Latest / Short Nonfiction Collection / On the Advisableness of Improving Natural Knowledge (1866)

Transcript

On the Advisableness of Improving Natural Knowledge (1866) · Short Nonfiction Collection

0:00
On the advisableness of Improving Natural Knowledge by Thomas Henry Huxley. This is a
0:07
liprivox recording. All the privox recordings are in the public domain. For more
0:11
information ought to volunteer, please visit liprivox dot org. Recording by AVAI in
0:18
September two thousand, twenty three on the advisableness of Improving Natural Knowledge by Thomas
0:25
Henry Huxley. Footnote a lay sermon delivered in Saint Martin's Hall on Sunday,
0:32
January seventh, eighteen sixty six, and subsequently published in the Fortnightly Review and
0:40
footnote this time two hundred years ago, in the beginning of January sixteen sixty
0:47
six, those of our forefathers who inhabited Disgratont, ancient city, took breath
0:54
between the shocks of two fearful calamities, one not quite passed, although its
0:59
fury had a bay, the other to come within a few yards of the
1:03
very spot on which we are assembled. So the tradition runs that painful and
1:10
deadly malady. The plague appeared in the latter months of sixteen sixty four,
1:15
and though no new visitor smote the people of England and especially of her capital,
1:22
with a violence unknown before. In the course of the following year,
1:26
the hand of a master has pictured what happened in those dismal months, And
1:32
in that truest of fictions, the history of the plague year, Defoe shows
1:37
death, with every accompaniment of pain and terror, stalking through the narrow streets
1:42
of old London, and changing their busy hum into a silence, broken only
1:48
by the wailing of the mourners of fifty thousand dead, by the woeful denunciations
1:53
and mad prayers of fanatics, and by the madder yells of despairing profligates.
2:00
But about this time, in sixteen sixty six, the death rate had sunk
2:04
to nearly its ordinary amount. A case of plague occurred only here and there,
2:09
and the richer citizens who had flown from the pest had returned to their
2:14
dwellings. The remnant of the people began to toil at the accustomed round of
2:19
duty or of pleasure, and the stream of city life bid fair to flow
2:24
back along its old bed with renewed and uninterrupted vigor. The newly kindled hope
2:31
was deceitful. The great plague indeed returned no more. But what it had
2:37
done for the Londoners. The great fire which broke out in the autumn of
2:40
sixteen sixty six did for London, and in September of that year a heap
2:46
of ashes and the indestructible energy of the people were all that remained of the
2:52
glory of five sixths of the city within the walls. Our forefathers had their
2:58
own ways of accounting for each of these calamities. They submitted to the plague
3:02
in humility and in penitence, for they believed it to be the judgment of
3:07
God. But towards the fire they were furiously indignant, interpreting it as the
3:14
effect of the malice of man, as the work of the Republicans or of
3:19
the Papists, according as their prepossessions ran in favor of loyalty or of puritanism.
3:27
It would I fancy have fared but ill with one who standing where I
3:31
now stand in what was then a sickly peopled and fashionable part of London,
3:37
should have brought to our ancestors the doctrine which I now propound to you,
3:42
that all their hypotheses were alike wrong, that the plague was no more in
3:46
their sense divine judgment than the fire was the work of any political or of
3:52
any religious sect, but that they were themselves the authors of both plague and
3:58
fire, and that they must look to themselves to prevent the recurrence of calamities
4:02
to all appearance so peculiarly beyond the reach of human control, so evidently the
4:09
result of the wrath of God, or of the craft and subtlety of an
4:14
enemy, And one may picture to one's self how harmoniously the holy cursing of
4:19
the puritan of that they would have chimed in with the unholy cursing and the
4:25
crackling wit of the rochesters and Sedley's, and with the revilings of the political
4:30
fanatics. If my imaginary plain dealer had gone on to say that if the
4:34
return of such misfortunes were ever rendered impossible, it would not be in virtue
4:41
of the victory of the faith of Laud or of that of Milton, and
4:45
as little by the triumph of republicanism as by that of monarchy. But that
4:51
the one thing needful for compassing this end was that the people of England should
4:57
second the effort of an insignificant corp operation, the establishment of which a few
5:02
years before, the epoch of the Great Plague and the Great Fire had been
5:06
as little noticed as they were conspicuous. Some twenty years before the outbreak of
5:14
the plague, a few calm and thoughtful students banded themselves together for the purpose,
5:19
as they phrased it, of improving natural knowledge. The ends they proposed
5:26
to attain cannot be stated more clearly than in the words of one of the
5:30
founders of the organization. Our business was precluding matters of theology and state affairs,
5:40
to discourse and consider of philosophical inquiries and such as related thereunto, as
5:46
physic anatomy, geometry, astronomy, navigation, statics, magnetics, gimmics,
5:54
mechanics, and natural experiments. With the state of these studies and their cultivation
6:00
at home and abroad, we then discoursed of the circulation of the blood,
6:04
the valves and the veins, the vene lactae, the lymphatic vessels, the
6:10
Copernican hypothesis, the nature of comets and new stars, the satellites of Jupiter,
6:16
the oval shape as it then appeared of Saturn, the spots on the
6:21
Sun and its turning on its own axis, the inequalities and selenography of the
6:27
moon, the several phases of Venus and mercury, the improvement of telescopes and
6:32
grinding of glasses for that purpose, the weight of air, the possibility or
6:38
impossibility of vacuities, and nature's abhorrence thereof, the Torrigellian experiment in quicksilver,
6:46
the descent of heavy bodies, and the degree of acceleration Therein. With therevrous
6:51
other things of like nature, some of which were then but new discoveries,
6:57
and others not so generally known and in bread as now they are, with
7:01
other things appertaining to what hath been called the New philosophy, which, from
7:05
the times of Galileo at Florence and Sir Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam in England,
7:13
has been much cultivated in Italy, France, Germany and other parts abroad,
7:17
as well as with us in England. The learned doctor Wallace, writing
7:26
in sixteen ninety six, narrates in these words what happened half a century before,
7:31
or about sixteen forty five. The associates met at Oxford in the rooms
7:38
of doctor Wilkins, who was destined to become a bishop, and subsequently coming
7:43
together in London they attracted the notice of the king. And it is a
7:46
strange evidence of the taste for knowledge which the most obviously worthless of the Stewards
7:51
shared with his father and grandfather, that Charles the second was not content with
7:58
saying witty things about his philosophers, but it wise things with regard to them,
8:03
For he not only bestowed upon them such attention as he could spare from
8:07
his poodles and his mistresses, but being in his usual state of impecuniosity,
8:13
begged for them of the Duke of Ormond, and that step, being without
8:18
effect, gave them Chelsea College, a charter and a mace, crowning his
8:24
favors in the best way they could be crowned, by burdening them no further
8:28
with royal patronage or state interference. Thus it was that the half dozen young
8:35
men studious of the new philosophy, who met in one another's lodgings in Oxford
8:41
or in London in the middle of the seventeenth century grew in numerical and in
8:46
real strength, until in the latter part the Royal Society for the Improvement of
8:52
Natural Knowledge had already become famous and had acquired a claim upon the veneration of
8:58
Englishmen, which it has ever since retained as the principal focus of scientific activity
9:05
in our islands and the chief champion of the cause it was formed to support.
9:11
It was by the aid of the Royal Society that Newton published his Principia.
9:16
If all the books in the world except the philosophical Transactions were destroyed,
9:22
it is safe to say that the foundations of physical science would remain unshaken,
9:26
and that the vast intellectual progress of the last two centuries would be largely,
9:31
though incompletely recorded. Nor have any signs of halting or of decrepitude manifested themselves
9:39
in our own times as in doctor Wallace's days. So in these our business
9:46
is precluding theology and state affairs to discuss and consider of philosophical inquiries. But
9:54
our mathematic is one which Newton would have to go to school to learn.
10:00
Our statics, mechanics, magnetics, chimmics, and natural experiments constitute a mass
10:07
of physical and chemical knowledge, a glimpse at which would compensate Galileo for the
10:11
doings of a score of inquisitorial cardinals. Our physic and anatomy have embraced such
10:18
infinite varieties of being have laid open such new worlds in time and space,
10:24
have grappled, not unsuccessfully with such complex problems, that the eyes of Visalius
10:31
and of Harvey might be dazzled by the sight of the tree that has grown
10:35
out of their grain of mustard seed. The fact is perhaps rather too much
10:43
than too little forced upon one's notice nowadays, that all this marvelous intellectual growth
10:48
has a no less wonderful expression in practical life, and that, in disrespect,
10:54
if in no other, the movement symbolized by the progress of the Royal
10:58
societaniety stands without a parallel in the history of mankind. A series of volumes
11:05
as bulky as the transactions of the Royal Society might possibly be filled with the
11:11
subtle speculations of the schoolmen, not improbably, the obtaining a mastery over the
11:18
products of medieval thought might necessitate an even greater expenditure of time and of energy
11:24
than the acquirement of the new philosophy. But though such working grows to the
11:28
best intellects of Europe for a longer time than has elapsed since the Great Fire,
11:35
his effects were writ in water. So far as our social state is
11:39
concerned, On the other hand, if the noble first President of the Royal
11:45
Society could revisit the upper air and once more gladden his eyes with the sight
11:50
of the familiar mace, he would find himself in the midst of a material
11:54
civilization more different from that of his day than that of the seventeen was from
12:00
that of the first century. And if Lord Brownco's native sagacity had not deserted
12:05
his ghost, he would need no longer reflection to discover that all these great
12:11
ships, these railways, these telegraphs, these factories, these printing presses,
12:16
without which the whole fabric of modern English society would collapse into a mass of
12:22
stagnant and starving pauperism, That all these pillars of our state are but the
12:28
ripples and the bubbles upon the surface of that great spiritual stream, the springs
12:33
of which only he and his fellows were privileged to see, and seeing to
12:39
recognize as that which it behooved them above all things, to keep pure and
12:45
undefiled. It may not be too great a flight of imagination to conceive our
12:52
noble revenant not forgetful of the great troubles of his own day, and anxious
12:56
to know how often London had been burned down since his time, and how
13:01
often the plague had carried off its thousands. He would have to learn that,
13:07
although London contains tenfold the inflammable matter that it did in sixteen sixty six,
13:13
though not content with filling our rooms with woodwork and light draperies, we
13:18
must needs lead, inflammable and explosive gases into every corner of our streets and
13:22
houses. We never allow even a street to burn down. And if he
13:28
asked how this had come about, we should have to explain that the improvement
13:33
of natural knowledge has furnished us with dozens of machines for throwing water upon fires,
13:39
any one of which would have furnished the ingenious mister Hook, the first
13:43
curator and experimenter of the Royal Society, with ample materials for discourse before half
13:50
a dozen meetings of that body, And that, to say truth, except
13:56
for the progress of natural knowledge, we should not have been able to make
14:00
even the tools by which these machines are constructed. And further, it would
14:05
be necessary to add that although severe fires sometimes occur and inflict great damage,
14:11
the loss is very generally compensated by societies, the operations of which have been
14:16
rendered possible only by the progress of natural knowledge in the direction of mathematics,
14:22
and the accumulation of wealth in virtue of other natural knowledge. But the plague
14:31
my Lord Brownker's observation would not, I fear, lead him to think that
14:35
Englishmen of the nineteenth century are purer in life, or more fervent in religious
14:41
faith, than the generation which could produce a boil an Evelyn at a Milton.
14:46
He might find the mud of society at the bottom instead of at the
14:50
top. But I fear that the sum total would be a deserving of swift
14:56
judgment, as at the time of the restoration, and would be our duty
15:01
to explain once more, and this time not without shame, that we have
15:05
no reason to believe that it is the improvement of our faith, nor that
15:09
of our morals, which keeps the plague from our city, but again that
15:15
it is the improvement of our natural knowledge. We have learned that pestilences will
15:20
only take up their abode among those who have prepared unswept and ungarnished residences for
15:26
them. Their cities must have narrow, unwatered streets, foul with accumulated garbage,
15:33
Their houses must be ill drained, ill lighted, ill ventilated. Their
15:37
subjects must be ill washed, ill fed, ill closed. The London of
15:43
sixteen sixty five was such a city. The cities of the east, where
15:48
plague has an enduring dwelling, are such cities. We in later times have
15:52
learned somewhat of nature and partly obey her. Because of this partial improvement of
15:58
our natural knowledge, and of that fractional obedience, we have no plague.
16:04
Because that knowledge is still very imperfect, and that obedience yet incomplete. Typhus
16:11
is our companion, and Cholera our visitor. But it is not presumptuous to
16:15
express the belief that when our knowledge is more complete, and our obedience the
16:22
expression of our knowledge, London will count her centuries of freedom from Typhus and
16:26
cholera, as she now gratefully reckons her two hundred years of ignorance of that
16:32
plague which swooped upon her thrice in the first half of the seventeenth century.
16:38
Surely there is nothing in these explanations which is not fully borne out by the
16:42
facts. Surely the principles involved in them are now admitted among the fixed beliefs
16:48
of all thinking men. Surely it is true that our countrymen are less subject
16:53
to fire, famine, pestilence, and all the evils which result from a
16:59
want of command over and due anticipation of the course of nature, than were
17:03
the countrymen of Milton, and health, wealth and well being are more abundant
17:10
with us than with them. But no less certainly is the difference due to
17:14
the improvement of our knowledge of nature, and the extent to which that improved
17:18
knowledge has been incorporated with the household words of men, and has supplied the
17:23
springs of their daily actions. Granting for a moment, then the truth of
17:30
that which the depreciators of natural knowledge are so fond of, urging that its
17:34
improvement can only add to the resources of our material civilization. Admitting it to
17:41
be possible that the founders of the Royal Society themselves looked for no other reward
17:45
than this, I cannot confess that I was guilty of exaggeration when I hinted
17:52
that to him who had the gift of distinguishing between prominent events and important events,
17:56
the origin of a combined effort on the part of mankind to improve natural
18:02
knowledge might have loomed larger than the plague, and have outshone the glare of
18:07
the fire, as is something fraught with a wealth of beneficence to mankind,
18:12
in comparison with which the damage done by those ghastly evils would shrink into insignificance.
18:19
It is very certain that for every victim slain by the plague, hundreds
18:25
of mankind exist and find a fair share of happiness in the world by the
18:29
aid of the spinning Jenny, and the great fire at its worst could not
18:33
have burnt the supply of coal, the daily working of which in the bowels
18:37
of the earth, made possible by the steam pump, gives rise to an
18:41
amount of wealth to which the millions lost in Old London are but as an
18:47
old song. But spinning Jenny and steam pump are, after all, but
18:52
toys possessing an accidental value. And natural knowledge creates multitudes of more subtle contriver,
19:00
the praises of which do not happen to be sung, because they are
19:03
not directly convertible into instruments of creating wealth. When I contemplate natural knowledge squandering
19:11
such gifts among men, the only appropriate comparison I can find for her is
19:17
to liken her to such a peasant woman as one sees in the Alps,
19:21
striding ever upward, heavily burdened and with mind bent only on her home,
19:26
but yet without effort and without thought, knitting for her children. Now,
19:32
stockings are good and comfortable things, and the children will undoubtedly be much the
19:37
better for them. But surely it would be short sighted, to say the
19:41
least of it, to depreciate this toiling mother as a mere stocking machine,
19:45
a mere provider of physical comforts. However, there are blind leaders of the
19:52
blind, and not a few of them who take this view of natural knowledge,
19:56
and can see nothing in the bountiful mother of humanity but a sort of
20:00
comfort grinding machine. According to them, the improvement of natural knowledge, always
20:07
has been, and always must be, synonymous with no more than the improvement
20:11
of the material resources and the increase of the gratification of men. Natural knowledge
20:18
is, in their eyes, no real mother of mankind, bringing them up
20:22
with kindness, and, if need be, with sternness in the way they
20:26
should go, and instructing them in all things needful for their welfare, but
20:33
a sort of fairy godmother, ready to furnish her pets with shoes of swiftness,
20:37
swords of sharpness, and omnipotent alidance lamps, so that they may have
20:42
telegraphs to Saturn and see the other side of the moon, and thank God,
20:48
they are better than their benighted ancestors. If this talk were true,
20:52
I for one, should not greatly care to toil in the service of natural
20:56
knowledge. I think I would just to soon be quietly chipping my own flint
21:02
acts after the manner of my forefathers a few thousand years back, as be
21:07
troubled with the endless malady of thought which now infests us, all for such
21:11
reward. But I venture to say that such views are contrary, alike to
21:17
reason and to fact. Those who discourse in such fashion seem to me to
21:22
be so intent upon trying to see what is above nature or what is behind
21:27
her, that they are blind to what stares them in the face in her.
21:33
I should not venture to speak thus strongly if my justification were not to
21:37
be found in the simplest and most obvious facts, if it needed more than
21:41
an appeal to the most notorious truths to justify my assertion that the improvement of
21:48
natural knowledge, whatever direction it has taken, and however low the aims of
21:52
those who may have commenced. It has not only conferred practical benefits on men,
21:57
but in so doing has effected a revolution in their conceptions of the universe
22:03
and of themselves, and has profoundly altered their modes of thinking and their views
22:08
of right and wrong. I say that natural knowledge, seeking to satisfy natural
22:14
wants, has found the ideas which can alone still spiritual cravings. I weigh
22:21
that natural knowledge, in desiring to ascertain the laws of comfort, has been
22:26
driven to discover those of conduct, and to lay the foundations of a new
22:30
morality. Let us take these points separately, and first, what great ideas
22:37
has natural knowledge introduced into man's minds? I cannot but think that the foundations
22:45
of all natural knowledge were laid when the reason of man first came face to
22:48
face with the facts of nature, when the savage first learned that the fingers
22:53
of one hand are fewer than those of both, That it is shorter to
22:57
cross the stream than to head it. That a stone stops where it is
23:02
unless it be moved, and that it drops from the hand which lets it
23:06
go. That light and heat come and go with the sun, that sticks
23:11
burn away to a fire, That plants and animals grow and die, that
23:15
if he struck his fellow savage a blow, he would make him angry and
23:19
perhaps get a blow in return, while if he offered him a fruit,
23:23
he would please him and perhaps receive a fish in exchange. When men had
23:29
acquired this much knowledge, the outlines rude, though they were, of mathematics,
23:34
of physics, of chemistry, of biology, of moral, economical,
23:40
and political science was sketched. Nor did the germ of religion fail when science
23:45
began to bude. Listen to words which thou knew are yet three thousand years
23:52
old. When in heaven the stars about the moon look beautiful, when all
23:57
the winds are laid, and every height comes out and jutting peak and valley,
24:03
and the immeasurable heavens break open to their highest, and all the start
24:07
shine, and the shepherd gladdens in his heart. If the half savage Greek
24:15
could share our feelings thus far, it is irrational to doubt that he went
24:19
further to find, as we do, that upon that brief gladness there follows
24:25
a certain sorrow. The little light of awakened human intelligence shines so mere a
24:30
spark amidst the abyss of the unknown, and unknowable, seems so insufficient to
24:37
do more than illuminate the imperfections that cannot be remedied, the aspirations that cannot
24:42
be realized of man's own nature. But in this sadness, this consciousness of
24:48
the limitation of man, the sense of an open secret which he cannot penetrate,
24:53
lies the essence of all religion, and the attempt to embody it in
24:57
the forms furnished by the The intellect is the origin of the higher theologies.
25:03
Thus it seems impossible to imagine but that the foundations of all knowledge, secular
25:10
or sacred, were laid when intelligence dawned, though the superstructure remained for long
25:15
ages so slight and feeble as to be compatible with the existence of almost any
25:22
general view respecting the mode of governance of the universe. No doubt, from
25:27
the first there were certain phenomena which, to the rudest mind, presented a
25:33
constancy of occurrence and suggested that a fixed order ruled at any rate. Among
25:38
them, I doubt if the grossest of fetish worshippers ever imagined that a stone
25:45
must have a god within it to make it fall, or that a fruit
25:48
had a god within it to make it taste sweet. With regard to such
25:52
matters as these, it is hardly questionable that mankind from the first took strictly
25:59
positive and scientific views. But with respect to all the less familiar occurrences which
26:07
present themselves, uncultured man no doubt has always taken himself as the standard of
26:12
comparison, as the center and measure of the world, nor could he well
26:18
avoid doing so. And, finding that his apparently uncaused will has a powerful
26:22
effect in giving rise to many occurrences, he naturally enough ascribed other and greater
26:29
events to other and greater volitions, and came to look upon the world and
26:33
all that therein is as the product of the volitions of persons like himself,
26:40
but stronger and capable of being appeased or angered, as he himself might be
26:45
soothed or irritated. Through such conceptions of the plan and working of the universe,
26:52
all mankind have passed or are passing. And we may now consider what
26:57
has been the effect of the ms improvement of natural knowledge on the views of
27:02
men who have reached this stage, and who have begun to cultivate natural knowledge
27:07
with no desire but that of increasing God's honor and bettering man's estate. For
27:15
example, what could seem wiser from a mere material point of view more innocent
27:21
from a theological one to an ancient people than that they should learn the exact
27:26
succession of the seasons as warnings for their husbandmen, or the position of the
27:30
stars as guides to their rude navigators. But what has grown out of the
27:36
search for natural knowledge of so merely useful a character? You all know the
27:41
reply Astronomy, which of all sciences, has filled men's minds with general ideas
27:48
of a character most foreign to their daily experience, and has, more than
27:53
any other, rendered it impossible for them to accept the beliefs of their fathers.
28:00
Astronomy which tells them that this so vast and seemingly solid Earth is but
28:06
an atom among atoms, whirling no man knows whither through illimitable space, which
28:12
demonstrates that what we call the peaceful heaven above us is but that space filled
28:18
by an infinitely subtle matter, whose particles are seething and surging like the waves
28:25
of an angry sea, which opens up to us infinite regions where nothing is
28:30
known, or ever seems to have been known, but matter and force operating
28:36
according to rigid rules, which leads us to contemplate phenomena the very nature of
28:41
which demonstrates that they must have had a beginning and that they must have an
28:45
end. But the very nature of which also proves that the beginning was,
28:51
to our conceptions of time, infinitely remote, and that the end is as
28:56
immeasurably distant. But it is not alone those who pursue astronomy who ask for
29:03
bread and receive ideas. What more harmless than the attempt to lift and distribute
29:08
water by pumping it? What more absolutely and grossly utilitarian. But out of
29:15
pumps screw the discussions about nature's abhorrence of a vacuum. And then it was
29:21
discovered that nature does not abhor a vacuum, but that air has weight,
29:26
and that notion paved the way for the doctrine that all matter has weight,
29:30
and that the force which produces weight is co extensive with the universe, in
29:36
short, to the theory of universal gravitation and endless force. While learning how
29:41
to handle gases led to the discovery of oxygen and to modern chemistry, and
29:48
to the notion of the indestructibility of matter. Again, what simpler or more
29:55
absolutely practical than the attempt to keep the axle of a wheel from heat when
30:00
the wheel turns round very fast. How useful for carters and gig drivers to
30:06
know something about this, and how good were it if any ingenious person would
30:11
find out the cause of such phenomena, and thence induce a general remedy for
30:15
them. Such an ingenious person was Count Rumford, and he and his successors
30:22
have landed us in the theory of the persistence or indestructibility of force, and
30:29
in the infinitely minute, as in the infinitely great. The seekers after natural
30:33
knowledge of the kinds called physical and chemical have everywhere found a definite order and
30:41
succession of events which seem never to be infringed. And how has it fared
30:47
with physics and anatomy. Have the anatomists, the physiologists, or the physician,
30:53
whose business it has been to devote themselves assidiously to that eminently practical and
30:59
direct end, the alleviation of the sufferings of mankind? Have they been able
31:04
to confine their vision more absolutely to the strictly useful. I fear they are
31:11
the worst offenders of all. For if the astronomer has set before us the
31:15
infinite magnitude of space, and the practical eternity of the duration of the universe.
31:22
If the physical and chemical philosophers have demonstrated the infinite minuteness of its constituent
31:27
parts and the practical eternity of matter and of force, and if both have
31:33
a like like proclaimed the universality of a definite and predictable order and succession of
31:38
events, the workers in biology have not only accepted all these, but have
31:44
added more startling thesis of their own. For as the astronomers discover in the
31:49
Earth no center of the universe, but an eccentric speck, so the naturalists
31:56
find man to be no center of the living world, but one amidst endless
32:00
modifications of life. And as the astronomer observes the mark of practically endless times
32:07
set upon the arrangements of the solar system, so the student of life finds
32:12
the records of ancient forms of existence peopling the world for ages, which,
32:17
in relation to human experience, are infinite. Furthermore, the physiologist finds life
32:24
to be as dependent for its manifestation on particular molecular arrangements as any physical or
32:30
chemical phenomenon, And whenever he extends his researches. Fixed order and unchanging causation
32:38
reveal themselves as plainly as in the rest of nature. Nor can I find
32:45
that any other fate has awaited the germ of religion, arising like all other
32:50
kinds of knowledge, and out of the action and interaction of man's mind with
32:55
that which is not man's mind, it has taken the in intellectual coverings of
33:00
fetishism or polytheism, of theism, or atheism, of superstition or rationalism.
33:07
With these and their relative merits and demerits, I have nothing to do but
33:14
this. It is needful for my purpose to say that if the religion of
33:17
the present differs from that of the past, it is because the theology of
33:22
the present has become more scientific than that of the past, because it has
33:28
not only renounced idols of wood and idols of stone, but begins to see
33:32
the necessity of breaking in pieces the idols built up of books and traditions and
33:37
fine spun ecclesiastical cobwebs, and of cherishing the noblest and most human of man's
33:44
emotions by worship for the most part of the silent sort at the altar of
33:50
the unknown and unknowable such are a few of the new conceptions implanted in our
33:57
minds by the improvement of natural none. Men have acquired the ideas of the
34:02
practically infinite extent of the universe and of its practical eternity. They are familiar
34:08
with the conception that our earth is but an infinitesimal fragment of that part of
34:14
the universe which can be seen, and that, nevertheless, its duration is,
34:20
as compared with our standards of time, infinite. They have further acquired
34:24
the idea that man is but one of innumerable forms of life now existing in
34:30
the globe, and that the present existences are but the last of an immeasurable
34:35
series of predecessors. Moreover, every step they have made in natural knowledge has
34:40
tended to extend and rivet in their minds the conception of a definite order of
34:46
the universe, which is embodied in what are called, by an unhappy metaphor,
34:52
the laws of nature, and to narrow the range and loosen the force
34:57
of men's belief in spontaneity or in changes other than such as arise out of
35:01
that definite order itself. Whether these ideas are well or ill founded is not
35:07
the question. No one can deny that they exist and have been the inevitable
35:13
outgrowth of the improvement of natural knowledge, And if so, it cannot be
35:17
doubted that they are changing the form of men's most cherished and most important convictions.
35:25
And as regards the second point, the extent to which the improvement of
35:30
natural knowledge has remodeled and altered what may be termed the intellectual ethics of men?
35:37
What are among the moral convictions most fondly held by barbarous and semi barbarous
35:43
people. They are the convictions that authority is the soundest basis of belief,
35:49
that merit attaches to a readiness to believe, that the doubting disposition is a
35:53
bad one, and skepticism as sin, that when good authority has pronounced what
35:59
is to be believe, and faith has accepted it, reason has no further
36:02
duty. There are many excellent persons who yet hold by these principles, and
36:08
it is not my present business or intention to discuss their views. All I
36:15
wish to bring clearly before your minds is the unquestionable fact that the improvement of
36:20
natural knowledge is affected by methods which directly give the lie to all these convictions.
36:25
And assume the exact reverse of each to be true, the improver of
36:31
natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority as such. For him, skepticism is
36:38
the highest of duties. Blind faith the one unpardonable sin, and it cannot
36:45
be otherwise, For every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection
36:51
of authority, the cherishing of the keenest skepticism, the annihilation of the spirit
36:57
of blind faith. And the most ardent votary of science holds his firmest convictions
37:02
not because the men he most venerates hold them, not because their verity is
37:07
testified by portents and wonders, but because his experience teaches him that whenever he
37:14
chooses to bring these convictions into contact with their primary source, Nature, whenever
37:20
he thinks fit to test them by appealing to experiment and to observation, Nature
37:24
will confirm them. The man of science has learned to believe in justification,
37:30
not by faith but by verification. Thus, without for a moment pretending to
37:37
despise the practical results of the improvement of natural knowledge and its beneficial influence on
37:45
material civilization, it must, I think, be admitted that the great ideas,
37:51
some of which I have indicated, and the ethical spirit which I have
37:54
endeavored to sketch in the few moments which remained at my disposal, constantitude,
38:00
the real and permanent significance of natural knowledge. If these ideas be destined as
38:06
I believe, they are to be more and more firmly established as the world
38:10
grows older. If that spirit be fated, as I believe it is,
38:15
to extend itself into all departments of human thought, and to become co extensive
38:21
with the range of knowledge. If as our race approaches its maturity, it
38:27
discovers, as I believe it will, that there is but one kind of
38:30
knowledge, and but one method of acquiring it, then we who are still
38:35
children may justly feel it our highest duty to recognize the advisableness of improving natural
38:40
knowledge, and so to aid ourselves and our successors in their course towards the
38:46
noble goal which lies before mankind. End of On the Advisableness of Improving Natural
38:55
Knowledge by Thomas Henry Huxley,