The mind in the making / with an introduction by H.G. Wells.

  • James Harvey Robinson
Date:
1934
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The mind in the making / with an introduction by H.G. Wells. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of the clergy or the schools. The social body has become tolerant of their virus. This is not the case, however, with the social sciences. One cannot but feel a little uneasy when he uses the expression “ social science/’ because it seems as if we had not as yet got anywhere near a real science of man. I mean by social science our feeble efforts to study man, his natural equipment and impulses, and his relations to his fellows in the light of his origin and the history of the race. This enterprise has hitherto been opposed by a large number of obstacles essentially more hampering and far more numerous than those which for three hun¬ dred years hindered the advance of the natural sciences. Human affairs are in themselves far more intricate and perplexing than molecules and chromo¬ somes. But this is only the more reason for bringing to bear on human affairs that critical type of thought and calculation for which the remunerative thought about molecules and chromosomes has prepared the way. I do not for a moment suggest that we can use precisely the same kind of thinking in dealing with the quandaries of mankind that we use in problems of chemical reaction and mechanical adjustment. Exact scientific results, such as might be formulated in mechanics, are, of course, out of the question. It would be unscientific to expect to apply them. I am not advocating any particular method of treating human affairs, but rather such a general frame of mind, such a critical open-minded attitude, as has hitherto been but sparsely developed among those who aspire to be men’s guides, whether religious, political, economic, or academic. Most human pro¬ gress has been a mere “ muddling through.” It has been man’s wont to explain and sanctify his ways, with little regard to their fundamental and permanent expediency. An arresting example of what this muddling may mean we have seen during these
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