time; the refreshing river 



make scientists the passive instruments of class domination. In looking 

 round among one's colleagues it has been consistently evident that 

 those with the narrowest specialist interests tend to be politically the 

 most reactionary. Without history, the scientist will know nothing of 

 social evolution, of the origin and progress of human society, of the 

 laws of change and of the direction in which further progress is 

 likely to take place. Without philosophy he can have no basic world- 

 view, and may fall into all kinds of fantasies — for successful scientific 

 work is compatible with anything from Roman Catholicism, as in the 

 case of Pasteur, co Sandemanism as in the case of Faraday. It would 

 be presumptuous in the case of such men to think that their scientific 

 work would have been better if they had had better philosophies, 

 but the majority of scientists are not of their calibre, and for these it 

 is surely true that the better their philosophy the better their scientific 

 work is likely to be. Without religion, the scientist will know little 

 of comradeship with the mass of men, he will remain isolated from 

 them in intellectual pride, and incapable of that humility which made 

 Huxley give of his best to working-class audiences in "Mechanics' 

 Institutes" or Timiriazev and Sechenov lecture illegally to Russian 

 working men. Only by recognising where the numinous really lies 

 will he be able to take his part in the great Labour movement. As for 

 the absence of aesthetic appreciation, one need not describe the kind 

 of person he will be without that. All the forms of experience are 

 necessary and no one of them has the last word. 



It would be tedious to apply the same arguments to other sorts of 

 men. Thus the historian without science will become a donnish 

 "period-prisoner," and without philosophy a pedantic purveyor of 

 meaningless facts. The religious man, without political understanding, 

 will reduce ethics to relations between individuals and will sink into 

 the false and vicious religion of other-worldly pietism. But even 

 should he avoid this, he would become, without some admixture of 

 science and philosophy, a pure social revolutionary, a Utopian lacking 

 all solid background for his faith. Everyone can apply these principles 

 to their own cases. As old Comenius said; 



"Can any man be a good Naturalist, that is not seene in the 

 Metaphysicks ? Or a good Moralist, who is not a Naturalist.^ Or 

 a Logician, who is ignorant of reall Sciences.^ Or a Divine, a 

 Lawyer, or a Physician, that is no Philosopher.^ Or an Oratour 

 or Poet, who is not accomplished with them all.^" 



(^A Reformation of Schooles, 1642.) 

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