From Savagery to Civilisation summary

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From Savagery to Civilisation By M N Roy Summarised by VINOD JAIN

Earlier, religion suggested how human society began. Laws governing human behaviour were made in the name of God. Later, democratic doctrine became popular. Reason replaced God. It challenged the idea of divine right of kings. But ignorance prevailed.

Modern science enabled some to trace origin of human society. This could happen from 19th century onwards. The great discoveries of Darwin helped in removing religious prejudices.

The researches of Lewis H. Morgan brought to light the character and constitution of primitive human society.

Hegel (Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel) showed how human society is in a continuous process. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels developed the materialist view of History. It showed no Supreme Being created the universe.

That social relations are not decided by any divine will, nor by an abstract conception of morality. Human society originated in the

2 struggle for existence. Its evolution through the ages had material causes.

Man is the highest form of evolution.

Animals were adapting to environment organically. The animal grows fur to protect itself from cold. For the same purpose, the primitive man finds something to cover his body —leaves, barks, skin, and, finally manufactured fabrics. Animals develop sharp teeth and claws for killing prey. Primitive man finds stone flints, and, later bows and arrows for the same purpose. The monkey grows long and agile limbs. Man breaks a branch and uses it as an instrument for shaking down fruits. Thus the forefather of primitive man is born.

Conquest of Nature The ability to use an object, outside the physical organism, as a weapon in the struggle for existence, puts an end to the long process of organic adaptation.

Let us see how society begins. Primitive man went ‘together’ to hunt. They herded domesticated animals ‘together’. They were applying human labour to the available natural resources for the production of something new.

That is how society originated.

God is not a creator. If there ever was a creator, it is man. Creation begins with him.

This is what distinguishes man from animals.

Some animals do create, but their creation is static.

3 Canons of religion, codes of morality and civic laws are evolved from time to time. There is no eternal law governing human existence.

There is no divine hand shaping man’s destiny.

There is no divine will or supernatural principle.

Men getting together is an early stage of savagery. The foundation of human society is firmly laid only when he learns to make the earth bear fruit through cultivation. It closes the period of migration—either in search of food, or for grazing domesticated animals. Groups of human beings settle down in particular localities. Organisation of society begins. Here, the fruits of collective labour belong to all equally. There is no distinction between mine and thine.

Origin of Private Property Settled conditions increase productivity.

Primitive tools are made. These interfere with collective labour. Those who make these tools, can work with them individually. They become owners of their labour. Private property begins.

Slowly, the community loses common interest. Necessity for laws arises. What authority will down laws. Religion supplies the authority. Ignorant people do not know about simple phenomenon like the sun, moon, fire, rain etc. they believe when told that the socalled authority is divine. The only purpose of the laws of these divine authority is to protect the newly created private property; as well as to establish those having it as the ruling class.

4 Society is the creation of man. Its structure and function are decided by the methods adopted in its creation. New mode of production threatens established order. Rulers of the old order try to limit and even crush the new force of progress. Man must choose between standing still or going ahead. Life is a movement. The latter must be chosen.

That is the essential feature of social evolution.

II The primitive society is based upon the cultivation of land by joint labour. It is disrupted by 1. creation of private property in land and, 2. the development of handicrafts. Society is slowly shifted onto a new foundation. Here labour is performed in slavery. The essence of slavery is the employment of labour in return for payment which is enough only for the survival of the slave.

Slavery in India Practical evidences of the existence of slavery in ancient India are plentiful in the Epics and other classical literature. A large element of it is to be found in the original caste system. Not only the captives in war are enslaved; entire conquered races are also put into slavery. The so-called Aryan conquerors did that in India.

People of the conquered areas become slaves.

They were Later on placed in the lowest rank of

5 the caste system. The sudras were called dasas —servants. The Sanskrit word Arya means lord.

Ancient India experienced gigantic social upheavals. The rise of Budhhism was a tremendous revolt against the ancient Brahmanic social order. The old social order collapsed it made room for the prosperity and higher culture of the Buddhist period. After nearly a thousand years, Brahmanic reaction appeared to overwhelm the Buddhist revolution.

What was restored, however, was not the old Brahmanism.

Feudal Serfdom Out of the ruins of slave labour based antique society, feudal social order arose. In the new social order, labour is performed in serfdom. In this the peasant cultivates the land with his own tools. But he is obliged to give to the owner of the land all the produce except that which he keeps for himself to survive.

The next stage is the Capitalist mode of production within the framework of feudal social order. A new period of social disturbance sets in. there arises the new class of traders. When there is trade, there is profit. The trader grows rich.

He invests his wealth in industry other than agriculture.

III Wage-labour is the basis of Capitalist production. The abolition of feudalism frees the

6 peasant from land. He is “freed”—to become a wage-slave. He can now sell his labour power in the open market. Free supply of labour enables the owner of the new means of production to purchase it at the lowest price.

The wealth accumulated by the feudal class or by the trading class does not by itself become capital. When the trading class invests it in machinery, gives high productivity.

Capital and Capitalist Wealth is not capital. It becomes capital when it is applied for stimulating production.

Every rich man is not Capitalist. He becomes a Capitalist, when he becomes able to employ many wage-labourers so that his own labour comes to be a commodity, to be bought and sold in the open market, it is subject to the law of supply and demand.

Labour Originally, man applies labour to the available natural resources for producing what he needs for his own living. As tools develop the artisan uses tools. He can produce much more then. Such goods may be in demand. The artisan supplies the demand. Such growth of private property changes the original purpose of production. In the beginning he exchanges his goods with other goods. Slowly, it develops into money.

7 Commodity Under capitalism, the product of human labour becomes commodity for exchange. The owner of the means of production can make profit. A part of it goes to those engaged in the process of distribution.

The growth of modern industry marks the march of civilisation. Machinery is the fundamental civilizing factor, because it is the most powerful liberator. A perspective of endless human progress—economic, cultural and spiritual—is opened up.

IV Man’s progress is proportional to his ability to use external energy. He begins with drawing upon animal energy.

Tools increase the productivity of man’s own labour power. Machines place at his own disposal the great source of physical energy.

Real civilization begins with the rise of modern science. It equips man with the knowledge about the laws of nature. Knowledge is power. Modern science helps him make machines and harness physical energy. Mankind begins to be really civilised.

Coming of Machine There are those who malign the machine age. If we pursue their arguments logically man should still be at the animal stage.

8 Foundation of Civilisation The foundation of civilisation is laid when man begins his efforts to explain the phenomena of nature. It is a harmonious, law-governed process of being and becoming of physical elements including energy. Man discovers these and masters them. This helps the ever-growing creative power of man.

Navigation Navigation thrived as a science. It helped in the growth of trade and in the movement of ideas. It broadened the human view of the universe.

Irrigation Similarly, the wind-mill is a mark of civilisation. The system of canals and aqueducts depends on man’s own labour this latter is not much of a progress towards civilisation.

Harnessing of energy, with the help of knowledge and machinery, will be a great step towards civilisation. Archimedes in ancient Greece had invented “endless screw” for raising water.

Common heritage In the same period also lived great mathematicians and astronomers such as Euclid, Aristarchus, Hipparchus and others. But that knowledge could not be utilized. Actually it was extinguished by the exuberance of

9 religiosity. It started changing decisively from seventeenth century onwards.

V The creativeness of human labour helps one to grasp the civilizing significance of machine. Itself a creation of man, machine greatly increases his creativeness.

All values are created by human labour.

Nature is the storehouse of resources. These can have value only if human labour is applied to them. Land gives fruits only when man cultivates it. Increased productivity of human labour is the lever of social progress.

Finer Aspects of Life Society based on a limited productivity of human labour cannot evolve freely. It stagnates.

The limited amount of value created is taken by a few. The rest of the members of the society get nothing.

Some relief from physical labour is necessary. Then only finer aspects of life could develop in society. Otherwise the majority lives a life hardly above the level of animal existence.

Leisure remains unknown to them. This shuts for them the possibility of cultural advance.

If the same amount of labour can be performed in less and less time, people will get spare time. This will be relief from physical labour, even after performing for surplus. This

10 way machine frees man from age-long drudgery.

It takes him on to the road to civilisation and spiritual progress.

Pre-Machine Age In England, for instance, industrial Revolution brought much suffering along with it.

It seriously dislocated established social relations. The greed of new factory owners made human beings labour under revolting conditions. But the positive outcome survived these evils. Within a century the social and cultural level of that country was raised far above anything achieved earlier.

England in Sixteenth Century In the sixteenth century, England was a very backward country. It could not guarantee the minimum means of living to the vast bulk of its population. Beggars and vagrants were everywhere. Education was very low. Sanitation and public health were very bad. Epidemics killed from time to time. Death rate was very high. Rural population lived in huts thatched with straw. Children as young as six were often set to labour. There almost were no roads.

London itself was dirty, ill-built and without sanitary facilities. Surrounding country was wild and marshy, full of wild animals.

Coming of Science Other countries of Europe were hardly better off. It was in Europe that modern science

11 rose. It dispelled the darkness of social stagnation.

That removed cultural backwardness. Man began to build machines.

The productivity of his labour increased. But the means of production were the private property of a few.

It is not possible to say exactly when the machine age began. Its foundation was laid over a period of about 500 years. It was laid by the scientific discoveries, and by the growth of the scientific mode of thought. It was made by a long succession of investigators, scientists and philosophers.

Roger Bacon, in the middle of the thirteenth century, was the pioneer of the age of modern science. A hard struggle began against mediaeval barbarism. Those who were in the fore-front included Leonardo da Vinci, Columbus, Giordano Bruno, Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, Robert Boyle and many others. It culminated in the achievements of Newton.

Newton lived in the seventeenth century.

Only towards the end of which his famous work The Principia was published. Another hundred years passed before the Machine Age began. The discoveries of Black about the nature of heat and the invention of the steam engine by the modest mechanic James Watt, brought it about.

Within the period of a few decades, the entire face of England was changed. A povertystriken, almost destitute, people became a prosperous, enlightened nation.

12 In the beginning of the nineteenth century, one man could produce in a day, ten times more work, than a man used to do in a whole year, only half a century ago.

Education spread. Among the better educated were the skilled mechanics. From among them the inventors came: James Watt was an instrument maker; Harrison was a carpenter; Brindley was a mill-wright; Arkwright was a barber; Hargreaves was a mechanic; George Stephenson was a steam engine stoker.

Since the days of Newton, science made a triumphant march. Huygens (undulatory theory of light); Musschenbroek (Leyden Jar); Buffon (modern geology); Black (latent heat); Lavoisier (modern chemistry); Herschel (the astronomer); Laplace (the mathematician); Volta (electric current); Lamarck; Faraday; Darwin.

VII Just before Renaissance in Europe, Christian religious (scholastic) learning was presented as philosophy. Progress was possible by shaking this dogmatic system. Christian Church ruled the entire European humanity. It felt threatened by the growth of science.

Scientific Enquiry Scientific enquiry came to Europe via Arabic kingdom of Spain. It disturbed spiritual stagnation. Religion started losing its hold.

13 Age of Bacon The honour of bringing the age of Science to Europe belongs to Roger Bacon (middle of thirteenth century). He insisted that every statement of truth must be tested by experiment. His motto was ‘Take nothing on trust’. This was a declaration of independence of human spirit. It was an announcement of the coming age of science. He wrote extensively on different branches of science. He made many instruments and primitive machines. He suggested the making of telescopes and microscopes. He showed the existence of oxygen.

Gunpowder Perhaps the greatest of Bacon’s achievements was the manufacture of gunpowder out of charcoal, saltpeter and sulphur.

It showed small quantities of simple substances contain enormous stores of energy.

This energy could be liberated by man and put to use.

Alarmed Church sent Bacon to prison.

Leonardo Da Vinci The science of mechanics had still to be developed. Technology had to come to the help of man. Leonardo’s work prepared the ground for beginning of the machine age.

14 VIII The revival of science was associated with the new philosophy of Naturalism. Whereas the Church always promoted super-naturalism. The Church was alarmed and declared war on science.

Starting Point The starting point of the founders of modern science was to regard the phenomena of nature as ‘natural phenomena’. The next step was to cultivate the habit of observation and experimentation, with the object of making discoveries. That new habit was a challenge to authority.

Experimentation and Observation Bacon has been credited with the inauguration of the experimental methods of observation and the inductive system of reasoning. Leonardo Da Vinci had laid down the maxim that experience and observation must be the foundation of all knowledge and reasoning.

Leonardo revived the achievement of Archimedes. He made the lever a perfected machine. He discovered the laws of friction. He saw the possibility of deriving mechanical power from flowing water. He made water-wheels, paddle-wheels, breach-loading guns, mining machinery etc. he knew magnetism, and the power of steam. That way he was a fore-runner of Galileo.

15 Helio-Centrism The controversy about the position of the Earth was going on. The philosopher Aristotle long ago thought that the Earth is stationary and is at the centre of the Universe. The Christian Church based itself on Aristotle’s authority. It suited them. They said God created Earth as the most important place where man was to live. All other bodies like the Sun or moon were there to serve the Earth. So the Sun circled the Earth. The other view also for quite some time, was that the Sun is at the centre. One hundred years before Copernicus, Cardinal De Cusa had founded the revival of this ancient view of Pythagoras. Pythagoras had preached that the Sun is in the centre. Later on Cardinal Alliacus also supported the Sun-centric view.

The new philosophy of Naturalism grew in the midst of the above controversy. So even when the earth-centric view was questioned by the march of science, the entire Christian Church as well as the entire structure of the barbarian society of mediaeval Europe felt threatened. If the Earth was to be accepted as an insignificant planet then the omnipotence of God cannot be defended. The whole idea of God depended on the Earth-centric view. Rightly then, they felt threatened.

Halley’s Comet In 1456, the appearance of a comet generated fear in the minds of the people of Europe.

The Church encouraged this

16 superstition. In 1682 the astronomer Halley observed the movement of a comet which appeared in that year, and formulated the law of the periodicity of comets. According to Halley it was the same comet which had appeared in 1456. but the Church would not learn from knowledge and the people kept suffering in ignorance.

Voyage of Columbus It was believed that the Earth is flat. The sailor-navigator Magellan circled the Earth in his ship in 1519. it proved, beyond all doubt, that the Earth is round like a globe and not flat.

Such voyages were made possible by the invent of a simple-looking instrument, called the mariner’s compass. It could be invented on the basis of observation of ‘loadstone’.

Such developments kept questioning and correcting views based on ignorance. Such developments broke the back of the fierce resistance of the all-powerful Christian Church.

IX There was fierce opposition from traditional ignorance as well as from religious superstition to the growth of science. Yet modern science grew because of man’s irresistible curiosity and desire to know about nature. In that sense, the rise of modern science was a philosophical movement. Such a movement could succeed only when it improved

17 application of scientific knowledge—in one word, through technology.

Technology With the growth of ideas, Technology had been making steady, but slow progress.

Copernicus In the middle of the sixteenth century, appeared the work of Copernicus—On the Revolution of the Celestial Orb. It was a product of 33 years of patient labour. It was inspired by the movement of ideas during the preceding three centuries. It showed the Earth as a minor planet that revolves around the Sun. The correct position of the Earth led to the discovery that the Sun also was not the centre of the Universe. It is one of the countless luminous bodies that constitutes the Universe.

The ideas given in the book contradicted the ideas and belief of the Christian Church.

They would have brought the old scientist to great grief, had death not intervened.

Copernicus died only a few days after his book was published. But the tragedy was still to be enacted. Others had to pay the penalty with their lives, for holding high the torch of truth and the flag of human freedom.

18 X The advance of modern science meant an advance in the knowledge of nature. It led to the discovery that the Universe is not there for some purpose. It resulted in liberating the spirit of man from the belief in the supernatural.

Starting with the ancient idea that the Universe is a law-governed system, science wanted to prove that the laws were inherent in the physical system itself. These were not to be traced to some imaginary final cause.

Kepler The work of Copernicus extended the scope of science. Earlier science was attacking the established values with regard to man. Now science was destroying the religious beliefs with regard to the remote heavenly bodies.

Kepler grew out of a poor background. He observed about the movement of movement of sun-centric bodies. He completed the work of “charting the heavens”,—begun by the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. Kepler then turned his attention to the exact nature of planetary motion.

For eight years he carried on hard but peaceful work at Prague, under the patronage of a liberal-minded Emperor. It led him to the discovery that the planets moved round the sun not in circles, but on elliptical orbits. His laws of planetary motion gave concrete shape to the

19 philosophical and mathematical abstractions of Copernicus. Thus, Kepler laid down the foundation of modern astronomy.

Giordano Bruno The most dramatic figure of that age of struggle between science and religion, knowledge and ignorance, was Giordano Bruno.

His martyrdom in 1600 manifested the crassest form of the fierce antagonism to human progress, by traditions and antiquated ideas.

Modern Medicine For nearly two thousand years Aristotle dominated the intellectual life of Europe. He was regarded as the highest authority of knowledge in all physical matters. A similar position was occupied by another Greek Galen. He was taken as an authority with regard to everything concerned with disease, cure and general state of human body.

Paracelsus dared dispute the authority of Galen. He fought for commonsense in the treatment of disease. he taught that nature was the greatest healer. The function of medical science was to help the normal functioning of the mechanical processes inherent in the structure of the human body. The implication was to regard the human body as an organism which lived by itself. That was a mortal blow to the doctrine of soul. This was another step towards the spiritual liberation of man.

20 The foundation of modern medical science, however, was laid by Vesalius. His famous book The Sructure of the Human Body appeared in the same year as the treatise by Copernicus. Galen was the first to dissect the human body. In the sixteenth century, Vesalius did the same in the University of Padua. He discovered that Galen’s observations had been carelessly made, and had led to wrong conclusions. He established the scientific method of observation and empirical deduction in the realm of the study of the human body.

He dissected the human body before the students when he taught them anatomy. He also drove home the large philosophical lesson: if the actual dissection contradicted the teachings of Galen, then the latter’s doctrines must be ignored.

It was explained that diseases were not predetermined events. They were not caused by the wrath of God. Their causes could be discovered by human intelligence, and eradicated by human ingenuity.

XI As the founder of modern physics and mechanics, Galileo deserves the honour of having ushered in the age of science and thrown open before Europe the gates of Civilisation.

But Bruno perhaps was one of the greatest rebels of history. For having the courage to tell the truth that orthodoxy had neither

21 morality nor belief, he received the atrocious sentence to be burnt alive.

Intolerance is not an expression of power.

The fear of truth makes those trading in ignorance and falsehood take shelter in ignorance.

Discovery of Telescope Only eight years after the martyrdom of Bruno, man made the telescope. It gave him power to look into the depth of the heavens. It helped him to establish the truth of suncentrism by Copernicus. In 1608 a Dutchman named Lippershy made the first telescope. The next year Galileo made a better instrument.

Turning it towards the sky, he found that Moon was a physical object constructed more or less like our earth. Within a year, Galileo discovered no less than forty fixed stars. Each of these was found to be at least as luminous as the Sun. So, the Universe is not created to instill in man awe for its Creator. It is there, for no other reason than to exist. Man is a part of this eternal existence. He has the power to unravel its mysteries.

Life of Giordano Bruno Bruno was born seven years after the death of Copernicus. He became a monk. But he was too courageous a rebel to compromise his conviction and hide his opinions. So he had to run away from the monastry and from Italy. He

22 went to Geneva, then to Paris, then to Oxford, then to Germany. Nowhere could people tolerate his views. Finally, he decided to brave the bigots in his native land and in 1592 returned to Venice.

There he fell in the hands of the Holy Inquisition. After eight years of imprisonment, he was sentenced with the famous but fearful formula—punish him as mercifully as possible, and without shedding of blood—which means he was to be burnt alive.

Dangerous Heretic Bruno committed innumerable “heresies”.

He personified the spirit of science, which was a terror for religion.

He said that space was infinite, and it was filled with self-luminous bodies. He maintained that evary star was a Sun, and there was an infinite number of stars. He preached pantheism. Pantheism liquidates religion. It is only an inverted form of materialism. His philosophy was out and out materialistic. He wanted the spirit of science to enable man to be encouraged by the dawn of Civilisation.

Ahead of His Time Like all great men, Bruno was much ahead of his time. He was a real pioneer, and a fearless rebel.

23 Those who believed in the teachings of Aristotle and in Christian orthodoxy tolerated science so long as it did not pose a direct challenge. But Bruno dared to strike at the very root of the system.

Aristotle had taught that a thing was composed of form and matter. He subordinated matter to form. Bruno revised the relation, and maintained that matter was not the potential; it was the actual and the active. Matter was the true essence of things, capable of bringing forth all forms out of itself. Thus he knocked the philosophical bottom of religion. And laid the philosophical foundation of modern science. He anticipated the discovery of organic evolution.

Bruno taught that nature does not produce its objects by subtraction and addition. Nature does it by separation and development.

The advancement of scientific knowledge continually reinforced that view. The two must go hand in hand.

XII The historical conflict between reason and religion, knowledge and prejudice, science and Church, reached its climax in the life of Galileo.

The one was represented by his works, the other by his persecution. His life was not only a climax of a historical struggle; it marked the end of that conflict. The forces of organised religion, based upon popular prejudice, were defeated. Reason, knowledge and science came out victorious.

24 Galileo showed that man could derive great power from the knowledge of nature. He made scientific knowledge accessible to the common man. He started it on its triumphant march.

Modern Physics Galileo was the founder of modern physics. His contributions stimulated the growth of the sciences of mechanics and hydraulics. His basic contribution was to reduce nature to quantitatively measurable entity.

Atoms The commonsense knowledge is that everything has size, shape and weight. Galileo assumed that all the important properties of natural phenomena could be mathematically described. As a scientist trying to explain phenomena, he also assumed that the world was ultimately composed of atoms. Being the basic constituents of every physical entity, the atoms have size, shape and weight.

Knowledge of its laws should enable man to manipulate motion. The ability to do so would give him the power to harness the forces of nature, and to create new things out of the resources available in nature.

Mechanics The science of mechanics, is the practical aspect of physics. It opened the floodgates of

25 human creativeness. It enabled man to be really civilised.

Turning his telescope on the planets, Galileo discovered that Venus and Mercury also went through phases just as the Moon. He found that like Earth, Jupiter has satellites—four.

Through the telescope he emonstrated to his pupils that the milky way was composed of thousands of stars. He discovered spots on the Sun. he maintained that the Sun rotated on its own axis once a month. XIII Galileo died the year Newton was born (1642). His laws of motion together with Kepler’s laws, enabled Newton to construct the Theory of Universal Gravitation. It became the cornerstone of the system of Natural Philosophy. This replaced the old conception of the world as also faith in the Supernatural.

Precursors of Newton The appearance of Newton was heralded by a number of scientists. All of whom wre inspired by the discoveries of Galileo. Kepler deducted the laws of planetary motion. Francis Bacon gave an impetus to scientific investigation by establishing the method of reasoning from observed facts. Bacon found it the only reliable guide to the discovery of truth. Harvey discovered the circulation of blood. Drebble made the thermometer. Torricelli invented the barometer, and discovered atmospheric pressure. Von Guericke invented the air-pump.

Pascal carried on the investigations into the

26 pressure of the atmosphere. Robert Boyle discovered the laws of gas pressure. He founded modern chemistry. Van Helmont discovered the conservation of matter, and Carbon-di-oxide gas.

Roemer calculated the velocity of light. Mayow discovered oxygen in the air, and later nitrogen.

And there was Descartes. Apart from being a mathematician and a physicist he was great philosopher. Their works helped Newton go further.

Career of Galileo It is not generally known that the laws of motion were not published until after his death.

And they might not have ever been inclined in the accumulated store of human knowledge, had the heavy hand of bigotry been able to reach them. After Galileo’s death, his papers were smuggled out of Italy. These were sent for publication to Holland, where there was no Inquisition.

Born in Pisa in 1564, he studied mathematics, and became acquainted with the work of Copernicus. Copernicus was then creating wide-spread sensation. At the age of twenty-six, he became professor of mathematics in the University of Pisa. Here he discovered the principle of the Pendulum, observed the law of falling bodies. He collected data which enabled him to discover the Laws of Motion.

27 Condemned as Heretic Galileo was condemned as a heretic from all the pulpits throughout the Christian world.

But he lived to accomplish the great work of laying the foundation of modern physics.

Convicted Again In 1632, his main philosophical work, The System of the World, was published. It reaffirmed the truth of the Copernican doctrine.

Galileo was arrested again. He was accused of heresy. He was humiliated and was condemned to spend the rest of his life in prison.

Laws of Motion Secretly, he wrote on the Laws of Motion.

These were smuggled by friends to be published later on in Holland.

Death In the last years of his life, the blind Galileo also became deaf. But even then, he carried on investigations into the nature of the force of percussion. He died in 1642, an old man of seventy eight, for twelve years a prisoner of the Inquisition.

The laws of motion, enabled Newton to understand the mechanics of the Universe. But, mathematics itself had to be developed to better serve as the instrument of the investigation.

Newton himself was one of the founders of

28 modern mathematics. But before him, Descartes had invented analytical geometry which helped Newton to formulate the laws of celestial mechanics.

Descartes’ Advent Descartes was thirty years younger than Galileo. His speculations were even more subversive than the doctrines of Galileo. He developed the mechanistic concept of the Universe into an elaborate system of philosophy.

He escaped martyrdom, thanks to his desire to avoid a clash with the Church.

The answer to the question about the origin of things came from various directions.

The one given by Descartes was perhaps the most comprehensive and convincing among all others of that time.

Laws of Motion It was generally felt that Galileo’s Laws of Motion provided the clue to the solution of the problem of physical Universe. Bruno had conceived the idea that motion, once generated, never really ceased to exist. It only passed from one body to another. Descartes developed that idea: If a motion never ceased to exist, then, logically it could be assumed that it had no beginning. From this, it could be deduced that motion was eternal.

29 Leibniz and Spinoza What came to be known as the mechanistic view of the world, was really originated by Descartes. Although as a system of Philosophical thought it received much impetus also from Leibniz and Spinoza. Not only the physical, but also the intellectual functions of life were regarded by Descartes as the product of mechanical changes.

Mystical Explanation Rejected Descartes’ physical theories were rejected by the great physicists who followed him.

Nevertheless, philosophically, the doctrines of Descartes were very sound, and were destined to survive the mechanical natural philosophy of Newton.

His conception that space is filled with matter, was very bold. It was an answer to the question how the world came to be. By maintaining that atoms were not indivisible, he anticipated later developments of physics.

Frown of Church The fear to tell the truth was not due to any moral inferiority on the part of the scientists. Human intellect was still terrified by the form of established authority. The revolutionary significance of Descartes’ philosophy could be fully appreciated only in the light of modern physics, whose foundation it laid. But immediately, the genius of Descartes

30 enabled Newton to formulate the fundamental laws of physics and mechanics on the strength of empirical evidence.

Descartes also quickened the progress of scientific practice whichushered in the age of civilisation.

XV Reason becomes the philosophical foundation of science when the reality of the physical world is conceived as independent of any other existence. So long as God is regarded the creator of the physical woerld, man cannot ever think of the possibility of remaking it. But if man realises that he is a part of a reality which exists independently by itself, then he can think of progress.

Descartes’ Contribution Descartes’ contribution to modern science was the recognition of the reality of the physical world.

Descartes proposed to introduce mathematical methods into philosophy, and searching for a sure point of departure, he set up the famous formula Cognito ergo sum (I think; therefore I am).

Descartes’ definition of truth was: “whatever I apprehend very clearly and distinctly is true”. [apprehend—grasp the meaning of; understand]

31 His Rationalism In any case, his re-assertion of the classical maxim of ancient Greek rationalism that “nothing can result from nothing”, struck at the root of any idea of God. The positive formulation of the maxim is: Everything must have a cause; Something cannot come out of nothing.

Proof of God’s Existence He introduced his theory of the development of the world from small particles with the observation that, of course God has created the world at one time, but it was very interesting to see how the might have developed by itself.

Origin of Things Descartes proved that the world is real, and its reality is to be derived from the fact that we perceive it. He went on with his physical speculations about the origin of all natural phenomina. In that, he expounded a thoroughly mechanistic view. His mechanistic view went to the extent of rejecting the venerable doctrine of the immortal soul.

He indirectly destroyed the doctrine of the soul bydrawing attention to the fact that a dead body was dead not only because the soul was absent, but because the bodily machine itself was partially out of function.

32 XVI Newton’s great work, The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy was published in 1687. those principles guided the intellectual life of Europe, and moulded material development throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The fundamental achievement of Newton was answered without any metaphysical assumption. The world developed from a primordial state wholly according to physical laws inherent in itself, completely independent of any interference from outside. The sovereignty of man was established. Whatever might have been the past, the future belonged to him. He was destined to make it. Since the world was not made by God, it could be remade by man. And civilization is nothing else but the success of man in remaking the world according to his own convenience.

Theory of Creation The process of mechanistic explanation, thus begun, proceeded quietly, setting aside the creator. It was expounded even more elaborately

by Gassendi, a French priest. Philosophically, he was the immediate predecessor of Newton Mechanistic Atomism Francis Bacon as well as the materialistic Hobbes drew inspiration from Democritus. Their efforts as well as of Descartes brought forth a

33 certain difficulty. Gassendi found the way out of the difficulty.

He revived the atomism of Epicurus, who had held that the first impact of atoms resulted from a slight deviation in their rectilinear motion downwards.

Gassendi regarded the world as one ordered whole, completely self-sufficient as regards its structure and laws of operation.

Gassendi identified the weight and gravity of atoms. He mentioned that their motion was selfdetermined. So the problem of the first impact was solved. He argued: The first cause of everything is God, but but the whole physical enquiry is conceren only with the causes which produce the changes of the phenomenal world.

They must be corporeal [having material or physical form abd visible and tangible]. The atoms, therefore, must be regarded as selfmoving principles.

Atomism, thus restated and elaborated by Gassendi, constituted the foundation Newtonian Natural Philosophy. God remained a superfluous postulate. But the physical world asserted its sovereignty. It was bound to come more and more under man’s domination.

Law of Gravitation Newton’s Law of Gravitation was the generalisation of Galileo’s Laws of Motion.

Members of the solar system, as well as countless other heavenly bodies in space were

34 also visualised as subjected to the Law of Gravitation. The science of mechanics now had mathematical accuracy. The sub-stratum of the world was revealed to be material. The laws that were causing changes were physical laws.

First Era Closes According to Francis Bacon, science has two functions: luciferous (light giving) and fructiferous (fruit bearing). By the time of Newton, science had performed the first function.

Science since Newton proved the old maxim: knowledge is power. More knowledge has meant more power.

XVII The world is a self-contained mechanism governed by inhibitions. It was a philosophical revolution. It set human spirit free. It resulted in an outburst of human creativeness. And the two hundred years after Newton became the most fruitful period of human history.

The natural phenomena was not understood for long. So long as it was not understood, it was attributed to a super-natural being. With its gradual understanding by science, an increasingly clear picture emerged.

Universal law of Gravitation was like a miracle.

Events like the tide of the oceans, phases of the Moon, solar and lunar eclipses, movements of

35 other heavenly bodies, succession of weather, could all be predicted now.

Elements Revealed Discovery of the Earth’s atmosphere told about the mechanics and chemistry of air.

Winds, storms, tempests, tornados were traced to the influence of the Sun. it helped in navigation, and ship-building.

Monsoons, snowfall, ocean currents were known.

Steam and Machine Age Growth of chemistry showed water is composed of two gases—hydrogen and oxygen.

Chemical investigations led Dalton to atomic theory.

The application of steam brought in the real machine age. So heat was matter. Heat was motion. These were both properties of matter.

Latent Heat Black discovered that heat was latent in every object. Same material particles compose steam as well as water. By forcing steam to pass through some narrow channel, the heat contained in it could be transferred into power for moving other things. It led to James Watt’s steam engine.

Conservation of Energy It was discovered that mass and energy are the same. They could not be exhausted.

36 They are simply transformed from one to another. Coal contained potential energy, could help in the running of engines. Heat and mechanical labour were found to be related. The laws of thermo-dynamics were formulated as the key to the mystery of universal mechanism Discovery of Electricity It was found that lightening in the sky and electricity were the same.

Technology changes man’s mode of living.

Breaking away from ignorance and God on the one hand, and reliance on knowledge and self capability on the other was a philosophical revolution.

It is generally said that man is a social animal. Civilisation is identical with social progress. The level of civilisation, therefore, is to be measured by the degree of social progress.

Man must exist physically before he can progress intellectually, morally or spiritually.

Therefore, it is easy to see how physical existence is the basis of spiritual development.

Human Creativeness If there is anything divine, it must be detected in human creativeness. The machine is a creation of man. It has already enabled him to travel far towards real freedom. It can take him further to greater freedom and creativeness.

37 Longer Recreation needed How can the entire human race ever attain a high level of spiritual development. They can do so when their physical necessities and social responsibilities are discharged so as to leave them plenty of time to be devoted to the civilisation of their spiritual potentialities. They should as well have the facilities for doing so.

The Lever of Progress It is generally believed that free primary education is a condition for the progress of any nation. There are two conditions for building up a spiritual structure. One is free time. The second is facilities for employing it to the purpose of cultivating the finer aspects of life.

Both these conditions are created by modern technology. Therefore machine is the only lever of social progress.

Machine and capitalism Man has created endless social progress.

the

instrument

for

Man is now confronted with the problem of liberating it from the greed of the few. These few are now choking its liberating possibilities.

Having triumphed in the age long struggle against nature, man must now win the struggle for social freedom.

38 XIX Machine could not be used to spinning and weaving, for example, in every home. It will not be profitable. But yarn spun and cloth woven by the application of mechanical power, were much cheaper. This because, with the aid of machine, the same unit of human labour could produce much more. Society must be reorganised to enable man to be benefited by his own creation. This some how led to the development of socialist thought.

Early Socialist Thought Socialist thought first developed in England where the industrial revolution was the most decisive. It grew out of the changing social conditions. It was an intellectual reaction to modern civilisation. The fundamental problem of modern civilisation is how to make man master of his creation.

Without Darwin, there would be no Marx.

Morgan’s discoveries about the nature of ancient societies contributed greatly.

The French materialism of the eighteenth century was a negative school of thought. It disrupted the theological foundation of philosophy. Advance of geological, astronomical and biological knowledge strengthened materialism.

Miserable conditions under which men, women and children laboured, led to reaction.

39 Gradually social reformers arose. They wanted to reorganise society so as to guarantee the welfare of the entire community.

XX It was the Robert Owen that Socialism stepped out of the realm of emotion, and sought application in practice. Owen was called the father of the socialist movement in England.

Burt in reality, he was a reformer of Capitalism The Chartist Movement The storm was gathering on the social horizon, to burst oput as the Chartist Movement. Robert Owen came forward with ideas for curing the social evils. He was a reformer, who wanted to improve the condition of the workers.

Reformist in France Similar tendencies of reformism were represented by Saint Simon and Fourier in France. Simon held that the society of his time needed only mending. In a way he was right.

Because technology could develop within Capitalism. That would be historically useful.

Besides this he did hit upon the right solution.

He suggested that every member of society must perform some labour.

40 Forerunners of Marx After 1848, the greatest and the conclusive contribution to Socialist thought came from Germany. Rodbertus took up the threads left by Hodgkin in England. He developed the theory of Ricardo that labour produces all value. By so doing, he prepared the ground for the economic theories to be formulated later on by Karl Marx.

The defect of socialist thought upto the time of Lassalle was its subjective nature.

People, horrified by Capitalist exploitation, called for some remedy.

The dignity of labour could be really appreciated only by associating it with the creative genius of man. It was not a question of the poor workers having their share. It was a matter of man coming to his own.

XXI Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels entirely changed the character of Socialism. It became a comprehensive system of human thought. They applied themselves to the study of Capitalism’s nature.

They found Capitalism to be an inevitable stage of social development. As such it makes valuable contributions to the progress of mankind. Its contributions consist in the development of technology. This lays down the foundation of a really civilised society.

41 Inevitable Rise of the Proletariat Capitalism creates its own grave-digger. A new social order, based upon the common ownership of the means of production is possible.

With highly developed tools, production ceases to be individual. Creation is the justification for ownership. Collective creation, therefore, lays down the foundation for collective ownership.

Marxian Socialism Marxian Socialism is not an arbitrary economic doctrine.

It is a complete system of philosophy, science, economics and polities.

An exhaustive scientific investigation of entire human history Marx to this conclusion: “It is not the consciousness of man that determines his being, but it is his being that determines his consciousness”.

In the ancient world, there were the slaves and their owners; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords and serfs; in the modern world, capitalists and the proletariat. Man had the power to advance from savagery to civilisation. Today, he has far greater power to advance from Capitalist Civilisation to a real civilisation. ***