The Endowment of Doubt.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1629, 21 December 1912, Page 12

The Endowment of Doubt.

o We liavo all spokon of tho narrowness of exports; but, upon tho whole, X wish they were narrower. It is tho most obvious thinjj to eay, and I liavo often 6aid it (having myself a sincero enthusiasm for tho obvious), that tho spocialist will, not caro for anything but Jus own subjeot. Nevertheless, tho real nuisanco is that the specialist will not mind his own business. We liavo soorecy about politics, secrecy about diplomacy j secrecy about fiminco. Tho only man that cannot keep a secret (or is not allowed to) is tho experimental man of scienco. And lie is obviously tho ono and only land of person who ought to bo allowc-d to keep a secret. There may be such a thing as Heredity. There may bo such a thins as tho Missing Link. There may be such a tiling as tho rcebleMinded Person. But I object to tho scientist announcing him long before ho has discovered him. And I object still nioro to tho Press and public announcihg Jiim long before tho scientist evon pretends to have discovered liini. • Lot the learned go away into some room together and argue these tilings out; and then let them publish and popularise their decision; not merely their indecision. If the naturalists fool quite sure of a mere guess,' let them profit by it in silence; as do those naturalists whose biological studies have specialised in the study of tho rapid or running horse.' If they aro sure they will defeat' their difficulty, let them keen it dark until they have defeated it; as"tho democracies in the Balkans do. The public are interested, not in obstetrios, but in babies. Let us leavo tho students of Heredity on soiuo populous but remote island (under strict supervision, of course), and then let us have a holiday and hear no more about them until they liavo really, though remotely, approached to finding something out. Let us lock them up, as a jury is locked up, and let tliem inquire thoroughly whether

there is a Missing Link A foolish softness of heart, which has always beon my enemy, prevents my insisting that tho parallel of tho old juries should bo strictly followed; that they, should be looked up without drink or food until, thoy have found tho Missing Link. If they think there 19 such a shapeless : and shifting cloud as the Feeble-Minded Person, why, let the committee clearly and calmly report which of their'own number stands furthest from, and which nearest to, that established scientific type. There really is Euch a thing as science; and the real greatness of science in tho late eighteenth and early nineteenth century was verj' largely atio to the fact that it grew unostentatiously, and, as it were, in the simile. Darwin, an old-fashioned fellow, studied things before ho proved them; and proved them before he preached them. At tho very least he proved them to himself before lie proa cued them to other people. ■

It is a queer thing, as I have observed above, that this, small silence and suspension of criticism, i 9 now allowed to all other things, except the one thing to which we 6hould all think it somewhat appropriate^—a scientific operation. About all tho other affairs, the really public affairs, wo must observe the most monstrous delicacy. In those old days of the Boer War (where I learnt to be a' democrat by fighting tho democracy; the only way to learn it) the secrecy of our external polioy was insisted on in a sense that logically led to stark nonsense. Everyone must remember that tiresome triple argument. If we criticised a war before it come, wo were hampering the high and delicate negotiations of tho diplomatists. If wo criticised tho war during its progress, wo were encouraging tho enemy and discouraging our country's soldier; who read tho Radical papers every day. If wo criticised the war after its conclusion, wo were opening old wounds,, and not allowing sleeping (or slaughtered) dogs to lio. _ About all theso things, which tho public reallv has a right to judge in their earliest stages, wo observe an exquisito delicacy. We hear increasing requests that law cases should bo heard in camera; wo hear every other day a dignified politician saying that it "will not be in tho public interest" to mention thi9 or that. Now if any of theso three things are oven for" an hour secluded, the. poor scientists ought to' have some seclusion, too. They, at least, had ono of the Christian virtues, agnosticism—which is the moro priggish form of humility. They, at least, admitted that their jolly old Link was Missing. If anyone is fond of paradox, I suppose vaccination was about the prettiest paradox that ever danced and sparkled boforo men. It may bo quite correct, for all I know; I am merely a literary critic in tho matter of vacoination; I merely say that, destroying a disease by doling it out in very small quantities is an excellent epigram; a very fortunate turn of phrase. But at least the great Victorian scientists did hold it as a truth, and not merely as a possibility. Even if it was a tyranny, it was a more respectable tyranny; just as the tyranny of Pitt in Ireland was moro respectable 'than the tyranny of Balfour in Ireland. Pitt really .was fighting Napoleon; and the old doctors really were fighting smallpox. I know enough about history to know it was a mistake to trust Pitt. *1 do not know enough about pathology to know it is a mistake to trust vaccination. But if either was a mistake, it was a natural mistake; a mistake made by men iii war. 'What is horrible and ludicrous in the new development is that we are being asked to establish the scepticism as peoplo establish a relijrion. We are asked to en-, force, not a faith, but a rather dismallcoking query. While we are, in -Wales, disestablishing a Church, because, tho people cannot believe in it, we are actually' asked to establish a Church, although the believers do not believe in it. I am willing to pay the expert for what he knows) ■ It is too much that 110 6hould ask to be'paid for what he does not know. And that is exactly the meaning of that Established Church of Science, of which the foundations are being laid in so many laws now before Parliament.—G. Iv. Chesterton, in the "Daily News."