The Relations of Science and Religion: The Morse Lecture, 1880Calderwood, Henry
Religion
The Relations of Science and Religion: The Morse Lecture, 1880
Calderwood, Henry
Religion and science
When, however, an attempt is made to proceed farther, selecting the
largest cells as "mind cells,"[CX] or cells generating thought and
volition, there is a complete break away from evidence, and from the
clear lines of interpretation already established. We are dealing with
conjecture, not with science. There is no reason in the interests of
truth to object to hypothesis in this region, any more than in another,
for conjecture has often proved the handmaid of discovery, and it is
likely to be so in a still larger degree. But an essential condition of
this acknowledgment is, that conjecture do not claim any respect beyond
what its nature warrants, and specially do not take to itself the name
of science,--knowledge, or certainty. Beyond this, it must be recognized
in every intelligent circle, that conjectures, like men of different
character, are entitled to different degrees of respect, some to only a
moderate and guarded measure, others to a very high degree, and some to
very little indeed. In a case like the present, we can have no sure test
for a provisional judgment entitled to regulate provisional procedure,
other than the harmony of the conjecture with scientific knowledge
already acquired as to the same region of existence. Judged by this
test, the conjecture that the intellectual life of man is to be
accounted for by the presence in the brain of myriads of thought cells,
volitional cells, memory cells, imagination cells, and emotional cells,
has little on which to claim a high degree of consideration. Its most
obvious scientific difficulties are these two, that it implies a
departure from the scheme of brain action scientifically established,
and that it passes away from the scientific appliances employed to
obtain knowledge of brain action. The real discoveries which have been
made are the existence of sensory and motor apparatus, and the
interaction of these two branches or divisions of the system. Beyond
this, science has made no advance. The scientific appliances by which
these discoveries have been reached are those available in post-mortem
dissection, and in experiment under such exposure of the brain tissue as
has been found compatible with functional activity of the organ. This
conjecture of "mind-cells" does not either experimentally or logically
connect itself with the recent advances in knowledge of the brain. The
system of sensory and motor apparatus spread over the body for which the
brain is the great central and governing organ does not under the
scientific explanation of it already obtained, lead on by natural
sequence to the conjecture of additional and greatly higher functions
being assigned to the brain. Besides, the suggestion that place should
be found in the brain for something more and higher than sensori-motor
activity, does not come from any necessity which has arisen in the
course of scientific observation. It is only because we know, in a
manner quite different from that in which scientific knowledge of nerve
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