{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_48994/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_48994","id":"gutenberg_48994","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48994","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Teaching & Education","Classical education","Science"],"text":"THE OLD HUMANITIES AND\n                            THE NEW SCIENCE\n\n                                  .   .\n                                    .\n\n                          PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS\n                      TO THE CLASSICAL ASSOCIATION\n                              MAY 16, 1919\n\n\n\n\n                             [Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n                           THE OLD HUMANITIES\n                          AND THE NEW SCIENCE\n\n                                   BY\n                  SIR WILLIAM OSLER, BT., M.D., F.R.S.\n\n                          WITH INTRODUCTION BY\n                          HARVEY CUSHING, M.D.\n\n\n                             [Illustration]\n\n\n                          BOSTON AND NEW YORK\n                        HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY\n                    _The Riverside Press Cambridge_\n                                  1920\n\n\n\n\n              COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY\n\n                          ALL RIGHTS RESERVED\n\n\n\n\n                              INTRODUCTION\n\n\nIN writing a prefatory note to an American reprint of this notable\naddress there are three things to consider--the writer, his subject, and\nthe occasion. The greatly beloved author had a multitude of friends in\nall lands, and far abler pens have written much concerning him during\nthe past twelve months. The subject is one of no less moment on this\nside of the Atlantic than to those in older countries who concern\nthemselves with scholarship and education, though here the classicists\nare having a particularly hard struggle to retain in our academies,\nschools, and colleges a proper footing for the ancient languages and\nlearning termed \"the humanities.\" The circumstances under which the\naddress was given are less familiar in this country than the author and\nhis subject, for we as yet have no corresponding organization, or at\nleast none with such an ambitious programme. Consequently it is\nappropriate that this note should dwell chiefly upon the occasion.\n\nThe Classical Association, composed of a large body of university men,\nteachers, and schoolmasters, with local branches in several places in\nGreat Britain and her colonies, was established in 1904 with this\nobject:\n\n    To promote the development and maintain the well-being of\n    classical studies and in particular:\n\n    (a) To impress upon public opinion the claim of such studies to\n        an eminent place in the national scheme of education;\n\n    (b) To improve the practice of classical teaching by free\n        discussion of its scope and methods;\n\n    (c) To encourage investigation and call attention to new\n        discoveries;\n\n    (d) To create opportunities for friendly intercourse and\n        co-operation among all lovers of classical learning in this\n        country.\n\nThat Sir William Osler should have been chosen to preside over such an\nassembly of British scholars is no matter for surprise, for though a\nhumanist in the broad sense of the term as a student of human affairs\nand human nature, rather than of Latin and Greek, he at the same time\nwas a wide reader with a \"relish for knowledge,\" successful not only in\nits quest in many fields beyond that of his chosen profession, but\nparticularly so in his ability to hand his literary gleanings on to\nothers in a new and attractive form. Nevertheless, the presidency of the\nClassical Association, considering the avowed objects of this body, was\na most signal honour in view of his reputation primarily as a scientist\nand teacher of medicine.\n\nHis immediate predecessor, the Professor of Greek at Christ Church,\nopened his presidential address of the year before with these words:\n\n    It is the general custom of this Association to choose as its\n    President alternately a classical scholar and a man of wide\n    eminence outside the classics. Next year you are to have a man\n    of science, a great physician who is also famous in the world of\n    learning and literature. Last year you had a statesman, who,\n    though a statesman, is also a great scholar and man of letters,\n    a sage and counsellor in the antique mould, of world-wide fame\n    and unique influence.\n\nThus, though in himself sufficiently representative of humanistic\nculture, Osler was in this strict sense an alternate, and among the\nfourteen earlier Presidents of the Association three had like himself\nbeen Fellows of the Royal Society, which long since had abandoned even\nthe pretence of concerning itself with classical studies which had been\nthe very basis of the Revival of Learning.\n\nThe list of Presidents since the foundation of the Association may be a\nmatter of interest to those in this country who may not have been aware\nof the existence and purposes of this organization of British scholars:\n\n    1904. The Right Hon. Sir R. H. Collins, M.A., LL.D., D.C.L.,\n          Master of the Rolls.\n\n    1905. The Right Hon. the Earl of Halsbury, D.C.L., F.R.S., Lord\n          Chancellor.\n\n    1906. The Right Hon. Lord Curzon of Kedleston, G.C.S.I.,\n          G.C.I.E., D.C.L., F.R.S.\n\n    1907. S. H. Butcher, Esq., M.P., Litt.D., D.Litt., LL.D.\n\n    1908. The Right Hon. H. H. Asquith, M.P., K.C., D.C.L., Prime\n          Minister.\n\n    1909. The Right Hon. the Earl of Cromer, G.C.B., O.M., K.C.S.I.,\n          LL.D.\n\n    1910. Sir Archibald Geikie, K.C.B., D.C.L., LL.D., Ph.D.,\n          President of the Royal Society.\n\n    1911. The Right Rev. Edward Lee Hicks, D.D., Lord Bishop of\n          Lincoln.\n\n    1912. The Very Rev. Henry Montagu Butler, D.D., D.C.L., LL.D.,\n          Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.\n\n    1913. Sir Frederic G. Kenyon, K.C.B., D.Litt., F.B.A., Head of\n          the British Museum.\n\n    1914. Professor William Ridgeway, Litt.D., LL.D., Sc.D., F.B.A.,\n          Disney Professor of Arch\u00e6ology, Cambridge.\n\n    1915. Sir W. B. Richmond, K.C.B., R.A., D.C.L.\n\n    1916. The Right Hon. Viscount Bryce, O.M., D.C.L., LL.D.,\n          P.B.A., F.R.S.\n\n    1917. Professor Gilbert Murray, LL.D., D.Litt., F.B.A.,\n          F.R.S.L., Christ Church, Oxford.\n\nAs reported in the Annual Proceedings of the Association, Professor\nMurray at the meeting in 1918, in nominating his successor, spoke of him\nas a man, \"who is not only one of the most eminent physicians in the\nworld, but represents in a peculiar way the learned physician who was\none of the marked characters of the seventeenth and eighteenth\ncenturies, and stands for a type of culture which the Classical\nAssociation does not wish to see die out of the world--the culture of a\nman who, while devoting himself to his special science, keeps\nnevertheless a broad basis of interest in letters of all kinds.\"\n\nIn seconding this proposal, Sir Frederic Kenyon pointed out that it had\ncome at a very appropriate time in the work of the Association, for:\n\"During this last year our main activity has been directed towards\ngetting representatives of Natural Science and of the Humanities to work\ntogether, on the principle that those subjects never should be in\nconflict with one another, but merely in friendly competition. Both are\nequally essential for a liberal education. It is a continuation and a\nsymbol of that policy that we should ask Sir William Osler to become our\nPresident, and that he should have accepted cordially and readily, as he\ndid. He is eminent as a man of science, is President of the\nBibliographical Society, and represents scholarship in medicine in its\nbest form.\"\n\nIt is quite possible that these last remarks may have suggested to the\nsucceeding President an appropriate topic for his address, for he told\nthe writer a few months later that he planned to talk on Science and the\nHumanities. He was already turning the matter over in his mind, but\nwhere he found time or inclination to write the address it is difficult\nto imagine.\n\nStaggered by the loss of his son, an only child, who had fallen in\naction near St. Julien during the Passchendaele battles in September the\nyear before, his days occupied with a succession of duties in connection\nwith the war, his household filled as always with friends and visitors\ninnumerable, and every young American or Canadian in service in England\ngravitating there, eager above all things to further the progress of the\nelaborate catalogue of his unique and valuable collection of books, he\nnevertheless set himself to prepare this, one of his most brilliant and\nwhat proved to be his last formal address.\n\nThe meeting of the Association was to be held in Oxford, the bed-rock of\nclassical learning--the only place, it seems, where the word \"humanism\"\nin its narrow sense still survives in modern university terminology as\nthat part of the curriculum known as _Litter\u00e6 Humaniores_. As was\ncharacteristic of his methods, the mere address itself did not suffice,\nbut he prepared for the occasion in other ways. Thus he collected from\nthe various Oxford colleges and placed on exhibition an array of\nhistorical objects illustrating the important part Oxford had once\nplayed in science and natural philosophy in days antedating the Royal\nSociety which had its seeds of origin there. In addition, and as a\npossible offset to this, he exhibited from his own collection of books\nthose volumes which constituted in their original editions the\noutstanding classics in Science and Medicine. A small pamphlet\nconcerning them reads as follows:\n\n    Faced with a bewildering variety and ever-increasing literature,\n    how is the hard-pressed student to learn--\n\n    1.  The evolution of knowledge in any subject;\n\n    2.  The life and work of the men who made the original\n        contributions?\n\n    So far as concerns Science and Medicine, an attempt is\n    made to answer the question by the collection of a\n    Bibliotheca Prima, examples from which are here shown. The\n    idea is to have in a comparatively small number of works the\n    essential literature grouped about the men of the first rank,\n    arranged in chronological order.\n\n    I have put out the _editiones principes_ of twenty of such\n    works. The fundamental contribution may be represented\n    by a great Aldine edition, _e.g._ Aristotle, by the brief\n    communication such as that of Darwin and Wallace in the\n    Proceedings of the Linnean Society, 1858, or by a three-page\n    pamphlet of Roentgen. From the card lists of Galen, Hippocrates,\n    Vesalius, and Harvey, those interested will see the aim and\n    scope of the collection.\n\n    The works on exhibition are:\n\n    Plato           1513\n    Hippocrates     1526\n    Aristotle    1495-98\n    Theophrastus    1483\n    Galen           1525\n    Dioscorides     1499\n    Celsus          1478\n    Plotinus        1492\n    Rhazes          1476\n    Avicenna        1486 (not ed. pr.)\n    Averrhoes       1473\n    Copernicus      1543\n    Vesalius        1543\n    Agricola        1556\n    Gilbert         1600\n    Bacon           1620\n    Galileo         1632\n    Harvey          1628\n    Descartes       1637\n    Newton          1687\n\nThough it is hardly pertinent to this introductory note, the temptation\nis strong to dwell further on the treasures of his library. These\nmentioned above were but samples from the Bibliotheca Prima, and the\nsuperb collection, with copious notes on each separate item, is further\nsubdivided into some seven sections--Bibliotheca Secunda, historica,\nbiographica, literaria, the incunabulas, and so on.\n\nHe was for seven years President of the Bibliographical Society and as\ngreat a lover of books as of men, but it should be borne in mind that\nhis library was being collected and catalogued, not as a series of\ntreasures by reason of their rarity, but were regarded as instruments\nfor the advancement of knowledge, and with this end in view the\ncollection was bequeathed to McGill University.\n\nBy good fortune, letters which give interesting descriptions of the\neffect of the address have been received from two distinguished members\nof Sir William's audience, one of them an eminent classical scholar, the\nother an eminent scientist. Sir Frederic Kenyon writes that:\n\n    The delivery of Sir William Osler's address was a very memorable\n    occasion. As can be seen by those who read it, it was full of\n    learning, of humour, of feeling, of eloquence, and it contained\n    suggestions of real weight with regard to the interconnection of\n    science and the humanities. But it gained much in delivery from\n    the personality of the speaker. No one could hear it without\n    being impressed by his width of outlook, by his easy mastery of\n    great tracts of literature and learning, by his all-embracing\n    humanity in the widest sense of the term. I hope it made many\n    students of science anxious to extend their knowledge of\n    classical literature; I know it made one student of the classics\n    wish that he had a wider knowledge of natural science. Osler\n    himself was a well-nigh perfect example of the union of science\n    and the humanities, which to some of us is the ideal of\n    educational progress; and his address embodied the whole spirit\n    of this ideal.\n\nProfessor William H. Welch has given the following account:\n\n    Most fortunately for me my last visit to the Oslers' in Oxford\n    happened to be on Friday, May 16, 1919, when Osler delivered his\n    presidential address before the Classical Association.\n\n    Of the many honours which came to Osler few gave him so great\n    pleasure, as well as surprise, as his election to the presidency\n    of the British Classical Association. This was a recognition,\n    not merely of his sympathetic interest in classical studies and\n    intimate association with classical scholars, but also of his\n    mastery of certain phases of the subject, especially the\n    bibliographical and historical sides, and the relation of the\n    work and thought of classical antiquity to the development of\n    medicine, science, and culture. There have been physicians,\n    especially in England, well known for their attainments as\n    classical scholars, but I am not aware that since Linacre there\n    has come to a member of the medical profession distinction in\n    this field comparable to Osler's election to the presidency of\n    the British Classical Association.\n\n    Osler told me that he had never given so much time and thought\n    to the preparation of an address as he did to this one.\n    The occasion and the whole setting were to me most interesting\n    and impressive. At noon the audience of distinguished scholars\n    and guests assembled in the \"Divinity Room,\" the most\n    beautiful assembly room in Oxford. At one end of the hall the\n    Vice-Chancellor of the University presided and halfway down one\n    of the sides was the high seat of the orator. The distinguished\n    company, the brightly coloured academic gowns and hoods, the\n    traditional ceremonies for such an occasion in Oxford, the\n    figure of Osler himself, the charm and interest of the address\n    and its cordial appreciation and reception by the audience, all\n    combined to make a scene of brilliancy and delight which I shall\n    always carry in my memory.\n\n    At the close of the address the vote of thanks was moved by Sir\n    Herbert Warren, the President of Magdalen College, who described\n    Osler as the modern Galen, and was seconded by Sir John Barran,\n    the member of Parliament from Leeds, in felicitous words of\n    discriminating praise of the President's address. The audience\n    responded most enthusiastically.\n\n    I shall never forget the hour which I spent with Osler just\n    before the address, in inspecting the wonderful collection of\n    scientific instruments of historical interest which Mr. Gunther\n    had assembled at Osler's request from the various colleges at\n    Oxford, especially from Merton, the old home of science. An\n    interesting descriptive catalogue of the collection had been\n    prepared. With what delight Osler showed me and told me the\n    histories and associations of the astrolabes, armillary spheres,\n    orreries, telescopes, lenses, microscopes, books, etc., which he\n    had caused to be gathered together in connection with the\n    meeting of the Classical Association! You will recognize a\n    characteristic touch and thought of Osler in arranging for such\n    an original exhibit to interest a meeting of scholars.\n\n    When not long after the address I said good-bye to Osler I\n    little thought that it was to be our final parting, but I\n    rejoice to have been with him then and to remember him as I saw\n    him last on that triumphal day.\n\nThus, though from first to last his heart was wrapped up in his\nprofession and its science, his mind was open to other things, and his\nconfession that the _Religio Medici_ was the second book he ever\npurchased and that the particular copy had always remained at his\nbedside is not without significance. He lived to prove himself, not only\na worthy disciple of those scholars of the Renascence who interested\nthemselves in natural philosophy, but also of those who were devotees of\nthe ancient languages and literature. But Sir William Osler was a man\nfirst--a physician and scholar afterward; and beneath his high spirits,\nhis love of fun, lay an infinite compassion and tenderness toward his\nhumankind. \"Write me as one who loves his fellow-men.\" And upon few men\nhas such a measure of admiration, affection, and love been bestowed in\nreturn. These things he bore without pride, as he bore his great success\nin life with humility.\n\nOn July 12, 1919, less than two months after the address was delivered,\nhe attained his seventieth year, and was presented with two volumes\ncontaining sixty-seven original \"Contributions to Medical and Biological\nResearch\" written in his honour. In addition to this, tributes were\nshowered upon him from all sides, and his work, character, and\naccomplishments became the subject of papers innumerable. It was an\nextraordinary outburst, one of those exceptional occurrences when people\ndo not wait for the passing--in this case so near at hand--to say, what\nis in their hearts to say, of the life of a friend. A brief\ncharacterization of him from one of the most eminent of British scholars\nwas quoted early in this note, and it may be fitting to close with some\nlines by the dean of American classical scholars, Basil L. Gildersleeve,\nwritten for what proved to be his last birthday:\n\n                      ON A PORTRAIT OF SIR WILLIAM\n                              OSLER, BART.\n\n        William the Fowler, Guillaume l'Oiseleur!\n        I love to call him thus, and when I scan\n        The counterfeit presentment of the man,\n        I feel his net, I hear his arrows whir.\n        Make at the homely surname no demur,\n        Nor on a nomination lay a ban\n        With which a line of sovran lords began,\n        Henry the Fowler was first Emperor.\n        Asclepius was Apollo's chosen son,\n        But to that son he never lent his bow,\n        Nor did Heph\u00e6stus teach to forge his net;\n        Both secrets hath Imperial Osler won.\n        His winged words straight to their quarry go.\n        All hearts are holden by his meshes yet.\n                                      HARVEY CUSHING\n\n    _Brookline_\n        _February 18, 1920_\n\n\n\n\n                         THE OLD HUMANITIES AND\n                            THE NEW SCIENCE\n\n\n\n\n                         THE OLD HUMANITIES AND\n                            THE NEW SCIENCE\n\n\n                                   I\n\n\nEarly in the sixteenth century a literary joke sent inextinguishable\nlaughter through the learned circles of Europe. The _Epistol\u00e6 Obscurorum\nVirorum_ is great literature, to which I refer for two reasons--its\nstandard is an exact gauge of my scholarship, and had _Magister\nNostrandus Ortuinus Gratius_ of Cologne, to whom most of the letters are\naddressed, been asked to join that wicked Erfurt Circle, he could not\nhave been more surprised than I was to receive a gracious invitation to\npreside over this gathering of British scholars. I felt to have been\nsailing under false colours to have ever, by pen or tongue, suggested\nthe possession of even the traditional small Latin and less Greek.\nRelieved by the assurance that in alternate years the qualification of\nyour President was an interest in education and literature, I gladly\naccepted, not, however, without such anticipatory qualms as afflict an\namateur at the thought of addressing a body of experts. Not an educated\nman in the Oxford sense, yet faint memories of the classics linger--the\nresult of ten years of such study as lads of my generation pursued,\nmemories best expressed in Tom Hood's lines:\n\n    \"The weary tasks I used to con!\n    The hopeless leaves I wept upon!\n        Most fruitless leaves to me!\"\n\nIn a life of teaching and practice, a mere picker-up of learning's\ncrumbs is made to realize the value of the humanities in science not\nless than in general culture.\n\nTo have a Professor of Medicine in this Chair gives to the Oxford\nmeeting an appropriate renaissance--shall we say medi\u00e6val?--flavour, and\none may be pardoned the regret that the meeting is not being held in\nMay, 1519, to have had the pleasure of listening to an address from a\nreal Oxford scholar-physician, an early teacher of Greek in this\nUniversity, and the founder of the Royal College of Physicians, whose\n_Rudimenta Grammatices_ and _De Emendata Structura Latini Sermonis_\nupheld for a generation, on the Continent at least, the reputation of\nEnglish scholarship. These noble walls, themselves an audience--indeed,\nmost appreciative of audiences--have storied memories of Linacre's\nvoice, and the basis of the keen judgment of Erasmus may have been\nformed by intercourse with him in this very school. In those happy days,\nto know Hippocrates and Galen was to know disease and to be qualified to\npractise; and my profession looks back in grateful admiration to such\ngreat medical humanists as Linacre and Caius and Rabelais. Nor can I\nclaim to speak for pure science, some salt of which remains from early\nassociation, and from a lifelong attempt to correlate with art a science\nwhich makes medicine, I was going to say the only--but it is more civil\nto say the most--progressive of the learned professions.\n\nTo have lived right through an epoch, matched only by two in the story\nof the race, to have shared in its long struggle, to have witnessed its\nfinal victory (and in my own case, to be left I trust with wit enough to\nrealize its significance)--to have done this has been a wonderful\nprivilege. To have outgrown age-old theories of man and of nature, to\nhave seen west separated from east in the tangled skein of human\nthought, to have lived in a world re-making--these are among the thrills\nand triumphs of the Victorian of my generation. To a childhood and youth\ncame echoes of the controversy that Aristarchus began, Copernicus\ncontinued, and Darwin ended, that put the microcosm into line with the\nmacrocosm, and for the golden age of Eden substituted the _tellus dura_\nof Lucretius. Think of the Cimmerian darkness out of which our\ngeneration has, at any rate, blazed a path! Picture the mental state of\na community which could produce \"Omphalos: An Attempt to untie the\nGeological Knot\"![1] I heard warm clerical discussions on its main\nthesis, that the fossils were put into the earth's strata to test men's\nfaith in the Mosaic account of the creation, and our Professor of\nNatural Theology lectured seriously upon it! The intellectual unrest of\nthose days wrapped many in that \"dyvine cloude of unknowynge,\" by which\nhappy phrase Brother Herp designates medi\u00e6val mysticism; and not a bad\nthing for a young man to live through, as sufficient infection usually\nremains to enable him to understand, if not to sympathize with, mental\nstates alien or even hostile.\n\n    [1] By the distinguished naturalist Philip Henry Gosse.\n\nAn Age of Force followed the final subjugation of Nature. The dynamo\nreplaced the steam-engine, radiant energy revealed the hidden secrets of\nmatter, to the conquest of the earth was added the control of the air\nand the mastery of the deep. Nor was it only an Age of Force. Never\nbefore had man done so much for his brother, the victory over the powers\nof Nature meant also glorious victories of peace; pestilences were\nchecked, the cry of the poor became articulate, and to help the life of\nthe submerged half became a sacred duty of the other. How full we were\nof the pride of life! In 1910 at Edinburgh I ended an address on \"Man's\nRedemption of Man\" with the well-known lines of Shelley beginning,\n\"Happiness and Science dawn though late upon the earth.\" And now, having\nsurvived the greatest war in history, and a great victory, with the\nwreckage of medi\u00e6val autonomy to clear up, our fears are lest we may\nfail to control the fretful forces of Caliban, and our hopes are to\nrebuild Jerusalem in this green and pleasant land.\n\nNever before in its long evolution has the race realized its full\ncapacity. Our fathers have told us, and we ourselves have known, of\nglorious sacrifices; but the past four years have exhausted in every\ndirection the possibilities of human effort. And, as usual, among the\nnations the chief burden has fallen on that weary Titan, the Motherland,\n\n    \"Bearing on shoulders immense,\n    Atlantean, the load\n    Well-nigh not to be borne\n    Of the too vast orb of her fate.\"\n\nNot alone did she furnish the sinews of war, but she developed a spirit\nthat made defeat impossible.\n\nNo wonder war has advocates, to plead the heroic clash of ideals, the\npurging of a nation's dross in the fire of suffering and sacrifice, and\nthe welding in one great purpose of a scattered people. Even Montaigne,\nsanest of men, called it \"the greatest and most magnificent of human\nactions\"; and the glamours of its pride, pomp, and circumstance still\ncaptivate. But there are other sides which we should face without\nshrinking. Why dwell on the horrors such as we doctors and nurses have\nhad to see? Enough to say that war blasts the soul, and in this great\nconflict the finer sense of humanity has been shocked to paralysis by\nthe helplessness of our civilization and the futility of our religion to\nstem a wave of primitive barbarism. Black as are the written and\nunwritten pages of history, the concentrated and prolonged martyrdom\nsurpasses anything man has yet had to endure. What a shock to the proud\nand mealy-mouthed Victorian who had begun to trust that Love was\ncreation's final law, forgetting that Egypt and Babylon are our\ncontemporaries and of yesterday in comparison with the hundreds of\nthousands of years since the cave-dwellers left their records on walls\nand bones. In the mystic shadow of the Golden Bough, and swayed by the\nemotions of our savage ancestors, we stand aghast at the revelation of\nthe depth and ferocity of primal passions which reveal the\nunchangeableness of human nature.\n\nWhen the wild beast of Plato's dream becomes a waking reality, and a\nherd-emotion of hate sweeps a nation off its feet, the desolation that\nfollows is wider than that in France and Belgium, wider even than the\ndesolation of grief, and something worse--the hardened heart, the lie in\nthe soul--so graphically described in Book II of the \"Republic\"--that\nforces us to do accursed things, and even to defend them! I refer to it\nbecause, as professors, we have been accused of sinning against the\nlight. Of course we have. Over us, too, the wave swept, but I protest\nagainst the selection of us for special blame. The other day, in an\naddress on \"The Comradeship of Letters\" at Turin, President Wilson is\nreported to have said: \"It is one of the great griefs of this war that\nthe universities of the Central Empires used the thoughts of science to\ndestroy mankind; it is the duty of the universities of these states to\nredeem science from this disgrace and to show that the pulse of humanity\nbeats in the classroom, and that there are sought out not the secrets of\ndeath but the secrets of life.\" A pious and worthy wish! But once in war\na nation mobilizes every energy, and to say that science has been\nprostituted in discovering means of butchery is to misunderstand the\nsituation. Slaughter, wholesale and unrestricted, is what is sought, and\nto accomplish this the discoveries of the sainted Faraday and of the\ngentle Dalton are utilized to the full, and to their several nations\nscientific men render this service freely, if not gladly. That the\nmental attitude engendered by science is apt to lead to a gross\nmaterialism is a vulgar error. Scientific men, in mufti or in uniform,\nare not more brutal than their fellows, and the utilization of their\ndiscoveries in warfare should not be a greater reproach to them than is\nour joyous acceptance of their success.\n\nWhat a change of heart after the appalling experience of the first\ngassing in 1915! Nothing more piteously horrible than the sufferings of\nthe victims has ever been seen in warfare.[2] Surely we could not sink\nto such barbarity! Is thy servant a dog? But martial expediency soon\ncompelled the Allies to enlist the resources of chemistry; the\ninstruction of our enemies was soon bettered, and before the Armistice\nthere were developments in technique and destructive force that would\nhave delighted Nisroch, who first invented aerial \"machinations to\nplague the sons of men.\" A group of medical men representing the chief\nuniversities and medical bodies of the United Kingdom was innocent\nenough to suggest that such an unclean weapon--the use of lethal gases,\n\"condemning its victims to death by long-drawn-out torture,\" and with\ninfinite possibilities for its further development--should be forever\nabolished. \"Steeped in folly by theories and prepossessions,\" failure to\nread the \"lessons of war which should have sufficed to convince a\nbeetle\"--such were among the newspaper comments; and in other ways we\nwere given to understand that our interference in such matters was most\nuntimely. All the same, it is gratifying to see that the suggestion has\nbeen adopted at the Peace Congress.\n\n    [2] I am sorry to have seen Sargent's picture \"Gassed\" in this\n        year's Academy. It haunts the mind like a nightmare.\n\nWith what a howl of righteous indignation the slaughter of our innocent\nwomen and children by the bombing of open towns was received! It was a\ndirty and bloody business, worthy of the Oxydracians by means of\nLevin-bolts and Thunders and more horrible, more frightful, more\ndiabolical, maiming, breaking, tearing, and slaying more folk and\nconfounding men's senses and throwing down more walls than would a\nhundred thunderbolts.[3]\n\n    [3] Rabelais, Book IV, ch. LXI.\n\nAgainst reprisals there was at first a strong feeling. Early in 1916 I\nwrote to the \"Times\": \"The cry for reprisals illustrates the exquisitely\nhellish state of mind into which war plunges even sensible men. Not a\npacifist, but a 'last-ditcher,' yet I refuse to believe that as a\nnation, how bitter soever the provocation, we shall stain our hands in\nthe blood of the innocent. In this matter let us be free from\nbloodguiltiness, and let not the undying reproach of humanity rest on us\nas on the Germans.\" Two years changed me into an ordinary barbarian. A\ndetailed tally of civilians killed by our airmen has not, I believe,\nbeen published, but the total figures quoted are not far behind the\nGerman.\n\nCould a poll have been taken a week before the Armistice as to the moral\njustification of the bombing of Berlin--for which we were ready--how we\nshould have howled at the proposer of any doubt! And many Jonahs were\ndispleased that a city greater than Nineveh, with more than the\nthreescore and ten thousand who knew not the right hand from the left,\nhad been spared. We may deplore the necessity and lament, as did a\ncertain great personage:\n\n        \"... Yet public reason just--\n    Honour and empire with revenge enlarged\n        ... compels me now\n    To do what else, though damned, I should abhor.\"\n\nAll the same, we considered ourselves \"Christians of the best edition,\nall picked and culled,\" and the churches remained open, prayers rose to\nJehovah, many of whose priests--even his bishops!--were in khaki, and\nquit themselves like men--yes, and scores died the death of heroes! Into\nsuch hells of inconsistency does war plunge the best of us!\n\nLearning--new or old--seems a vain thing to save a nation, but possibly,\nas a set-off, science, as represented by cellulose and sulphuric acid,\nmay yet prove the best bulwark of civilization! In his \"History of the\nOrigin of Medicine,\"[4] Lettsom maintains that the invention of firearms\nhas done more to prevent the destruction of the human species than any\nother discovery; he says: \"Invention and discernment of mind have made\nit possible to reverse the ancient maxim that strength has always\nprevailed over wisdom.\" Science alone may prevent a repetition of the\nstory of Egypt, of Babylonia, of Greece, and of Rome. The suggestion\nseems brazen effrontery when we have not even given the world the\nequivalent of the _Pax Romana_! Ah! what a picture of self-satisfied\nhappiness in Plutarch! One envies that placid life in the midst of the\nonly great peace the world has known, spanning a period of more than two\nhundred years. And he could say, \"No tumults, no civil sedition, no\ntyrannies, no pestilences nor calamities depopulating Greece, no\nepidemic disease needing powerful and choice drugs and medicines\";\nthough as a Delphic priest there is a pathetic lament that the Pythian\npriestess has now only commonplace questions to deal with.[5] Surely\nthose cultivated men of his circle must have felt that their house could\nnever be removed. Has Science reached such control over Nature that she\nwill enable our civilization to escape the law of the Ephesian, written\non all known records--_panta rei_? Perhaps so, now that material\ncivilization is world-wide; cataclysmic forces, powerful enough in\ncentres of origin, may weaken as they pass out in circles. Let this be\nour hope in the present crisis. At any rate, in the free democracies in\nwhich Demos with safety says \"_L'\u00c9tat c'est moi_,\" it has yet to be\ndetermined whether Science, as the embodiment of a mechanical force, can\nrule without invoking ruin. Two things are clear: there must be a very\ndifferent civilization or there will be no civilization at all; and the\nother is that neither the old religion combined with the old learning,\nnor both with the new science, suffice to save a nation bent on\nself-destruction. The suicide of Germany, the outstanding fact of the\nwar, followed an outburst of national megalomania. For she had\nreligion--it may shock some of you to hear! I mean the people, not the\nwriters or the thinkers, but the people for whom Luther lived and Huss\ndied. Of the two devotional ceremonies which stand supreme in my memory,\none was a service in the Dom, Berlin, in which \"not the great nor well\nbespoke, but the mere uncounted folk\" sang Luther's great hymn \"_Ein'\nfeste Burg ist unser Gott._\"[6] With the Humanities Germany never broke,\nand the proportion of students in her schools and universities who\nstudied Greek and Latin has been higher than in any other country. You\nknow better than I the innumerable classical studies of her scholars. In\nclassical learning relating to science and medicine she simply had the\nfield; for one scholar in other countries she had a dozen, and the\nmonopoly of journals relating to the history of these subjects. And she\nhad science, and led the world in the application of the products of the\nlaboratory to the uses of every-day life--in commerce, in the arts, and\nin war. Withal, like Jeshurun, she waxed fat; and did ever such pride go\nbefore such destruction? What a tragedy that the successors of Virchow\nand Traube and Helmholtz and Billroth should have made her a byword\namong the nations! \"Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds!\"\n\n    [4] 1778, p. 30.\n\n    [5] \"Why the Pythian Priestess,\" etc. (Plutarch's _Morals_, vol.\n        III, p. 100, Goodwin's edition).\n\n    [6] And the other, how different! The crowded Blue Mosque of\n        Cairo, and the crowded streets with the thousands of\n        kneeling Moslems awaiting the cry of the muezzin from the\n        tower.\n\n\n\n\n                                   II\n\n\nSo much preliminary to the business before us, to meet changed\nconditions as practical men, with the reinforcement born of hope or with\nthe strong resolution of despair.\n\nFor what does this Association stand? What are these classical interests\nthat you represent? Take a familiar simile. By a very simple trick, you\nremember, did Empedocles give Menippus in the moon-halt--the first stage\nof his memorable trip--such long and clear vision that he saw the tribes\nof men like a nest of ants, a seething mass going to and fro at their\ndifferent tasks. Of the function of the classical members in this\nmyrmecic community there can be no question. Neither warriors, nor\nslaves, nor neuters, you live in a well-protected social environment,\nheretofore free from enemies, and have been well taken care of. I hate\nto speak of you as larv\u00e6, but as such you perform a duty of the greatest\nimport in this trophidium stage of your existence. Let me explain. From\nearliest days much attention has been paid by naturalists to the\nincredible affection \"--incredible [Greek: storg\u00ea],\" Swammerdam calls\nit--which ants display in feeding, licking, and attending the larv\u00e6.\nDisturb a nest, and the chief care is to take them to a place of safety.\nThis attention is what our symphilic community--to use a biological\nterm--bestows on you. So intensely altruistic, apparently, is this\nbehaviour, that for the very word \"[Greek: storg\u00ea],\" which expresses the\ntenderest of all feelings, there is a difficulty in finding an\nequivalent; indeed, Gilbert White used it almost as an English word. The\ntruth is really very different.\n\nIt has been shown that the nursing function--or instinct--is really\ntrophallactic. In the case of the ant the nurse places the larva on its\nback, and the broad ventral surface serves as a trough for the food,\noften predigested. The skill and devotion with which this is done are\namong the wonders in the life of the insect to which moralists have\nnever tired of urging a visit. But listen to the sequel! The larva is\nprovided with a pair of rich honey-bags in the shape of salivary glands,\nbig exudatoria from which is discharged an ambrosia greedily lapped up\nby the nurse, who with this considers herself well paid for her care. In\nthe same manner, when the assiduous V.A.D. wasp distributes food to the\nlarv\u00e6, the heads of which eagerly protrude from their cells, she must be\npaid by a draught of nectar from their exudatoria, while if it is not\nforthcoming the wasp seizes the head of the larva in her mandibles and\njams it back into its cell and compels it to pay up. The lazy males will\nplay the same game and even steal the much-sought liquid without any\ncompensatory gift of nourishment.[7]\n\n    [7] Professor Wheeler in _Proceedings of Amer. Phil. Soc._, vol.\n        LVII, no. 4, 1918.\n\nWhat does the community at large, so careful of your comforts, expect\nfrom you? Surely the honey-dew and the milk of paradise secreted from\nyour classical exudatoria, which we lap up greedily in recensions,\nmonographs, commentaries, histories, translations, and brochures. Among\nacademic larv\u00e6 you have for centuries absorbed the almost undivided\ninterest of the nest, and not without reason, for the very life of the\nworkers depends on the hormones you secrete. Though small in number,\nyour group has an enormous kinetic value, like our endocrine organs. For\nman's body, too, is a humming hive of working cells, each with its\nspecific function, all under central control of the brain and heart, and\nall dependent on materials called hormones (secreted by small, even\ninsignificant-looking structures) which lubricate the wheels of life.\nFor example, remove the thyroid gland just below the Adam's apple, and\nyou deprive man of the lubricants which enable his thought-engines to\nwork--it is as if you cut off the oil-supply of a motor--and gradually\nthe stored acquisitions of his mind cease to be available, and within a\nyear he sinks into dementia. The normal processes of the skin cease,\nthe hair falls, the features bloat, and the paragon of animals is\ntransformed into a shapeless caricature of humanity. These essential\nlubricators, of which a number are now known, are called hormones--you\nwill recognize from its derivation how appropriate is the term.\n\nNow, the men of your guild secrete materials which do for society at\nlarge what the thyroid gland does for the individual. The Humanities are\nthe hormones. Our friend Mr. P. S. Allen read before this Association a\nmost suggestive paper on the historical evolution of the word\n\"Humanism.\" I like to think of the pleasant-flavoured word as embracing\nall the knowledge of the ancient classical world--what man knew of\nnature as well as what he knew of himself. Let us see what this\nuniversity means by the _Liter\u00e6 Humaniores_. The \"Greats\" papers for the\npast decade make interesting study. With singular uniformity there is\ndiversity enough to bear high tribute to the ingenuity of the examiners.\nBut, comparing the subjects in 1918 with those in the first printed\npapers of the school in 1831, one is surprised to find them the\nsame--practically no change in the eighty-seven years! Compare them,\nagain, with the subjects given in John Napleton's \"Considerations\" in\n1773--no change! and with the help of Rashdall we may trace the story of\nthe studies in arts, only to find that as far back as 1267, with\ndifferent names sometimes, they have been through all the centuries\nessentially the same--Greek and Latin authors, logic, rhetoric, grammar,\nand the philosophies, natural, moral, and metaphysical--practically the\nseven liberal arts for which, as you may see by the names over the\ndoors, Bodley's building provided accommodation. Why this invariableness\nin an ever-turning world? One of the marvels, so commonplace that it has\nceased to be marvellous, is the deep rooting of our civilization in the\nsoil of Greece and Rome--much of our dogmatic religion, practically all\nthe philosophies, the models of our literature, the ideals of our\ndemocratic freedom, the fine and the technical arts, the fundamentals of\nscience, and the basis of our law. The Humanities bring the student into\ncontact with the master minds who gave us these things--with the dead\nwho never die, with those immortal lives \"not of now nor of yesterday,\nbut which always were.\"\n\nAs true to-day as in the fifth century B.C. the name of Hellas stands no\nlonger for the name of a race, but as the name of knowledge; or, as more\ntersely put by Maine, \"Except the blind forces of Nature, nothing moves\n[intellectually, he means] in this world that is not Greek in origin.\"\nMan's anabasis from the old priest-ridden civilizations of the East\nbegan when \"the light of reason lighted up all things,\" with which\nsaying Anaxagoras expressed our modern outlook on life.\n\nThe Humanities have been a subject of criticism in two directions. Their\noverwhelming prominence, it is claimed, prevents the development of\nlearning in other and more useful directions; and the method of teaching\nis said to be antiquated and out of touch with the present needs. They\ncontrol the academic life of Oxford. An analysis of the Register for\n1919 shows that of the 257 men comprising the Heads and Fellows of the\ntwenty-three colleges (including St. Edmund's Hall), only fifty-one are\nscientific, including the mathematicians.\n\nIt is not very polite, perhaps, to suggest that as transmitters and\ninterpreters they should not bulk quite so large in a modern university.\n'Twas all very well\n\n    \"... in days when wits were fresh and clear\n    And life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames--\"\n\nin those happy days when it was felt that all knowledge had been\ngarnered by those divine men of old time, that there was nothing left\nbut to enjoy the good things harvested by such universal providers as\nIsidore, Rabanus Maurus, and Vincent of Beauvais, and those stronger\ndishes served by such artists as Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas\nAquinas--delicious blends of such skill that only the palate of an\nApicius could separate Greek, Patristic, and Arabian savours.\n\nIt is not the dominance, but the unequal dominance that is a cause of\njust complaint. As to methods of teaching--by their fruits ye shall know\nthem. The product of \"Greats\" needs no description in this place. Many\ndeny the art to find the mind's construction in the face, but surely not\nthe possibility of diagnosing at a glance a \"first in Greats\"! Only in\nhim is seen that altogether superior expression, that self-consciousness\nof having reached life's goal, of having, in that pickled sentence of\nDean Gaisford's Christmas sermon, done something \"that not only elevates\nabove the common herd, but leads not unfrequently to positions of\nconsiderable emolument.\" \"Many are the wand-bearers, few are the\nmystics,\" and a system should not be judged by the exceptions. As a\ndiscipline of the mind for the few, the system should not be touched,\nand we should be ready to sacrifice a holocaust of undergraduates every\nyear to produce in each generation a scholar of the type of, say, Ingram\nBywater. 'Tis Nature's method--does it not cost some thousands of eggs\nand fry to produce one salmon?\n\nBut the average man, not of scholar timber, may bring one railing\naccusation against his school and college. Apart from mental discipline,\nthe value of the ancient languages is to give a key to their\nliteratures. Yet we make boys and young men spend ten or more years on\nthe study of Greek and Latin, at the end of which time the beauties of\nthe languages are still hidden because of the pernicious method in which\nthey are taught. It passes my understanding how the more excellent way\nof Montaigne, of Milton, and of Locke should have been neglected until\nrecently. Make the language an instrument to play with and to play with\nthoroughly, and recognize that except for the few in \"Mods.\" and\n\"Greats\" it is superfluous to know how the instrument is constructed, or\nto dissect the neuro-muscular mechanism by which it is played. It is\nsatisfactory to read that the Greek Curriculum Committee thinks \"it is\npossible in a comparatively short time to acquire a really valuable\nknowledge of Greek, and to learn to read with accuracy and fair fluency\nsome of the most important works in Greek literature.\" I am sure of it,\nif the teacher will go to school to Montaigne and feed fat against that\nold scoundrel Protagoras a well-earned grudge for inventing\ngrammar--_pace_ Mr. Livingstone, every chapter in whose two books appeal\nto me, except those on grammar, against which I have a medullary\nprejudice. I speak, of course, as a fool among the wise, and I am not\npleading for the \"Greats\" men, but for the average man, whom to infect\nwith the spirit of the Humanities is the greatest single gift in\neducation. To you of the elect this is pure _camouflage_--the amateur\ntalking to the experts; but there is another side upon which I feel\nsomething may be said by one whose best friends have been the old\nHumanists, and whose breviary is Plutarch, or rather Plutarch gallicized\nby Montaigne. Paraphrasing Mark Twain's comment upon Christian Science,\nthe so-called Humanists have not enough Science, and Science sadly lacks\nthe Humanities. This unhappy divorce, which should never have taken\nplace, has been officially recognized in the two reports edited by Sir\nFrederic Kenyon,[8] which have stirred the pool, and cannot but be\nhelpful. To have got constructive, anabolic action from representatives\nof interests so diverse is most encouraging. While all agree that\nneither in the public schools nor in the older universities are the\nconditions at present in keeping with the urgent scientific needs of the\nnation, the specific is not to be sought in endowments alone, but in the\nleaven which may work a much-needed change in both branches of\nknowledge.\n\n[8] _Education, Scientific and Humane_ (1917), and _Education,\nSecondary and University_ (1919).\n\n\n\n\n                                  III\n\n\nThe School of _Liter\u00e6 Humaniores_ excites wonder in the extent and\nvariety of the knowledge demanded, and there is everywhere evidence of\nthe value placed upon the ancient models; but this wonder pales before\nthe gasping astonishment at what is not there. Now and again a hint, a\nreference, a recognition, but the moving forces which have made the\nmodern world are simply ignored. Yet they are all Hellenic, all part and\nparcel of the Humanities in the true sense, and all of prime importance\nin modern education. Twin berries on one stem, grievous damage has been\ndone to both in regarding the Humanities and Science in any other light\nthan complemental. Perhaps the anomalous position of science in our\nphilosophical school is due to the necessary filtration, indeed the\npreservation, of our classical knowledge, through ecclesiastical\nchannels. Of this the persistence of the Augustinian questions until\nlate in the eighteenth century is an interesting indication. The moulder\nof Western Christianity had not much use for science, and the Greek\nspirit was stifled in the atmosphere of the Middle Ages. \"Content to be\ndeceived, to live in a twilight of fiction, under clouds of false\nwitnesses, inventing according to convenience, and glad to welcome the\nforger and the cheat\"--such, as Lord Acton somewhere says, were the\nMiddle Ages. Strange, is it not? that one man alone, Roger Bacon,\nmastered his environment and had a modern outlook.[9]\n\n    [9] How modern Bacon's outlook was may be judged from the\n        following sentence: \"Experimental science has three\n        great prerogatives over all other sciences--it verifies\n        conclusions by direct experiment, it discovers truths which\n        they could never reach, and it investigates the secrets of\n        nature and opens to us a knowledge of the past and of the\n        future.\"\n\nThe practical point for us here is that in the only school dealing with\nthe philosophy of human thought, the sources of the new science that has\nmade a new world are practically ignored. One gets even an impression of\nneglect in the schools, or at any rate of scant treatment, of the Ionian\nphilosophers, the very fathers of your fathers. Few \"Greats\" men, I\nfear, could tell why Hippocrates is a living force to-day, or why a\nmodern scientific physician would feel more at home with Erasistratus\nand Herophilus at Alexandria, or with Galen at Pergamos, than at any\nperiod in our story up to, say, Harvey. Except as a delineator of\ncharacter, what does the Oxford scholar know of Theophrastus, the\nfounder of modern botany, and a living force to-day in one of the two\ndepartments of biology, and made accessible to English readers--perhaps\nindeed to Greek readers!--by Sir Arthur Hort?[10] Beggarly recognition\nor base indifference is meted out to the men whose minds have fertilized\nscience in every department. The pulse of every student should beat\nfaster as he reads the story of Archimedes, of Hero, of Aristarchus,\nnames not even mentioned in the \"Greats\" papers in the past decade. Yet\nthe methods of these men exorcised vagaries and superstitions from the\nhuman mind and pointed to a clear knowledge of the laws of nature. It is\nsurprising that some wag among the examiners has never relieved the\ngrave monotony of the papers by such peripatetic questions as \"How long\na gnat lives,\" \"To how many fathoms' depth the sunlight penetrates the\nsea,\" and \"What an oyster's soul is like\"--questions which indicate\nwhence the modern Lucian got his inspiration to chaff so successfully\nBoyle and the professors of Gresham College.\n\n    [10] Loeb Series.\n\nMay I dwell upon two instances of shocking neglect? It really is amusing\nin Oxford to assert neglect of \"the measurer of all Art and Science,\nwhose is all that is best in the passing sublunary world,\" as Richard de\nBury calls \"the Prince of the Schooles.\" In Gulliver's voyage to Laputa\nhe paid a visit to the little island of Glubbdubdrib, whose Governor,\nyou remember, had an Endorian command over the spirits, such as Sir\nOliver Lodge or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle might envy. When Aristotle and\nhis commentators were summoned, to Gulliver's surprise they were\nstrangers, for the reason that having so horribly misrepresented\nAristotle's meaning to posterity, a consciousness of guilt and shame\nkept them far away from him in the lower world. Such shame, I fear, will\nmake the shades of many classical dons of this university seek shelter\nwith the commentators when they realize their neglect of one of the most\nfruitful of all the activities of the Master. In biology Aristotle\nspeaks for the first time the language of modern science, and indeed he\nseems to have been first and foremost a biologist, and his natural\nhistory studies influenced profoundly his sociology, his psychology, and\nhis philosophy in general. The beginner may be sent now to Professor\nD'Arcy Wentworth Thompson's Herbert Spencer Lecture, 1913, and he must\nbe indeed a dull and muddy-mettled rascal whose imagination is not fired\nby the enthusiastic--yet true--picture of the founder of modern biology,\nwhose language is our language, whose methods and problems are our own,\nthe man who knew a thousand varied forms of life,--of plant, of bird,\nand animal,--their outward structure, their metamorphosis, their early\ndevelopment; who studied the problems of heredity, of sex, of nutrition,\nof growth, of adaptation, and of the struggle for existence.[11] And the\nsenior student, if capable of appreciating a biological discovery, I\nadvise to study the account by Johannes M\u00fcller[12] (himself a pioneer in\nanatomy) of his rediscovery of Aristotle's remarkable discovery of a\nspecial mode of reproduction in one of the species of sharks. For two\nthousand years the founder of the science of embryology had neither\nrival nor worthy follower. There is no reference, I believe, to the\nbiological works in the _Liter\u00e6 Humaniores_ papers for the past ten\nyears, yet they form the very foundations of discoveries that have\nturned our philosophies topsy-turvy.\n\n    [11] Summarized from D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson.\n\n    [12] _Ueber den Glatten Hai des Aristotles._ (Berlin, 1842.)\n\nNothing reveals the unfortunate break in Humanities more clearly than\nthe treatment of the greatest nature-poet in literature, a man who had\n\"gazed on Nature's naked loveliness\" unabashed, the man who united, as\nno one else has ever done, the \"functions and temper and achievement of\nscience and poetry\" (Herford). The golden work of Lucretius is indeed\nrecognized, and in Honour Moderations, Books I to III and V are set as\none of seven alternatives in section D; and scattered through the\n\"Greats\" papers are set translations and snippets here and there; but\nanything like adequate consideration from the scientific side is to be\nsought in vain. Unmatched among the ancients or moderns is the vision by\nLucretius of continuity in the workings of Nature--not less of _le\nsilence \u00e9ternel de ces espaces infinis_ which so affrighted Pascal, than\nof \"the long, limitless age of days, the age of all time that has gone\nby\"--\n\n        \"... longa diei\n    infinita \u00e6tas anteacti temporis omnis.\"\n\nAnd it is in a Latin poet that we find up-to-date views of the origin of\nthe world and of the origin of man. The description of the wild\ndiscordant storm of atoms (Book V) which led to the birth of the world\nmight be transferred verbatim to the accounts of Poincar\u00e9 or of\nArrhenius of the growth of new celestial bodies in the Milky Way. What\nan insight into primitive man and the beginnings of civilization! He\nmight have been a contemporary and friend, and doubtless was a tutor, of\nTylor. Book II, a manual of atomic physics with its marvellous\nconception of\n\n        \"... the flaring atom streams\n    And torrents of her myriad universe,\"\n\ncan only be read appreciatively by pupils of Roentgen or of J. J.\nThomson. The ring theory of magnetism advanced in Book VI has been\nreproduced of late by Parsons, whose magnetons rotating as rings at high\nspeed have the form and effect with which this disciple of Democritus\nclothes his magnetic physics.\n\nAnd may I here enter a protest? Of love-philtres that produce insanity\nwe may read the truth in a chapter of that most pleasant manual of\nerotology, the \"Anatomy of Melancholy.\" Of insanity of any type that\nleaves a mind capable in lucid intervals of writing such verses as _\"De\nRerum Natura\"_ we know nothing. The sole value of the myth is its causal\nassociation with the poem of Tennyson. Only exsuccous dons who have\nnever known the wiles and ways of the younger Aphrodite would take the\nintensity of the feeling in Book IV as witness to anything but an\naccident which may happen to the wisest of the wise, when enthralled by\nVivien or some dark lady of the Sonnets!\n\nIn the School of _Liter\u00e6 Humaniores_ the studies are based on classical\nliterature and on history, \"but a large number of students approach\nphilosophical study from other sides. Students of such subjects as\nmathematics, natural science, history, psychology, anthropology, or\npolitical economy become naturally interested in philosophy, and their\nneeds are at present very imperfectly provided for in this university.\"\nThis I quote from a Report to the Board of the Faculty of Arts made just\nbefore the war on a proposed new Honour School, the subject of which\nshould be the principles of philosophy considered in their relation to\nthe sciences. That joint action of this kind should have been taken by\nthe Boards of Arts and of Science indicates a widespread conviction that\nno man is cultivated up to the standard of his generation who has not an\nappreciation of how the greatest achievements of the human mind have\nbeen reached; and the practical question is how to introduce such\nstudies into the course of liberal education, how to give the science\nschool the leaven of an old philosophy, how to leaven the old\nphilosophical school with the thoughts of science.[13]\n\n    [13] Since I wrote this lecture, Professor J. A. Stewart has\n         sent me his just-published essay on _Oxford after the War\n         and a Liberal Education_, in which he urges with all the\n         weight of his learning and experience that the foundations\n         of liberal education in Oxford should be \"No Humane Letters\n         without Natural Science and no Natural Science without\n         Humane Letters.\"\n\nIt is important to recognize that there is nothing mysterious in the\nmethod of science, or apart from the ordinary routine of life. Science\nhas been defined as the habit or faculty of observation. By such the\nchild grows in knowledge, and in its daily exercise an adult\nlives and moves. Only a quantitative difference makes observation\nscientific--accuracy; in that way alone do we discover things as they\nreally are. This is the essence of Plato's definition of science as \"the\ndiscovery of things as they really are,\" whether in the heavens above,\nin the earth beneath, or in the observer himself. As a mental operation,\nthe scientific method is equally applicable to deciphering a bit of\nBeneventan script, to the analysis of the evidence of the Commission on\nCoal-Mines, a study of the mechanism of the nose-dive, or of the\ncolour-scheme in tiger-beetles. To observation and reasoned thought, the\nGreek added experiment, but never fully used it in biology, an\ninstrument which has made science productive, and to which the modern\nworld owes its civilization. Our every-day existence depends on the\npractical application of discoveries in pure science by men who had no\nother motives than a search for knowledge of Nature's laws, a\ndisinterestedness which Burnet claims to be the distinctive gift of\nHellas to humanity. With the discovery of induced currents Faraday had\nno thought of the dynamo. Crookes's tubes were a plaything until\nRoentgen turned them into practical use with the X-rays. Perkin had no\nthought of transforming chemical industry when he discovered aniline\ndyes. Priestley would have cursed the observation that an electrical\ncharge produced nitrous acid had he foreseen that it would enable\nGermany to prolong the war, but he would have blessed the thought that\nit may make us independent of all outside sources for fertilizers.\n\nThe extraordinary development of modern science may be her undoing.\nSpecialism, now a necessity, has fragmented the specialities themselves\nin a way that makes the outlook hazardous. The workers lose all sense of\nproportion in a maze of minuti\u00e6. Everywhere men are in small coteries\nintensely absorbed in subjects of deep interest, but of very limited\nscope. Chemistry, a century ago an appanage of the Chair of Medicine or\neven of Divinity, has now a dozen departments, each with its laboratory\nand literature, sometimes its own society. Applying themselves early to\nresearch, young men get into backwaters far from the main stream. They\nquickly lose the sense of proportion, become hypercritical, and the\nsmaller the field, the greater the tendency to megalocephaly. The study\nfor fourteen years of the variations in the colour-scheme of the\nthirteen hundred species of tiger-beetles scattered over the earth may\nsterilize a man into a sticker of pins and a paster of labels; on the\nother hand, he may be a modern biologist whose interest is in the\nexperimental modification of types, and in the mysterious insulation of\nhereditary characters from the environment. Only in one direction does\nthe modern specialist acknowledge his debt to the dead languages. Men of\nscience pay homage, as do no others, to the god of words whose magic\npower is nowhere so manifest as in the plastic language of Greece. The\nonly visit many students pay to Parnassus is to get an intelligible\nlabel for a fact or form newly discovered. Turn the pages of such a\ndictionary of chemical terms as Morley and Muir, and you meet in\nclose-set columns countless names unknown a decade ago, and\nunintelligible to the specialist in another department unless familiar\nwith Greek, and as meaningless as the Arabic jargon in such medi\u00e6val\ncollections as the \"Synonyma\" of Simon Januensis or the \"Pandects\" of\nMatheas Sylvaticus. As \"Punch\" put it the other day in a delightful\npoetical review of Professor West's volume:[14]\n\n    \"Botany relies on Latin ever since Linn\u00e6us' days;\n    Biologic nomenclature draws on Greek in countless ways;\n    While in Medicine it is obvious you can never take your oath\n    What an ailment means exactly if you haven't studied both.\"\n\n    [14] _The Value of the Classics._ Princeton University Press,\n         1917.\n\nLet me give a couple of examples.\n\nWithin the narrow compass of the primitive cell from which all living\nbeings originate, onomatomania runs riot. The process of mitosis has\ndeveloped a special literature and language. Dealing not alone with the\nproblems of heredity and of sex, but with the very dynamics of life, the\nmitotic complex is much more than a simple physiological process, and in\nthe action and interaction of physical forces the cytologist hopes to\nfind the key to the secret of life itself. And what a Grecian he has\nbecome! Listen to this account, which Aristotle would understand much\nbetter than most of us.\n\nThe karyogranulomes, not the idiogranulomes or microsomenstratum in the\nprotoplasm of the spermatogonia, unite into the idiosph\u00e6rosome, acrosoma\nof Lenhoss\u00e9k, a protean phase, as the idiosph\u00e6rosome differentiates into\nan idiocryptosome and an idiocalyptosome, both surrounded by the\nidiosph\u00e6rotheca, the archoplasmic vesicle; but the idioectosome\ndisappears in the metamorphosis of the spermatid into a sphere, the\nidiophtharosome. The separation of the calyptosome from the cryptosome\nantedates the transformation of the idiosph\u00e6rotheca into the\nspermiocalyptrotheca.[15]\n\n    [15] Of course I have made this up out of a recent number of the\n         _American Journal of Anatomy_, 24, I.\n\nOr take a more practical if less Cratylean example. In our precious\ncabbage-patches the holometabolous insecta are the hosts of parasitic\npolyembryonic hymenoptera, upon the prevalence of which rests the\npsychic and somatic stamina of our fellow countrymen; for the larv\u00e6 of\n_Pieris brassic\u00e6_, vulgarly cabbage butterfly, are parasitiased by the\n_Apantales glomeratus_, which in turn has a hyperparasite, the\n_Mesochorus pallidus_. It is tragic to think that the fate of a plant,\nthe dietetic and pharmaceutical virtues of which have been so extolled\nby Cato, and upon which two of my Plinean colleagues of uncertain date,\nChrysippus and Dieuches, wrote monographs--it fills one with terror to\nthink that a crop so dear to Hodge (_et veris cymata!_ the Brussels\nsprouts of Columella) should depend on the deposition in the ovum of the\nPieris of another polyembryonic egg. The cytoplasm or o\u00f6plasm of this\nforms a trophoamnion and develops into a polygerminal mass, a spherical\nmorula, from which in turn develop a hundred or more larv\u00e6, which\nimmediately proceed to eat up everything in and of the body of their\nhost. Only in this way does Nature preserve the Selenas, the Leas, and\nthe Crambes, so dear to Cato and so necessary for the sustenance of our\nhard-working, brawny-armed Brasserii.\n\nFrom over-specialization scientific men are in a more parlous state than\nare the Humanists from neglect of classical tradition. The salvation of\nscience lies in a recognition of a new philosophy--the _scientia\nscientiarum_ of which Plato speaks. \"Now when all these studies reach\nthe point of intercommunion and connection with one another and come to\nbe considered in their mutual affinities, then, I think, and not till\nthen, will the pursuit of them have a value.\" Upon this synthetic\nprocess I hesitate to dwell; since, like Dr. Johnson's friend, Oliver\nEdwards, I have never succeeded in mastering philosophy--cheerfulness\nwas always breaking in.\n\nIn the proposed Honour School the principles of philosophy are to be\ndealt with in relation to the sciences, and by the introduction of\nliterary and historical studies, which George Sarton advocates so warmly\nas the new Humanism,[16] the student will gain a knowledge of the\nevolution of modern scientific thought. But to limit the history to the\nmodern period--Kepler to the present time is suggested--would be a grave\nerror. The scientific student should go to the sources and in some way\nbe taught the connection of Democritus with Dalton, of Archimedes with\nKelvin, of Aristarchus with Newton, of Galen with John Hunter, and of\nPlato and Aristotle with them all. And the glories of Greek science\nshould be opened in a sympathetic way to \"Greats\" men. Under new\nregulations at the public schools, a boy of sixteen or seventeen should\nhave enough science to appreciate the position of Theophrastus in\nbotany, and perhaps himself construct Hero's fountain. Science will take\na totally different position in this country when the knowledge of its\nadvances is the possession of all educated men. The time, too, is ripe\nfor the Bodleian to become a _studium generale_, with ten or more\ndepartments, each in charge of a special sub-librarian. When the\nbeautiful rooms, over the portals of which are the mocking blue and gold\ninscriptions, are once more alive with students, the task of teaching\nsubjects on historical lines will be greatly lightened. What has been\ndone with the Music-Room, and with the Science-Room through the\nliberality of Dr. and Mrs. Singer, should be done for classics, history,\nliterature, theology, etc., each section in charge of a sub-librarian\nwho will be _Doctor perplexorum_ alike to professor, don, and\nundergraduate.\n\n    [16] _Popular Science Monthly_, September, 1918, and _Scientia_,\n         XXIII, 3.\n\nI wish time had permitted me to sketch even briefly the story of the\nevolution of science in this old seat of learning. A fortunate\nopportunity enables you to see two phases in its evolution. Through the\nkind permission of several of the colleges, particularly Christ Church,\nMerton, St. John's, and Oriel, and with the co\u00f6peration of the Curators\nof the Bodleian and Dr. Cowley, Mr. R. T. Gunther, of Magdalen College,\nhas arranged a loan exhibition of the early scientific instruments and\nmanuscripts. A series of quadrants and astrolabes show how Arabian\ninstruments, themselves retaining much of the older Greek models, have\ntranslated Alexandrian science into the Western world. Some were\nconstructed for the latitude of Oxford, and one was associated with our\nastronomer-poet Chaucer.\n\nFor the first time the instruments and works of the early members of the\nMerton School of astronomer-physicians have been brought together. They\nbelong to a group of men of the fourteenth century--Reed, Aschenden,\nSimon Bredon, Merle, Richard of Wallingford, and others--whose labours\nmade Oxford the leading scientific university of the world.\n\nLittle remains of the scientific apparatus of the early period of the\nRoyal Society, but through the kindness of the Dean and Governing Body\nof Christ Church, the entire contents of the cabinet of philosophical\napparatus of the Earl of Orrery, who flourished some thirty years after\nthe foundation of the Society, is on exhibit, and the actual\nastronomical model, the \"Orrery,\" made for him and called after his\nname.[17]\n\n    [17] Among other notable exhibits there are:\n\n        1. A series of astronomical volvelles in manuscripts and\n        printed books.\n\n        2. The printed evidence that Leonard Digges of University\n        College was the inventor of the telescope many years before\n        Galileo.\n\n        3. The mathematical work of Robert Recorde of All Souls'\n        College, in which he suggested the St. Andrew's Cross as the\n        sign of multiplication, and uses symbols +, -, =.\n\n        4. The earliest known slide-rule in a circular form,\n        recently discovered in St. John's College.\n\n        5. The early vellum and wooden telescopes of the Orrery\n        Collection.\n\n        6. An original Marshall microscope.\n\n        7. Early surveying instruments, including the great quadrate\n        of Schissler.\n\nThe story of the free cities of Greece shows how a love of the higher\nand brighter things in life may thrive in a democracy. Whether such love\nmay develop in a civilization based on a philosophy of force is the\npresent problem of the Western world. To-day there are doubts, even\nthoughts of despair, but neither man nor nation is to be judged by the\nbehaviour in a paroxysm of delirium. Lavoisier perished in the\nRevolution, and the Archbishop of Paris was butchered at the altar by\nthe Commune, yet France was not wrecked; and Russia may survive the\nstarvation of such scholars as Danielevski and Smirnov, and the massacre\nof Botkin. To have intelligent freemen of the Greek type with a stake in\nthe State (not mere chattels from whose daily life the shadow of the\nworkhouse never lifts), to have the men and women who could love the\nlight put in surroundings in which the light may reach them, to\nencourage in all a sense of brotherhood reaching the standard of the\nGood Samaritan--surely the realization in a democracy of such reasonable\nambitions should be compatible with the control by science of the forces\nof nature for the common good, and a love of all that is best in\nreligion, in art, and in literature.\n\nAmid the smoke and squalor of a modern industrial city, after the\nbread-and-butter struggle of the day, \"the Discobolus has no gospel.\"\nOur puritanized culture has been known to call the Antinous vulgar.\nCopies of these two statues, you may remember, Samuel Butler found\nstored away in the lumber-room of the Natural History Museum, Montreal,\nwith skins, plants, snakes, and insects, and in their midst, stuffing an\nowl, sat \"the brother-in-law of the haberdasher of Mr. Spurgeon.\"\nAgainst the old man who thus blasphemed beauty, Butler broke into those\nmemorable verses with the refrain \"O God! O Montreal!\"\n\nLet us not be discouraged. The direction of our vision is everything,\nand after weltering four years in chaos poor stricken humanity still\nnurses the unconquerable hope of an ideal state \"whose citizens are\nhappy ... absolutely wise, all of them brave, just, and self-controlled\n... all at peace and unity and in the enjoyment of legality, equality,\nliberty, and all other good things.\" Lucian's winning picture of this\n\"Universal Happiness\" might have been sketched by a Round Table pen or\nsome youthful secretary to the League of Nations. That such hope\npersists is a witness to the power of ideals to captivate the mind and\nthe reality may be nearer than any of us dare dream. If survived, a\nterrible infection, such as confluent smallpox, seems to benefit the\ngeneral health. Perhaps such an attack through which we have passed may\nbenefit the body cosmic. After discussing the various forms of\ngovernment, Plato concludes that \"States are as the men are, they grow\nout of human characters,\"[18] and then, as the dream-republic approached\ncompletion, he realized that after all the true State is within, of\nwhich each one of us is the founder, and patterned on an ideal the\nexistence of which matters not a whit. Is not the need of this\nindividual reconstruction the Greek message to modern democracy? And\nwith it is blended the note of individual service to the community on\nwhich Professor Gilbert Murray has so wisely dwelt.\n\n    [18] _Republic_, Book VIII.\n\nWith the hot blasts of hate still on our cheeks, it may seem a mockery\nto speak of this as the saving asset in our future; but is it not the\nvery marrow of the teaching in which we have been brought up? At last\nthe gospel of the right to live, and the right to live healthy, happy\nlives, has sunk deep into the hearts of the people; and before the\nwar, so great was the work of science in preventing untimely death\nthat the day of Isaiah seemed at hand, when a man's life should be\n\"more precious than fine gold, even a man than the golden wedge of\nOphir.\" There is a sentence in the writings of the Father of\nMedicine upon which all commentators have lingered, \"[Greek: \u00ean gar\npar\u00ea philanthr\u00f4pi\u00ea, paresti kai philotechni\u00ea]\"[19]--the love of\nhumanity associated with the love of his craft!--philanthropia and\nphilotechnia--the joy of working joined in each one to a true love\nof his brother. Memorable sentence indeed! in which for the first\ntime was coined the magic word \"philanthropy,\" and conveying the\nsubtle suggestion that perhaps in this combination the longings of\nhumanity may find their solution, and Wisdom--_Philosophia_--at last be\njustified of her children.\n\n    [19] _oeuvres compl\u00e8tes d' Hippocrates._ Par E. Littr\u00e9, IX, 258.\n\n\n                                THE END\n\n\n\n\n                          The Riverside Press\n\n                       CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS\n                               U . S . A\n\n\n\n\n                           Transcriber Notes:\n\nPassages in italics were indicated by _underscores_.\n\nSmall caps were replaced with ALL CAPS.\n\nThroughout the document, the oe ligature was replaced with \"OE\".\n\nErrors in punctuation and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected\nunless otherwise noted.\n\nFootnotes were moved to after the paragraph they were referenced in.\n\nOn page 26, the second open parenthesis was replaced with a closed\nparenthesis.","title":"The Old Humanities and the New Science","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":12127}