The organisation of thought, educational and scientificWhitehead, Alfred North
Philosophy
The organisation of thought, educational and scientific
Whitehead, Alfred North
Education
Again, there is not one course of study which merely gives general
culture, and another which gives special knowledge. The subjects
pursued for the sake of a general education are special subjects
specially studied; and, on the other hand, one of the ways of
encouraging general mental activity is to foster a special devotion.
You may not divide the seamless coat of learning. What education has
to impart is an intimate sense for the power of ideas, for the beauty
of ideas, and for the structure of ideas, together with a particular
body of knowledge which has peculiar reference to the life of the being
possessing it.
The appreciation of the structure of ideas is that side of a cultured
mind which can only grow under the influence of a special study. I
mean that eye for the whole chess-board, for the bearing of one set of
ideas on another. Nothing but a special study can give any appreciation
for the exact formulation of general ideas, for their relations when
formulated, for their service in the comprehension of life. A mind so
disciplined should be both more abstract and more concrete. It has been
trained in the comprehension of abstract thought and in the analysis of
facts.
Finally, there should grow the most austere of all mental qualities; I
mean the sense for style. It is an æsthetic sense, based on admiration
for the direct attainment of a foreseen end, simply and without waste.
Style in art, style in literature, style in science, style in logic,
style in practical execution have fundamentally the same æsthetic
qualities, namely, attainment and restraint. The love of a subject in
itself and for itself, where it is not the sleepy pleasure of pacing a
mental quarter-deck, is the love of style as manifested in that study.
Here we are brought back to the position from which we started,
the utility of education. Style, in its finest sense, is the last
acquirement of the educated mind; it is also the most useful. It
pervades the whole being. The administrator with a sense for style,
hates waste; the engineer with a sense for style, economises his
material; the artisan with a sense for style, prefers good work. Style
is the ultimate morality of mind.
But above style, and above knowledge, there is something, a vague
shape like fate above the Greek gods. That something is Power. Style
is the fashioning of power, the restraining of power. But, after all,
the power of attainment of the desired end is fundamental. The first
thing is to get there. Do not bother about your style, but solve your
problem, justify the ways of God to man, administer your province, or
do whatever else is set before you.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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