Kitabı oku: «The Freedom of Science», sayfa 30

The Responsibility before History

The distressing fact is realized that the worm of immorality is devouring in our day the marrow of the most civilized nations. It is also known that its wretched victims are in no class so numerous as in the class of college men. Earnest-minded men and women are raising a warning cry, and are forming societies to stem the ruin of the nations. The alarm bell is ringing through the lands.

Remarkable words on this subject are those written not long ago by Paulsen: “It looks as if all the demons had been let loose at this moment to devastate the basis of the people's life. Those who know Germany through reading only, through its comic weeklies, its plays, its novels, the windows of its bookshops, the lectures delivered and attended by male and female, must arrive at the opinion that the paramount question to the German people just now is whether the restrictions put on the free play of the sexual impulse by custom and law are evil and should be abolished?” Paulsen puts the responsibility for it upon the sophistry on the sexual instinct and the present naturalism in the view of the world: “The prevailing naturalism in the view of world and life is leading to astonishing aberrations of judgment, and this is true also of men otherwise discerning. If man is nothing else but a system of natural instincts, similar in this to the rest of living beings, then, indeed, no one can tell what other purpose life could have than the gratification of all instincts… Reformation of ideas – this is the cry heard in all streets; cast off a Christianity hostile to life, that is killing in embryo thousands of possibilities for happiness. True, even in past ages young people were not spared temptation. But the barriers were stronger; traditional, moral, religious sentiment, and sensible views. Our time has pulled down these barriers; young people everywhere are advised by all the leading lights of the day: old morals and religion are dead, slain by modern science; the old commandments are the obsolete fetters of superstition. We know now their origin; they are but auto-suggestions of common consciousness which mistakes them for voices from another world, that has been deposed long since by the scientific thought of to-day.”

These are words of indignation of a well-meaning friend of mankind. Do they not rebound upon the speaker himself to become terrible self-accusations for him and others, who, while perhaps of similar well-meaning sentiment, are actually working for the annihilation of the moral-religious sentiment, as Paulsen himself has done by his books?

“The old religion is dead, slain by science,” is proclaimed in innumerable passages of his books; the idea of another world has long been disposed of by the scientific reasoning of the present time, “hence a philosophy,” he tells us, “which insists upon the thesis that certain natural processes make it necessary to assume a metaphysical principle, or a supernatural agency, will always have science for an irreconcilable opponent.” “It will be difficult for a future age to understand,” he writes elsewhere, “how our times so complacently could cling to a system of religious instruction originated many centuries ago under entirely different conditions of intellectual life, and which in many points forms the decided opposite to facts and notions which, outside of the school, are taken by our times for granted.” In respect to morals, too, one can do without a supernatural law. “According to the view presented here, ethics as a science does not depend on belief… Moral laws are the natural laws of the human-historical life of time and place… Nor does it seem advisable in pedagogical-practical respect to make the force or the significance of ethical commands dependent on a matter so uncertain as the belief in a future life.” We might cite many similar expressions from his writings.

It is significant that they have to condemn their own science in view of its sad consequences.

Paulsen loudly demands restriction for the freedom of art, for the industry of lewdness, for the literature of perversity.

He says: “The English people, admired by us because of their liberal principles and free institutions, are less afraid to show by the sternest means the door to salacious minds … the feeling of responsibility for preserving the roots of the strength of the people's life is in England far more wide awake than with us, who still feel in our bones the fear of censure and the policeman's club… But what are the things committed by our nasty trades and the publications in their service other than so many assaults upon our liberty? Are they not primarily an assault upon the inner freedom of adolescent youth who are made slaves of their lowest instincts by the industries of these merchants? Therefore admonish the hangman not to be swerved by the plea of freedom.”

No one will deny approval to these words. But do they not, again, become a severe condemnation of the reckless freedom in teaching, that claims the right to assault without hindrance the truths which are the foundation of our nation? If art must not become a danger, why may science? If the artist is asked to take into consideration the innocence and weal of young people, if he is cautioned not to follow solely “his sense for beauty,” why should the teacher be allowed to follow his “sense for truth” without regard for anything else? If no statute of limitation and restriction exist for science, neither prescribed nor prohibited ideas for the academic teacher, why should there be any prohibited “æsthetic principles” for the artist? Manifestly, because here the absurdity of this freedom is more clearly perceptible, because it leads to shamelessness. At this juncture, therefore, they are constrained to concede the untenability and the senselessness of the unlimited human freedom, that is defended with so much volubility.

Paulsen points to an age in which, similarly to our times, progressive men arose and, in the name of science, discarded religion and morals; they called themselves men of science, sages, “sophists.” “It is remarkable that the very same occurrence was observed more than 2,000 years ago, when Plato experienced it in his time with the young people of Athens, who became fascinated by similar sophistical speech.”

The noble Sage of Greece had caustic words for Protagoras, the champion of sophistry, and his brethren in spirit: “If cobblers and tailors were to put in worse condition the shoes and clothes they receive for improving, this would soon be known and they would starve; not so Protagoras, who is corrupting quietly the whole of Hellas, and who has dismissed his disciples in a worse state than he received them, and this for more than forty years… Not Protagoras alone, but many others did this before and after him. Did they knowingly deceive and poison the youth or did they not realize what they were doing? Are we to assume that these men, praised by many for their sagacity, have done so in ignorance? No, they were not blind to their acts, but blind were the young people who paid them for instruction, blind were their parents who confided them to these sophists, blindest were the communities that admitted them instead of turning them away.”

What a responsibility to co-operate in the intellectual corruption of entire generations! And the corruption by dechristianizing is increasing in all circles, owing to the misuse of science. That the condition is not even worse is not the merit of this science, nor evidence of the harmlessness of its freedom; it is the merit of the after effect of a Christian past, which continues to influence, consciously or unconsciously, the thought and feeling even of those circles that seem to be long since estranged from Christianity.

Concerning the decline of morality in our age Paulsen observes: “Foerster rightly emphasizes the fact that the old Church rendered an imperishable service in moralizing and spiritualizing our life, by urging first of all the discipline of the will, and by raising heroes of self-denial in the persons of her Saints. That we still draw from this patrimony I, too, do not doubt. That we waste it carelessly is indeed the great danger.”

“It was a wonderfully balmy evening in the fall of 1905,” relates Rev. L. Ballet, missionary in Japan, “and the sun had just set behind Mount Fiji. Unexpectedly a young Japanese appeared in front of me, desiring to talk to me. I noticed that he was a young student. I bade him enter, and we saluted each other with a low bow, as persons meeting for the first time. I asked him to take a seat opposite to me, and took advantage of the first moments of silence to take a good look at him. But imagine my astonishment when his first question was, ‘Do you believe life is worth living?’ asked in an earnest but calm manner. I confess this question from lips so young alarmed me and went to my heart like a thrust. ‘Why, certainly,’ was my reply, ‘life is worth living, and living good. How do you come to ask a question that sounds so strange from the lips of a young man? You certainly do not desire to follow the example of your fellow-countryman Fijimura Misao, who jumped into the abyss from Mount Kegon?’ – ‘No, sir, at least not yet. I confess, however, that I feel my hesitation to be cowardice, for I have made this resolution for some time. In my opinion man is purely a thing of blind accident, a wretched, ephemeral fly without importance, without value. Why then prolong a life in which a little pleasure is added to so much sorrow, so much disappointment; a life that at any rate finally melts away into nothing? I am more and more convinced that this is the truth.’ – ‘And what brought you to such views?’ – ‘Well, science, philosophy, the books which I have read for pastime or study. If it were only the opinion of our few Japanese scientists one might hesitate; but the science, the philosophy, of Europe, translated and expounded by our writers, teach the same thing. God, soul, future life, all is idle delusion. Nothing is eternal but only matter. After twenty, thirty, sixty years, man dies, and there remains nothing of him but his body, which will decay in order to pass into other beings, matter like he was. This is what science teaches us; a hard doctrine, I confess; but what is there to be said against it, considering the positive results of scientific research?’ ”

Great responsibility is borne by a science that despoils mankind of its best, of all that gives it comfort and support in life! In faraway Japan there is not the spiritual power of Christianity to counteract the misuse of science; the poison does its work and there is no antidote.

That the Christian nations “carelessly waste their patrimony, that, indeed, is the great danger.”

Chapter II. Freedom Of Teaching And The State

Close bonds of mutual dependence and solidarity interlink all created beings, especially men. Insufficient in himself, both physically and mentally, man finds in uniting with others everything he needs; thus do individuals and families join forces, generations join hands; what the fathers have earned is inherited and increased by new generations. Human life is essentially social life and co-operation – in the indefinite form social life within the great human society, in the definite form social life within the two great bodies, Church and state. Within both bodies human benefits are to be attained and protected against danger by common exertion – within the Church the spiritual benefits of eternal character, within the state the temporal benefits.

Hence both bodies, or societies, will have to take a position in relation to science and its doctrine. Indeed, in civilized nations there is hardly a public activity of mightier influence upon life than science. The contemplation of this position shall now be our task.

Science, as we have above set forth, addresses itself to mankind – a fallible science addressing itself to men easily deceived; therefore, an unrestricted freedom in teaching is ethically inadmissible. Hence it follows, as a matter of course, that the authorities of state and Church, who must guard the common benefits, have the duty of keeping the freedom in scientific teaching within its proper bounds, so far as this lies in their power. Hitherto we have left these social authorities out of consideration; the position taken was the general ethical one.

The case might be supposed that the Church had provided few restrictions of this kind, and the state none at all; nevertheless, an absolute freedom in teaching would still present a condition dangerous to the community at large, contrary to the demands of morality; we should then have an unrestricted freedom in teaching, permitted by law, but ethically inadmissible.

The distinction is important. Quite often freedom in teaching is spoken of as permitted by the state, as if it was identical with ethical permission. If freedom in teaching is permitted by the state, this evidently means only that the state permits teaching without interference on its part; it says, I do not stand in the way, I let things proceed. But this does not mean that it is right and proper. The burden of personal responsibility rests upon him who avails himself of a freedom which, though not hindered by the state, is in conflict with what is right. The state tolerates many things – it does not interfere against unkindness, nor against extravagance, nor deceit; nevertheless everybody is morally responsible for such doings.

If, then, we take up the question, what position social authority should take toward scientific teaching, whether it be in the higher schools, or outside of them, we are considering chiefly the state. It is the state that enters most into consideration when freedom in teaching nowadays is discussed; the state may interfere most effectively in the management of schools and universities, for these are state institutions in most countries.

Universities as State Institutions

They were not always state institutions. The universities of the Middle Ages were autonomous corporations, which constituted themselves, made their own statutes, had their own courts, but enjoyed at the same time legal rights. Conditions gradually changed after the Reformation. The power of princes began more and more to interfere in the management of the universities, until in the seventeenth century, and still more in the eighteenth, the universities became state institutions, subject to the reigning sovereign, the professors his salaried officials, and text-books, subject and form of instruction were prescribed by the minute, paternal directions of the sovereign, and with the mania for regulating that was a feature of the eighteenth century. The nineteenth century brought more liberty; it was demanded by the enlarged scope of universities, which no longer were only the training schools for the learned professions, but became the home of research, needing freedom of movement.

Nevertheless, universities are in many countries still state institutions. They are founded by the state, are given organization and laws by the state; the teachers are appointed and given their commissions by the state. They are state officials, though less under government supervision than other state officials. At the same time these universities are possessed of a certain measure of autonomy, a remainder of olden times. They elect their academic authorities, which have some autonomy and disciplinary jurisdiction. Likewise the separate faculties have their powers; they confer degrees, administer their benefices, and exert considerable influence in filling vacant chairs.

The state then considers it its duty to grant freedom in teaching. “Science and its teaching are free,” says the law in some countries. No doubt a loosely drawn sentence; at any rate, it means that science should be granted the proper freedom. And this freedom it must have. We have become more sensitive of unjustified paternal government than were the people of the eighteenth century.

The Object of the State

What kind of a freedom in teaching, then, should be granted by the state? Unlimited freedom? This is, at any rate, not a necessary conclusion. The state must also grant freedom to the father for the education of his children, to the landowner for the culture of his fields, to the artist in the production of his works; but that freedom would not be understood to be an unlimited one, having no regard to the interests of society, but merely as the exclusion of unwarranted interference. Hence if the state, for reasons of the commonwealth, were to restrict freedom of teaching, the restraint could not be considered unjust. The purpose of the state must not suffer injury; to attain this purpose the state has the right to demand, and must demand, all that is necessary to the purpose in view, even though it entails a restriction of somebody's freedom. Now for a definition of this purpose of the state.

Like any other society, the state seeks to attain a definite object, so much the more because the state is necessary to man, who otherwise would have to forego the things most needed in life; and but for the public co-operation of the many these could be attained not at all, or at least not sufficiently. To provide these things is the object of the state, viz., the public welfare of the citizens; it is to bring about public conditions which will enable the citizens to attain their temporal welfare. To this end the state must protect the rights of its subjects, and must protect and promote the public goods of economic life, but especially the spiritual benefits of morals and religion. The state, through its legislative, judicial, and executive functions, is to direct effectively the community to this end; therefore it is incumbent upon the state to care for the preservation and promotion of both material and spiritual benefits, for the protection of private rights, and for the conditions necessary to its own existence, even against the arbitrary will of its subjects.

Protection for the Spiritual Foundations of Life

From this the conclusion naturally follows, that the state must not grant freedom to propound in public, by speech or writing, theories that will endanger the religious and moral goods of its citizens and the foundation of the state.

We claim that the state neglects a solemn duty if it permits without hindrance – we will not say, the ridicule and disparagement of religion and morals: the less so, as freedom to ridicule and to slander has nothing to do with freedom in teaching – but the public promulgation of theories which are either irreligious, or against morals, or against the state. Even though they be done in scientific form, injuries to the common weal remain injuries, and they do not change into something else by being committed in scientific form. The state must seek to prevent such injuries by strictly enforced penalties and by the selection of conscientious teachers. The enforcement of the principle may not be possible under circumstances, legislatures may lack insight or good will, or the complexion of the state may not admit of it for the time being, or permanently. Then we would simply see a regrettable condition, a government incapable of ridding itself of the morbid matter which is poisoning its marrow. But if there is good will and energy, one thing may always be done to check injurious influences, and that is the awakening and employment of forces of opposition.

The University of Halle is said to have been the first one to enjoy modern freedom in teaching. What, at that time, however, was meant by freedom in teaching, is shown by the words of Chr. Thomasius in 1694: “Thank God that He has prompted His Anointed (the prince) not to introduce here the yoke under which many are now and then languishing, but gracefully to grant our teachers the freedom of doctrines that are not against God and the state.” One hundred and fifty years later Minister Eichhorn advised the University of Koenigsberg that in natural sciences neither the individual freedom in teaching nor of research are limited, that the case is different, however, with philosophy as applied to life, with history, theology, and the science of laws. “The first requisite there,” he said, “is a proper bent of mind, which, however, can find its basis and its lasting support only in religion. With the proper bent of mind there will be no desire to teach doctrines which attack the roots of the very life of one's own country.”

Now, what considerations make it plain that the duty of the state is as stated? Two: consideration for its subjects, and consideration for the state itself. The state must protect the highest possessions of its citizens. For that reason men are by nature itself prompted to found states, so as to protect better their common goods, by the strong hand of an authority, against foes from within and without, and to enable them to bequeath those goods inviolate to their sons and grandsons. Hence they must demand of state-power not to tolerate conditions which would greatly jeopardize those goods, and certainly not to allow attacks thereon by its own educational organs. The highest spiritual benefits of civilization, and at the same time the necessary foundations of a well-ordered life, are, first of all, morality and religion; not morality alone, but also religion, do not forget this. Man's first duty is the duty of worshipping God, of recognizing and worshipping his Creator, the ultimate end of all things. A profound truth was stated by Aristotle, when, coupling the duties to God with those to parents, he said that those merit punishment who question the duty of worshipping the gods and of loving one's parents. Hence the first thing to be preserved to the nations is religion; it is in many ways their most precious possession, too. Not only do all nations possess religion, not excepting the most uncivilized; but there is no power that influences life and stirs the heart more than religion. Consider the religious wars of history; while they were surely deplorable, they demonstrate what religion is to man. Even in individuals who to all appearance are irreligious, religion never fully dies out; it appears there in false forms, or is their great puzzle, maybe the incubus of their lives, giving them no rest. Only in conjunction with firm religious principle can morality stand fast. Nowadays they work for ethics without religion, for education and school without God. Theoreticians in their four walls, removed from all real life, are busily working out systems of this sort. This new ethics has not yet stood the test of life, or, if it did, it has succeeded in gaining for its adherents only those who are at odds with religion and morals. These theories must first be otherwise attested before they may replace the old, well-tried religious foundations.

The noted and justly esteemed pedagogue, Fr. W. Foerster, writes: “On the part of free-thinkers vigorous complaint has been made that my book so decidedly confesses the unparalleled pedagogic strength of the Christian religion. The author therefore repeats emphatically that this confession has not grown out of an arbitrary metaphysical mood, but directly out of his moral-pedagogic studies. For over ten years of a long period of instructing the youth in ethics, he has been engaged exclusively in studying psychologically the problem of character-forming, and the result of his studies is his conviction that all attempts at educating youth without religion are absolutely futile. And, in the judgment of the author, the only reason why the notion that religion is superfluous in education is prevalent in such large circles of modern pedagogues, is, that they have no extensive practical experience in character-training, nor made thorough and concentrated studies.” “The fact is, that all education in which religion to all outward appearance is dispensed with, is still deeply influenced by the after-effect of religious sanction and religious earnestness. What education without religion really means will become more clearly known in the coming generation.”

The state is zealous in protecting the property of its citizens, to which end a powerful police apparatus is constantly at work. If the state deems it its duty to interfere in this matter, must it not consider it a still higher duty to protect religion and morals, for the very reason that they are the property of its citizens, and even their most precious? Pro aris et focis, for home and altar, was what was fought for by the old Romans. Is it possible that a pagan government was more sterling and high-minded than the Christian state of the present? If it is to be the bearer of civilization, it ought to consider that man liveth not by bread alone. The only true mental civilization is the one which does not hamper but helps man in attaining his eternal goal.

Modern state power is being urged from all sides to take measures against the corruption of morals by the novel and the shop window, and not to look on apathetically when the consuming fire is spreading all about, in the name of art. Are the dangers to the spiritual health of society any less if reformers, in the name of science, shake at the foundations of matrimony, advocate polygamy, teach atheism? Because a so-called reformer has lost the fundamental truths of our moral-religious order, must all the rest submit to an attack upon the sacred possessions of themselves and their descendants?

That the rights of the teacher are not unrestricted was set forth by an American paper (“Science,” No. 321) in its comment upon the removal of certain professors: “There are barriers set to them on the one hand by the rights of the students, and by the rights of the college where he teaches, on the other. The college must preserve its reputation and its good name, the student must be protected against palpable errors and waste of time… If a professor of sociology should attack the institution of matrimony, and propound the gospel of polygamy and of free love, then neither the right to teach his views nor his honesty of purpose would save him from dismissal. This is of course a very extreme case, not likely to happen.”

Is it so very extreme? Certainly not in regard to teaching by books. Listen: “From the foregoing it is self-evident that polygyny based upon the rivalry of men for women (analogous to the animal kingdom) presents the natural sexual practice of mankind. Whether there is to be preferred a simultaneous or a successive polygyny, or a combination of both, would depend on varying conditions. The ethical type of the sexual condition, viz., in general the desirable biological type, is the one that would best suit a polygyny based upon a selection of man.” It is taught further: “The monogamic principle of marriage in general is only conditionally favorable to civilization, whereas it is destructive of it constitutionally, hence in need of reform.” “Our contemporaneous sexual reform wave has not yet assumed the position of this knowledge; on the contrary, notwithstanding its revolutionary aspect in some particulars, it is still under the ban of the traditional ideal of marriage”; continence before marriage is an “absurd” proposition!

This new system of morals, fit for the barnyard, but for women the lowest degradation, is now to become the ideal of men, nay, even of women: “True motherly pride, true womanly dignity, are incompatible with the exclusiveness of the monogamic property principle. If our movement for sexual reform is to elevate us instead of plunging us into the mire, then this view must become part and parcel of our women.” “The picture of the motherly woman, of the woman with the pride of sexual modesty, instead of with the exciting desire of possession … this picture must become the ideal of men, and sink down to the bottom of their soul and into the fibres of their nervous system; it must animate their fancy and awaken their sensual passions.”²⁰ We stand right in the midst of the world of beasts!

This perilous moral teaching is allowed also in public lectures. On November 14, 1908, the “Allgemeine Rundschau” wrote: “Imagine a spacious concert-hall, brightly illuminated, every one of the many seats occupied, the boxes filled to the last place, the aisles crowded, by a most variegated audience: men and women, young maidens, youths with downy beard; gentlemen of high rank with their ladies, faces upon which are written a life of vast experience side by side with childish faces whose innocence is betrayed by their looks, and on the platform a university professor and physician, holding forth about the most intimate relations of sexual life: the unfitness of celibacy, the Catholic morals of matrimony, prostitution and prostitutes, the causes of adultery, ‘sterile marriage,’ onanism, and many kinds of perversities. The man is, moreover, speaking in a fashion that makes one forget the admonishments of conscience.”

The city council of Lausanne, in its meeting of February 10, 1907, prohibited Forel's lecture as an attack upon decency and public morals, making reference in its resolution to Forel's ideas as laid down in his book. In protest, Forel made a public statement, saying among other things: “If the council desires to be logical it would have to prohibit also the sale of my book.” We have no objection to make to his conclusion.

We stated that religion is man's first duty. This applies not only to the individual, but also – and this is forgotten too often – to the state. Man, by his nature, and hence in all forms of his life, including his citizenship, is obliged to have religion. He remains in all conditions the creature which is dependent upon God. And does not the state, too, owe special duties of gratitude to God? It owes its origin to God: the impulse to found states has been put into the human nature by its Creator; the state owes to God the foundation of its authority: in a thousand difficulties the state is thrown upon His help. Therefore a public divine service is found with all peoples. Does the state comply with this duty by silently supporting a public atheism when it might do otherwise? by even becoming its patron, when, posing as science, it ascends to the lecturing desk to teach adolescing youth?