“YOU can hardly get an allusion to the evolutionist writers (in this country it is always Darwin) without the same idea cropping up: “The Conflict of Science with Religion.” But with what religion can Science conflict save Bibliolatry? On every side the recent presence of that strange worship—and even its present lingering—is taken for granted.”
~Hilaire Belloc: Survivals and New Arrivals.
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
Saturday, April 25, 2015
On Error
THERE is an elusive idea that has floated through the minds of most of us as we grew older and learnt more and more things. It is an idea extremely difficult to get into set terms. It is an idea very difficult to put so that we shall not seem nonsensical; and yet it is a very useful idea, and if it could be realized its realization would be of very practical value. It is the idea of a Dictionary of Ignorance and Error.
On the face of it a definition of the work is impossible. Strictly speaking it would be infinite, for human knowledge, however far extended, must always be infinitely small compared with all possible knowledge, just as any given finite space is infinitely small compared with all space.
But that is not the idea which we entertain when we consider this possible Dictionary of Ignorance and Error. What we really mean is a Dictionary of the sort of Ignorance and the sort of Error which we know ourselves to have been guilty of, which we have escaped by special experience or learning as time went on, and against which we would warn our fellows.
Flaubert, I think, first put it down in words, and said that such an encyclopaedia was very urgently needed.
It will never exist, but we all know that it ought to exist. Bits of it appear from time to time piecemeal and here and there, as for instance in the annotations which modern scholarship attaches to the great text, in the printed criticisms to which sundry accepted doctrines are subjected by the younger men to-day, in the detailed restatement of historical events which we get from modern research as our fathers could never have them—but the work itself, the complete Encyclopaedia or Dictionary of Ignorance and Error, will never be printed. It is a great pity.
Incidentally one may remark that the process by which a particular error is propagated is as interesting to watch as the way in which a plant grows.
The first step seems to be the establishing of an authority and the giving of that authority a name which comes to connote doctrinal infallibility. A very good example of this is the title "Science." Mere physical research, its achievements, its certitudes, even its conflicting and self-contradictory hypotheses, having got lumped together in many minds under this one title Science, the title is now sacred. It is used as a priestly title, as an immediate estopper to doubt or criticism.
The next step is a very interesting one for the student of psychical pathology to note. It seems to be a disease as native and universal to the human mind as is the decay of the teeth to the human body. It seems as though we all must suffer somewhat from it, and most of us suffer a great deal from it, though in a cool aspect we easily perceive it to be a lesion of thought. And this second step is as follows:
The whole lump having been given its sacred title and erected into an infallible authority, which you are to accept as directly superior to yourself and all personal sources of information, there is attributed to this idol a number of attributes. We give it a soul, and a habit and manners which do not attach to its stuff at all. The projection of this imagined living character in our authority is comparable to what we also do with mountains, statues, towns, and so forth. Our living individuality lends individuality to them. I might here digress to discuss whether this habit of the mind were not a distorted reflection of some truth, and whether, indeed, there be not such beings as demons or the souls of things. But, to leave that, we take our authority—this thing "Science," for instance—we clothe it with a creed and appetites and a will, and all the other human attributes.
This done, we set out in the third step in our progress towards fixed error. We make the idol speak. Of course, being only an idol, it talks nonsense. But by the previous steps just referred to we must believe that nonsense, and believe it we do. Thus it is, I think, that fixed error is most generally established.
I have already given one example in the hierarchic title "Science."
It was but the other day that I picked up a weekly paper in which a gentleman was discussing ghosts—that is, the supposed apparition of the living and the dead: of the dead though dead, and of the living though absent.
Nothing has been more keenly discussed since the beginning of human discussions. Are these phenomena (which undoubtedly happen) what modern people call subjective, or are they what modern people call objective? In old-fashioned English, Are the ghosts really there or are they not? The most elementary use of the human reason persuades us that the matter is not susceptible of positive proof. The criterion of certitude in any matter of perception is an inner sense in the perceiver that the thing he perceives is external to himself. He is the only witness; no one can corroborate or dispute him. The seer may be right or he may be wrong, but we have no proof—and only according to our temperament, our fancy, our experience, our mood, do we decide with one or the other of the two great schools.
Well, the gentleman of whom I am speaking wrote and had printed in plain English this phrase (read it carefully):—"Science teaches us that these phenomena are purely subjective."
Now I am quite sure that of the thousands who read that phrase all but a handful read it in the spirit in which one hears the oracle of a god. Some read it with regret, some with pleasure, but all with acquiescence.
That physical science was not competent in the matter one way or the other each of those readers would probably have discovered, if even so simple a corrective as the use of the term "physical research" instead of the sacred term "science" had been applied; the hierarchic title "Science" did the trick.
I might take another example out of many hundreds to show what I mean. You have an authority which is called, where documents are concerned, "The Best Modern Criticism." "The Best Modern Criticism" decides that "Tam o' Shanter" was written by a committee of permanent officials of the Board of Trade, or that Napoleon Bonaparte never existed. As a matter of fact, the tomfoolery does not usually venture upon ground so near home, but it talks rubbish just as monstrous about a poem a few hundred or a few thousand years old, or a great personality a few hundred or a few thousand years old.
Now if you will look at that phrase "The Best Modern Criticism" you will see at once that it simply teems with assumption and tautology. But it does more and worse: it presupposes that an infallible authority must of its own nature be perpetually wrong.
Even supposing that I have the most "modern" (that is, merely the latest) criticism to hand, and even supposing that by some omniscience of mine I can tell which is "the best" (that is, which part of it has really proved most ample, most painstaking, most general, and most sincere), even then the phrase fatally condemns me. It is to say that Wednesday is always infallible as compared with Tuesday, and Thursday as compared with Wednesday, which is absurd.
The B.M.C. tells me in 1875 that the Song of Roland could have no origins anterior to the year 1030. But the B.M.C. of 1885 (being a B.M.C. and nothing more valuable) has a changed opinion. It must change its opinion, that is the law of its being, since an integral factor in its value is its modernity. In 1885 B.M.C. tells me that the Song of Roland can be traced to origins far earlier, let us say to 912.
In 1895 B.M.C. has come to other conclusions—the Song of Roland is certainly as late as 1115 ... and so forth.
Now you would say that an idol of that absurdity could have no effect upon sane men. Change the terms and give it another name, and you would laugh at the idea of its having an effect upon any men. But we know as a matter of fact that it commands the thoughts of nearly all men to-day and makes cowards of the most learned.
Perhaps you will ask me at the end of so long a criticism in what way error may be corrected, since there is this sort of tendency in us to accept it, to which I answer that things correct it, or as the philosophers call things, "Reality." Error does not wash.
To go back to that example of ghosts. If ever you see a ghost (my poor reader), I shall ask you afterwards whether he seemed subjective or no. I think you will find the word "subjective" an astonishingly thin one—if, at least, I catch you early after the experience.
~Hilaire Belloc: in First and Last
On the face of it a definition of the work is impossible. Strictly speaking it would be infinite, for human knowledge, however far extended, must always be infinitely small compared with all possible knowledge, just as any given finite space is infinitely small compared with all space.
But that is not the idea which we entertain when we consider this possible Dictionary of Ignorance and Error. What we really mean is a Dictionary of the sort of Ignorance and the sort of Error which we know ourselves to have been guilty of, which we have escaped by special experience or learning as time went on, and against which we would warn our fellows.
Flaubert, I think, first put it down in words, and said that such an encyclopaedia was very urgently needed.
It will never exist, but we all know that it ought to exist. Bits of it appear from time to time piecemeal and here and there, as for instance in the annotations which modern scholarship attaches to the great text, in the printed criticisms to which sundry accepted doctrines are subjected by the younger men to-day, in the detailed restatement of historical events which we get from modern research as our fathers could never have them—but the work itself, the complete Encyclopaedia or Dictionary of Ignorance and Error, will never be printed. It is a great pity.
Incidentally one may remark that the process by which a particular error is propagated is as interesting to watch as the way in which a plant grows.
The first step seems to be the establishing of an authority and the giving of that authority a name which comes to connote doctrinal infallibility. A very good example of this is the title "Science." Mere physical research, its achievements, its certitudes, even its conflicting and self-contradictory hypotheses, having got lumped together in many minds under this one title Science, the title is now sacred. It is used as a priestly title, as an immediate estopper to doubt or criticism.
The next step is a very interesting one for the student of psychical pathology to note. It seems to be a disease as native and universal to the human mind as is the decay of the teeth to the human body. It seems as though we all must suffer somewhat from it, and most of us suffer a great deal from it, though in a cool aspect we easily perceive it to be a lesion of thought. And this second step is as follows:
The whole lump having been given its sacred title and erected into an infallible authority, which you are to accept as directly superior to yourself and all personal sources of information, there is attributed to this idol a number of attributes. We give it a soul, and a habit and manners which do not attach to its stuff at all. The projection of this imagined living character in our authority is comparable to what we also do with mountains, statues, towns, and so forth. Our living individuality lends individuality to them. I might here digress to discuss whether this habit of the mind were not a distorted reflection of some truth, and whether, indeed, there be not such beings as demons or the souls of things. But, to leave that, we take our authority—this thing "Science," for instance—we clothe it with a creed and appetites and a will, and all the other human attributes.
This done, we set out in the third step in our progress towards fixed error. We make the idol speak. Of course, being only an idol, it talks nonsense. But by the previous steps just referred to we must believe that nonsense, and believe it we do. Thus it is, I think, that fixed error is most generally established.
I have already given one example in the hierarchic title "Science."
It was but the other day that I picked up a weekly paper in which a gentleman was discussing ghosts—that is, the supposed apparition of the living and the dead: of the dead though dead, and of the living though absent.
Nothing has been more keenly discussed since the beginning of human discussions. Are these phenomena (which undoubtedly happen) what modern people call subjective, or are they what modern people call objective? In old-fashioned English, Are the ghosts really there or are they not? The most elementary use of the human reason persuades us that the matter is not susceptible of positive proof. The criterion of certitude in any matter of perception is an inner sense in the perceiver that the thing he perceives is external to himself. He is the only witness; no one can corroborate or dispute him. The seer may be right or he may be wrong, but we have no proof—and only according to our temperament, our fancy, our experience, our mood, do we decide with one or the other of the two great schools.
Well, the gentleman of whom I am speaking wrote and had printed in plain English this phrase (read it carefully):—"Science teaches us that these phenomena are purely subjective."
Now I am quite sure that of the thousands who read that phrase all but a handful read it in the spirit in which one hears the oracle of a god. Some read it with regret, some with pleasure, but all with acquiescence.
That physical science was not competent in the matter one way or the other each of those readers would probably have discovered, if even so simple a corrective as the use of the term "physical research" instead of the sacred term "science" had been applied; the hierarchic title "Science" did the trick.
I might take another example out of many hundreds to show what I mean. You have an authority which is called, where documents are concerned, "The Best Modern Criticism." "The Best Modern Criticism" decides that "Tam o' Shanter" was written by a committee of permanent officials of the Board of Trade, or that Napoleon Bonaparte never existed. As a matter of fact, the tomfoolery does not usually venture upon ground so near home, but it talks rubbish just as monstrous about a poem a few hundred or a few thousand years old, or a great personality a few hundred or a few thousand years old.
Now if you will look at that phrase "The Best Modern Criticism" you will see at once that it simply teems with assumption and tautology. But it does more and worse: it presupposes that an infallible authority must of its own nature be perpetually wrong.
Even supposing that I have the most "modern" (that is, merely the latest) criticism to hand, and even supposing that by some omniscience of mine I can tell which is "the best" (that is, which part of it has really proved most ample, most painstaking, most general, and most sincere), even then the phrase fatally condemns me. It is to say that Wednesday is always infallible as compared with Tuesday, and Thursday as compared with Wednesday, which is absurd.
The B.M.C. tells me in 1875 that the Song of Roland could have no origins anterior to the year 1030. But the B.M.C. of 1885 (being a B.M.C. and nothing more valuable) has a changed opinion. It must change its opinion, that is the law of its being, since an integral factor in its value is its modernity. In 1885 B.M.C. tells me that the Song of Roland can be traced to origins far earlier, let us say to 912.
In 1895 B.M.C. has come to other conclusions—the Song of Roland is certainly as late as 1115 ... and so forth.
Now you would say that an idol of that absurdity could have no effect upon sane men. Change the terms and give it another name, and you would laugh at the idea of its having an effect upon any men. But we know as a matter of fact that it commands the thoughts of nearly all men to-day and makes cowards of the most learned.
Perhaps you will ask me at the end of so long a criticism in what way error may be corrected, since there is this sort of tendency in us to accept it, to which I answer that things correct it, or as the philosophers call things, "Reality." Error does not wash.
To go back to that example of ghosts. If ever you see a ghost (my poor reader), I shall ask you afterwards whether he seemed subjective or no. I think you will find the word "subjective" an astonishingly thin one—if, at least, I catch you early after the experience.
~Hilaire Belloc: in First and Last
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Science and Religion
THERE IS an issue set between science and religion; that is, a conflict. On this, modern men have no doubt. Now what is that issue? We must try and define it or we cannot deal with it.
There is no conflict between two abstract conceptions which may be labeled, the one “Science”, the other “Religion”. If we mean by “Science” the body of ascertained and measurable physical things, and by “Religion” a sentiment of awe towards something adored and the acceptation of moral commands recognized by all men through the conscience, the two sets of ideas can hardly conflict, because they are not in touch with one another. It is true that the body of ascertained physical things may include facts—such as madness—which preclude freewill and therefore deny morals where these facts apply; but as between the vague sentiment to which men attach the word “Religion” in general, and a body of ascertained physical facts, there is no issue.
But a conflict arises at once when we attach to religion a particular meaning including certain affirmations in contradiction to ascertained physical facts, or when we mean by “Science”, not the body of ascertained physical facts but a whole method of regarding cause and effect and the nature of the world. Of the first form of conflict the most obvious is the conflict between an historical affirmation imposed by some religion and an ascertained fact contradictory of the affirmation. For instance, if a man’s religion includes the affirmation that man first appeared on the earth six thousand years ago, there is a mass of ascertained fact which makes this statement so improbable that it may be called impossible. Of the second form of conflict, the most obvious example is the denial by the scientists (in practice) of miracle, that is, of interruption in the sequence of observed physical cause and effect.
But the real issue lies not in some logical differences of this kind, but between two opposing moods, from which proceed (and which are partly caused by them) two opposing methods of attaining Reality; of discovering Truth; of Believing. For when modern men say, “Science says this,” they mean by “Science”, not the body of ascertained fact but a whole method of arriving at truth, and what is more, a whole state of mind inimical to another state of mind, also existing in the modern world. They mean “the scientific spirit” as opposed to that other spirit, or mood, which may best be called “the religious spirit”. Between these two things there is indeed a conflict, and it will act with increasing violence until one or the other conquers, or until the two separate so thoroughly as to dominate separate sections of mankind.
The scientific spirit, then, relies on the authority of certain dogmas. These dogmas scientists rarely explain or even attempt to base upon reason. The scientists take them for granted and is angry to hear any contradiction of them. The first and most important of these dogmas is the unity or self-sufficiency of the material universe and therefore the immutability of sequence in cause and effect. The second dogma is that the only form of proof certainly acceptable to the reason of man is proof through things measurable, proof capable of repetition and therefore of test by experience. Truth this ascertained (says the scientific spirit) is certain; all other affirmations are negligible. Such is the authority from which the Scientific Spirit derives its creed.
The Religious Spirit, on the other hand, relies on a personal judgement whereby it accepts the authority of an Institution, a book, or a spiritual intuition. Its conclusions are not subject to any universal test, as are those of the scientific spirit. It says, “This institution is holy and clearly speaks with a Divine voice” or “This book contains all important truth” or “I once experienced this or that within. Such an experience stands fast and nothing external can overthrow it.”
Now as between these two, since there is conflicting authority; there is conflicting method; the scientific spirit deals with a number of isolated phenomena, as it proceeds in its investigation, sets out on a number of divergent lines. It produces the specialist who is not to be contradicted by who cannot co-ordinate his results with other specialists, save at the very beginning of his journey. The religious spirit on the other hand relies on a general judgement . The first deals in what may be called differentials, and indefinitely large and increasing number of separately acquired truths. The second deals with integration. The first tends to the error of confusing hypothesis with fact. The second tends to strict deduction from what it is sure of, and there the error of deducing an apparently certain conclusion from insufficient premises.
An example of the first error was the affirmation of Natural Selection as the agent of growth. It was but an hypothesis; common sense could see that it was not at work in the real world (an acorn does not become an oak by natural selection) and also that it was in contradiction with the first laws of arithmetic: for with every succeeding generation selective advantage diminishes in geometrical proportion. An example of the second for of error is the statement that because men are born equal, therefore each is equally fitted to decide upon affairs of state.
The quarrel between these two moods, (1) religious appreciation or apprehension, doctrine appealing to the revelation of conscience has discovered to be supreme, and (2) doctrines derived from the unproved postulates of the Scientific Spirit, spreads, as time proceeds throughout all the activities of human life. For example, the good of the body is a thing appreciable to all and measurable by all, the physical facts in connection with it can be affirmed without hesitation and receive universal acceptance. Thus, physical pain is an evil, whatever relieves it must therefore be a good. The scientific spirit tends in this particular department to the limitation of childbearing, to the painless murder of those suffering from a painful and incurable disease.
There is no doubt whatever on the facts. They who maintain that pain must be borne, though avoidable, and that life is sacred, reply upon some authority not subject to immediate physical and universally accepted experiment. Each sort of man is equally certain of his position; each must become the mortal enemy of the other; for each is inevitably compelled to combat the activity of the other as being something abominable. He who defends the thesis that we must for spiritual reasons, submit to pain and permit others to suffer it, is abominable to the scientific spirit. He who would put to death the incurable, sterilize the unfit, sacrifice traditional morals in the effort to relieve pain, or raise the average of health, is, to his religious opponent, diabolical.
As with this example, so with all others. To the scientific spirit marriage is a contract, necessarily tending to be more and more easily terminable at will. To the religious spirit marriage is a sacrament; desecrated if it be reduced to a mere contract like other terminable human contracts. To the scientific spirit in history, the document is conclusive, tradition and our common sense are negligible. To the religious spirit in the whole known nature of man is called in as witness to fact, and the document is always suspect and weak compared with that integration. To the scientific spirit positive affirmation upon beauty and the plastic arts or upon morals is absurd. To the religious spirit such affirmation is the upholding of essential and central truth.
I have said that the conflict is certain to increase. It will increase in area and violence. Those who, from a weakness of soul, like to believe that there can be a reconciliation between such opposites have not considered the nature of the case. Those who believe that the battle is already won, do not understand their opponents. They are under-estimating their enemies. In this country, with much the greater part of men today, or at least with much the greater part of men who think clearly and closely upon these affairs, the battle does seem at lest three-quarters won by the scientific spirit, and the remainder of the action will be no more than the “cleaning up” which follows successful assault.
I make no doubt that the future upon these affairs, when we consider Western civilization as a whole, will gravely disappoint this view. The religious spirit has begun its counter-offensive. On the ultimate effect of this I will prophesy nothing. But that such a reaction is now in progress—and increasingly formidable—should be apparent to anyone who can look beyond the boundaries of his own nation.
~Hilaire Belloc: In American Review, Feb. 21-27 issue, 1934.
There is no conflict between two abstract conceptions which may be labeled, the one “Science”, the other “Religion”. If we mean by “Science” the body of ascertained and measurable physical things, and by “Religion” a sentiment of awe towards something adored and the acceptation of moral commands recognized by all men through the conscience, the two sets of ideas can hardly conflict, because they are not in touch with one another. It is true that the body of ascertained physical things may include facts—such as madness—which preclude freewill and therefore deny morals where these facts apply; but as between the vague sentiment to which men attach the word “Religion” in general, and a body of ascertained physical facts, there is no issue.
But a conflict arises at once when we attach to religion a particular meaning including certain affirmations in contradiction to ascertained physical facts, or when we mean by “Science”, not the body of ascertained physical facts but a whole method of regarding cause and effect and the nature of the world. Of the first form of conflict the most obvious is the conflict between an historical affirmation imposed by some religion and an ascertained fact contradictory of the affirmation. For instance, if a man’s religion includes the affirmation that man first appeared on the earth six thousand years ago, there is a mass of ascertained fact which makes this statement so improbable that it may be called impossible. Of the second form of conflict, the most obvious example is the denial by the scientists (in practice) of miracle, that is, of interruption in the sequence of observed physical cause and effect.
But the real issue lies not in some logical differences of this kind, but between two opposing moods, from which proceed (and which are partly caused by them) two opposing methods of attaining Reality; of discovering Truth; of Believing. For when modern men say, “Science says this,” they mean by “Science”, not the body of ascertained fact but a whole method of arriving at truth, and what is more, a whole state of mind inimical to another state of mind, also existing in the modern world. They mean “the scientific spirit” as opposed to that other spirit, or mood, which may best be called “the religious spirit”. Between these two things there is indeed a conflict, and it will act with increasing violence until one or the other conquers, or until the two separate so thoroughly as to dominate separate sections of mankind.
The scientific spirit, then, relies on the authority of certain dogmas. These dogmas scientists rarely explain or even attempt to base upon reason. The scientists take them for granted and is angry to hear any contradiction of them. The first and most important of these dogmas is the unity or self-sufficiency of the material universe and therefore the immutability of sequence in cause and effect. The second dogma is that the only form of proof certainly acceptable to the reason of man is proof through things measurable, proof capable of repetition and therefore of test by experience. Truth this ascertained (says the scientific spirit) is certain; all other affirmations are negligible. Such is the authority from which the Scientific Spirit derives its creed.
The Religious Spirit, on the other hand, relies on a personal judgement whereby it accepts the authority of an Institution, a book, or a spiritual intuition. Its conclusions are not subject to any universal test, as are those of the scientific spirit. It says, “This institution is holy and clearly speaks with a Divine voice” or “This book contains all important truth” or “I once experienced this or that within. Such an experience stands fast and nothing external can overthrow it.”
Now as between these two, since there is conflicting authority; there is conflicting method; the scientific spirit deals with a number of isolated phenomena, as it proceeds in its investigation, sets out on a number of divergent lines. It produces the specialist who is not to be contradicted by who cannot co-ordinate his results with other specialists, save at the very beginning of his journey. The religious spirit on the other hand relies on a general judgement . The first deals in what may be called differentials, and indefinitely large and increasing number of separately acquired truths. The second deals with integration. The first tends to the error of confusing hypothesis with fact. The second tends to strict deduction from what it is sure of, and there the error of deducing an apparently certain conclusion from insufficient premises.
An example of the first error was the affirmation of Natural Selection as the agent of growth. It was but an hypothesis; common sense could see that it was not at work in the real world (an acorn does not become an oak by natural selection) and also that it was in contradiction with the first laws of arithmetic: for with every succeeding generation selective advantage diminishes in geometrical proportion. An example of the second for of error is the statement that because men are born equal, therefore each is equally fitted to decide upon affairs of state.
The quarrel between these two moods, (1) religious appreciation or apprehension, doctrine appealing to the revelation of conscience has discovered to be supreme, and (2) doctrines derived from the unproved postulates of the Scientific Spirit, spreads, as time proceeds throughout all the activities of human life. For example, the good of the body is a thing appreciable to all and measurable by all, the physical facts in connection with it can be affirmed without hesitation and receive universal acceptance. Thus, physical pain is an evil, whatever relieves it must therefore be a good. The scientific spirit tends in this particular department to the limitation of childbearing, to the painless murder of those suffering from a painful and incurable disease.
There is no doubt whatever on the facts. They who maintain that pain must be borne, though avoidable, and that life is sacred, reply upon some authority not subject to immediate physical and universally accepted experiment. Each sort of man is equally certain of his position; each must become the mortal enemy of the other; for each is inevitably compelled to combat the activity of the other as being something abominable. He who defends the thesis that we must for spiritual reasons, submit to pain and permit others to suffer it, is abominable to the scientific spirit. He who would put to death the incurable, sterilize the unfit, sacrifice traditional morals in the effort to relieve pain, or raise the average of health, is, to his religious opponent, diabolical.
As with this example, so with all others. To the scientific spirit marriage is a contract, necessarily tending to be more and more easily terminable at will. To the religious spirit marriage is a sacrament; desecrated if it be reduced to a mere contract like other terminable human contracts. To the scientific spirit in history, the document is conclusive, tradition and our common sense are negligible. To the religious spirit in the whole known nature of man is called in as witness to fact, and the document is always suspect and weak compared with that integration. To the scientific spirit positive affirmation upon beauty and the plastic arts or upon morals is absurd. To the religious spirit such affirmation is the upholding of essential and central truth.
I have said that the conflict is certain to increase. It will increase in area and violence. Those who, from a weakness of soul, like to believe that there can be a reconciliation between such opposites have not considered the nature of the case. Those who believe that the battle is already won, do not understand their opponents. They are under-estimating their enemies. In this country, with much the greater part of men today, or at least with much the greater part of men who think clearly and closely upon these affairs, the battle does seem at lest three-quarters won by the scientific spirit, and the remainder of the action will be no more than the “cleaning up” which follows successful assault.
I make no doubt that the future upon these affairs, when we consider Western civilization as a whole, will gravely disappoint this view. The religious spirit has begun its counter-offensive. On the ultimate effect of this I will prophesy nothing. But that such a reaction is now in progress—and increasingly formidable—should be apparent to anyone who can look beyond the boundaries of his own nation.
~Hilaire Belloc: In American Review, Feb. 21-27 issue, 1934.
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