The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox
Page 31
16 But at least their rivalry generated a wonderful phrase from a contemporary wit—a line that Lewis Carroll later embodied in two fat fellows who declaimed a little ditty about a Walrus and a Carpenter, thus giving Handel’s opponent a small place (albeit without his name) in later history:Some say, that Signor Bononcini
Compared to Handel’s a mere ninny . . .
Others aver, to him, that Handel
Is scarcely fit to hold a candle.
Strange that such dispute should be
Twixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee
17 I do not hold that science ever claimed explanatory access to so idiosyncratic or trivial a thing as why I love a particular piece. Rather, I only use this example to point out that such central artistic concepts as beauty and passion cannot be accessed without awarding prominence to these intrinsically unscientific factors.
18 Moreover, speaking of ironies, since both Wilson and I unabashedly own Charles Darwin as our personal hero, and since Darwin’s argument for evolution represents the most stunningly successful application of consilience to prove a central theorem in science (see pages 211–212), I must note that Whewell himself rejected Darwin’s argument in the Origin of Species, and regarded the entire subject of evolution as anathema. As an undergraduate at Cambridge, Darwin admired Whewell as a teacher and celebrated scholar of the sciences. Whewell frequently visited his friend and colleague, the botanist and fellow reverend John Henslow. Darwin often encountered Whewell at these gatherings, for Henslow became the most important mentor of Darwin’s career. In the only reference to Whewell in his short Autobiography, written late in life for his children and not intended for publication, Darwin recalls the pleasure and instruction he received in Whewell’s company, particularly in their frequent strolls home, following one of Henslow’s soirées: “Dr. Whewell was one of the older and distinguished men who sometimes visited Henslow, and on several occasions I walked home with him at night.”
But their intellectual relationship soured mightily after Darwin published the Origin of Species. In a famous incident and anecdote, the powerful Whewell, as Master of Trinity College, even barred Darwin’s book from the college library. Darwin’s son Francis recounts the story in his three-volume Life and Letters of his father. Recalling the note that Whewell sent to Charles Darwin to discuss his initial response to the Origin, Francis Darwin states:Dr. Whewell wrote (Jan 2, 1860): “. . . I cannot yet at least, become a convert. But there is so much of thought and of fact in what you have written that it is not to be contradicted without careful selection of the ground and manner of the dissent.”
In the next sentence, Francis slyly comments upon Whewell’s unnatural selection as expressed in the vigor and practical nature of his opposition (and utterly ineffective as well, for such forms of mild “censorship” only serve to pique interest in what might otherwise have been ignored):Dr. Whewell dissented in a practical manner for some years, by refusing to allow a copy of the “Origin of Species” to be placed in the Library of Trinity College.
19 For I must fairly admit that, like Wilson but in an opposite way, I am suggesting an extension of Whewell’s term beyond original authorial usage. I would only argue that my proposed extension lies closer than Wilson’s to the spirit of Whewell’s meaning and does not violate his views on the relations among magisteria of knowledge.
20 As I have emphasized many times in this book, science surely has nothing to fear from the humanities, and the initial scrappiness of nascent science, fighting for its birthright in the late seventeenth century (see Part I), established unfortunate habits that, abetted by our general human tendencies to parochialism and denigration of others, have persisted for several centuries beyond the extinction of any legitimate rationale (as any supportable reason for this side of the conflict disappeared with the triumph of science, surely by the end of the eighteenth century). Given the power (and cost) of modern science, the suspicions of some modern humanists may claim a more reasonable (or at least a more immediate) basis. But this fear about inequality won’t wash either. For every supposed advantage of science, a linked and comparable advantage of the humanities may also be cited. In the most obvious example, science can claim a method capable of ascertaining factual truth, whereas ethical debate in the humanities cannot hope to attain the same kind of confidence about “correct” answers. But we live in a world of trade-offs. Yes, science gains the virtue of factual validation. But even though ethical discourse must sacrifice such a summum bonum, who could deny that the basic questions about duties of an ethical life are far more important to our meaning and being. So we swap certainty for salience. As I said, we seek a consilience of equal regard for admitted differences weighed in the balance, with neither side found wanting.