Civilisation: Its Cause and Cure; and Other EssaysCarpenter, Edward
Philosophy
Civilisation: Its Cause and Cure; and Other Essays
Carpenter, Edward
Civilization; Crime; Evolution; Science
I need not, I think, go any further into detail of new methods in each
Science. You remember what I said at the beginning about the Cell
studying the Body of which it formed a part. We may imagine, if we like,
three stages in this process. In the first stage the Cell regards the
other cells and the Body simply from the point of view of how they
affect _it_, and its comfort and safety. This might be taken to
correspond to the Old-time Science. In the second stage the Cell, with
its tiny experience of the other cells and the small part of the body in
which it is placed, becomes highly intellectual, and professes to lay
down the laws of the structure of the body generally. This corresponds
to the attitude of Modern Science. In the third stage the Cell, growing
and evolving, and coming daily into closer sympathetic relationship with
all parts of the body, begins to find its true relation to the other
cells, not to use _them_, but to fulfil its part in the whole. Gradually
drawing all the threads together and coming more and more, so to say,
into a central position, it at last in its little brain spontaneously
and inevitably reflects the whole, and becomes the mirror of it. This
would answer to what we have called a really rational and humane
Science.
Man has to find and to _feel_ his true relation to other creatures and
to the whole of which he is a part, and has to use his brain to further
this. Science _is_, as we all know, the search for Unity. That is its
ideal. It unites innumerable phenomena under one law; and then it unites
many laws under one higher; always seeking for the ultimate complete
integration. But (is it not obvious?) Man cannot find that unity _of_
the Whole until he feels his unity _with_ the Whole. To found a Science
of one-ness on the murderous Warfare and insane Competition of men with
each other, and on the Slaughter and Vivisection of animals--the search
for unity on the practice of disunity--is an absurdity, which can only
in the long run reveal itself as such.
I do not know whether it seems obvious to you, but it does to me, that
Man will never find in theory the unity of outer Nature till he reaches
in practice the unity of his own. When he has learnt to harmonise in
himself all his powers, bodily and mental, his desires, faculties,
needs, and bring them into perfect co-operation--when he has found the
true hierarchy of himself--then somehow I think that Nature round him
will reflect this order, and range itself in clear and intelligible
harmony about him.
But I can say no more. I have dragged you by the neck, as it were,
through a recondite and difficult subject; and even so I do not feel
that I have by any means done justice to it. But it is possible,
perhaps, that I have cast the germ of an idea among you, which, if you
think over it at leisure, may develop into something of value.
FOOTNOTES:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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