Science and the Intellect : Part 1

Heart and Soul by Maveric Post
by Victor Mapes

(Page 6 of 19)

No amount of reasoning can alter the fact that certain spontaneous and fundamental feelings of man's inner nature inspire him to conscientious effort and, as they presumably owe their origin to an all-wise Creator, they may be safely relied on to indicate his part and responsibility in the mysterious scheme.

It seems to me that nothing in the whole problem of life is more important than a thorough realization of this undoubted truth - that the big fundamental feelings of man's better nature are absolutely independent and apart from the working of his intellect, or any calculation of self-interest, conscious or implied, just as they are independent of his material appetites and instincts. A clear understanding of this truth will answer many of the questions which are so apt to confuse the reason and trouble the peace of mind of the average much instructed person.

If a scientific doubter asks us how we can be sure of this, we can answer without hesitation that the evidence of our own inner feelings is unmistakable proof of it. The only proof of a feeling is the feeling itself. We have it - we are conscious of it - it is, as far as we are concerned, and it is futile for any outsider to deny it.

If any one is so constituted that he cannot get the force of this, we may make the understanding of it easier by turning his attention to the feelings of man's esthetic nature, which operate in a somewhat similar way. We have already had occasion to refer to them, but we may be permitted to do so again, with added emphasis. They are an illustration and a confirmation of the vitally important principle which we have just been stating.

If a setting sun, or a harmony, or musical notes, appeal to my sense of beauty and give rise to a vague but delicious emotion of my inner nature, all the arguments of all the intellects on earth are powerless to alter the essence and meaning of that feeling, so far as my nature is concerned. To me that feeling of beauty is a fact, and it would remain just as much a fact, even if no other person in the world shared it with me; and every other person in the world undertook to deny its existence. The only proof I have of it, the only proof I need for it, is that I feel it.

Now when the intellect takes upon itself to meddle with such things, a learned professor may explain that a certain musical note is composed of vibrations - so many thousand per second - which are communicated to particles of matter in suspension in the air and carried by them to the tympanum of the ear, which acts thus-and-so upon the various components of the hearing apparatus, and finally arrives through a system of ganglia to a certain nerve centre, located somewhere in a brain cell, or the spinal column. He may use a great many other big words and display various kinds of scientific devices for measuring sound waves and calculating vibrations, but when he has finished, all his science will not enable him to compose a touching melody, or feel the beauty and inspiration of it. A little child, or a negro mammy, with a soul for music, will feel and give out something, whose very essence has nothing to do with the intellect and which the most formidable intellect is powerless to grasp.

The same thing is true of painting and poetry and sculpture. The feelings which inspire them and the feelings which they arouse in receptive souls are totally independent of the intellect.

The reason may argue that as one leg of the Venus de Milo is found by measurement to be considerably shorter than the other, it is absurd to call that a beautiful figure of a woman - or that it should excite as much admiration as a scientifically constructed statue in which all the proportions would be in accord with carefully tabulated statistics.

As a photograph of a young and healthy girl is more accurate and more pleasing in subject than a painting of an old woman, what reason is there for it to arouse less esthetic feeling than an immortal portrait by Rembrandt?

If a description of a small water course, drawn up by a surveyor and a lawyer, is exact and comprehensive, why should it not appeal to the imagination and sense of beauty more satisfactorily than a poem by Tennyson, entitled "The Brook?"

The obvious answer is that in all such questions the intellect is out of its element, trying to lay hands on something which has no tangible substance.

If this point-of-view is not enough to give your intellect food for thought and suggest its very decided limitations in the life of man, you may turn its light upon the simplest and most material sensations and feelings which belong to the animal nature and are common to all mankind.

What reason is there for my brother to dote on fried onions, while I cannot endure them? Why does my uncle like pig's feet and eels and snails, while my wife is made almost ill at the sight of them? Your intellect may tell you that you ought to like the taste of castor oil, because it is good for you; but all the intellect in the world cannot make you like the taste of castor oil.

The taste, the savor, the feel of things - whether it be in the material world, or the esthetic world, or the spiritual world - is a part of life in which the intellect is forever condemned to remain an outsider. It may be very much interested in what is going on, it may reason with the causes and effects and characteristics of what it sees; it may make suggestions to the will-power and argue against the impulses which are prompted by the feelings; but it cannot prevent the feelings, or the impulses, from being there and having their say.

The life and say of the feelings mean much to the welfare of each individual. Let us suppose that the circumstances of my life were such that I could truthfully express myself as follows:

"I feel well and strong; I feel that I love my wife devotedly and my wife returns that love; I feel immense affection for my children; I feel I would make any and every sacrifice to protect them and my wife from harm; I feel very hopeful about the future, both for my family and myself; I feel I have done my best, in accordance with my ability; I have a feeling of loyalty to my friends and a feeling of honor in my dealings with my fellow men; I feel content with my lot, in particular, and the way of the world, in general; and whether my life was evolved from a monkey and a protoplasm, or came into being as a divine and perfect conception, I feel an abiding faith in an all-wise but mysterious purpose for everything."

Copyright 1921 by The Century Co.