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“There was a time, which ended some twenty years ago, when most economists conceived it to be a part of their duty to apply the economist’s ‘laws’ directly in the solution of political and social problems. They were inclined to assume, for instance, that obstacles to freedom of trade, or freedom of contract, were in all cases simply to be condemned; and they supposed that the notion of a ‘wage fund’ could be used to limit all hopes of obtaining better wages, otherwise than by a decrease in the number of labourers. By thus over-simplifying the practical problems, and by adopting a tone of somewhat impatient dogmatism in consequence, they succeeded in bringing the science into a state of discredit among practical men, from which it has hardly yet recovered, although a great deal of care has lately been taken by economists to reduce the claim which is made by the economical laws. These laws are statements of tendency, we are now very often reminded, not rules of action, nor even uncounteracted uniformities in Nature. In other words, they are abstract laws, and as such they are ‘almost never by themselves decisive.’ Before arriving at a conclusion in actual cases, we require to know whether, in the given case, the abstract tendencies are anyhow counteracted.” (Alfred Sidgwick, 1892, Distinction and the Criticism of Beliefs).

“Hard-and-fast distinctions are the bane of psychology, as every student of that difficult subject knows; but in popular talk about the mind and its operations or its ‘faculties’ very little trace of such knowledge appears. Not only are distinctions, like those between conscious and unconscious mental life, or voluntary and involuntary action, used with excessive confidence, but other more pretentious distinctions, like that between sensation and perception, cognition and recognition, simple and complex, subjective and objective, occasionally find their way also into common talk. In these and very many similar cases language, with its false simplicity, is ever ready to entrap us into error, and often succeeds in doing so. If we fail to recognise the roughness of such distinctions our conception of the mind and its work will be a mechanical one, as if the various parts of the mind were put together like the parts of a machine. There may, no doubt, be purposes for which such a conception has a temporary value — there is, probably, no fault of language that has not some such justification — but it is when we proceed to build upon these distinctions, as if there could be no doubt about their validity, that the effects of the error are seen.” (Alfred Sidgwick, 1892, Distinction and the Criticism of Beliefs).

In Distinction and the Criticism of Beliefs, Sidgwick is concerned with establishing that “the validity of any distinction is relative to the purpose for which it is used at the time, or that the question whether a given distinction is valid can be decided only by reference to the purpose for which it is used on a special occasion.”

“Why should we be in so great a hurry to label ourselves, to profess our faith or unfaith? Who can say for certain what he believes, and with how much steadfastness? Who is there whose belief — as distinct from his creed — remains quite the same even from one year to another, on any subject except those where there is least interest or least difference of real opinion? Wherever insight is most wanted, there clouds and false lights most obscure and delude our vision.” (Alfred Sidgwick, 1892, Distinction and the Criticism of Beliefs).

“The Press, as an organ of criticism, can boycott, if it choose, any subjects that would offend the religious, political, or professional susceptibilities of its readers or would prove dull to the mediocre people who constitute the mass of its clientèle. The existence of other journals which would not boycott such subjects is no cure for this stoppage in the circulation of ideas. The circulation is stopped precisely where it is needed most. The sect, party, or profession that needs a specific criticism excludes it from its journals or permits it only on condition of retaining for itself the last word. Each group of men is drugged with the ideas that it likes, not with those that it needs; and so amazingly do we lose sight of the peril of this drugging process that sincere speech is condemned as ‘bad form,’ and responsible educationists defend the segregation of children in denominational schools whose avowed function is mainly the creation of a lifelong prejudice that will refuse, on religious grounds, to hear the other side. As if the hearing of the other side, or at least the meeting with the other side, were not exactly the thing needed!” (F. H. Hayward, 1917, Professionalism and Originality).

“Specialism is born of what the philosopher Arthur Balfour called ‘the pernicious doctrine that superficial knowledge is worse than no knowledge at all.’ A little learning is dangerous in one who tries to teach or use that little in professional work; it is not a danger but a source of pleasure to the observer of life as a whole. Thus does a map, yielding a superficial knowledge of geography, add to the traveler’s enjoyment even though he himself could not survey the ground and draw the map.

“This failure to distinguish the concern of the maker from that of the observer is a characteristic of the scientific culture and another tribute to the force of science within it. Because division of labor in scientific work proved useful, recognizing proprietary rights in specialties became a point of honor everywhere, even where it served no purpose but to curtail pleasure. Every subject today confronts the tyranny of the professional, with the result to be expected: the reduction of every art and mode of thought to a preoccupation with the details of its making. In parallel with science, these formerly public goods are being withdrawn one by one from among the objects of contemplation; that is, of direct, unscholarly, unpedantic enjoyment, discussion, and criticism. True, the so-called specialization is frequently decried, but in the tone of hushed hopelessness, as an enslaved people might speak of the age of heroes. The rampant specialism, an arbitrary and purely social evil, is not recognized for the crabbed guild spirit that it is, and few are bold enough to say that carving out a small domain and exhausting its soil affords as much chance for protected irresponsibility as for scientific thoroughness.

“So far, then, from facing a two-party system in the house of intellect, we face an endless separatism based on loyalty to the parish pump and linked with the unanimous desire to obliterate the mere observer by denying the validity of his role.” (Jacques Barzun, 1964, Science: The Glorious Entertainment).

“It is by their emphasis on schemes of thought that the Greeks founded the various branches of science, which have remade civilization. A proposition which falls within a scientific scheme is accepted with surprisingly slight direct verification. For example, at the present time we all accept the famous doctrine of the shift of the spectral lines. But so far as direct evidence is concerned, there are some experiments on rays from the sun, with very dubious interpretations, and the clear-cut instance of the light from the dark companion of Sirius. There are millions of untested stars, apart from the question as to whether the same star will always give the same effect. But no one doubts the doctrine because it falls within the reigning scientific scheme. The importance of the scheme is illustrated by imagining some occurrence which does not fall within any scheme. You go to a strange foreign country, and among your first observations on your first day is that of a man standing on his head. If you are cautious, you will refrain from generalizing on the propensity of the inhabitants to stand on their heads; also half your friends will disbelieve you when you mention the incident. Yet your direct evidence is comparable to that respecting the shift of the spectral lines.

“The production of a scheme is a major effort of the speculative Reason. It involves imagination far outrunning the direct observations. The interwoven group of categoreal notions which constitute the scheme allow of derivative extension by the constructive power of deductive logic. Throughout the whole range of these propositions respecting the interrelations of the forms of things, some of them allow of direct comparison with experience. In this way, the scheme as a whole has contact with experience. The extent of its conformity or non-conformity with observed fact can thus be explored. A scheme which, for a time at least, is useless methodologically, is one which fails to yield these observable contacts with fact.

“An abstract scheme which is merely developed by the abstract methodology of logic, and which fails to achieve contact with fact by means of a correlate practical methodology of experiment, may yet be of the utmost importance. The history of modern civilization shows that such schemes fulfil the promise of the dream of Solomon. They first amplify life by satisfying the peculiar claim of the speculative Reason, which is understanding for its own sake. Secondly, they represent the capital of ideas which each age holds in trust for its successors. The ultimate moral claim that civilization lays upon its possessors is that they transmit, and add to, this reserve of potential development by which it has profited. One main law which underlies modern progress is that, except for the rarest accidents of chance, thought precedes observation. It may not decide the details, but it suggests the type. Nobody would count, whose mind was vacant of the idea of number. Nobody directs attention when there is nothing that he expects to see. The novel observation which comes by chance is a rare accident, and is usually wasted. For if there be no scheme to fit it into, its significance is lost. The way of thoughtless nature is by waste — a million seeds, and one tree; a million eggs, and one fish. In the same way, from a million observations of fact beyond the routine of human life it rarely happens that one useful development issues.” (From Whitehead’s The Function of Reason)

“Newton’s formulae were not false: they were unguardedly stated. Einstein’s formulae are not false: they are unguardedly stated. We now know how to guard Newton’s formulae: we are ignorant of the limitations of Einstein’s formulae. In scientific investigations the question, True or False?, is usually irrelevant. The important question is, In what circumstances is this formula true, and in what circumstances is it false? If the circumstances of truth be infrequent or trivial or unknown, we can say, with sufficient accuracy for daily use, that the formula is false.” (From Whitehead’s The Function of Reason)

“The dawn of brilliant epochs is shadowed by the massive obscurantism of human nature. Obscurantism is the inertial resistance of the practical Reason, with its millions of years behind it, to the interference with its fixed methods arising from recent habits of speculation. This obscurantism is rooted in human nature more deeply than any particular subject of interest. It is just as strong among the men of science as among the clergy, and among professional men and business men as among the other classes. Obscurantism is the refusal to speculate freely on the limitations of traditional methods. It is more than that: it is the negation of the importance of such speculation, the insistence on incidental dangers. A few generations ago the clergy, or to speak more accurately, large sections of the clergy were the standing examples of obscurantism. Today their place has been taken by scientists — By merit raised to that bad eminence. The obscurantists of any generation are in the main constituted by the greater part of the practitioners of the dominant methodology. Today scientific methods are dominant, and scientists are the obscurantists.” (From Whitehead’s The Function of Reason)

When all the fiercer passions cease
(The glory and disgrace of youth);
When the deluded soul, in peace,
Can listen to the voice of truth;
When we are taught in whom to trust,
And how to spare, to spend, to give,
(Our prudence kind, our pity just) —
’Tis then we rightly learn to live.