Civilisation: Its Cause and Cure; and Other EssaysCarpenter, Edward
Philosophy
Civilisation: Its Cause and Cure; and Other Essays
Carpenter, Edward
Civilization; Crime; Evolution; Science
The whole history of Science illustrates this. We are all familiar with
the way in which the predilections of religious feeling in the time of
Copernicus and Galileo retarded the progress of astronomical Science. As
long as people believed that a divine drama of redemption had been
enacted on this earth alone, they naturally concluded that this earth
was the centre of the universe, and refused to look at facts which
contradicted their conclusion. When Galileo turned his newly-made
telescope on Jupiter and saw it circled by its satellites, he saw in
this an image of the Copernican system and of the planets circling round
the central Sun; but when he asked others to share his observation and
his inference, they would not. "O, my dear Kepler," he writes in a
letter to his fellow astronomer, "how I wish we could have one hearty
laugh together. Here at Padua is the principal Professor of Philosophy,
whom I have repeatedly and urgently requested to look at the moon and
planets through my glass; but he pertinaciously refuses to do so. What
shouts of laughter we should have at this glorious folly!"
And though we laugh at the folly of those before us, we do the same
things ourselves to-day. Take the science of Political Economy. A
revolution has taken place in that, almost comparable to the change from
the geocentric to the heliocentric view in Astronomy. During the
distinctively commercial period of the last 100 years, the leading
students of social science, being themselves filled with the spirit of
the time, have been fain to look upon the acquisition of private wealth
as the one absorbing motive of human nature; and so it has come about
that the economists, from Adam Smith to John Stuart Mill, have founded
their science on self-seeking and competition, as the base of their
analysis. To-day another series of economists coming to the front--their
minds preoccupied with the great facts of Community of life and
Co-operation--have discovered that Society is in the main an
illustration of these latter principles, and have evolved a quite new
phase of the science. It is not that Society has changed so much during
this period, as that the altered point of view of the students of
Society has caused them simply to fix their attention on a different
aspect of the problem and a different range of facts.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account