CHAPTER SEVEN 



REASON 



" Discovery should come as an adventure rather than as 

 the result of a logical process of thought. Sharp, prolonged 

 thinking is necessary that we may keep on the chosen road, 

 but it does not necessarily lead to discovery." 



— Theobald Smpth 



Limitations and hazards 



BEFORE considering the role of reason in research it may be 

 useful to discuss the limitations of reason. These are more 

 serious than most people realise, because our conception of science 

 has been given us by teachers and authors who have presented 

 science in logical arrangement and that is seldom the way in which 

 knowledge is actually acquired. 



Everyday experience and history teach us that in the biological 

 and medical sciences reason seldom can progress far from the 

 facts without going astray. The scholasticism and authoritarianism 

 prevailing during the Middle Ages was incompatible with science. 

 With the Renaissance came a change in outlook : the beUef that 

 things ought and must behave according to accepted views 

 (mostly taken from the classics) was supplanted by a desire to 

 observe things as they really are, and human knowledge began 

 to grow again. Francis Bacon had a great influence on the 

 development of science mainly, I think, because he showed that 

 most discoveries had been made empirically rather than by use 

 of deductive logic. In 1 605 he said : 



" Men are rather beholden . . . generally to chance, or anything 



else, than to logic, for the invention of arts and sciences ",* 



and in 1620, 



" the present system of logic rather assists in confirming and 

 rendering inveterate the errors founded on vulgar notions, than 

 in searching after truth, and is therefore more hurtful than 

 useful." 7 



82 



