The Scientific Spirit of the Age, and Other Pleas and DiscussionsCobbe, Frances Power
Religion
The Scientific Spirit of the Age, and Other Pleas and Discussions
Cobbe, Frances Power
Knowledge, Sociology of; Philosophy and religion; Science -- Moral and ethical aspects
An obvious practical result of the present influence of Science on
Morals has been the elevation of Bodily Health into the _summum bonum_,
and the consequent accommodation of the standard of right and wrong to
that new aim. An immense proportion of the arguments employed in
Parliament and elsewhere, when any question touching public health is
under discussion, rest on the unexpressed major premise “that any action
which in the opinion of experts conduces to the bodily health of the
individual or of the community is _ipso facto_ lawful and right.” I
cannot here indicate the conclusions to which this principle leads. Much
that the Christian conscience now holds to be Vice must be transferred
to the category of Virtue; while the medical profession will acquire a
Power of the Keys which it is perhaps even less qualified to use than
the Successors of St. Peter.
Another threatening evil from the side of Science is the growth of a
hard and pitiless temper. From whatsoever cause it arise, it seems
certain that, with some noteworthy exceptions, the Scientific Spirit is
callous. In the mass of its literature, the expressions of sympathy with
civilized or savage, healthy or diseased mankind, or with the races
below us, are few and far between. Men and beasts are, in scientific
language, alike “specimens” (wretched word!); and, if the men be ill or
dying, they become “clinical material.” The light of Science is a “dry”
one. She leaves no glamour, no tender mystery anywhere. Nor has she more
pity than Nature for the weak who fall in the struggle for existence.
There is, indeed, a scientific contempt quite _sui generis_ for the
“poor in spirit,” the simple, the devoutly believing,—in short, for all
the humble and the weak,—which constitutes of the Scientific Spirit of
the Age a kind of Neo-Paganism, the very antithesis of Christianity. I
may add that it is no less the antithesis of Theism, which, while
abandoning the Apocalyptic side of Christianity, holds (perhaps with
added consciousness of its supreme value) to the spiritual part of the
old faith, and would build the Religion of the future on Christ’s
lessons of love to God and Man, of self-sacrifice and self-consecration.
Prior to experience it might have been confidently expected that the
Darwinian doctrine of the descent of Man would have called forth a fresh
burst of sympathy towards all races of men and towards the lower
animals. Every biologist now knows tenfold better reasons than Saint
Francis for calling the birds and beasts “little brothers and sisters.”
But, instead of instilling the tenderness of the Saint of Assisi,
Science has taught her devotees to regard the world as a scene of
universal struggle, wherein the rule must be, “Every one for himself,
and no God for any one.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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