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
But the industrial side of life is not the whole of it, nor does the
scheme of life in vogue in any community or at any cultural stage
comprise industrial conduct alone. The social, civic, military, and
religious interests come in for their share of attention, and between
them they commonly take up by far the larger share of it. Especially is
this true so far as concerns those classes among whom we commonly look
for a cultivation of knowledge for knowledge's sake. The discipline
which these several interests exert does not commonly coincide with the
training given by industry. So the religious interest, with its canons
of truth and of right living, runs exclusively on personal relations and
the adaptation of conduct to the predilections of a superior personal
agent. The weight of its discipline, therefore, falls wholly on the
animistic side. It acts to heighten our appreciation of the spiritual
bearing of phenomena and to discountenance a matter-of-fact apprehension
of things. The skeptic of the type of Hume has never been in good repute
with those who stand closest to the accepted religious truths. The
bearing of this side of our culture upon the development of economics is
shown by what the mediaeval scholars had to say on economic topics.
The disciplinary effects of other phases of life, outside of the
industrial and the religious, is not so simple a matter; but the
discussion here approaches nearer to the point of immediate
inquiry,--namely, the cultural situation in the eighteenth century, and
its relation to economic speculation,--and this ground of interest in
the question may help to relieve the topic of the tedium that of right
belongs to it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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