Science and the Intellect : Part 7

Heart and Soul by Maveric Post
by Victor Mapes

(Page 12 of 19)

For tendencies which appear to be world-wide, it is fair to assume that there must be some cause, or causes, which are world-wide also. The spread of modern science complies with that. Our English author refers to the declining influence and lack of vitality of the English church, without hazarding an opinion as to the cause. The idea which we have gotten hold of affords a clue to that part of it, at least.

If it is also a clue to all the rest, as I suggest it may be, then, by following its lead in different directions, we ought to unearth lucid explanations for the various phenomena which are disturbing and perplexing so many people.

Let us go on a little further and see just what we do find.

Let us imagine, for a moment, that I am a workman, a mechanic, of the average intelligence to be found among the great run of so-called common people. I have heard enough about modern science to be lost in wonder of it and I received a good modern education at the high school. I gave up going to church because it didn't appeal to me - a lot of the Bible preaching seemed out-of-date, unreasonable and unpractical. I've heard a little about this theory of evolution - man descended from an ape - and as modern science is said to have proved it, I guess it must be so. The main thing that concerns me is that I'm here, on the job, with a living to make. There are a lot of other men around me, about the same as I am. We're reasonable and practical and believe in getting all we can, honestly. We think we're about as good as anybody else and we believe in the rule of the majority.

When I look about at the people born luckier than I am, with more of the world's goods, I can't see that they're any different from the rest of us. They're trying to get all they can, too, only they've managed to get a blame sight more than the rest of us. Take my boss, for instance. Is there any reason for him to be living in a big house with eight servants, and riding around in a limousine car, when all I can afford is a flivver? Does he work any harder than I do? Is he any better man? or any smarter? I haven't seen any proof of it. But just because he happened to have a rich father before him, he's allowed to get the lion's share of all we make. Is that reasonable? We all want the good things of life, as much as he does, and if we're in the majority, why shouldn't we have our share?

He didn't make the capital that's in this business, and he didn't have anything to do with making his rich father; and the money his father made, when you come down to it, was squeezed from men like us. If the world is supposed to be run by reason, and reason says the majority ought to rule, why shouldn't each one of us have an equal share with him?

I'm thinking of myself, of course, the same as everybody else - first, last and all the time - and in that way I'd be a lot better off, but that doesn't prevent what I want from being reasonable.

Without saying it, in so many words, is it not plain that I am merely following in a way that an ordinary mind might understand, the creed which science has recommended as the underlying motive for all conduct - self-interest and the rule of reason.

Doubtless a very highly developed scientific intellect might declare that my reason is not sufficiently enlightened; but it has received a high school education, and looked about at what other people are doing, and formed the scientific habit of sticking to the facts. Isn't that about as much as Enlightened Reason could expect of me?

Now if you happen to be another type of workman, less affected by the modern scientific conclusions concerning life, you might reply as follows:

"I feel very contented and humbly grateful to the Lord for all the benefits he has given us. I am well and strong, I have a better home, and better wages, and squarer treatment than workmen ever received in any country in the world. I can make enough to provide modestly and comfortably for my wife and children, which after all is the main thing for my happiness. It is not for me to pass judgment on the life of our employer, or his inheritance, or the life of his father before him, or the great scheme of human existence which is behind and beyond it all. It is enough for me to accept such things, as the wish of an all-wise Creator."

Of these two opposing points of view, which appears to be the one that has been spreading and gaining in the world to-day - in America and England, Italy, France, Spain and other countries? Which one is dependent upon the fundamental feelings of faith and aspiration, which have always found shelter in a religion of some sort - and which one may be traced, almost directly, to a crude interpretation of the progress and dictates of modern science?

And let it be noted that in this field, also, before the world war began, this movement of self-interest and reason was already in evidence and well on its way.

If we examine the Labor Union and the Closed Shop, and Strikes and Socialism and Bolshevism, and all those other kindred isms, we can see, readily enough, that the under side of them all is tarred with the same brush - self-interest, selfishness, greed, individual and collective, and reason, argument, excuse, more or less distorted and perverted, but more or less enlightened by the principles of modern Science, as they appear to the average intellect. The fundamental and innate spiritual feelings of man's better nature have been so covered over by the energy of this brush that, for the most part, they are only rarely and intermittently discernible.

Suppose we now follow our clue in another direction - into the home and family and private life of the average up-to-date woman. And it is permitted us to imagine, if we choose, that I am such a woman, while you are my well-meaning, but rather out-of-date, husband.

Copyright 1921 by The Century Co.