An Introduction to the History of Science Part 19

SCIENCE AND DEMOCRATIC CULTURE

Education is the oversight and guidance of the development of the immature with certain ethical and social ends in view. Pedagogy, therefore, is based partly on psychology--which, as we have seen in the preceding chapter, is closely related to the biological sciences--and partly on ethics, or the study of morals, closely related to the social sciences. These two aspects of education, the psychological and the sociological, were treated respectively in Rousseau's _Emile_ and Plato's _Republic_. The former ill-understood work, definitely referring its readers to the latter for the social aspect of education, applies itself as exclusively as possible to the study of the physical and mental development of the individual child. Rousseau consciously set aside the problem of nationality or citizenship; he was cosmopolitan, and explicitly renounced the idea of planning the education of a Frenchman or a Swiss. Neither did he desire to set forth the education of a wild man, free and unrestrained. He wished rather to depict the development of a natural man in a state of society; but he emphasized the native hereditary endowment, while expressing his admiration for Plato's _Republic_ as the great cla.s.sic of social pedagogy. The t.i.tles of the two works, one from the name of an individual child, the other from a form of government, should serve to remind us of the purpose and limitations of each.

Plato's thought was centered on the educational and moral needs of the city-state of Athens. He was apprehensive that the city was becoming corrupted through the wantonness and lack of principle of the Athenian youth. He strove to rebuild on reasoned foundations the sense of social obligation and responsibility which had in the earlier days of Athens rested upon faith in the existence of the G.o.ds. As a conservative he hoped to restore the ancient Athenian feeling for duty and moral worth, and he even envied some of the educational practices of the rival city-state Sparta, by which the citizen was subordinated to the state.

The novel feature of Plato's pedagogy was the plan to educate the directing cla.s.ses, men disciplined in his own philosophical and ethical conceptions. He was, in fact, an intellectual aristocrat, and spoke of democracy in very ironical terms, as the following sentences will show:--

"And thus democracy comes into being after the poor have conquered their opponents.... And now what is their manner of life, and what sort of a government have they? For as the government is, such will be the man....

In the first place, are they not free? and the city is full of freedom and frankness--a man may do as he likes.... And where freedom is, the individual is clearly able to order his own life as he pleases?... Then in this kind of State there will be the greatest variety of human natures?... This then will be the fairest of States, and will appear the fairest, being spangled with the manners and characters of mankind, like an embroidered robe which is spangled with every sort of flower. And just as women and children think variety charming, so there are many men who will deem this to be the fairest of States.... And is not the equanimity of the condemned often charming? Under such a government there are men who, when they have been sentenced to death or exile, stay where they are and walk about the world; the gentleman [convict] parades like a hero, as though n.o.body saw or cared.... See too ... the forgiving spirit of democracy and the 'don't care' about trifles, and the disregard of all the fine principles which we solemnly affirmed ... how grandly does she trample our words under her feet, never giving a thought to the pursuits which make a statesman, and promoting to honor anyone who professes to be the people's friend.... These and other kindred characteristics are proper to democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing equality to equals and unequals alike.... Consider now ... what manner of man the individual is ... he lives through the day indulging the appet.i.te of the hour; and sometimes he is lapped in drink and strains of the flute; then he is for total abstinence, and tries to get thin; then, again, he is at gymnastics; sometimes idling and neglecting everything, then once more living the life of a philosopher; often he is in politics, and starts to his feet and says and does whatever comes into his head; and, if he is emulous of anyone who is a warrior, off he is in that direction, or of men of business, once more in that. His life has neither order nor law; so he goes on continually, and he terms this joy and freedom and happiness. Yes, his life is all liberty and equality.

Yes, ... and multiform, and full of the most various characters; ... he answers to the State, which we described as fair and spangled.... Let him then be set over against democracy; he may truly be called the democratic man."

In spite of the satirical tone of this pa.s.sage much of it may be accepted as the unwilling tribute of a hostile critic. Democracy is the triumph of the ma.s.ses over the oligarchs. It is merciful in the administration of justice. It shows a magnanimous spirit and does not magnify the importance of trifles. It prefers the rule of its friends to the rule of a despot. Under its government people feel themselves blessed by happiness, liberty, and equality. The culture of the democratic man is above all characterized by adaptability.

In the nineteenth century Matthew Arnold, the apostle of culture, discussing the civilization of a democratic nation of many millions, unconsciously confirmed the views of Plato in some respects, while showing interesting points of difference. He expressed his admiration of the inst.i.tutions, solid social conditions, freedom and equality, power, energy, and wealth of the people of the United States. In the daintiness of American house-architecture, and in the natural manners of the free and happy American women he saw a real note of civilization. He felt that his own country had a good deal to learn from America, though he did not close his eyes to the real dangers to which all democratic nations are exposed. Arnold failed in his a.n.a.lysis of American civilization to confirm Plato's judgment concerning the variety of natures to be found in the democratic State, as well as the Greek philosopher's censure that democracy shows disregard of ethical principles. In fact, Arnold considered the people of the United States singularly h.o.m.ogeneous, singularly free from the distinctions of cla.s.s; "we [the English] are so little h.o.m.ogeneous, we are living with a system of cla.s.ses so intense, that the whole action of our minds is hampered and falsened by it; we are in consequence wanting in lucidity, we do not see clear or think straight, and the Americans have here much the advantage of us." As for the second point of difference between Arnold and Plato, the English critic recognized that the American people belonged to the great cla.s.s in society in which the sense of conduct and regard for ethical principles are particularly developed.

Nearly all the old charges against American democracy can be summarized in one general censure,--the lack of calm and reasoned self-criticism,--and this general defect is rapidly being made good. It is partly owing to charity and good-will, and it includes the toleration of the mediocre or inferior, as, for example, in the theater; the failure to recognize distinction, and to pay deference to things deserving it; the glorification of the average man, and the _hustler_, and the lack of special educational opportunities for the exceptionally gifted child. That criticism as an art is still somewhat behindhand in America seems to be confirmed by comparing French and American literary criticism. In France it is a profession practiced by a corps of experts; in America only a very few of the best periodicals can be relied on to give reviews based on critical principles, of works in verse or prose.

(One American reviewer confesses that in a single day he has written notices of twenty new works of fiction, his work bringing him, as remuneration, seventy-five cents a volume.)

There is no evidence, however, that Americans as individuals are wanting in the self-critical spirit. And for Arnold this is vital, seeing that the watchword of the culture he proclaims is Know Thyself. It is not a question of gaining a social advantage by a smattering of foreign languages. It is more than intellectual curiosity. "Culture is more properly described as having its origin in the love of perfection. It moves by the force, not merely or primarily of the scientific pa.s.sion for pure knowledge, but also of the pa.s.sion for doing good." Human perfection, the essence of culture, is an internal condition, but the will to do good must be guided by the knowledge of what is good to do; "acting and inst.i.tuting are of little use unless we know how and what we ought to act and inst.i.tute." Moreover, "because men are all members of one great whole, and the sympathy which is human nature will not allow one member to be indifferent to the rest, the expansion of our humanity, to suit the idea of perfection which culture forms, must be a _general_ expansion."

For Arnold's contemporary Nietzsche, the German exponent of Aristocracy, the _expansion_ of education entailed its diminution. For him ancient Greece was the only home of culture, and such culture was not for all comers. The rights of genius are not to be democratized; not the education of the ma.s.ses, but rather the education of a few picked men must be the aim. The one purpose which education should most zealously strive to achieve is the suppression of all ridiculous claims to independent judgment, and the inculcation upon young men of obedience to the scepter of genius. The scientific man and the cultured man belong to two different spheres which, though coming together at times in the same individual, are never fully reconciled.

In order to appreciate the full perverseness, from the democratic standpoint, of Nietzsche's view of culture, it is necessary to glance at his political ideals as explained by one of his sponsors.

Nietzsche repudiates the usual conception of morality, which he calls slave-morality, in favor of a morality of masters. The former according to him encourages the deterioration of humanity; the latter promotes advancement. He favors a true aristocracy as the best means of producing a race of supermen. "Instead of advocating 'equal and inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,' for which there is at present such an outcry (a regime which necessarily elevates fools and knaves, and lowers the honest and intelligent), Nietzsche advocates simple _justice_--to individuals and families according to their _merits_, according to their worth to society; _not_ equal rights, therefore, but unequal rights, and inequality in advantages generally, approximately proportionate to deserts; consequently, therefore, a genuinely superior ruling cla.s.s at one end of the social scale, and an actually inferior ruled cla.s.s, with slaves at its basis, at the opposite social extreme."

Since it is the view of this aristocratic philosopher that science is the ally of democracy--a view that every chapter of the history of science serves to demonstrate--it is of interest to review his opinion of the character of the scientist. For Nietzsche the scientist is not a heroic superman, but a commonplace type of man, with commonplace virtues. He lacks domination, authority, self-sufficiency; he is rather in need of recognition from others and is characterized by the self-distrust innate in all dependent men and gregarious animals. He is industrious, patiently adaptable to rank and file, equable and moderate in capacity and requirement. He has a natural feeling for people like himself, and for that which they require: A fair competence and the green meadow without which there is no rest from labor. The scientist shows no rapture for exalted views; in fact, with an instinct for mediocrity, he is envious and strives for the destruction of the exceptional man.

A training in natural science tends to make one objective. But the objective man, in Nietzsche's opinion, distrusts his own personality and regards it as something to be set aside as accidental, and a detriment to calm judgment. The temperamental philosopher thinks the scientist serene, but that his serenity springs not from lack of trouble, but from incapacity to grasp and deal with his own private grief. His is merely disinterested knowledge, according to Nietzsche. The scientist is emotionally impoverished. His love is constrained, and his hatred artificial; he is less interesting to women than the warrior. "His mirroring and externally self-polished soul no longer knows how to affirm, no longer how to deny; he does not command; neither does he destroy." As we see in the case of Leibnitz, the scientist contemns scarcely anything (_Je ne meprise presque rien_). The scientist is an instrument, but not a goal; he is something of a slave, nothing in himself--_presque rien!_ There is in the scientist nothing bold, powerful, self-centered, that wants to be master. He is for the most part a man without content and definite outline, a selfless man.

This educational product, which the builders of modern aristocracy reject, and describe after their fashion, we accept as the ally of the ma.s.ses of the people, and we term it democratic culture.

The objective man, at the same time, may find even in the vehement pages of Nietzsche warnings and criticisms which the friends of democracy should not disregard. Extreme, almost insane, as his doctrine undoubtedly is, it may have value as a corrective influence, an antidote for other extreme views. It serves to remind us that democracy may be misled by feelings in themselves n.o.ble, and may, by grasping what seems good, miss what is best. For example, there are in the United States about three hundred thousand persons, defective or subnormal mentally; there is a smaller number of persons exceptionally gifted mentally. It is a poor form of social service that would exhaust the resources of science and philanthropy to care for the former without making any special provision for the latter. Genius is too great an a.s.set to be wasted or misapplied. All culture would have suffered if Newton had been held, in his early life, to exacting administrative work; or if Darwin had devoted his years to alleviating the conditions of the miners of Peru whose misery touched him so profoundly; or if Pasteur had been taken from the laboratory and pure science to make a country doctor. Nor can democracy rest satisfied with any subst.i.tute for culture which would disregard what is great in literature, in art, and in philosophy, or which would ignore history, and the languages and civilizations of the past, as if culture had its beginning yesterday.

In this chapter we have considered democracy and democratic culture from the standpoint of three writers on education, a Greek aristocrat, a German advocate of the domination of the cla.s.ses over the ma.s.ses, and an Oxford professor, all by training and temperament more or less hostile critics. A more direct procedure might have been employed to establish the claim of science to afford a basis of intellectual and social h.o.m.ogeneity. A brilliant literary man of the present day considers that places in the first ranks of literature are reserved for the doctrinally heterodox. None of the great writers of Europe, he a.s.serts, have been the adherents of the traditional faith. (He makes an exception in favor of Racine: but this is a needless concession, for Racine owed his early education to the Port Royalists, became alienated from them and wrote under the inspiration of the idea of the moral sufficiency of worldly honor; then, after an experience that shook his faith in his own code, he returned to the early religious influences in his life and composed his _Esther_ and _Athalie_.) But, unlike literature, the study of science is not exclusive. In the front ranks of science stand the devout Roman Catholic Pasteur, the Anglican Darwin, the Unitarian Priestley, the Calvinist Faraday, the Quakers Dalton, Young, and Lister, Huxley the Agnostic, and Aristotle the pagan biologist. Science has no Test Acts.

That the cultivation of the sciences tends to promote a type of culture that is democratic rather than aristocratic, sympathetic rather than austere, inclusive rather than exclusive, is further witnessed by the fact that the tradesman and artisan, as well as the dissenter, play a large part in their development. We have seen that Pasteur was the son of a tanner, Priestley of a cloth-maker, Dalton of a weaver, Lambert of a tailor, Kant of a saddler, Watt of a shipbuilder, Smith of a farmer.

John Ray was, like Faraday, the son of a blacksmith. Joule was a brewer.

Davy, Scheele, Dumas, Balard, Liebig, Wohler, and a number of other distinguished chemists, were apothecaries' apprentices. Franklin was a printer. At the same time other ranks of society are represented in the history of science by Boyle, Cavendish, Lavoisier. The physicians and the sons of physicians have borne a particularly honorable part in the advancement of physical as well as mental science. The instinctive craving for power, the will to dominate, of which Nietzsche was the lyricist, was in these men subdued to patience, industry, and philanthropy. The beneficent effect of their activities on the health and general welfare of the ma.s.ses of the people bears witness to the sanity and worth of the culture that prompted these activities.

As was stated at the outset of this chapter, education is the oversight and guidance of the development of the immature with certain ethical and social ends in view. The material of instruction, the method of instruction, and the type of educational inst.i.tution, will vary with the hereditary endowment, age, and probable social destiny of the child.

In a democratic country likely to become more, rather than less, democratic, those subjects will naturally be taught which have vital connection with the people's welfare and progress in civilization. At the same time the method of instruction will be less dogmatic and more inclined (under a free than under an absolute government) to evoke the child's powers of individual judgment; arbitrary discipline must yield gradually to self-discipline. The changes here indicated as desirable are already well under way in America. As regards types of educational inst.i.tution, it is significant that America about the middle of the eighteenth century introduced the Miltonic, nonconformist Academy, with its science curriculum, in place of the traditional Latin grammar school. Later the American high school, inst.i.tutions of which type now have over a million pupils, and teach science by the heuristic laboratory method, became the popular form of secondary school. It is, likewise, not without social significance that the Kindergarten was suppressed in Prussia after the revolt of the people in the middle of the nineteenth century, and that it found a more congenial home in a democratic country. Its educational ideal of developing self-activity without losing sight of the need of social adaptation finds its corollary in systematic teaching of the sciences in relation both to the daily work and to their historical and cultural antecedents.

REFERENCES

Matthew Arnold, _Essays in Criticism_, and _Culture and Anarchy_.

Matthew Arnold, _Civilization in the United States_.

Friedrich Nietzsche, _On the Future of our Educational Inst.i.tutions_, vol. VI. of the _Complete Works_; translation edited by Dr. Oscar Levy.

Friedrich Nietzsche, _Beyond Good and Evil_, vol. V, chap. VI. of the _Complete Works_.

Plato, _Republic_, Book VIII; vol. III. of Benjamin Jowett's translation of the _Dialogues of Plato_, 1875.