation took on all the color of romance.
The Gentle Reader turns to the lives and works of Darwin, Huxley, and
Tyndall, very much as he would turn to the tales of Charlemagne and his
Paladins. Here was a field of action. Something happened. As he reads he
is conscious that he has nothing of that impersonal attitude which
belongs to pure science. It is not scientific but human interest which
moves him. He is anxious to know what these men did, and what was the
result of their deeds. It is an intellectual adventure of which the
outcome is still uncertain.
The new generation cannot fully realize what the word "Evolution" meant
to those who saw in it a portent of mysterious change. In its early
advocates there was a mingling of romantic daring and missionary zeal.
Its enemies resisted with the fortitude which belongs to those who never
know when they are beaten. In almost any old bookstores one may see a
counter labeled "Second-hand Theology, very cheap." It is a collection
of the spent ammunition which may still be found on the field of battle.
It is in an unfrequented corner. Now and then a theological student may
visit it, but even he seems rather to be a vague considerer of worthy
things than a bargain hunter. Yet once these volumes were eagerly read.
Out of the border warfare between Science and certain types of Theology
and Philosophy there came a kind of literature that has a very real
value and which is not lacking in charm. What a sense of relief came to
the Gentle Reader when he stumbled upon John Fiske's "Excursions of an
Evolutionist." This was the very thing he had been looking for; not an
exhaustive survey, nor a strenuous campaign, but an excursion with a
competent guide and interpreter, a friendly person acquainted with the
country who would tell him the things he wanted to know, and not weary
him with irrelevant and confusing details.
What an admirable interpreter Fiske was! Darwin, with characteristic
modesty, acknowledged his indebtedness to him for pointing out some of
the larger results of his own investigations. He had the instinct which
enabled him to seize the salient points; to open up new vistas, to make
clear a situation. His histories are always readable because he followed
the main stream and never lost himself in a sluggish bayou. The same
method applied to cosmic forces makes him see their dramatic movement.
It is the genius of a born man of letters using the facts discovered by
scientific methods for its own purpose. That purpose is always broad and
humanizing.
The specialist is apt to speak patronizingly of such work, as if it were
necessarily inferior to his own. It seems to bear the marks of
superficiality. To appreciate it properly one must take it for what it
is. Man was interested in the Universe long before he began to study it
scientifically. He dreamed about it, he mused over its mysteries, he
talked about its more obvious aspects. And it is as interesting now as
it ever was and as fit an object of thought. The conceptions which
satisfied us in the days when ignorance had not arrived at
self-consciousness have to be given up; but we are anxious to know what
have taken their places. We want to get our bearings and to discern the
general trend of the forces which make the world. It is no mean order of
mind that is fitted to answer our needs by wise interpretation.
There is often a conflict between private owners and the public over the
right to fish in certain waters. The landowners put up warning signs and
try to prevent trespass, while the public insists on its ancient
privileges. The law, with that admirable common sense for which it has
such a great reputation, makes a distinction. The small pond may be
privately owned and fenced in, but "boatable waters" are free to all.
So we may concede to the specialist the exclusive right to have an
opinion on certain subjects--subjects let us say of a size suitable for
the thesis of a Doctor of Philosophy. But we are not to be shut off from
the pleasure of thinking on more sizable themes. We have all equal
rights on the "boatable waters."
* * * * *
Matthew Arnold retells the story of the Scholar-gypsy who, forsaking the
university, "took to the woods,"--so far as we can learn from the poem,
to his own spiritual and intellectual advantage. The combination of the
scholar and gypsy has a fascination. One likes to conceive of thought as
playing freely among the other forces of nature, and dealing directly
with all objects and not with those especially prepared for it.
Across the border-land of the physical sciences one may meet many such
scholar-gypsies. They have taken to the wilderness and yet carried into
it a trained intelligence. Here may be found keen observers, who might
have written text-books on ornithology had they not fallen in love with
birds. They follow their friends into their haunts in the thickets, and
they love to gossip about their peculiarities. Here are botanists who
love the growing things in the fields and woods better than the
specimens in their herbariums. They love to describe better than to
analyze. Now and then one may meet a renegade who carries a geologist's
hammer. It is a sheer hypocrisy, like a fishing rod in the hands of a
contemplative rambler. It is merely an excuse for being out of doors and
among the mountains.
The Gentle Reader finds unfailing delight in these wanderers. They open
up to him a leafy world. Thanks to them there are places where he feels
intimately at home: a certain English parish; a strip of woodland in
Massachusetts; the vicinity of a farm on the Hudson; an enchanted
country in the high Sierras.
"I verily believe," he says, "there is more Natural History to be
learned in such places than in all the museums. Besides, I never liked a
museum."
The fact is that he does learn a good many things in this way--and some
of them he remembers.
* * * * *
The native African who is capable of understanding the philosophy of
history may adjust his mind to the idea that his continent is intended
for exploitation by a superior race. The forests in which his ancestors
have hunted for generations form only a part of the Hinter-land of some
colony on the coast which he has never seen. After a time, by an
inevitable process of expansion, the colony will absorb and assimilate
all the adjoining country. But his perplexities are not over when he
has, in a general way, resigned himself to manifest destiny. He
discovers that all Europeans are not alike, though they certainly look
alike. There are conflicting claims. To whose sphere of influence does
he belong? It is not easy to answer such questions, and mistakes are
liable to bring down upon him punitive expeditions from different
quarters.
A similar perplexity arises in the minds of the simple inhabitants of
the scientific Hinter-lands. They are ready to admit the superior claims
of the exact sciences, but they are puzzled to know to what particular
sphere they belong.
In the absence of any generally received philosophy each special science
pushes out as far as it can and attempts to take in the whole of
existence. The specialist, forgetting his self-imposed limitations, and
fired with the ambition for wide generalization, which is the infirmity
of all active minds, becomes an intellectual tyrant. He is a veritable
Tamerlane, and if he rears no pyramids of skulls, he leaves behind him a
multitude of muddled brains.
Wilberforce tells us of the havoc wrought in his day by the new science
of Political Economy. Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" was hailed as the
complete solution of all social problems. Forgetting the narrow scope of
the inquiry which had to do with only a single aspect of human life, the
maxims of trade were elevated into the place of the moral law.
Superstition magnified those useful twins, Demand and Supply, into two
all-powerful Genii who were quite capable of doing the work of
Providence. For any one in the spirit of brotherly kindness to interfere
with their autocratic operations was looked upon as an act of rebellion
against the nature of things. "A dismal science," indeed, as any science
is when it becomes an unlimited despotism.
At the present time Geology is a very modest science, remaining
peacefully within its natural frontiers; but in the days of Hugh Miller
it was viewed with alarm. Elated with its victory in the affair with
Genesis, its adherents were filled with militant ardor and were in the
mood for universal conquest. In alliance with Chemistry it invaded the
sphere of morals. Was not even Ruskin induced to write of the "Ethics of
the Dust"? In the form of Physical Geography and with the auxiliary
forces of Meteorology, it was ready to recast human history. Books were
written to show that all civilization could be sufficiently explained by
one who took account only of such features of the world as soil and
climate.
While learned men were geologizing through the successive
stratifications of humanity, a new claimant appeared. Biology became
easily the paramount power. Its fame spread far and wide among those who
knew nothing of its severer methods. In the Hinter-land the worship of
Protoplasm became a cult. The hopes and fears and spiritual powers of
humanity seemed illusory unless such phenomena were confirmed by
analogies drawn from "the psychic life of micro-organisms." Fortunately
at about this time the aggressive temper of "The New Psychology" did
much to restore the balance of power. Under its influence those who
still adhered to the belief that the proper study of mankind is man took
heart and ventured, though with caution, to move abroad. The new
Psychology in its turn has developed imperialistic ambitions. Its
conquests have not been without much devastation, especially in the fair
fields of education. A distinguished Psychologist has sounded a note of
warning. He would have psychological experiments confined to the
laboratory, leaving the school-room to the wholesome government of
common sense. It is doubtful, however, whether such protests will avail
any more than the eloquence of the Little Englanders has been able to
limit colonial expansion.
The border-land between Psychology and Sociology is the scene of many a
foray. The Psychologist thinks nothing of following a fleeing idea
across the frontier. He deals confidently with the "Psychology of the
mob," and "the aggregate mind," and the hypnotic influence of the crowd.
There is such an air of authority about it all, that we forget that he
is dealing with figures of speech. On the other hand, the Sociologist
attempts to solve the most delicate problems of the individual soul by
the statistical method.
The Hinter-land has not yet been reduced to order. The Gentle Reader
suspects that no one of the rival sciences is strong enough to impose
its own laws over so wide a region. Perhaps, after all, they may have to
call upon Philosophy to undertake the task of forming a responsible
government.