Joseph Le Conte

“ Thus each age incorporates what is best in the previous age, and modern society is the resultant of all the social forces which have acted from the beginning—is the heir of all the ages; and the social organism has thus become not only higher, but broader, stronger, and more complex. And here, again, the same necessity is laid upon us, of continuous progress or else of decline. No mere phase of civilization can last, no social force can continue in its pristine power. That nation which refuses to accept the incoming principle is left behind and inevitably decays. ”

“ Observe again: the speediness of the rise, culmination, and decline—the short-livedness—of any phase of civilization is in proportion to the limited character of the principles involved—the partialness of the embodiment of all the principles of our humanity. As society becomes more complex, its cycles become longer, until it reaches continuous, steady progress—immortality—only in the complete embodiment of an ideal humanity. Such we believe is the ideal of a Christian civilization.
Observe again: in all forms of development the culmination and decline are in strength rather than in quality. ”

“ As in the organic kingdom each organic form is specialized to the greatest extent and then becomes immutable and generally perishes; as the tree of life branches, and each branch grows its several way—flowers, fruits, and dies—even so each isolated nation, or branch of the social tree, pushes its growth it knows not whither, but as far as possible in its direction, then flowers, fruits, and dies. But if the scientific principles of sociology be once understood, if science or self-conscious reason guide the social development, there can no longer be any limit to its progress. ”

“ But I said, art is inherited from the animal kingdom; science is born of humanity. For this reason art is of itself limited; science is unlimited, for it is connected only with the highest nature of man, the spiritual and eternal. Art may be carried to a high degree of perfection, but unless assisted by science quickly culminates and declines, or else becomes petrified and immutable; but if its principles be understood, if it becomes allied with science, if it passes under the dominion of the self-conscious reason, it then becomes indefinitely progressive. ”

“ In this stream of tendency I have stood, during all my active life, just where the current ran swiftest, and confess to you that I have been sometimes almost swept off my feet. But it is the duty of every independent thinker not to yield blindly to the spirit of the age, but to exercise his own unprejudiced reason; not to float and drift, but to stand. I think I can show you that materialism is not the necessary outcome of scientific studies and the scientific spirit. ”

“ So long as the origin of species was a mystery, every one admitted that species must have had an intelligent Maker. But no sooner did we discover the process, than every one seemed to think that no Maker is necessary at all. Now, the whole object of science is to discover processes by which things are done; or how things are made. Is it any wonder, then, with this perverse tendency of the present mind, that science should ever and anon seem to destroy belief in a Supreme Intelligence? ”

“ Thus then sociology, unlike other sciences, and because of man's twofold nature, rests not on one only but on two more fundamental sciences. The basis which I have developed is the material basis. This is all that the materialists admit. If a pure material philosophy were sufficient, this is all the basis which sociology requires. The fact that it is not sufficient, the fact that another basis is required, is demonstrative against a pure material philosophy. According to a pure material philosophy science is a straight shaft rising ever until it pierces heaven. ”

“ The great bar to the speedy establishment of a rational philosophy is dogmatism, self-opinion, self-conceit. The rarest of all gifts is a truly tolerant and rational spirit. In all your gettings, gentlemen, be sure you get this, for it alone is true wisdom. But do not imagine, however, that all the dogmatism is on one side, and that the theological. Many, indeed, seem to think that theology has a preëmption-right to dogmatism. If so, then modern science has "jumped the claim." Dogmatism has its roots deep in the human heart. ”

“ Let no one who is led step by step through the paths of evolution, from the mineral to the organic, from the organic to the animate, and from the animate to the rational, until he lands logically, as he supposes, into blank and universal materialism—let no such one, I say, imagine for a moment that he has been walking all the way in the domain of science. He has stepped across the boundary of science into the domain of philosophy. ”

“ Even with the smallest modicum of intelligence, such instincts would, by experience, slowly improve their habits from year to year, from century to century, from millennium to millennium, until they would reach a surprising skill in accomplishing the most complex results. This would be habit, not instinct. The habit so long forming, so useful, and therefore so invariable, would of course be embodied in a very decided brain-structure. ”

“ If culture be the object of your association, then ought it not to be merely an association of kindred spirits, as many think. On the contrary, it should consist of persons of the most diverse pursuits—theologians, lawyers, physicians, engineers, merchants, and of all modes of thought, from orthodoxy to rationalism, from idealism to materialism, from old-fogyism to young-Americanism—with one condition only, viz., that all be imbued with the spirit of liberal culture. Now, among the pursuits which ought to be represented here, I believe none to be so necessary as that of science ”

“ Beautiful, joyous childhood cannot last, must decline. If we do not cultivate the higher imaginative and æsthetic faculties, our nature inevitably deteriorates from that time. Glorious youth and young manhood must decline, and with it our whole nature must deteriorate if we do not cultivate reflective and productive thought. Lofty intellectual power must also decline. Alas! how sad to see in old age the whole character deteriorate for want of moral and religious culture, which alone insures immortal progress!
The same law holds equally in the development of the organic kingdom. ”

“ The animal organism is composed wholly of cells, as a building is of bricks; all animal functions are performed by cells; growth is continual formation of new cells; reproduction is the separation of cells to form a new colony of cells. But the constituent cells of an organism, especially one of the higher organisms, are not all alike. On the contrary, they are as diverse in form as they are in function. The many functions of the body are parceled out among the cells by division of labor, and thus there results an absolute mutual dependence of parts. ”

“ This is the true type of culture—for culture is naught else than a natural evolution assisted by art. True culture does not educate us out of sympathy with childhood and youth, nor above sympathy with the lower classes of society; it does not simply raise us pygmies on a platform above the heads of our fellow-men, but without increasing our stature. If our culture does so, it is a false culture. The true cultured man stands on the same common level with other men, only his higher parts rise higher. ”

“ THE HIERARCHY OF SCIENCE.—There is a well-recognized scale in the hierachy of sciences. In the ascending order the steps are—mathematics, mechanics, physics, chemistry, biology, and geology. Mathematics deals only with space and time, number and quantity; and is therefore independent of matter and force. All other sciences deal also with matter and force, and are therefore properly called natural sciences, but they individually deal with different forms of matter and different grades of force. ”

“ Instinct in a less remarkable degree is universal among animals, including man himself. But what is universal in the popular mind creates no surprise, attracts no attention, and seems to need no explanation; yet it is these very universal and therefore unobserved phenomena which are the most instructive to science. Not only the action of bees and ants and wasps, not only the migrations and the nest-making of birds and the dam-building of beavers, must be accredited to instinct, but also all complex voluntary motions which are performed without experience. ”

“ On the contrary, I believe that the most important factors of evolution are still unknown—that there are more and greater factors in evolution than are dreamed of in the Darwinian philosophy. Nevertheless, evolution is a grand fact, involving alike every department of Nature; and more especially evolution of the organic kingdom, and the origin of species by derivation, must be regarded as an established truth of science. But, remember, evolution is one thing and materialism another and quite a different thing. ”

“ If we can conceive any organism still higher than man, or lower than the monera—if we can conceive a relation and interaction between the different kinds constituting a fauna and flora still more complex, and a struggle for life still fiercer than now exists, then is the ideal not yet reached.
So society, also, has reached its present highly-organized condition only gradually, by a process of differentiation. In the early stages of society the constituent elements are all alike, and each performs, though in an imperfect manner, all the social functions necessary in this early condition. ”

“ Thus the principles of science must be held in subordination to an enlightened empiricism in such arts as medicine, agriculture, etc. Science can not yet undertake to guide these arts with confidence. So is it also, and in a much greater degree, in the case of human society; for here we have the most difficult art, and the most complex and imperfect science. It must be yet a very long time before the science of sociology can presume to guide the course of social progress. Premature interference with the results of an enlightened empiricism can do nothing but harm. ”

“ The political philosopher is apt, therefore, to cling only to empirical laws and so-called practical methods, unaware of or denying the connection of sociology with any more fundamental departments of science, and especially its connection with biology. The psychologist and the theologian are apt to ignore too much the material basis of sociology, the organic laws which through our material nature impress themselves upon the structure and development of society ”

“ The law, so far as material evolution is concerned, is inexorable. The tree of evolution has but one straight, ascending trunk leading upward to its terminal bud. A growing-point, once separated as a branch, continues, indeed, to grow, but only on its own way. ”

“ In modern times, therefore, it has gone to the side of science, because here now is the seat of power and fashion. There are, then, two dogmatisms, both equally opposed to the true rational spirit, viz., the old theological and the new scientific. The old clings fondly to old things, only because they are old; the new grasps eagerly after new things, only because they are new. True wisdom and true philosophy, on the contrary, "tries all things," both old and new, "and holds fast only to that which is good and true." The new dogmatism taunts the old for credulity and superstition ”

“ Thus chemistry uses the characteristic ideas and methods of physics and mathematics, but especially of physics. Biology, besides its own characteristic ideas and methods, uses freely the methods and ideas of chemistry—physics and mathematics—but especially those of chemistry. If there be any other still higher science, it must use with the greatest advantage the ideas and methods of all lower sciences, but especially those of biology. ”

“ The end and mission of science, gentlemen, is not only to discover new truth, but also, and even more distinctively, to give new and more rational form to old truth—to transfigure the old into the more glorious form of the new. ”

“ In a word, physiology, as the simpler and more fundamental science, must form the only true basis of a scientific psychology.
Again, as anatomy only became scientific by becoming comparative anatomy, i. e., by the study of the structure of organisms in their relation to each other, or as connected by the law of evolution; as physiology, too, only became really scientific by becoming comparative physiology; i. e., by tracing the gradual evolution of organic functions; even so psychology can never assume the rank of a science until it becomes comparative psychology ”

“ All along, in the course of this discussion, I have from time to time shown that there are certain limitations to the application of the doctrines and methods of biology to sociology, and that in every case such limitation is the result of the introduction of some new principle characteristic of humanity as distinguished from animality, of reason as distinguished from instinct, of spirit as distinguished from matter. ”

“ Force and matter, or spirit and matter, or God and Nature, these are the opposite poles of philosophy they are the opposite poles of thought. There is no clear thinking without them. Not only religion and virtue, but science and philosophy, cannot even exist without them. The belief in spirit, like the belief in matter, rests on its own basis of phenomena. ”

“ Intelligence alone produces nothing. Experience alone is equally valueless. With a given intelligence the product will vary as the experience, with a given amount of experience the product will vary as the intelligence. Thus intelligence works by experience to attain wise results. On the contrary, instinct is wholly independent of individual experience. The young bee or mud-wasp, untaught, works at once without hesitation, with the greatest precision and in the wisest manner, to accomplish the most marvelous results. ”

“ Darwin has shown that, although capable of self-fertilization, yet cross-fertilization—i. e., the fertilization of the ovules of one flower, or, still better, of the flowers of one plant by the pollen of another—produces more seeds, larger seeds, and stronger seedlings; in other words, produces better results. Now, it is a law which necessarily results from the principle of the survival of the fittest that Nature ever strives to secure better results. Therefore, she immediately sets to work to contrive methods of insuring cross-fertilization and preventing self-fertilization. ”

“ The movements of the animal body, you will remember, are divided into two great groups, the voluntary and the involuntary or reflex. But between these extremes there are undoubtedly many intermediate terms connecting them. Thus is it in all our science, and still more in our systematic teaching of science. Our distinctions are far more trenchant than the distinctions in Nature. ”