George Henry Lewes

“ Having indicated the existence of the dread and dislike of science, let us now glance at the causes.
The primary cause is a misconception of what science is. No rational being dreads and dislikes knowledge. No one proclaims the superiority of ignorance as a guide of conduct. Yet science is simply knowledge classified, systematized, made orderly, impersonal, and exact, instead of being left unclassified, fragmentary, personal, and inexact. ”

“ The inconsistency, then, of the acceptance of theological side by side with scientific principles, is only a continuation of the primitive mental state, and must vanish when there is a general conviction that science is orderly knowledge, and is coextensive with experience. If we can have no knowledge transcending experience in the widest sense, and if faith is the vision of things unknown—dealing with what transcends knowledge—then the conflict between science and theology is the conflict between knowledge and ignorance. ”

“ The innocent are seen to suffer even more than the guilty, and no one knows why they suffer; no one can regard the punishment of the child for the sin of its father as in agreement with human justice. But you say, "All men are guilty?" Then why are not all punished? And why are animals and plants also afflicted with diseases? Have they, too, the burden of Adam's disobedience? There was a time when such explanations reconciled the doctrine with observation; but nowadays cultivated minds shrink from the conception of "imputed sin" as a rational explanation of human and animal suffering. ”

“ Thus enlightened, we recognize in science the deliberate effort to reduce the chaos of sensible experiences within the orderliness of ideal constructions, condensing multitudes of facts into simple laws—an effort which the intellect acknowledges as a supreme duty, and which conduct acknowledges as a guide. ”

“ The march of Science is bit by bit conquering even the provinces which most stubbornly refuse allegiance to it. But, meanwhile, among the obstacles it has to overcome are certain prejudices and misconceptions which are the grounds of a deep-seated dread. No better illustration can be given of the general suspicion and dislike of science as science than the great stress which is laid on the "iniquity of vivisection," because experiments on animals are pursued for purely scientific purposes. ”

“ I will not pause to discuss the question of motives, nor how far the selfish motive may further a social advantage; I will only ask whether the motive of the industrial experimenter is less selfish? Unless science were a social benefit, no one would ardently desire a scientific reputation. ”

“ If the developed music of our day is of a higher order and more adapted to our sensibilities than the music of the middle ages; if our theories of natural phenomena are of a higher order and approximate more nearly to the truth than the corresponding theories of Aquinas and Albertus Magnus, why should our theories of moral phenomena be deemed inferior to those of Judaism or the councils? ”

“ The sacred books of all theologies claim to expound a theory of the universe and a theory of human life and destiny. Their theories of the universe, both as general conceptions and particular explanations, are in such flagrant contradiction with the teachings of Science, that nowadays no one who is worth a moment's consideration seeks astronomical, geological, or physiological explanations in the sacred books. There has arisen the assertion that the sacred books were never intended to teach man scientific truths, but only to teach him his duties. ”

“ We are slowly beginning to recognize that there may be a science of History, a science of Language, a science of Religion, and, in fact, that all knowledge may be systematized on a common method. The facts of the External Order, which yield a cosmology, are supplemented by the facts of the Internal Order, which yield a psychology, and the facts of the Social Order, which yield a sociology. ”

“ This being so, we can separate the rational from the irrational antagonism against science. It is rational when protesting against the misplaced application of the results reached in one department to problems belonging to a different department—for this is an offense against scientific method. It is irrational when protesting against the rigorous application of one logic to all inquiries. ”

“ It would be equally ungenerous and short-sighted to suggest that a mind which is deeply impressed with the truth of certain theological opinions may not be also deeply impressed with the beneficence of science in general, and the truth of scientific doctrines which do not directly embrace moral and religious questions. We have too many conspicuous examples of men eminent in science and sincere in their theological professions, not to admit that the mind can follow two logics, and can accept both the natural and the supernatural explanations. ”

“ Science demands exactness, and this demand irritates the vulgar mind. The impatience with which your cook listens to your advice that she should measure and not guess the quantities (advice you can never get her to follow) is but the same movement which rouses your resistance when any one desires to test your opinions by weighing the evidence, or endeavors to show that your traditional beliefs rest on no verifiable observations. ”

“ That is to say, an experiment which has the prospect of enlarging wealth may inflict suffering on men, women, and children; but an experiment which has only the prospect of enlarging knowledge must be forbidden if it inflict suffering on animals! Obviously such a contradiction could not be upheld if science were recognized as a social benefit. ”

“ Science also has its faith, and by it must all men to a great extent be guided. But the faith of Theology and the faith of Science are very different in their credentials. The former is the reliance on the truth of principles handed down by tradition, of which no verification is possible, no examination permissible; the latter is reliance on the truth of principles which have been sought and found by competent inquirers, tested incessantly by successive generations, are always open to verification in all their details, and always modifiable according to fresh experiences. ”

“ Knowledge springs from desire. It begins when prolonged observation, stimulated by emotion, replaces the incurious animal stare at things; and for this prolongation there is needed a sustaining motive. The sustaining motive of research is the conviction of the vast increase of our power which science creates. Measuring by a foot-rule and measuring by trigonometry may be taken as types of common knowledge and science: the result reached may in some particular case be the same, whichever method be used ”

“ Psychology not only enlightens us as to the genesis of the intuitions, but, in a comparison with other nations and the earlier stages of human development, shows how they vary. If the intuitions of the savage are not those of the civilized, if precepts which the Hindoo feels to be divine are opposed to precepts which the Chinese, the Jew, the Mohammedan, and the Christian, feel to be divine, we need a criterion beyond these varying standards. ”

“ The slow progress of positive knowledge has more and more enlarged the domain of natural explanation, more and more restricted the domain of the supernatural. Yet, even now, the majority of cultivated men regard the facts of human nature as only partly explicable without aid drawn from the supernatural; and resist, as impiety, the attempt to assign natural causes in explanation of moral relations. ”

“ Ten thousand times the amount of suffering is disregarded if only its purpose be not that of acquiring knowledge. And that this is so, is manifest in another case. For suffering may be also inflicted on human beings, and on a large scale, without exciting any outcry, if the motive be commercial advantage. Not to mention wars undertaken to push commerce, let us only consider some industrial experiment which will certainly drive hundreds of families from their employment with starvation as the consequence ”

“ The distaste for accuracy, and the impatience at any restriction of the divine right of judging without evidence, will disappear with the advance of knowledge; and with this advance will also disappear certain mistaken pretensions of scientific men too ready to step beyond their own domain. ”

“ Again, when the stored-up wealth of sentiments laboriously evolved in civilized life is set aside in favor of some analogy drawn from observed processes in the inorganic world, when the moral impulse to cherish the weak and sickly is condemned because Nature (which is not moral) cherishes the strong and pitilessly destroys the weak, common-sense protests, and the protest helps to intensify the popular distrust of science. ”

“ Modern historic criticism has made such havoc with the historical pretensions that theologians are now throwing all the emphasis on moral consciousness. The doctrine of our sacred books is said to be unequivocally ratified by our intuitions: we feel their truth, and we see in their moral influence on mankind the verification of their divine origin. ”

“ I shall be told, perhaps, that the growing demand for popular expositions of scientific results and the increasing diffusion of scientific inquiry point to a different conclusion. It is true that there never was a time when science was so popular. It is true that every year the attendance on lectures and the meetings of scientific associations is larger. ”

“ But because the various branches of knowledge have been very unequally reduced to the exactness and orderliness of science, those which have been most successfully reduced have acquired the almost exclusive title; so that science is generally regarded as something apart—the peculiar study of a particular class. ”

“ When science has fairly mastered the principles of moral relations as it has mastered the principles of physical relations, all knowledge will be incorporated in an homogeneous doctrine rivaling that of the old theologies in its comprehensiveness, and surpassing it in the authority of its credentials. "Christian ethics" will then no longer mean ethics founded on the principles of Christian theology, but on the principles expressing the social relations and duties of man in Christianized society. Then, and not till then, will the conflict between Theology and Science finally cease ”

“ As the artist appeals to the chemist for a theory of salts, and to the mathematician for a theory of singular integrals, but declares both chemist and mathematician to have no voice in a theory of art, so the theologian accepts the teaching of mathematician, physicist, chemist, and biologist, in their respective departments, but peremptorily excludes each and all from the supreme department of moral and religious duties founded on a theory of the relations of the world to its Creator. ”

“ In vain are epidemics declared to be visitations, in vain are books written with such titles as "God in Disease;" the practical sense of the nation decides that cholera or cattle-plague are not to punish landlords and farmers for the skepticism of a few speculative minds, and hence that we had better seek to avert them by a course of treatment and "an order in council," than by pulpit eloquence and a "day of humiliation." ”

“ All the pain inflicted for sport or other pleasure is condoned; the pain inflicted for scientific ends is pronounced diabolical. Is it, therefore, not on account of the suffering inflicted, but on account of the scientific purpose, that vivisection is to be reprobated? ”

“ It has been that the method which is no longer regarded as a rational procedure in dealing with the phenomena of Nature is followed without misgiving in dealing with the phenomena of human nature; and the supernaturalism long banished from physical theories is still invoked in psychological and social theories. ”

“ It is this which causes the distaste of artists, men of letters, and moralists; and their opposition to the spread of scientific teaching. They do not oppose knowledge in the abstract, nor any particular knowledge; what they resist is the idea that the conclusions reached in one department of inquiry are to dictate conclusions in another. The artist is quite willing to accept the chemist's methodized experience of chemical facts, but refuses to listen to the chemist theorizing about art. ”

“ For example, there are mechanical laws and equations which admirably explain the facts of motion, yet sentiment is shocked at the attempt to explain Nature on mechanical principles only, and is sustained by common-sense, which sees other facts besides facts of motion, and sees that Nature is not mechanical only. ”

“ Another source of the dislike is the opposition of our native tendencies. Science is abstract, impersonal, whereas our experiences are concrete and personal. It is systematic, and systematization is troublesome: our native indolence renders us impatient of labor, and our impatience leads us to prefer the facile method of guessing to the difficult method of observing: we have to be trained into the preference of observing what the facts are, instead of arguing as to what the facts must be. Science, moreover, is greatly occupied with remote relations ”