The Place of Science in Modern Civilisation, and Other EssaysVeblen, Thorstein
Philosophy
The Place of Science in Modern Civilisation, and Other Essays
Veblen, Thorstein
Economics; Science
By force of the protracted selective discipline of this past phase of
culture, the human nature of civilised mankind is still substantially
the human nature of savage man. The ancient equipment of congenital
aptitudes and propensities stands over substantially unchanged, though
overlaid with barbarian traditions and conventionalities and readjusted
by habituation to the exigencies of civilised life. In a measure,
therefore, but by no means altogether, scientific inquiry is native to
civilised man with his savage heritage, since scientific inquiry
proceeds on the same general motive of idle curiosity as guided the
savage myth-makers, though it makes use of concepts and standards in
great measure alien to the myth-makers' habit of mind. The ancient human
predilection for discovering a dramatic play of passion and intrigue in
the phenomena of nature still asserts itself. In the most advanced
communities, and even among the adepts of modern science, there comes up
persistently the revulsion of the native savage against the inhumanly
dispassionate sweep of the scientific quest, as well as against the
inhumanly ruthless fabric of technological processes that have come out
of this search for matter-of-fact knowledge. Very often the savage need
of a spiritual interpretation (dramatisation) of phenomena breaks
through the crust of acquired materialistic habits of thought, to find
such refuge as may be had in articles of faith seized on and held by
sheer force of instinctive conviction. Science and its creations are
more or less uncanny, more or less alien, to that fashion of craving for
knowledge that by ancient inheritance animates mankind. Furtively or by
an overt breach of consistency, men still seek comfort in marvelous
articles of savage-born lore, which contradict the truths of that
modern science whose dominion they dare not question, but whose findings
at the same time go beyond the breaking point of their jungle-fed
spiritual sensibilities.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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