BIOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS 



some other metaphysician has signed a death certificate 

 for Scientific Naturalism or Neo-mechanism, as the philos- 

 ophers so kindly label the collective efforts of the humble 

 workers who have solved some small portion of the prob- 

 lems confronting mankind. These announcements, like 

 similar announcements of the past, are premature. The 

 patients, despite their treatment by these Borgian physi- 

 cians, remain sufficiently robust to continue recording the 

 collapse of metaphysical hypotheses. 



If one scans the history of the subject, he can readily 

 sympathize with the reaction against science exhibited by 

 the modern mystic in cap and gown who still answers to 

 the name "philosopher." Formerly philosophy took all 

 constructive thought as its province. It attracted great 

 minds to the task of analyzing and synthesizing knowledge; 

 and these illustrious scholars left a legacy for which we, 

 the recipients of their bounty, may well be thankful. Then 

 came the decay of near-eastern civilization, and the Dark 

 Ages. With the revival of learning, philosophers became 

 divided into two camps. One group heeded the demand of 

 Aristotle "to trust more to observation than to speculation, 

 and to the latter no further than it agrees with the phe- 

 nomena"; they dropped the ancient title and adopted that 

 of science. The second group retained the noble old patro- 

 nym and, disdaining all vulgar use of hand and eye, settled 

 themselves to subjective rumination on ultimate causes. 

 To-day the impotent residua of this clan wander through 

 the ruins of their lost estates bewailing that nothing 

 remains but the ghostly outlines of metaphysics, the rusty 

 toys of epistemology, and the vestiges of an ethics which 

 has lost all influence and prestige. 



What other fate could the philosopher expect? As I have 

 said in another essay, he yearned to be the gentleman, not 

 the mere private secretary to Nature. He wished to evade 

 the drudgery of the patient collector of facts, of the experi- 



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