The Freedom of Science

If a question is destined to agitate and divide for considerable length of time the minds of men, it must undoubtedly have its root deep in the entire intellectual life of the times; it must be anchored in profound philosophical thought, in theories of life. From this source it derives its power of captivating the minds. All this applies to the question of the Freedom of Science. If, then, we desire a thorough understanding of this question, we must first of all seek and examine its deeper lying philosophical basis; we must trace the threads which so closely unite it to the intellectual life and effort of the times.

But before we begin our study, let us remember a rule of the great orator and philosopher of ancient Rome; a rule only too often forgotten in our times: “Every philosophical discussion, of anything whatsoever, should begin with a definition, in order to make clear what the discussion is about” (Cicero, De Officiis, I, 2). If we would form a judgment as to the demand of science for freedom, as to the justification of this demand, as to its compatibility or incompatibility with the duty of faith, the first question that naturally arises is: What is the purport of this demand, what does it mean? Only after we have clearly circumscribed this demand can we approach its philosophical presumptions and test its basis.

What, then, do we understand by Science, and what freedom may be granted to it?

Science

When a man of Northern or Central Europe hears of science, his thoughts generally turn to the universities and their teachers. To him the university is the home of science, there its numerous branches dwell in good fellowship, there hundreds of men have consecrated themselves to its service. In those parts of Europe it is customary for men of science to be university professors. Of what university is he? is asked. Celebrated scientists, like Helmholtz, Liebig, Hertz, Kirchhoff; philosophers, like Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Herbart; great philologists, historians, and so on, were university professors.

For all that, science and university are not necessarily inseparable things. The university needs science, but science does not absolutely need the university. Science was in the world before the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the time when France and Italy built their first universities; and also since then science has been enriched by the achievements of many a genius who never occupied a university chair. Pythagoras, Aristotle, St. Augustine belonged to no universities; Copernicus, Newton, and Kepler never taught in the higher schools. In the countries of Western Europe and America the man of science and the university professor are to this day not so much identical in person. Therefore, if the freedom of science applies principally to the higher schools and their teachers, this is not its exclusive application. Science and university are not identical terms.

What, then, is science?

At the sound of this magic word there arises in the minds of many the image of a superhuman being: open on his lap lies the book of wisdom in which all mysteries are solved; in his hand is the flaming torch which enlightens the path down into the lowest depths of research, dispelling all darkness. This, in the minds of many, is what science means. The mere appeal to this infallible being suffices to settle all problems, to silence every contradiction; woe to him who dares open his profane mouth to utter an If or a But!

Were this science, there would be no dispute. We should have to admit that there could be no limit set to the freedom of this being; he must share the privileges of divine Intelligence, for no command to keep silent can be imposed on Infallible Truth; there can be no amendment. But, alas! in the world of reality this personified Science is nowhere to be found, it exists solely in the realm of rhetoric and poetry. Science, as it exists among men, has its seat, after all, nowhere else than in the human mind. It is, indeed, nothing else but the well-ordered summary of knowledge and of the research for the causes of things. Natural science is the summary of knowledge and research in the realm of natural phenomena, arranged in an orderly way, as a text-book will give it; that is, an investigation of phenomena and their causes. A mere description of natural phenomena, without any explanation, or reference of them to the laws of nature, would indeed be teaching about nature, but not natural science. Similarly, the science of history is the well-ordered summary of knowledge and research in the domain of human events, derived from their sources, with the statement of facts according to cause and effect.

And not all this knowledge is certain, and free from doubt. The modern conception of science, as we now have it – the ancients had a much narrower conception – includes certain as well as uncertain knowledge, results and hypotheses, and even the activity of research, together with its methods. Astronomy was thus in Ptolemy's time the summary of what was then known with more or less certainty about the stars; included in this, as is well known, was the opinion that the sun circles around the earth. And the philosophy of Aristotle embraced his philosophical ideas about God, the world and man; hence many errors. Further, when speaking of science in general, we mean the whole number of the individual sciences. It is the freedom of science in this sense that we have to investigate here. The individual sciences are distinguished one from another principally by the subjects of which they treat. Astronomy is distinguished from palæontology and philosophy by the fact that it treats of the stars, not of fossils, or of the fundamental truths of reason.

From this brief analysis of concepts it is clear that science and scientific research are not superhuman beings, but an activity or condition of the human mind, distinguished from the ordinary thought of the individual only by system and method, and, commonly, by greater thoroughness and by the united effort of many. It is subject to all the limitations of the human mind.

What follows from this? Two things. Let us at once make a brief reference to both of them, because in our discussion they are of the greatest importance.

Since, then, science is an activity of the human mind, it must, like it, always and everywhere be subject to the Truth and subject to God. Subject to the Truth: whenever science comes in contact with it, it must reverently bow to the truth. And subject to God: if God is the Creator of man and of his spiritual and bodily activity, He is also the master of his whole being, and man is subject to Him in all his activity and development, therefore in his intellectual life, and in his artistic and scientific pursuits. Everything is and remains the activity of the creature. As gravitation rules the entire planet and its material activity, attracts it towards the sun and makes it circle around it, so does the law of dependence on God rule the whole life of the creature. Man cannot therefore, even in his scientific research, ignore his Creator, cannot emancipate himself from His authority; and if God has given a revelation and demands faith, the man of science, too, must believe. There cannot be an emancipated, free, science in this sense.

Another consequence is this: since science is an activity of the human mind, it shares all its imperfections and weaknesses. It is truly flesh of its flesh. The fruit cannot be more perfect than the tree that produces it, nor the flower better than the plant on which it blossomed. Now, as the human mind is throughout limited in its nature, so is it also in its research. It is not given to man to soar aloft on eagle wings to the heights of knowledge, thence to gaze upon truth with unerring intuition; the ascent must be slow, with constant dangers of stumbling, even of falling headlong. To these dangers must be added his latent likes and dislikes, which imperceptibly guide his thought, especially in forming opinions on questions of the world and of life, which the human heart cannot view with indifference: they influence his thought. Hence ignorance, darkness, and error, everywhere accompany the investigator individually, and science as a whole, all the more the loftier the questions that present themselves.

Already the philosopher of the dim past gave expression to the complaint, that our reason is no more capable of knowing the divine than the eyes of the owl are of seeing in broad daylight. It is Aristotle who so complains. And the great Newton, in the evening of his life, thus estimates the worth of his knowledge: “What the world may think about my labour, I do not know; I feel like a child that plays on the strand of the sea: now and then I may perhaps find a pebble or shell more beautiful than those of my playmates, while the boundless ocean lies ever before me with its undiscovered treasures” (apud O. Zoeckler, Gottes Zeugen im Reich der Natur (1906), 173). The same sorrowful plaint is heard from all serious investigators, especially those in the domain of the natural sciences, who should have more reason than others to be proud of their achievements. “However great the amount of human knowledge may seem to the multitude,” writes the well-known chemist Schoenbein, “the most experienced scientist feels the incompleteness and patchwork of it, and realizes that man so far has been able to learn but infinitely little of what nature is, and of what can be known.” “The more exact the investigation,” says the geologist Quenstedt, “so much the more obscure is its beginning. Indeed, the deeper we think to have understood the single parts, the further the original plan of the Creator seems to escape us” (cf. Kneller, Das Christentum und die Vertreter der neueren Naturwissenschaften (1904), 208, 281). “Although science,” so we are assured by another modern savant, “has brought to light many a treasure, still, compared with what we do not yet know, it is as a drop to the ocean. In all our knowledge there will always be the danger of error.” We are probably not very far in advance of the time of Albrecht von Haller, who said: “We, all of us, err, only each errs in a different way. Every passage that has been illuminated by science is surrounded by dense darkness; beyond the visible lies the invisible.” And Prof. J. Reinke continues: “As early as the day of Socrates, the beginning of philosophy was to know that we know nothing; the end of philosophy, to know that we must believe: such is the inevitable fate of human wisdom” (Naturwissenschaft und Religion, in Natur und Kultur IV (1907), 418, 425. Printed also separately). Some years ago Sir W. Ramsay, a noted scientist, concluded a discourse on his scientific labour with the words: “When a man has reached the middle of his life, he begins to believe that the longer he lives the less he knows! This is my excuse for having molested you for an hour with my ignorance” (Einige Betrachtungen ueber das periodische Gesetz der Elemente. Vortrag auf der 75. Versammlung Deutscher Naturforscher und Ærzte zu Cassel (1903)).

If science, then, can only with difficulty lift from visible nature the veils that hide the truth – and even this is often beyond its power – no wonder it is confronted with still greater obstacles when it approaches the truths that are beyond visible nature. Moreover, it is an old truth that here it is led not by reason only, but also, and even more energetically, by self-interest. “Most men,” says Cicero, “are swayed in their judgments by either love or hatred, likes or dislikes” (De Oratore, II, 42).

If this is the nature of human science, its adepts would be badly deceiving themselves, if, in the pride of learning, they would reject every correction, even proudly pushing aside the hand of God that reaches down into the darkness of man's intellectual life to offer its guidance. He who realizes that he is in danger of losing his way in the dark, will not reject a reliable guide; and he who fears to stumble will not refuse a helping hand. Self-knowledge is the sister of wisdom, and the mother of modesty.

Freedom

Such, then, is science: not the goddess that emanated from the head of immortal Jove, but the offspring of the puny mind of man, bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. And this science cries for freedom. It would be free and act freely; it urges its claim in the name of truth, which must not be slighted; in the name of the progress of civilization, which must not be hindered.

Freedom clearly means nothing less than to be untrammeled and free from restraint, from fetter and check, in action, thought, and desire. The prisoner is free when his chains drop off, a people is free when it has cast off the yoke of serfdom, the eagle is free and can spread out its wings in lofty flight when not bound down to the earth. Science, therefore, should be free in its activity from bond, fetter, and restraint. Does this mean it must be free from all restraint and law? Should the historian be given the right to make Solon a member of the French Academy, or of the heroes of Troy mediæval knights? Should the scientist be given the right to break every rule of logic, to ignore all progress, and perhaps in his capriciousness return to the four elements of Aristotle, or the astronomical chart of primitive ages? Nobody demands this. No, science must be bound by the truth. Freedom indeed should not mean lawlessness. Science remains bound by the general laws of logic, and by positive facts. Truth is the irremovable barrier set in restraint of the freedom of everything, even of scientific thought. The freedom of science therefore can only be freedom from unreasonable restraint and fetters; from such that hinder it unreasonably in its inquiry after the truth, and in the communication of the results of its investigation. It should be free, not from the internal bondage of truth, but from the restraint by external authority, the restraint which would hinder it, in an improper way, from approaching those questions, and using those methods, that lead to the discovery of truth, and from acknowledging the results it has found to be true; or which would unlawfully keep it from making known, for the benefit of others, the results of its investigation. It should be free from any unjust restriction, imposed by state or Church, by popular opinion, by party spirit, by hampering protectorate, or servility of any kind.

From any unjust restriction, we said. For this is clear: if under certain circumstances there might be warrant for a just restriction by external authority, such a restriction could not be refused in the name of freedom. So long, then, as we understand by freedom a lawful freedom, there cannot be included in this the freedom from every external authority, but only from unlawful interference. There is, then, the question whether there may be a legitimate restraint, imposed by external authority, which man must not evade, and what the nature of such restraint may be.

We must, moreover, take into consideration two elements, which are distinguished in the above definitions, both belonging to the modern idea of scientific freedom. We will call them freedom of research, and freedom of teaching. The investigator and the scientist claim the one; the teacher, the other. Searching after truth, and communicating the truth found, are, as is known, the principal occupations of science. The scientist should first of all be an investigator. He should not be content to appropriate to himself the knowledge of others, he should also make his own additions to knowledge. He is also commonly a teacher, by word of mouth, as at the university, or by his writing, in his literary activity. Research, as such, imparts directly a certain knowledge only to the investigator; it is of a private nature and as such does not reach beyond him. But by teaching, his ideas are communicated to others, and then begin to influence their thought, will, and action, often very strongly. Teaching is a social factor; with it are bound up the weal and woe of others. Suppose a man of influence conceives in his study the idea that monogamy is an infringement upon the universal rights of man; should he be given without any ado the right of disseminating, by teaching, the imagined results of his investigation, to the confusion of men, and with serious danger to the peace of society?

We shall therefore have to distinguish between freedom of research and freedom of teaching. The neglect of this distinction causes not a little confusion; thus, if one complains of his convictions being trammeled or his liberty of conscience being violated, when he is hindered from immediately proclaiming whatever he calls his convictions. Private opinion, and the public propaganda of this opinion, are evidently very different things. It may be that an opinion seems to me the right one, but, in spite of that, public dissemination of it may, always or under certain circumstances, mean danger to my fellow-men. If I am for this reason prevented from publishing it, I am not thereby hindered from giving it my own private assent. It is, moreover, quite clear that the state – we disregard here religious authority – cannot at all directly restrict research, which is something personal. It can only impose restrictions on the communication of one's ideas by teaching them to others, which is a social function.

From these few remarks will be followed the impropriety of the following, or similar, observations: “The fostering of science and its teaching are not separate functions … to insinuate a twofold function of freedom, viz., that of the savant and that of the teacher, would be to dissolve the unity of the moral personality” (W. Kahl, Bekenntnissgebundenheit und Lehrfreiheit (1897), 22). It is not at all double-dealing if some one does not publicly proclaim one's private knowledge. Is it double-dealing, is it a violation of “the unity of the moral personality,”if one is, and must be, silent about official secrets? And if one does not tell, and is not allowed to tell, official secrets, if one prevents an anarchist from spreading his revolutionary ideas, is this a violation of the unity of the moral personality? It is true that “to deny one's convictions is a violation of one of the most indubitable principles of moral conduct” (K. v. Amira, Die Stellung des akademischen Lehrers zur Freiheit in Forschung und Lehre. Beilage der Muenchener Neuesten Nachrichten. 9. Juli, 1908). But it is logically incorrect to conclude therefrom that the freedom of teaching should not be restricted. To keep silence is not denying one's convictions. Later on, when speaking of freedom in teaching, we shall return to this thought and deal with it more thoroughly.