The assimilation of human science to physical science represents,
in other words, only another form of absolutistic logic, a kind of
physical absolutism. We are doubtless but at the beginning of the
possibilities of control of the physical conditions of mental and moral
life. Physiological chemistry, increased knowledge of the nervous
system, of the processes and functions of glandular secretions, may in
time enable us to deal with phenomena of emotional and intellectual
disturbance before which mankind has been helpless. But control of
these conditions will not determine the uses to which human beings
will put their normalized potentialities. If any one supposes that it
will, let him consider the applications of such remedial or preventive
measures to a man in a state of savage culture and one in a modern
community. Each, as long as the conditions of the social medium
remained substantially unaltered, will still have his experience and
the direction of his restored energies affected by the objects and
instrumentalities of the human environment, and by what men at the time
currently prize and hold dear. The warrior and merchant would be better
warriors and merchants, more efficient, but warriors and merchants
still.
These considerations suggest a brief discussion of the effect of the
present absolutistic logic upon the method and aims of education,
not just in the sense of schooling but with respect to all the ways
in which communities attempt to shape the disposition and beliefs of
their members. Even when the processes of education do not aim at
the unchanged perpetuation of existing institutions, it is assumed
that there must be a mental picture of some desired end, personal
and social, which is to be attained, and that this conception of a
fixed determinate end ought to control educative processes. Reformers
share this conviction with conservatives. The disciples of Lenin and
Mussolini vie with the captains of capitalistic society in endeavoring
to bring about a formation of dispositions and ideas which will conduce
to a preconceived goal. If there is a difference, it is that the former
proceed more consciously. An experimental social method would probably
manifest itself first of all in surrender of this notion. Every care
would be taken to surround the young with the physical and social
conditions which best conduce, as far as freed knowledge extends, to
release of personal potentialities. The habits thus formed would have
entrusted to them the meeting of future social requirements and the
development of the future state of society. Then and then only would
all social agencies that are available operate as resources in behalf
of a bettered community life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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