Classics of Modern Science: Copernicus to Pasteur

“The history of science,” wrote Du Bois-Reymond, “is the real history of mankind.” Gradually we are coming to realize the significance of that statement, and the sooner we realize it on a grand scale the more shall we hasten the happiness of man.

Fortunately for education, science no longer has to fight for its inclusion among the courses offered for study in colleges and universities. As scientific knowledge increases and the technique of teaching science improves, the exact knowledge of the few more rapidly becomes the accepted knowledge of the many. More than that, the scientific attitude of mind produces many of the virtues which in old-fashioned courses in ethics were taught as objectively as a problem in geometry. Patience, endurance, humility, teachableness, honesty, accuracy—without these it is impossible for a scientist properly to work. And the history of science is as inspiring in its human values as are the legends of the saints. Contemplate the heroism of a Galileo, the patience of a Darwin, the humility of a Pasteur; a modern eleventh chapter of Hebrews might be written listing the names of all those men of faith who by quiet work, unremitting in their zeal, one by one discovered facts which have made man’s lot easier and happier in what was otherwise to him a hostile and unhappy universe.

Little by little, accretion upon accretion, man’s knowledge of the physical forces of his universe has been increased, but his progress has often been retarded by those who, with good intentions, superstitiously feared the power of the gods who, as in the story of Brunhilde, encircled their mysteries with a ring of fire. Periodically superstition re-arises, but it does not permanently halt the advance deploy of armed skirmishers, however much it may temporarily retard the advancement of knowledge. Since the seventeenth century, however, so remarkable has been the progress of science, so evident have been its beneficent achievements, that regardless of the present assault upon one phase of science, western civilization is committed to this way of discovery. But it is no easy way! “The rapid increase of natural knowledge,” wrote Thomas Henry Huxley, “which is the chief characteristic of our age, is affected in various ways. The main army of science moves to the conquest of the new worlds slowly and surely, nor ever cedes an inch of the territory gained. But the advance is covered and facilitated by the ceaseless activity of clouds of light troops provided with a weapon—always efficient, if not always an arm of precision—the scientific imagination. It is the business of these enfants perdus of science to make raids into the realms of ignorance wherever they see, or think they see, a chance; and cheerfully to accept defeat, or it may be annihilation, as the reward of error. Unfortunately the public, which watches the progress of the campaign, too often mistakes a dashing incursion ... for a forward movement of the main body; fondly imagining that the strategic movement to the rear, which occasionally follows, indicates a battle lost by science.”

It is regrettable that Huxley was compelled to use the metaphor of a battle in describing the general advance of scientific knowledge; how much better it would have been if he could have used a scientific word like enzymeor catalyst in referring to those courageous men of the laboratory and the field who went forth alone with instruments to discover things as they really are and changed fields of knowledge through their discoveries. But if he had employed these scientific terms, no one, apart from the select company of scientists themselves who have had to evolve a special language of their own to express new matters and new meanings, would understand him. People who use strange tongues are always suspect to the populace. If science is to be “understanded” by the people, the people’s language must be used. Fortunately, for the sake of science, scientists themselves are now keenly aware of the necessity of presenting their findings in language which may be understood by the ordinary man. Huxley himself made the liaison in his age, an age in which battles were highly idealised. His grandson, however, speaking to our age, rephrases the idea in a mode more acceptable to us: “Each science or branch of science seems roughly to go through three main phases in its development. There is first a preliminary phase in which miscellaneous sporadic knowledge is amassed and is dated; theories are pursued, often to be proved valueless. There then comes a classic or heroic age, in which a general principle of firmly interrelated principles is gradually laid down, upon which in its turn a coherent architecture of theory can be built, and finally this passes over into a period of maturity, in which the position is consolidated, the scope of the principles widened, their bases more finally tested, and their consequences worked out in fullest detail. Naturally, each stage lasts for a considerable time, and in many cases a science which thought itself securely embarked upon the third phase is reminded by some fundamental discovery that it is still only in the second.”