Science All the Way
Testament for Social Science. By Barbara Wootton. (Allen and
Unwin. i Ss.)
ONE of the most convincing proofs of our persisting irrationality is that we follow fashions in thought almost as blindly as we pursue the sartorial norm. Fifty years ago it seemed certain that the scientific method would advance rapidly on a broad front through every field of human enquiry, that its spectacular successes in the natural sciences would be followed by similar triumphs in the social sciences. Just as man had learned to manipulate his physical environ- ment and master the land, the sea and the air, so he would now learn to manage human society. The greatest good for the greatest number could be achieved, so it was proclaimed, by purposeful action based on laws evolved by the empirical verification of hypo- theses founded on the accurate observation of data. Just like that.
Unfortunately, and to the consternation of the die-hard apostles of the scientific approach, progress has been very slow. Sociology is still riddled with wishful thinkers. Psychology, anthropology, ethics—even economics—are still handicapped by " pre-scientific " thought and by such manifestly unscientific phenomena as intuition, speculation, inspiration and revelation. And as a result the world of human relations is hopelessly muddled, and threatens every tfiinute to explode and disintegrate. Mrs. Wootton's testament is, then, an eleventh-hour intervention intended to straighten the dangerous kinks in the live wire of social investigation. Testament for Social Science is a lucid, urgent and brilliantly effective restatement of an old thesis :
" Our lives [she says] are darkened not only by the familiar threats, if not the actualities, of poverty, unemployment, famine, war, and all their attendant miseries and cruelties. Most of us also live under the clouds of one or other form of superstition ; and the dignity of our species is diminished by the gods and idols that we have created in our own image. The scientific method, which has enabled us to master our material environment, might dissipate those clouds also ; for, while there may be questions which science cannot answer, yet a scientific approach to life enables us to face the universe both with greater realism and with a new sense of dignity and independence. And, finally, science may have far more to contribute than we yet realise towards the enrichment of the emotional and aesthetic experiences which are among the greatest delights of that peculiar organ of our species—the mind."
Mrs. Wootton presses her claims with the zest and vigour of the crusader. There is apparently no limit to the Lebensraum she claims for science. " The limitations of science are easily exaggerated," she says. " It is true that the scientist cannot find the answer to unanswerable questions about the ultimate nature of things ; but, then, neither can anyone else." Metaphysics, morals and art are all within the true province of social science.
Yes, even art. The psycho-physical processes involved in artistic creation and appreciation are as yet unexplored, but given time and a liberal application of scientific method we should be able to rid art of its mystique and develop a new breed of critics. At present aesthetic criticism tends to be descriptive and even subjective rather than precisely quantitative, and the art critic in particular (black matt ! ) " is on the whole less scrupulous than the scientist in observing Darwin's rule of always making a specially careful note of any observations that run counter to the hypothesis on which he is working." If any critic in the audience is prepared to question all this let him hold his tongue. " Even the imaginative insight and sensibility characteristic of the great artist (and of the great scientist) are after all only problems in applied biology and psychology strictly parallel to the problems with which those sciences are already occupied."
Mrs. Wootton's method, is disarmingly simple. Every claim for new territory opens with a diplomatic gesture of good-will to the occupying Powers, proceeds—once these Powers are off-guard--by
means of long parleys demonstrating their unfitness to rule, and ends with a demand for unconditional surrender. The argument Is most effective until one remembers that the forces waiting beyond the gates are too small to make any kind of triumphal entry. The tragedy of the testament is that all its victories are, for the time
Previous page
