Читать книгу The Scientific Spirit of the Age, and Other Pleas and Discussions онлайн

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Prior to experience it might have been confidently expected that the Darwinian doctrine of the descent of Man would have called forth a fresh burst of sympathy towards all races of men and towards the lower animals. Every biologist now knows tenfold better reasons than Saint Francis for calling the birds and beasts “little brothers and sisters.” But, instead of instilling the tenderness of the Saint of Assisi, Science has taught her devotees to regard the world as a scene of universal struggle, wherein the rule must be, “Every one for himself, and no God for any one.”

Ten years ago an eminent American physician remarked to me: “In my country the ardor of scientific research is rapidly overriding the proper benevolent objects of my profession. The cure of disease is becoming quite a secondary consideration to the achievement of a correct diagnosis, to be verified by a successful post mortem.” How true this now holds of the state of things in English hospitals, that remarkable book, “St. Bernard’s,” and its still more important key, “Dying Scientifically,” have just come in time to testify.^[5] No one who has read these books will deny that the purely Scientific Spirit is (at all events sometimes) a merciless spirit; and that Dr. Draper’s famous boast, so often repeated, that “Science has never subjected any one to physical torture” (Preface to “Conflict,” p. xi), is untrue.