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WOL;:XI,
,. WHY NOT THE SCIENCES.
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It, is with something like a sense of d.u ty that I inscribe in THE, VIATORIAN the ~following reflections upon the relative worth of letters and sciences: My purpose .here is to descend into a.n d point out the mariy defects of sciences compared with letters. I fully agree with those who place the sciences in the lower order of human knowledge, for they treat of matter and of that alone. Now, as matter is lower than the mind that studies it, less wo.r thy than thought and its marvelous combinations, it follows that the sciences rank lower in the scale of things worth knowing than literature,. whose aim is to elevate the mind of man towards thB beautiful and the suhlime. I say the sciences tend to weaken the will and narrow the intellect. "lt. narrows the mind?" queries the scientist: Will you repeat us that ad nauseam. without a word of proof?" Here is, in a few words, the solution of thE? mystery. It is a fact too easily proved, that .men who devote themselves to sciences,, take up in ,their s.t udies but one branch, and the student is so absorbed in that single bra!.lcb that he sees nothing else worthy of attention; . it keeps h.is mind vyithin ve.ry narrow limits ; . he bas no br~adth o_f_ vision, hehas po love, his hea,rt .is ..cold, his in~,elligence . ca.n no.t ·,
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the gr.ande.u r:of otbe:r men'SJ: thoughts, he is bound to the. matter;. the habit of looking at a single. order· of facts coldly and aLways from the:. same point of view, takes. from · hiSi mind all flexibility; it. weakens the im- · agination, and hence, as Bishop Spalding says, though it is important. that. there be specialists, the kind of e,duca.tion of which they are formed,. while • it is suited to make a geologist or a. mathematician, is not suited to call forth the free and harmonious play of all man's powers and thus form the better man. Thus, Darwin himself attributes to his scientific studies the decay of hia !'esthetic and sentimental faculties. In, his life we find this pertinent admiss~on: "Now for many years I cannot, endure to read a line of poetry- my. mind seems to have become a kind .of . machine for grinding generall:aws out, of large collections of facts .; but. wh.y , this should huve caused the atrophy of · that part of the brain alone. on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot eoncei ve." To more fully establish the trutn o.f what . J have advanced relativeLy . to~ the weakening and narrowing (?ffect·of the · scientific study upon the _h ~man.. mind, I would adduce the testimony..o~ a learned Germa.!l. professor of th:~ · J?erlin University, who claims. fron:L.a . c)ose observation of facts, th<;~.t yy~ng me~ :v~th;.aqlassl.yaJ . educ~tion, , tltcqu g~ ·