A MODERN EXPLANATION OF SCIENCE

Otago Witness, Issue 3829, 2 August 1927, Page 76

A MODERN EXPLANATION OF SCIENCE

The letter “S ” is almost entirely covered by the ninth volume of Chambers’s Encyclopaedia. Almost instinctively readers will turn to the entry “ Science ” to discover with what breadth of view and authority the new volume is inspired. They will not be disappointed. The editors have been fortunate in securing I’rtorssor Patrick Geddes to write that article, and he gives a of the progress of modern knowledge, which is a masterpiece of condensation, and yet surveys the whole field of scientific progress. From that article we quote a section, which lays down the field which scienoo seeks tp cover.

What subjects have long seemed less Vi ‘.peaking terms than geography and philctophy?—geography with its naively concrete and mundane explorations, descriptions, and mappings; and philosophy With its lofty abstractions, as from ;the good, beautiful, and true of Plato to ithe manifold thought systems which have succeeded his, and which still range from frankest materialisms—stopped short at the Unknowable—to idealisms and transcendentalisms, pressing forward towards the Absolute.

Tet since evolution becomes more and more discernible throughout this everyday world our cosmography—physical, organic, and human alike—4s now becoming a rational cosmogony, in which all the sciences have their part. Such a comprehensive conception of evolution extending throughout the universe of nature and humanity is thus at once philosophic and scientific, since unifying our studies of nature and life with our best thought. If so, we can no longer think of cosmography and philosophy as at. contrasted poles of thought, but as combined throughout its single sphere, in fact, as cosmosophy; so that even terms Vke “geosophy” and “biosophy” arc also needed to express this dual* paren’age, scientific and philosophic, in harmonious union.

Again, nature and life are alike rich in beauty; the sciences are ever advancing in the discovery and enjoyment of truth, and the broadening and deepening anew of life we thus attain, despite _ s t l "‘ l oBl es > arrests and deteriorations, exhibits above all the increasing dominl.ace of species-regarding and life-regard-ing processes over simply individual and Utihturian functionings; at briefest, then, the triumph of love - over hunger, of altruism over egoism; and thus a-pre-dominant evolution of the good. a.n short, evolutionary science is - Jatonist as well as Aristotelian. Hence philosophy at its best, with its increasing quest of widest and deepest truth—and even religion at best also, with its endeavours to advance and express goodness and love in their ideal unison with truth and beauty at their highest—have alike nothing to fear from science. Its at times seeming destructive criticisms are indeed increasingly acknowledged as often of service to religion towards liberation from burdens of tradition and misunderstandings delaying its vital luliilment.

let this view of science as it tends to be is too optimistic for science as it vet 4 dl ™ on mu sf candidly be made v the P] 1^31 science 3 say rather of their applications. a s in the unparalleled progress of our industrial age and also towards. it s destructive activities of war—have had tragic consequences, and these still f ar from ended, rhe explanation of these is not far to seek ; it lies fundamentally in the ascending order of knowledge, with it s increasing complexities, s o that the mathematical and ar/TLrrr-ir relativel V applied bV ‘ e " IOSt develo P ed and

AVith these sciences we can and do have their ever-increasing applications in material developments, manufactures, transports, and communications, and for peace and war alike ; also in business ♦ l?£ Pecuniary interests concerned with all these, thus arise tensions, rivalries and struggles which oscillate between internal social strifes and external wars : while for the S< r> afct . er l es P? c,a Hy. the applications of the p lysical sciences are more and more droid n f VelV - P ° te,lL Rence the dread of science, sometimes even to despair. ue

wldM - l 5 "'completeness of science w 1 -? S d:ui Serqus. Given mathematics, its conceptions of movement time space, and number, and the phvsicai sciences, thus intellectually reinforced for their increasing mastery of the matters and energies of the inorganic world, these cannot yield more than a mechanistic view of hfe and society. Hence if such range of science and its philosophy be final, there is no escape from more rigorous acceptm°re uns P arin K application of them than ever, and with the fullest pessimism accordingly. But if the sciences,of life and mind, society and morals, be emancipating themselves, as above noted, from this mechanistic domination, and entering on < fresh period of synthetic progress the whole perspective of science and its p’holoBqphy must also change, to an evolutionary view, demonstrably melioristic. For as man must ever strive to put hi s knowhedge to practice and service, and thus has been applying his mechanistic knowledge to the full, so also he cannot but conRider and attempt the application of the higher and complexer humanistic sciences the more since now in their turn also advancing towards clearness.

I he social and moral sciences as they progress are thus assured of increasing applications in public and personal life"

politics arid government, with associated and individual action, thus increasingly advancing into Etho-polity. Such social functioning plainly involves the applications of psychology and biology together, towards re-education, towards health at its fullest, agriculture at its widest and each to its best.

It must also more and more fully inspire the physical and mechanical arts and their scientific applications, and thus towards due economy and conservation of energies and more effective constructive results, so reclaiming them from their dissipative and destructive applications, thus more and truer wealth ; and this, above all, in improving environment even to beauty of cities and regions once more. ro r as bven the simplest “ good job ” has a n aesthetic • factor, the technic arts evolve towards the eutechnic level; while the fine arts have again to co-ordinate and inspire the simpler, as do architecture and drama for familiar examples. Towards aiding this incipient step of human development, all the sciences are required with their increasingly helpful applications, moral and social psychological and biological, cesthetic and physical, and these clarified by sound logic, and given precision by mathematics as far as may be. Thus the sciences in truest harmony with the arts of life cannot but advance and evolve together, and towards realising the best ideals of humanity.