In addressing the London Society for the Extension of University Teaching on March 3 last, Sir James Paget expressed his dissent from Professor Morley’s opinion (given on a similar occasion last year) that “Literature was an excellent, if not a better study than Science.” Sir James maintained, on the contrary, that “nothing could better advance human prosperity than Science,” and he elaborately set forth the specific benefits of a scientific education as he conceived them, as follows:—
There was first the teaching of the power of observing, then the teaching of accuracy, then of the difficulty of attaining to a real knowledge of the truth, and, lastly, the teaching of the methods by which they could pass from that which was proved to the thinking of what was probable.[[4]]
It would, of course, be unjust to hold Science to these definitions, as if they exhausted her claims as our instructress. It may, however, fairly be assumed that, in the view of one of the leading men of science of the day, they are paramount. If any much higher results than they were to be expected from scientific teaching, Sir James would scarcely have omitted to present them first or last. To what, then, do these four great lessons of Science amount? They teach—and, I think, teach only—Observation, Accuracy, Intellectual Caution, and the acquirement of a Method of advancing to the thinking of what was probable,—possibly the method commonly known as Induction.
I must confess that these “great truths” (as Sir James oddly calls them) represent to my mind only the culmination of the lower range of human faculties; or, more strictly speaking, the perfect application to human concerns of those faculties which are common to man and the lower animals. A fox may be an “observer,” and an exceedingly accurate one—of hen-roosts. He may be deeply sensible of “the difficulty of attaining to a real knowledge”—of traps. Further than this, he may even “pass from the proved”—existence of a pack of hounds in his cover to “thinking that it was probable”—he would shortly be chased. To train a Man, it is surely indispensable to develop in him a superior order of powers from these. His mind must be enriched with the culture of his own age and country, and of other lands and ages, and fortified by familiarity with the thoughts of great souls on the topics of loftiest interest. He must be accustomed to think on subjects above those to which his observation, or accuracy of description, or caution in accepting evidence can apply, and on which (it is to be hoped) he will reach some anchorage of faith more firm than Sir James Paget’s climax of scientific culture, “the passing from that which was proved to the thinking of what was probable.” He ought to handle the method of deductive reasoning at least as well as that of induction, and beyond these (purely intellectual) attainments a human education making claim to completeness should cultivate the imagination and poetic sentiment; should “soften manners,” as the literae humaniores proverbially did of old; should widen the sympathies, dignify the character, inspire enthusiasm for noble actions, and chivalrous tenderness towards women and all who need defence; and thus send forth the accomplished student a gentleman in the true sense of the word. The benefits attributed by Sir James Paget to Scientific education, and even those with which, in candor, we may credit it beyond his four “great truths,” fall, I venture to think, deplorably short of such a standard of culture as this.
The deficiencies of Scientific education do not exhaust the objections against it. There seem to be positive evils almost inseparable from such training when carried far with the young. One of the worst is the danger of the adoption by the student of materialistic views on all subjects. He need not become a theoretic or speculative Materialist: that is another risk, which may or may not be successfully eliminated. But he will almost inevitably fall into practical materialism. Of the two sides of human life, his scientific training will compel him to think always in the first place of the lower. The material (or, as our fathers would have called it, the carnal) fact will be uppermost in his mind, and the spiritual meaning thereof more or less out of sight. He will view his mother’s tears not as expressions of her sorrow, but as solutions of muriates and carbonates of soda, and of phosphates of lime; and he will reflect that they were caused not by his heartlessness, but by cerebral pressure on her lachrymal glands. When she dies, he will “peep and botanize” on her grave,—not with the poet’s sense of the sacrilegiousness of such ill-placed curiosity, but with the serene conviction of the meritoriousness of accurate observation among the scientifically interesting “Flora” of a cemetery.
To this class of mind, thoroughly imbued with the Scientific Spirit, Disease is the most important of facts and the greatest of evils. Sin, on the other hand, is a thing on which neither microscope nor telescope nor spectroscope, nor even stethoscope, can afford instruction. Possibly the student will think it only a spectral illusion; or he will foresee that it may be explained by and by scientifically, as a form of disease. There may be discovered bacilli of Hatred, Covetousness, and Lust, respectively responsible for Murder, Theft, and Adultery. Already hypocrisy is a recognized form of Hysteria. The state of opinion in “Erewhon” may be hopefully looked for in England, when the Scientific Spirit altogether prevails.
Besides its materializing tendency, a Scientific Education involves other evils, among which may be counted the fostering of a callous and irreverent spirit. To this I shall return presently. Of course every tendency of a pursuit, good or bad, affects the young who are engaged in it much more than the old, whose characters may have been moulded under quite opposite influences. We must wait for a generation to see the Scientific Spirit in its full development.
As to the instruction of young men and women in Physiological Science in particular, I am exonerated from treating the subject by being privileged to cite the opinions of two of the most eminent and experienced members of the scholastic profession. I do so with great thankfulness, believing that it will be a revelation to many parents, blindly caught by scientific claptrap, to learn that such are the views of men among the best qualified in England to pronounce judgment on the subject.
The late lamented Mr. Thring, of Uppingham, wrote to me, Sept. 6, 1886:—
My writings on Education sufficiently show how strongly I feel on the subject of a literary education, or rather how confident I am in the judgment that there can be no worthy education which is not based on the study of the highest thoughts of the highest men in the best shape. As for Science (most of it falsely so called), if a few leading minds are excepted, it simply amounts, to the average dull worker, to no more than a kind of upper shop work, weighing out and labelling and learning alphabetical formulæ,—a superior grocer assistant’s work, and has not a single element of higher mental training in it. Not to mention that it leaves out all knowledge of men and life, and therefore—is eminently fitted for life and its struggle! Physiology in its worse sense adds to this a brutalizing of the average practitioner, or rather a devilish combination of intellect worship and cruelty at the expense of feeling and character. For my part, if it were true that Vivisection had wonderfully relieved bodily disease for men, if it was at the cost of lost spirits, then let the body perish. And it is at the cost of lost spirits. I do not say that under no circumstances should an experiment take place, but I do say that under no circumstances should an experiment take place for teaching purposes. You will see how decided my judgments are on this matter.