The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-09-09
'DEWEY'S LECTURE
On The Influence Of Scientific
Thought Last Night.
ORDER OF REMAINING LECTURES
The Eighteenth Century Esta b,ish-
sd the Idea of the Reign
of Law

his remaining lectures from that print
ed in the syllabus, and would give two
evenings TO the subject of the influence
OF scientific ideas upon morals and
politics, and the final one to the ethi-
cal element in education Last even
ing he confined himself mainly to the
| effect that the scientific method and
attitude are having in changing mems
| ideas of conduct, leaving the influence
or the conception of evolution for the
next lecture. The speaker said that
no force had been more powerful than
| that OF science in sapping the authori-
! tatlve and dogmatic basis of morals.
| tradition, custom, inspiration, intui-
| ton, conscience as separate from the
| teachings Of experience, and the meth
DDS of investigation put in our hands
| by science, have all been attacked.
| Upon the surface it's dsintegrating
and destroying effect upon moral be-
| llefs is often more apparent than the
constructive tendency; but the latter is
active and is the more important of
| the two. Loyalty TO truth, impartial
ty of Judgment, liberation, in the sense
not only of allowing others to think
| for themselves, but in the sense of act
i've sympathy with them and a desire
to participate in whatever fragment
OF truth they may possess; the passing
away of class feeling and exclusive
ness, and the recognition of common
aims even where there is diversity of
opinion, are such positive gains AS
persecution in a multitude of forms.
from jo1
osracism, TO disregard and hostile feel
ing are the results of opinions held
upon purely dogmatic grounds; so
charity, Openness to conviction, the
Judgment of conduct by it's fruit rather
than from the beliefs that are supposed
to inspire it, are the results of the
scientific spirit. While Christianity has
always taught that various classes,
races and nations should meet upon
common ground, this teaching could
take effect only through intellectual
convictions based upon scientific
thought. The great intermingling and
interaction, characteristic of the pres
ent day would not have been possible
save by the rise of science. It is not
enough to intend we'll by Others but we
must also understand their special |
needs, capacities and point of view, |
and the approach to this common I'M
derstanding we owe to science
Passing from the effect of the scien- |
tific temper to some of it's special |
teachings, the lecturer said that the |
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries |
were marked by the changed concep-
ton of the place of the world in the |
universe; the recognition that it was |
not a fixed center, but a moving ele- |
ment in a whole OF infinite extent and |
compleXity. The conception of move |
ment, change, instead of rest and fix
ity as normal, has brought about |
tremend his moral revolutions; progress |
as mo..al ideal dates from it; man
could no longer regard himself and |
his world as the center and end-all of |
the whole universe; and this change |
instead of reducing the value and !
meaning of life. added tremendously tot
it. The imagination of man has been
expanded: he conceived infinitely wider
issues and possibilities; instead of low
ering the whole universe till it can be |
by himself, he has enlarged
himself to the standard of the universe.
The eighteenth century in applying
scientific method TO physics and chem
istry, established the idea of the reign
of law, and the universally of the
principle OF causation. A regular or
derby course Of nature, zee from un-
caused and abrupt change and from
external interference, was conceived.
This idea applied to conduct, intro
duced the notion that law is also nat
ural, not arbitrary, in the moral re-
gion; that the effects of acts flow from
their own intrinsic nature and are not
externally attached. This tended to
modify the principles of moral instruc-
ton, to change ideas of reward and
punishment, and to advance demo-
cratic notions by destroying the idea of
the necessity of an external governor
and Iaw-giver. The speaker also al
luded TO the effect upon religious ideas
in connection with moral ones. 1t dis
placed the idea OF an absentee God and
Ruler by that of an in-dwelling, every
where present power; and thus, while
lessening reverence for special cere-
monies, places, etc, gave rise to sense
OF the moral dignity and seriousness
of all situations in life.
The nineteenth century extended the
scientific method to the sphere of life,
physical, mental and social The move
ment has thus been from the world as
an astronomical fact, to its physical.
and chemical structure, and then to the
life of plants, animals and man dis
PLAYED upon it. Here the influence OF
science upon moral questions becomes
direct. The modern novel of charac-
ter as displayed in writer's as unlike
as Hawthorne and George Eliot is
made possible by it. Balzac himself
declares that the whole object of his
novels was to write the moral history
Of modern society. The sciences of po-
itical economy and sociology, and the
new moral problems that come up with /
them, have arisen. The industrial and !
intellectual duties of man TO his neigh