58o 



NA TURE 



[May 6, 1922 



He has become unintelligent. Consider the unlike 

 results which would follow the teaching of science 

 on the grounds of faith and of evidence. In the former 

 case there would be stagnation, passionate and 

 unending controversy, with deference to this auth- 

 ority and hatred of that ; in the latter case, contempt 

 for mere authority, efficiency, progress, cool dis- 

 cussion, and ultimate agreement. Always it is not 

 so much the thing that is taught that matters, but 

 the way in which it is taught, through imitation or 

 through curiosity. Consider how inefficient were 

 such nations as Russia and Turkey in the late war, 

 and how they are smashed beyond repair. Had the 

 peoples of the world been less prejudiced and more 

 intelligent there would have been no war. The sub- 

 ject is immense, and desire for compression has made 

 me didactic ; but readers of Nature may fill lacunae, 

 and perhaps forgive my manner. 



Men learn, through imitation, unlike standards. 

 Among us are people who regret the Dark Ages : 

 as before them there were doubtless those who 

 regretted the manly times of Saxon piracy, and 

 before them those who grieved for painted savagery. 

 But, obviously, if we desire intelligence, efficiency, 

 a contented and prosperous population, and a pro- 

 gressive civilisation, we must teach our youth as 

 much as possible through evidence. We cannot 

 help imparting some things through imitation [e.g. 

 our ideas of right and wrong), but our special aim 

 should be to create through curiosity an open, 

 reflective habit of mind. This is, of course, the way 

 in which science has been created, and which its 

 workers constantly advocate. But it is vain to express 

 mere opinions. Many people who professedly, indeed 

 sincerely, seek the same ends think it primarily 

 essential to close the mind to evil by teaching especi- 

 ally the emotional convictions they may happen to 

 hold, and to expend the rest of the pupil's time by 

 causing him to learn through labour other things 

 {e.g. languages) which are commonly acquired through 

 imitation. A man may learn all the languages in the 

 world and yet not part from a single prejudice. 



Fortunately, the history of society furnishes crucial 

 examples in abundance. For example, the modern 

 world, like the Graeco-Roman, but unlike every other, 

 has been prolific in men great in thought or action. 

 In these two worlds men have learned especially 

 through curiosity. With very rare exceptions, only 

 Christians (who more than others have abandoned 

 mere imitation) have produced great men ; and 

 among Christians great men have been almost 

 limited to the less orthodox {i.e. less imitative) 

 sects, or to defaulters from the more orthodox. 

 Consider Newton, Darwin, Napoleon and his con- 

 temporaries. Garibaldi, Bismarck, and the rest. The 

 crime-rate of modem communities, ranging from 

 civil war and rebellion, through brigandage and 

 murder, to acts of petty violence, is immensely 

 higher among the more orthodox, who, both peoples 

 and individuals, usually occupy inferior positions 

 and attribute their misfortunes to oppressors, native 

 or foreign. But emigration to other lands leaves 

 such people unchanged, as witness the alien population 

 of Great Britain and the United States, with its 

 emotionalism, tendency to corruption, and high crime- 

 rate. Government by the orthodox is invariably 

 corrupt or inefficient, or both, as in Russia, Turkey, 

 and medieval England. 



Efficient modern Governments, hoping to obtain 

 peace, are often pathetically anxious to confer self- 

 government on the orthodox. But you cannot make 

 a silk purse out of a sow's ear. As object-lessons, 

 compare Russia and Germany in defeat. The latter, 

 wrecked by an emotional despot and his Byzantine 

 Court, is cleverly reconstructing her prosperity. 



NO. 2740, VOL. 109] 



Russia was, and is, and will long continue, an auto- 

 cracy or lapse into chaos. People with the degree of 

 intelligence permitted by the Orthodox Church could 

 not possibly evolve a free and orderly State. Con- 

 sider all the nations of the world. Invariably you 

 will find that the men whose rules limit thought are 

 inferior to those whose rules, relatively speaking, 

 limit only action. Many empires have perished in 

 the past from internal decay or external pressure. 

 In the former case the decay has always coincided 

 with an increase of training through imitation ; in 

 the latter, rival nations have increased their training 

 through curiosity. We may confer self-government 

 on populations in India, Egypt, and nearer home ; 

 but very certainly these populations will then only 

 reproduce societies like those which people similarly 

 trained have produced elsewhere. 



Science has endowed humanity with a vast com- 

 mand over Nature, but has been less successful in 

 establishing the scientific spirit. Within the limits 

 created by his prejudices, facts may be taught to the 

 adult, but frames of mind, as a rule, only to the very 

 young ; and science has neglected to consider the 

 education of the latter. It is one thing to discover 

 the shape and age of the earth or the origin of species, 

 and quite another thing to persuade men already 

 biassed to accept the intellectual consequences. It 

 is one thing to invent explosives and aeroplanes, 

 and quite another thing to make men, already made 

 creatures of emotion through imitation, tolerant, 

 reflective, open-minded, rational, so that discovery 

 shall not be used for evil. The world is seething with 

 passionate hatreds, the offspring of prejudices, which 

 are derived from imitation. Consider the moral and 

 religious differences which are indelibly impressed 

 on the minds of children, and are the root-causes of 

 nearly all the trouble that ferments from Galway to 

 Singapore. Knowledge, the child of Science, has 

 outgrown her twin Wisdom, and in the hands of 

 violent and intolerant men may easily bring our 

 civilisation to ruin. Consider ancient Rome and how 

 exactly her decline coincided with the rise of fanati- 

 cism. Compare, as revealed in their literatures, the 

 minds of the fervid saints with those of the common- 

 sense pagans. But at least we may try to guard our 

 own land. We have a unique opportunity ; for 

 among the British, the least prejudiced of moderns, 

 are many who would accept crucial evidence con- 

 cerning the development of society if it were offered 

 fearlessly and insistently, and only the followers of 

 science can so offer it. The main difficulty lies in the 

 beginning : it wiU be hard to move scientific men, 

 especially biologists, to action. From the nature 

 of their training they lack enthusiasm (which is an 

 emotion), and therefore organisation, and therefore 

 power. Compare Salvationists. The little finger of 

 General Booth is thicker than the loins of the president 

 of the Royal Society. But probably, were the move- 

 ment in favour of a right method of mental training 

 well started, the laity would supply the enthusiasm. 

 However, all that is on the knees of the gods. 



I now conclude my letters to Nature. They may, 

 perhaps, have achieved some small success in things 

 about which I care little, but probably none at all in 

 the things about which I care much. I think they 

 have been misunderstood. I am not wildly con- 

 cerned about biological terminology per se, or about 

 chromosomes, or whether groups of naturalists limit 

 their facts to those furnished by zoology and botany, 

 or experiment, or biometry, and so forth, or whether 

 they bring a wider range of evidence from other 

 sciences and studies into court by means of crucial 

 testing. If the public be uninterested or stupid, it 

 matters not how biologists divert themselves. If it be 

 interested and intelligent, it matters supremely ; but 



