Evening star., 1923-10-30
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM

Il - L
THE HUMANIZING OF KNOwL-
EDGE. James Harvey Robinson.
George II. Doran Company.
The last hundred years have
wrought the greatest of the miracles.
Within this little span-no more than
q chip scaled of the immeasurable
block OF time-science, the modern
wonder worker, has created a new
world, spreading for mankind a fu-
ture inconceivable. as yet, in Its
splendor and power.
A hundred years ago the tallow dip
was serving to light up the darkness
dimly in the majority of American
homes. The blazing fireplace was then
throwing out its inadequate radius of
warmth and comfort. The home itself
was, in effect, rude factory supply
ing the bulk of home needs, food and
clothing, with barter still the chief
medium of exchange A hundred years
ago rough trails far outnumbered
highway was the rare exception.
Clumsy. horse-drawn vehicles pro-
duced the maximum of speed, save
Tor the occasional triumph of the
swift courier at somewhere around
eight miles an hour. A hundred years
ago there was not in the whole United
States a railway of sufficient length
to link up Alexandria and Washing
ton. The century beginning with 1923
had more than reached its majority
when, in 1S45. the first message by
telegraph in this country sped from
Baltimore to Washington announcing
the nomination Of James X. Polk for
the presidency.
II is within this hundred-year
and set out on it's immortal adven-
ture of rediscovering the world. its
sole directing force and exclusive
and unquenchable passion for pure
truth. Its first agents of discovery
were no more than the human senses
with the power of the human
mind to move in direct and orderly
sequences of independent thought
And in this supreme enterprise OF
science set upon these hu-
man agencies but single condition
of service, that of a complete inno-
cence of the mind before the facts
of the universe. AT no point in the
pursuit of truth would the alloy OF
personal bias or preconceived theo-
ries and beliefs be permitted to re-
duce the perfect purity of abstract
truth itself.
X X
Only but just begun in this scant
century run, the astounding adven-
ture of science has already recreated
the material world. Discovery and
invention directed and controlled by
the facts and laws of science, these in
partnerships along the null
ways of human affairs
less number and scope and variety.
These, too, have stored the world
with a bewilderment of fresh knowl-
edge, rich but, unfamiliar in its mean
ings. The clear and pressing i'm
perative of the situation is that this
modern life in a thousand daily con-
facts. has become corporate part OF
the human content, lifting the general
expanding the field af
liberating the spirit, fir
ing the constructive imagination. and
exalting the free choice of vocation.
This imperative, in a word. throws
the great enterprise into the field of
But, right here, is the
rub. For
You recall that when science, pur-
suing absolute truth, accepted human
agencies of service, the single con-
dition imposed was an absolute re-
pudiation of the personal element
and constant In this ex-
@ h
forth. as a by-product of her chief
new type Of human
the scientist. Now. the scientist
Is a highly specialized and perfected
of investigation. He deals
exclusively with facts. barred to the
bone of human implication, with de-
ductions. with classitications. He
speaks, when he speaks at all, in a
strange lingo of technicalities. He
salaams to pigeonholes of classified
tions like a pious Hindu before the
impassive serenity of an East Indian
idol. Quite right. too. The rub
comes only when the pure scientist is
called upon to make common proper
ty of his exclusive findings, when he
is invited to share his holdings with
This he is unable to do,
for he has locked the door against
humanity and thrown away the key.
Specifically, he has dehumanized his
k knowledge.
How to humanize the vast and
8 gnificant facts of the modern
world? Who is to do it? Clearly
not the scientist. AS certainly not
the timid fumbler in education who
aping the perfectly proper gesture
Of the scientist in his own field. ue-
Iivers only a clicking handful of dry
~, r1o >f q blood
of world vibrant with the marvels
Of this electrifying day. Who, then?
Once in a great while it is already
being done-Flammarion. Huxley.
Wells. James Harvey Robinson him
self and others at long d stances here
and there. Now and then poet,
Hall, this one and
that. But these are not enough. The
stupendous work must carry on
and by, some day-else the world
will go to smash-there will meet
and blend in a blessed ferment the
human being for understanding, the
scientist for knowledge. the poet for
uplffted vision and the plain man for
straight and simple approaches. An
that will be the Observation-Disclosures
OF thousands of him-for the true
of knowledge and the
true liberation of the spirit of man.
Mr.. Robinson gives an interesting
survey here of the three periods into
which. from a single point of view.
knowledge up to the present time
may be gathered. The first period
covers that long, long dav leading up
to the era of scientific investigation.
this stretch of time
was-to pattern after the
authors own term-overhumanize
Then man himself was the center
in1eed, the object-of creation. Man
civilizations four;shed
and fell upon the foundation of hu--