Science and the modern worldWhitehead, Alfred North
Religion
Science and the modern world
Whitehead, Alfred North
Science
the successful species. There is something in the ready use of force
which defeats its own object. Its main defect is that it bars
coöperation. Every organism requires an environment of friends, partly
to shield it from violent changes, and partly to supply it with its
wants. The Gospel of Force is incompatible with a social life. By
_force_, I mean _antagonism_ in its most general sense.
Almost equally dangerous is the Gospel of Uniformity. The differences
between the nations and races of mankind are required to preserve the
conditions under which higher development is possible. One main factor
in the upward trend of animal life has been the power of wandering.
Perhaps this is why the armour-plated monsters fared badly. They could
not wander. Animals wander into new conditions. They have to adapt
themselves or die. Mankind has wandered from the trees to the plains,
from the plains to the seacoast, from climate to climate, from continent
to continent, and from habit of life to habit of life. When man ceases
to wander, he will cease to ascend in the scale of being. Physical
wandering is still important, but greater still is the power of man’s
spiritual adventures—adventures of thought, adventures of passionate
feeling, adventures of aesthetic experience. A diversification among
human communities is essential for the provision of the incentive and
material for the Odyssey of the human spirit. Other nations of different
habits are not enemies: they are godsends. Men require of their
neighbours something sufficiently akin to be understood, something
sufficiently different to provoke attention, and something great enough
to command admiration. We must not expect, however, all the virtues. We
should even be satisfied if there is something odd enough to be
interesting.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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