Human Traits and their Social Significance Part 32

And publishing and the theater are two conspicuous instances of the conflicts that not infrequently arise between standards of economic return and standards of aesthetic merit. Even where there is no deliberate selection of the worse rather than the better, commercial standards operate to put the novel in art at a discount. As already pointed out, we tend to appreciate forms and ideas to which we are accustomed. In consequence, where commercial demands make immediate widespread appreciation necessary, the untried, the odd, the radical innovation in music, literature, or drama, is a questionable venture. There are notable instances of works which, though eventually recognized as great, had to go begging at first for a publisher or a producer. This was the case with some of Meredith's earlier novels; later Meredith, as a publisher's reader, turned down some of Shaw. The same inhospitality met some of the plays of Ibsen and some of the symphonies of Tschaikowsky.

ART AND MORALS. Attention has already been called to the fact that objects of art are powerful vehicles for social propaganda. Indeed some works become famous less for their intrinsic beauty than for their moral force.[1] The effectiveness of art forms as instruments of propaganda lies in the fact, previously noted, that the ideas presented, with all the accouterments of color, form, and movement, are incomparably effective in stimulating pa.s.sion; ideas thus aroused in the beholder have the vivid momentum of emotion to sustain them.

There is only rhetorical exaggeration in the saying, "Let me sing a country's songs, and I care not who makes its laws."

Plato was one of the first to recognize how influential art could be in influencing men's actions and att.i.tudes. So keenly did he realize its possible influence, that in constructing his ideal state he provided for the rigid regulation of all artistic production by the governing power, and the exile of all poets.

He felt deeply how insinuatingly persuasive poets could become with their dangerous "beautiful lies." Artists have, indeed, not infrequently been revolutionaries, at least in the sense that the world which they so ecstatically pictured makes even the best of actual worlds look pale and paltry in comparison.

The imaginative genius has naturally enough been discontented with an existing order that could not possibly measure up to his ardent specifications. Sh.e.l.ley is possibly the supreme example of the type; against his incorrigible construction of perfect worlds in imagination he set the real world in which men live, and found it hateful.

[Footnote 1: The cla.s.sic instance of a work that certainly was notable in its early history for its propaganda value is _Uncle Tom's Cabin_.

An extreme instance of a book famous almost exclusively for its vivid propaganda is Upton Sinclair's _The Jungle_.]

In consequence of this discontent which the imaginative artist so often expresses with the real world, and the power of his enthusiastic visions to win the loyalties and affections of men, many moralists and statesmen have, like Plato, regarded the creative artist with suspicion. They have half believed the lyric boast of the Celtic poet who wrote:

"One man with a dream at pleasure, Shall go forth and conquer a crown, And three with a new song's measure, Can trample an empire down.

"We, in the ages lying, In the buried past of the earth, Built Nineveh with our sighing, And Babel itself with our mirth; We o'erthrew them with prophesying To the old of the new world's worth, For each age is a dream that, is dying, Or one that is coming to birth."[1]

[Footnote 1: O'Shaughnessy: _Ode to the Music-Makers_.]

Many, therefore, who have reflected upon art--Plato first and chiefly--have insisted that art must be used to express only those ideas and emotions which when acted upon would have beneficent social consequences. Only those stories are to be told, those pictures to be painted, those songs to be sung, which contribute to the welfare of the state. Many artists have similarly felt a Puritanical responsibility; they have told only those tales which could be pointed with a moral. The supreme example of this dedication of art to a moral purpose is found in the Middle Ages, when all beauty of architecture, painting, and much of literature and drama, was pervaded, as it was inspired, with the Christian message. Later Milton writes at the beginning of _Paradise Lost_:

"... What in me is dark, Illumine, what is low--raise and support, That to the height of this great argument I may a.s.sert Eternal Providence, And justify the ways of G.o.d to man."[2]

[Footnote 2: Milton: _Paradise Lost_, book I, lines 22-26.]

In a sense, the supreme achievements of creative genius have been notable instances of the expression of great moral or religious or social ideals. Lucretius's _On the Nature of Things_ is the n.o.blest and most pa.s.sionate extant rendering of the materialistic conception of life. Goethe's _Faust_ expresses in epic magnificence a whole romantic philosophy of endless exploration and infinite desire. Dante's _Divine Comedy_ sums up in a single magnificent epic the spirit and meaning of the mediaeval point of view. As Henry Osborn Taylor writes of it:

Yet even the poem itself was a climax long led up to. The power of its feeling had been preparing in the conceptions, even in the reasonings, which through the centuries had been gaining ardour as they became part of the entire natures of men and women. Thus had mediaeval thought become emotionalized and plastic and living in poetry and art. Otherwise, even Dante's genius could not have fused the contents of mediaeval thought into a poem. How many pa.s.sages in the _Commedia_ ill.u.s.trate this--like the lovely picture of Lia moving in the flowering meadow, with her fair hands making her a garland. The twenty-third canto of the _Paradiso_, telling of the triumph of Christ and the Virgin, yields a larger ill.u.s.tration; and within it, as a very concrete lyric instance, floats that flower of angelic love, the song of Gabriel circling the Lady of Heaven with its melody, and giving quintessential utterance to the love and adoration which the Middle Ages had intoned to the Virgin. Yes, if it be Dante's genius, it is also the gathering emotion of the centuries, which lifts the last cantos of the _Paradiso_ from glory to glory, and makes this closing singing of the _Commedia_ such supreme poetry.

Nor is it the emotional element alone that reaches its final voice in Dante. Pa.s.sage after pa.s.sage of the _Paradiso_ is the apotheosis of scholastic thought and ways of stating it, the very apotheosis, for example, of those harnessed phrases in which the line of great scholastics had endeavoured to put in words the universalities of substance and accident and the absolute qualities of G.o.d.[1]

[Footnote 1: Taylor: _The Mediaeval Mind_, vol. II, pp. 588-89.]

In these supreme instances the ideas have been given a genuinely aesthetic expression. They are beautiful in form and music, as well as in content and vision. But not infrequently where propaganda appears, art flies out of the window. Many modern plays and novels might be cited, which in their serious devotion to the enunciation of some social ideal, lapse from song into statistics. The artist with his eye on the social consequences of his work may come altogether to cease to regard standards of beauty. It is only the rare genius who can make poetry out of politics. Even Sh.e.l.ley lapses into deadly and arid prosiness when his chief interest becomes the presentation of the political ideas of G.o.dwin.

In contrast with the theory that art has a social responsibility, that so powerful an instrument must be used exclusively in the presentation of adequate social ideals, must be set the doctrine, widely current in the late nineteenth century, of "art for art's sake." To the exponents of this point of view, the artist has only one responsibility, the creation of beauty.

It is his to realize in form every pulsation of interest and desire, to provide every possible exquisite sensation. The artist must not be a preacher; he must not tell men what is the good; he must show them the good, which is identical with the beautiful. And he must exhibit the beautiful in every unique and lovely posture which can be imagined, and which he can skillfully realize in color, in word, or in sound. Art is its own justification; "a thing of beauty is a joy forever."

Where art is governed by such intentions, form and material become more important than expression. Thus there develops in France in the late nineteenth century a school of Symbolists and Sensationalists in poetry, whose single aim is the production of precise and beautiful sensations through the specific use of evocative words. The form and the style become everything in literature, in painting, and the plastic arts. The emphasis is put upon exquisiteness in decoration, upon precision in technique, upon loveliness of material. The Pre-Raphaelite movement in poetry, with its emphasis on the use of picturesque and decorative epithets, the exclusive emphasis in some modern music on subtlety of technique in tone and color, are recent examples.

The position taken has clearly this much justification. A work does not become a work of art through the fact that it expresses n.o.ble sentiments. The most righteous sermon may not be beautiful. Whatever be the source of its inspiration, art must make its appeal through the palpable and undeniable beauty of the formal embodiment it has given to its vision. However much an object be prized as a moral instrument, unless it stirs the senses and the imagination, it hardly can be called a work of art. On the other hand, things intrinsically beautiful do seem to be their own justification. A poem of Keats, a j.a.panese print, a delicate vase, or an exquisite song demand no moral justification. They are their own sufficient excuse for being.

But the "art for art's sake" doctrine, carried to extremes, results in mere decadence or triviality. It produces at best exquisite decorative trifles rather than works of a large and serious beauty. Music seems to be the art where sheer beauty of form is its own justification, for music can hardly be used as a specific medium of communication. Those compositions that purport to be "program music," to convey definite impressions of particular scenes or ideas, are somewhat halting attempts to use music as one uses language. Yet even in music, though we may enjoy ingenious and fluent melodic trifles, we regard them less highly than the earnest and magnificent beauty of a Beethoven symphony.

But because art is only effective when it appeals to the senses and to the imagination does not mean that the senses and the imagination must be stirred by insignificance. The artist may use the rhythms of music, line and color, the suggestiveness of words, in the interests of ideal values. Gifted, as he is, with imaginative foresight to imagine a world better than the one in which he is living, he may, by picturing ideals in persuasive form, not only bring them before the mind of man, but insinuate them into his heart. The rational artist may note the possibilities afoot in his environment. He may treasure these hints of human happiness, and by giving them vivid reality in the forms of art indicate captivatingly to men where possible perfections lie. "For your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams." The artist may become the most influential of prophets, for his prophecies come to men not as arbitrary counsels, but as pictures of Perfection intrinsically lovely and intriguing. When Socrates is asked whether or not his perfect city exists, he replies that it exists only in Heaven, but that men in beholding it may, in the light of that divine pattern, learn to attain in their earthly cities a not dissimilar beauty.

CHAPTER XIV

SCIENCE AND SCIENTIFIC METHOD

WHAT SCIENCE IS. Science may be considered either as the product of a certain type of human activity, or as a human activity satisfactory even apart from its fruits. As an activity, it is a highly refined form of that process of reflection by which man is, in the first place, enabled to make himself at home in the world. It differs from the ordinary or common-sense process of thinking, as we shall presently see, in being more thoroughgoing, systematic, and sustained. It is common sense of a most extraordinarily refined and penetrating kind. But before examining the procedure of science, we must consider briefly its imposing product, that science whose vast structure seems to the layman so final, imposing, and irrefragable.

From the point of view of the product which is the fruit of reflective activity, Science may be defined as _a body of systematized and verified knowledge, expressing in general terms the relations of exactly defined phenomena._ In all the respects here noted, science may be contrasted with those matters of _common knowledge_, of _opinion_ or _belief_ which are the fruit of our casual daily thinking and experience. Science is, in the first place, a body of _systematized_ knowledge. One has but to contrast the presentation of facts in an ordinary textbook in zoology with the random presentation of facts in a newspaper or in casual conversation. In science the facts bearing on a given problem are presented as completely as possible and are cla.s.sified with reference to their significant bearings upon the problem. Moreover the facts gathered and the cla.s.sifications of relationship made are not more or less accurate, more or less true; they are tested and verified results. That putrefaction, for example, is due to the life of micro-organisms in the rotting substance is not a mere a.s.sumption. It has been proved, tested, and verified by methods we shall have occasion presently to examine.

Scientific knowledge, moreover, is general knowledge. The relations it expresses are not _true_ in some cases of the precise kind described, _untrue_ in others. The relations hold true whenever these precise phenomena occur. This generality of scientific relations is closely connected with the fact that science expresses relations of exactly defined phenomena.

When a scientific law expresses a certain relation between _A_ and _B_, it says in effect: Given _A_ as meaning this particular set of conditions and no others, and _B_ as meaning this particular set of conditions and no others, then this relation holds true. The relations between _exactly_ defined phenomena are expressed in general terms, that is, the relations expressed hold true, given certain conditions, whatever be the accompanying circ.u.mstances. It makes no difference what be the kind of objects, the law of gravitation still holds true: the attraction between objects is directly proportional to the product of their ma.s.ses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

Thus science as an activity is marked off by its method and its intent rather than by its subject-matter. As a method it is characterized by thoroughness, persistency, completeness, generality, and system. As regards its intent, it is characterized by its freedom from partiality or prejudice, and its interest in discovering what the facts are, apart from personal expectations and desires. In the scientific mood we wish to know what the nature of things is. There are men who seem to have a boundless, insatiable curiosity, who have a lifelong pa.s.sion for acquiring facts and understanding the relationship between them.

SCIENCE AS EXPLANATION. The satisfactions which scientific investigators derive from their inquiries are various. There is, in the first place, the sheer pleasure of gratifying the normal human impulse of curiosity, developed in some people to an extraordinary degree. Experience to a sensitive and inquiring mind is full of challenges and provocations to look further. The appearance of dew, an eclipse of the sun, a flash of lightning, a peal of thunder, even such commonplace phenomena as the falling of objects, or the rusting of iron, the evaporation of water, the melting of snow, may provoke inquiry, may suggest the question, "Why?" Experience, as it comes to us through the senses, is broken and fragmentary.

The connections between the occurrences of Nature seem casual, and connected, as it were, purely by accident. A black sky portends rain. But such an inference made by the untrained mind is merely the result of habit. A black sky has been followed by rain in the past; the same sequence of events may be expected in the future. But the connection between the two is not really understood. Sometimes experiences seem to contradict each other. The straight stick looks crooked or broken in water. The apparent anomalies and contradictions, the welter of miscellaneous facts with which we come in contact through the experiences of the senses, are clarified by the generalizations of science. The world of facts ceases to be random, miscellaneous, and incalculable. Every phenomenon that occurs is seen to be an instance of a general law that holds among all phenomena that resemble it in certain definable respects. Thus the apparent bending of the stick in water is seen to be a special case of the laws of the refraction of light; the apparent anomaly or contradiction of our sense experiences is, as we say, explained.

What seemed to be a contradiction and an exception is seen to be a clear case of a regular law.

The desire for explanation in some minds is very strong.

Science _explains_ in the sense that _it reduces a phenomenon to the terms of a general principle, whatever that principle may be._ When we meet a phenomenon that seems to come under no general law, we are confronted with a mystery and a miracle.

We do not know what to expect from it. But when we can place a phenomenon under a general law, applicable in a wide variety of instances, everything that can be said of all the other instances in which the law applies, applies also to this particular case.

Think of heat as motion, and whatever is true of motion will be true of heat; but we have had a hundred experiences of motion for everyone of heat. Think of the rays pa.s.sing through this lens as bending toward the perpendicular, and you subst.i.tute for the comparatively unfamiliar lens the very familiar notion of a particular change in direction of a line, of which motion every day brings us countless examples.[1]

[Footnote 1: James: _Psychology_, vol. II, p. 342.]

It must be noticed that the explanation which science gives, is really in answer to the question, "How?" not the question, "Why?" We are said to understand phenomena when we understand the laws which _govern_ them. But to say that certain given phenomena--the appearance of dew, the falling of rain, the flash of lightning, the putrefaction of animal matter--_obey_ certain laws is purely metaphorical. Phenomena do not _obey_ laws in the sense in which we say the child follows the commands of his parents, or the soldier those of his officer. The laws of science simply describe the relations which have repeatedly been observed to exist between phenomena.

They are laws in the sense that they are invariably observed successions. When it has been found that whenever _A_ is present, _B_ is also present, that the presence of _A_ is always correlated with the presence of _B_, and the presence of _B_ is always correlated with the presence of _A_, we say we have discovered a scientific law.

Science thus explains in the sense that it reduces the multiplicity and variety of phenomena to simple and general laws.

The ideal of unity and simplicity is the constant ideal toward which science moves, and its success in thus reducing the miscellaneous facts of experience has been phenomenal. The history of science in the nineteenth century offers some interesting examples. The discovery of the conservation of energy and its transformations has revealed to us the unity of force. It has shown, for example, that the phenomenon of heat could be explained by molecular motions. "Electricity annexed magnetism." Finally the relations of electricity and light are now known; "the three realms of light, of electricity and of magnetism, previously separated, form now but one; and this annexation seems final."

There has been thus an increasing approach toward unity, toward the summation of phenomena under one simple, general formula.[1] Poincare, in reviewing this progress, writes:

[Footnote 1: Poincare notes also the opposite tendency, for science to grow more complex. As he says: "And Newton's law itself? Its simplicity, so long undetected, is perhaps only apparent. Who knows whether it is not due to some complicated mechanism, to the impact of some subtile matter animated by irregular movements, and whether it has not become simple only through the action of averages and of great numbers? In any case it is difficult not to suppose that the true law contains complementary terms, which would become sensible at small distances." (_Foundations of Science_, p. 132.)]

The better one knows the properties of matter the more one sees continuity reign. Since the labors of Andrews and Van der Wals, we get an idea of how the pa.s.sage is made from the liquid to the gaseous state and that this pa.s.sage is not abrupt. Similarly there is no gap between the liquid and solid states, and in the proceedings of a recent congress is to be seen, alongside of a work on the rigidity of liquids, a memoir on the flow of solids....

Finally the methods of physics have invaded a new domain, that of chemistry; physical chemistry is born. It is still very young, but we already see that it will enable us to connect such phenomena as electrolysis, osmosis, and the motions of ions.

From this rapid exposition what shall we conclude?

Everything considered, we have approached unity; we have not been as quick as we had hoped fifty years ago, we have not always taken the predicted way; but, finally, we have gained ever so much ground.[2]

[Footnote 2: Poincare: _loc. cit._, pp. 153-54.]

The satisfaction which disinterested science gives to the investigator is thus, in the first place, one of clarification.

Science, by enabling us to see the wide general laws of which all phenomena are particular instances, emanc.i.p.ates the imagination. It frees us from being bound by the accidental suggestions which come to us from mere personal caprice, habit, and environment, and enables us to observe facts uncolored by pa.s.sions and hope, and to discover those laws of the universe which, in the words of Karl Pearson, "hold for all normally const.i.tuted minds." In ordinary experience, our impressions and beliefs are the results of inaccurate sense observation colored by hope and fear, aversion and revulsion, and limited by accidental circ.u.mstance. Through science we are enabled to detach ourselves from the personal and the particular and to see the world, as, undistorted, it must appear to any man anywhere:

The scientific att.i.tude of mind involves a sweeping away of all other desires in the interests of the desire to know--it involves suppression of hopes and fears, loves and hates, and the whole subjective emotional life, until we become subdued to the material, able to see it frankly, without preconceptions, without bias, without any wish except to see it as it is, and without any belief that what it is must be determined by some relation, positive or negative, to what we should like it to be, or to what we can easily imagine it to be.[1]

[Footnote 1: Bertrand Russell: _Mysticism and Logic_, p. 44.]