540 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. I. No. 20. 



teristic of modern Occidental civilization in 

 no less degree than the reverse condition is 

 supposed to mould the thought and life of 

 the Orient. Such objectivity — not without 

 the stigma of materialism — seems to result 

 from the general prevalence of the scientific 

 methods in contemporaneous thought. 



If it be protested that the scientific 

 method is blighting in its tendency to sup- 

 press metaphysics, not so certain objections 

 will be made to its ef&ciency as a counterfoil 

 against philosophic pessimism. Whether 

 one professes with Schopenhauer to believe 

 that this is the worst possible world, or joins 

 von Hartmann in that more dismal sugges- 

 tion that this is the best possible world, but 

 not worth living in ; whether one sigh with 

 De Musset, weep with LeConte de Lisle, 

 or rave with Baudelaire, one must give the 

 sanction in so doing to existence, and if to 

 existence then to evolution, by which such 

 existence became possible, and if to evolu- 

 tion then to progress. Therefore, if we 

 have the scientific spirit two escapes are 

 possible from the darkness of pessimism — 

 superficially by occupying one's self with 

 some scientific protocol, or more profoundly 

 by turning one's despairing thoughts aside 

 in the recognition of an indwelling power 

 in the social organism which makes, if not 

 for righteousness, at least for social evolu- 

 tion. If under the leadership of the scien- 

 tific method one can actually grasp the form 

 of truth there is in positivism ; if one can 

 really feel the existence of a social organ- 

 ism and listen to his ideals as did Comte, 

 believing them to be the sealed orders of 

 humanity; if one can learn with Weismann 

 to know the profound sense in which all 

 men are brothers, for all men are one, it wiU 

 make little odds to him whether he be 

 shown with most convincing logic that the 

 constitution of the nervous system makes 

 pain the positive and pleasure the negative 

 and that death is merely an acquired physi- 

 ological trait useful to insure the perma- 



nence of the species at the zenith of its 

 youth and power. But after all, perhaps 

 the most fatal blow that the scientific- 

 method strikes to pessimism is, as argued 

 above, in its settled antagonism to intro- 

 spection. For pessimism as an ethical and 

 metaphysical system is based peculiarly 

 upon self-observation. A man does not 

 despair of the world from what he sees 

 around him, but from what he sees in the 

 secret places of his own heart. By its dis- 

 couragement of morbid subjectivity the sci- 

 entific method cuts the very foundation 

 from under the philosophic pessimist. 



"We are led then to the third postulate — 

 that the scientific method impels us unmis- 

 takably toward a rational and sober 

 altruism. This indeed links itself insepa- 

 rably with the others. If defective this tj'pe 

 of altruism is defective in fire and in en- 

 thusiasm. Domination by the calm reason- 

 ableness of the inductive philosophy does 

 not stimulate one to take up the tambourines 

 and drums of the Salvation Army. He who 

 has ordered his mental processes in accord- 

 ance with a scientific method is inclined to 

 prefer the charity organization to personal 

 alms-giving; he shrinks a little from the zeal 

 of the social reformer; he is unlikely to be a 

 poet in literature, a rhapsodist in music or 

 a revivalist in religion. He is rather to be 

 sought among the rank and file of the great, 

 silent army which is behind every reform 

 as ' public sentiment ' or as the ' moral sense 

 of the community.' But as has been 

 pointed out elsewhere this quiet acqui- 

 escence is a necessary factor in social re- 

 form, just as underneath every successful 

 revolution there has been a subtile and 

 tacit confession of faultiness in the estab- 

 lished order by the very party that storms 

 barricades in the struggle for its mainte- 

 nance. To sum it up in a word, under the 

 scientific method men may not be so ready 

 to conquer rights and privileges for others, 

 but they are prepared unflinchingly to con- 



