William Osler's philosophy / by Ludwig Edelstein.

  • Ludwig Edelstein
Date:
1946
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: William Osler's philosophy / by Ludwig Edelstein. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    innate sense of moral beauty and ugliness, are the only safeguards of ethics.10 Huxley continues to think in biological and universal terms. Osier argues in spiritual categories and from the point of view of the individual. The physician, his agnosticism notwithstanding, obviously clings to a theory of the nature of man that is radically different from that of the scientist. For Huxley, consciousness is but a collateral product of the mechanism of the body, completely without any power of modifying the working of its machinery. The passions must and can be trained to cooperate in harmony with the laws of Nature, comprehended by the intellect.11 Osier, long before 1894, had rejected the automaton doctrine of Huxley and avowed his belief in the freedom of will, however incon¬ sistent such a belief may be with other data.12 He considers head and heart, intellect and passions, the two great antagonists in man. On the one side, there is the intellect which in scientific endeavor analyzes facts, or in theoretical contemplation devises ever-changing ideals. On the other side, there are the human passions, unalterable throughout the history of man¬ kind and never to be justified or controlled by science. Moreover, both head and heart are productive of action. The passions furnish the more impor¬ tant motives, for it is “ the human heart by which we live,” but we are also driven on by our dreams, our ideals.13 In consequence of such a diver¬ gence, Huxley and Osier are at variance also in their concepts of education and culture. While for Huxley liberal education is provided by science, and while for him the judgment of truth is derived from scientific research rather than from books,14 Osier consistently maintains the value of literary studies. As early as 1894 he praises Leidy who did not experience “ ‘the curious and lamentable loss of the higher aesthetic taste’ which Darwin mourned.” 15 A speech given in 1903 elaborates on this assertion. Man needs a higher education which his daily work, his scientific training do not give him. It is, moreover, “ no longer intrinsic, wrought in us and ingrained,” it can be achieved only through individual effort. “ Personal contact with men of high purpose and character will help a man to make 10 For Huxley, cf. Hofstadter, 77 f.; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed., s. v., 20b. 11 T. H. Huxley, Science and Education, 1894, 83, 86; cf. below n. 17. 12 Cf. above p. 275. 13 Aequanimitas, 4f., 99. 14 Cf. in general “A Liberal Education,” [1868], in Science and Education, 76 ff.; and also the Inaugural Address delivered in 1876 at the Johns Hopkins University, American Addresses, 1886, 99 ff. The belles lettres are considered only “the greatest of all sources of refined pleasure ” ; Science and Education, 109. 15 Aequanimitas, 88.
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