History of Human Society

by Frank W. Blackmar

It is said that Bacon in his New Atlantis gave such a magnificent dream of an opportunity for the development of science and learning that it was the means of forming the Royal Society in England. That association was the means of disseminating scientific truth and encouraging investigation and publication of results. It was a tremendous advancement of the cause of science, and has been a type for the formation of hundreds of other organizations for the promotion of scientific truth.

Science and Democracy.—While seeking to extend knowledge to all classes of people, science paves the way for recognition of equal rights and privileges. Science is working all the time to be free from the slavery of nature, and the result of its operations is to cause mankind to be free from the slavery of man. Therefore, liberty and science go hand in hand in their development. It is interesting to note in this connection that so many scientists have come from groups forming the ordinary occupations of life rather than, as we might expect, from the privileged classes who have had leisure and opportunity for development. Thus, "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 ship-builder, Smith of a farmer, and John Ray was, like Faraday, the son of a blacksmith. Joule was a brewer. Davy, Scheele, Dumas, Balard, Liebig, Wöhler, and a number of other distinguished chemists were apothecaries' apprentices."[[5]]

Science also is a great leveller because all scientists are bowing down to the same truth discovered by experimentation or observation, and, moreover, scientists are at work in the laboratories and cannot be dogmatic for any length of time. But scientists arise from all classes of people, so far as religious or political belief is concerned. Many of the foremost scientists have been distributed among the Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Calvinists, Quakers, Unitarians, and Agnostics. The only test act that science knows is that of the recognition of truth.

Benjamin Franklin was a printer whose scientific investigations were closely intermingled with the problems of human rights. His experiments in science were subordinate to the experiments of human society. His great contribution to science was the identification of lightning and the spark from a Leyden jar. For the identification and control of lightning he received a medal from the Royal Society. The discussion of liberty and the part he took in the independence of the colonies of America represent his greatest contribution to the world. To us he is important, for he embodied in one mind the expression of scientific and political truth, showing that science makes for democracy and democracy for science. In each case it is the choice of the liberalized mind.

The Study of the Biological and Physical Sciences.—The last century is marked by scientific development along several rather distinct lines as follows: the study of the earth, or geology; animal and vegetable life, or biology; atomic analysis, or chemistry; biochemistry; physics, especially that part relating to electricity and radioactivity; and more recently it might be stated that investigations are carried on in psychology and sociology, while mathematics and astronomy have made progress.

The main generalized point of research, if it could be so stated, is the discovery of law and order. This has been demonstrated in the development of chemistry under the atomic theory; physics in the molecular theory; the law of electrons in electricity, and the evolutionary theory in the study of biology. Great advance has been made in the medical sciences, including the knowledge of the nature and prevention of disease. Though a great many new discoveries and, out of new discoveries, new inventions have appeared along specific lines and various sciences have advanced with accuracy and precision, perhaps the evolutionary theory has changed the thought of the world more than any other. It has connected man with the rest of the universe and made him a definite part of it.

The Evolutionary Theory.—The geography of the earth as presented by Lyell, the theory of population of Malthus, and the Origin of the Species and the Descent of Man by Darwin changed the preconceived notions of the creation of man. Slowly and without ostentation science everywhere had been forcing all nature into unity controlled by universal laws. Traditional belief was not prepared for the bold statement of Darwin that man was part of the slow development of animal life through the ages.

For 2,000 years or more the philosophic world had been wedded to the idea of a special creation of man entirely independent of the creation of the rest of the universe. All conceptions of God, man, and his destiny rested upon the recognition of a separate creation. To deny this meant a reconstruction of much of the religious philosophy of the world. Persons were needlessly alarmed and began to attack the doctrine on the assumption that anything interfering with the long-recognized interpretation of the relation of man to creation was wrong and was instituted for the purpose of tearing down the ancient landmarks.

Darwin accepted in general the Lamarckian doctrine that each succeeding generation would have new characters added to it by the modification of environmental factors and by the use and disuse of organs and functions. Thus gradually under such selection the species would be improved. But Darwin emphasized selection through hereditary traits.

Subsequently, Weismann and others reinterpreted Darwin's theory and strengthened its main propositions, abandoning the Lamarckian theory of use and disuse. Mendel, De Vries, and other biologists have added to the Darwinian theory by careful investigations into the heredity of plants and animals, but because Darwin was the first to give clear expression to the theory of evolution, "Darwinism" is used to express the general theory.