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
With these phenomena of the peaceable culture may be contrasted the
order of things found among a predatory pastoral people--and pastoral
peoples tend strongly to take on a predatory cultural scheme. Such a
people will adopt male deities, in the main, and will impute to them a
coercive, imperious, arbitrary animus and a degree of princely dignity.
They will also tend strongly to a monotheistic, patriarchal scheme of
divine government; to explain things in terms of creative fiat; and to a
belief in the control of the natural universe by rules imposed by divine
ordinance. The matters of prime consequence in this theology are matters
of the servile relation of man to God, rather than the details of the
quest of a livelihood. The emphasis falls on the glory of God rather
than on the good of man. The Hebrew scriptures, particularly the
Jahvistic elements, show such a scheme of pastoral cultural and
predatory theoretical generalisations.
The learning cultivated on the lower levels of culture might be gone
into at some length if space and time permitted, but even what has been
said may serve to show, in the most general way, what are the
characteristic marks of this savage and barbarian lore. A similarly
summary characterisation of a cultural situation nearer home will bear
more directly on the immediate topic of inquiry. The learning of
mediaeval Christendom shows such a concomitance between the scheme of
knowledge and the scheme of institutions, somewhat analogous to the
barbaric Hebrew situation. The mediaeval scheme of institutions was of a
coercive, authoritative character, essentially a scheme of graded
mastery and graded servitude, in which a code of honor and a bill of
differential dignity held the most important place. The theology of that
time was of a like character. It was a monotheistic, or rather a
monarchical system, and of a despotic complexion. The cosmological
scheme was drawn in terms of fiat; and the natural philosophy was
occupied, in the main and in its most solemn endeavors, with the
corollaries to be subsumed under the divine fiat. When the philosophical
speculation dealt with facts it aimed to interpret them into systematic
consistency with the glory of God and the divine purpose. The
"realities" of the scholastic lore were spiritual, quasi-personal,
intangible, and fell into a scale of differential dignity and
prepotency. Matter-of-fact knowledge and work-day information were not
then fit topics of dignified inquiry. The interval, or discrepancy,
between reality and actuality was fairly wide. Throughout that era, of
course, work-day knowledge also continually increased in volume and
consistency; technological proficiency was gaining; the effective
control of natural processes was growing larger and more secure; showing
that matter-of-fact theories drawn from experience were being extended
and were made increasing use of. But all this went on in the field of
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