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.

    19/30 page 285
    would think that Osier had succeeded, and succeeded well, in doing what Welch had considered impossible: to fill an hour with saying that science has nothing to say upon the subject. The main reason for Eliot’s disap¬ pointment is to be found, I think, in the fact that at the end’ of his address Osier suddenly turns about and pronounces judgment in favor of the belief in immortality. After wandering through all the phases of indiffer¬ ence, scepticism, and hope, he says, some people at last will come “ to the opinion of Cicero, who had rather be mistaken with Plato than be in the right with those who deny altogether the life after death; and this is my own confessio fidei.” 8 Such an avowal of faith comes indeed as a disappointing anticlimax. For a moment one might be inclined to take it as a charming incon¬ sistency such as Osier had already permitted himself in 1882 in regard to the problem of human freedom.9 But in the Ingersoll Lecture Osier does not betray any trace of bad conscience; he boldly asserts his belief, and this in spite of the fact that he himself has proved that the basis for a scientific decision is lacking. How can this attitude be explained which so little becomes a scientist, not to mention an agnostic, and which is expressed not in terms of religious language but in those of a philosophical creed? It can only be understood if one remembers the teaching of that man who, as Osier admits in the same lecture, has most profoundly studied “ the cardiac side of life’s problems ” which is opposed to the head, the representative of science.10 James had insisted that in all “ living options ” man cannot afford doubt. He had attacked Huxley and Clifford who held that it is not permissible to believe where the evidence is insufficient, that under such circumstances doubt is the onlv honorable attitude. In 1897 he •/ had defended the cause of the will to believe, or of the right to believe as he phrased it later on, especially addressing himself to “ academic audi¬ ences.” 11 Osier’s confession of faith, I suggest, reflects the Jamesian position. At least since the year 1901 he had shown great interest in the importance of faith for all activities of life. His survey of Medicine in the Nineteenth Century stresses the relation of faith to medical healing, of faith that after all, he says, is the “ great lever of life.” In 1903 he warns the students against trying to mix the waters of science with “ the oil of faith.” But “ you can have a great deal of both if you only keep them 8 Student Life, 138. 9 Cf. above p. 275. 10 Student Life, 133; cf. above p. 280. 11 Will to Believe, 7 f., 18 and Preface, X. In Some Problems of Philosophy, 1911, 221, James speaks of “Faith and the Right to Believe.” 12
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