Ohio History Journal

SCIENCE AND THE AMERICAN TRADITION*

 

by JAMES B. CONANT

President of Harvard University

 

We are gathered here tonight, I take it, because we believe

that "to be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to be

always a child." I count it a privilege to give the address at this

annual dinner of a society dedicated to a furtherance of the study

of the history of this state; I am particularly glad to be here when

you are dedicating a new addition to your building and in the

twenty-fifth year of the presidency of Mr. Arthur Johnson, who

has done so much for the society and the state of Ohio. I count

it a privilege to be here because I believe so strongly in the im-

portance of a sense of history as a stabilizing force in the life of

both an individual and a community.

John Selden, the writer of one of the earlier significant

English social histories, laid down in 1618 a doctrine about his-

torical studies which I venture to think might be the platform of

all of us who have a deep interest in the past. After speaking of

historical truth as a deterrent to "the many ridiculous impostures

thrust on the too credulous by those which stumble on in the road,"

he gives a balanced judgment as to the use and abuse of anti-

quarian zeal:

For, as on the one side, it cannot be doubted but that the too studious

affectation of bare and sterile antiquity, which is nothing else but to be

exceeding busy about nothing, may soon descend to a dotage; so on the

other, the neglect or only vulgar regard of the fruitful and precious part

of it, which gives necessary light to the present in matters of state, law,

history, and the understanding of good authors, is but preferring that

kind of ignorant infancy which our short life alone allows us, before

the many ages of former experience and observation which may so

 

* This is the text of an address delivered at the sixty-fifth annual meeting

of the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, held at the Ohio State

Museum, Columbus, April 14, 1950.

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232 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

 

accumulate years to us, as if we had lived even from the beginning of

time.

In short, either history is devoid of meaning, in which case

we should adjourn this meeting now, or else the study of the past

must enrich our understanding of the present. And if there was

ever a present when men needed aids to understanding, it would

seem to be these anxious, complex days of the mid-twentieth cen-

tury.

My thesis tonight can be summed up in a relatively few

words: a study of the history of the American nation on the one

hand, and of the development of the activity we call science on

the other, shows that certain basic presuppositions are common to

both enterprises. If that be true, I venture to believe that in an

age of technology the two traditions must mutually support and

reinforce each other; a country where this occurs will be power-

ful because of its dynamic quality, and in competition with a more

static system will eventually win out. Needless to say, the con-

trasting system which I have in mind is that found on the other

side of the iron curtain.

Science and the American tradition go hand in hand; in the

Soviet Union the tradition of science is diametrically opposed to

the philosophy of the Communist regime. Therefore, in the long

run, a competition between the free countries of the world and

those which lie within the orbit of the dictatorship of the prole-

tariat must result in a victory for freedom. This is the conclu-

sion I draw from my study of history; this is the light a study of

the past seems to me to throw on the perplexing years that lie

ahead.

But my cautious optimism about the future, I must admit, is

based on one assumption, namely, that we can avoid another

global war. If that assumption proves false, my optimism largely

disappears. Not that I wish to be counted among those extremists

who talk of the end of civilization or the human race if we and

the Soviet Union start dropping atomic bombs on one another.

There are large, densely populated areas of the world which lie

outside any possible belligerent zones in such a global war. There

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Science and the American Tradition         233

 

are large cities with ancient traditions, cultural centers, particu-

larly to the south of both Russia and ourselves; at the worst these

would remain untouched. Perhaps it is the fated task of those of

us now living in the United States to develop our own civilization

in these uncertain days merely in order to transmit it to the sur-

vivors of World War III in other lands. It would be no inglorious

mission. But I for one refuse to assume any such outcome of our

labors. I believe with intelligence, patience, and good luck we

can get through the balance of this century without another global

war; and if we can, I have every confidence that the free peoples

of the world will win the ideological struggle of our times.

This favorable outcome of a long period of tension, of un-

certainty, of sacrifice, of struggle seems to me predicted on the

basis of that knowledge which we who are gathered here hold in

such high esteem, namely, history. The history of the American

people has been the history of increasing democracy, of increas-

ing concern with the welfare of all the people--slow but sure

progress toward the goals of equality and tolerance, of "the maxi-

mum of individual liberty," "the minimum of class distinction."

I should be the last to undervalue the significance of all these

elements in our tradition. But the one I wish to emphasize here

tonight goes back far beyond the founding of this republic. This

is the tradition of local autonomy, local responsibility, local initi-

ative--the vigorous independence of groups of individuals which

gradually became tempered by a tolerance for the conflicting

opinions of other groups. One could show how these ideas have

been effective in producing the present cultural pattern in the

United States, including our devotion to an economic system in

which there are literally millions of centers of initiative and de-

cision. The local basis of our free school system, the almost

chaotic diversity of our methods of providing education beyond

the high school, many segments of our religious life--all reflect

the same ancient and solid belief in the value of independence

for small bodies of men.

Before showing how the same unconscious suppositions un-

derlie science as well as the American notion of independence,

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234 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

 

let me remind you of what some historians have to say about the

origins of this important element in the conglomerate we designate

the American way of life. You will pardon my parochialism as

a New Englander, I feel sure, if I point out that there are those

who believe the form of church government set up by the Massa-

chusetts Bay Colony three hundred years ago is the point of origin.

Those of you who are Congregationalists or have affinity with that

branch of Protestantism may be inclined to agree with an historian

who sees in the first platform  of the congregational form  of

church discipline the beginnings of our liberties. He speaks of

"the very small mustard seed . . . which should ensure freedom

of action to each local New England congregation." "From this

seed," he goes on to say, "there grew the great tree of religious

and civil liberty."

Other writers trace back the idea of the independence of each

congregation not to New England but to Old England, to the

triumphs of Cromwell's army and the rise of the independent

party in the parliament of those days. But it is not for an amateur

historian to attempt to enter into a detailed analysis of the inter-

play of religious, social, and political forces in the seventeenth

century which are reflected in the history on this continent of

almost all the Protestant faiths. Suffice it to say that the Congre-

gational or independent method of organizing religious worship

as contrasted with the Presbyterian or the Episcopalian has surely

been one highly important factor in reinforcing the parallel

method of organizing political units.

If in matters of doctrine it was right and proper for small

groups of earnest men to take their spiritual destiny into their

own hands, then too it was right and proper for local groups to

determine their own political future. It hardly seems to me a

matter of accident that in those portions of the country that were

settled by pioneers who brought the Congregational type of church

discipline, political independence has flourished with special vigor.

Unless I am much mistaken, the history of this state is a case in

point.

But I must rescue myself from an overconcern with the

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Science and the American Tradition         235

drama of the settlement of the West--the making of the United

States--and pass from the American tradition to a characteriza-

tion of science. Before doing so let me ask you to note that I have

not been talking about the tradition of individual freedom. In-

dividual freedom is something else again--of vast importance, of

course, and closely related to the independence of like-minded

groups of men. But in the doctrinal field as in the political, the

notion of individual freedom if pushed to its extreme leads logi-

cally to philosophic anarchy. This is another strain in the Ameri-

can tradition, represented by Thoreau. To be sure, some would

say it is this strain in the American tradition that is allied to

science, but that is not my view.

There is an element of discipline in science which is mingled

in a strange way with the basic notion of free inquiry, and above

all, with a communal acceptance of the significance of a course

of action. A combination of these three elements, I submit, is

likewise to be found in the realm of religious thought as expressed

in the independent congregations, and in the realm of politics by

the town meeting.

Let me trespass on your time a little further, if I may, by

explaining more fully what I have in mind. In the first place,

experimental science--astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology--

is of significance not as a body of "explanations" of the universe

but because it is a dynamic human activity. Leaving aside en-

tirely all the practical applications of scientific findings to med-

icine, agriculture, industry, and war, and looking only at what

we often call "pure science," I would maintain the following

thesis: if all the laboratories were closed tomorrow and no fur-

ther experimentation were permitted, science as we know it would

automatically cease; our scientific knowledge would be trans-

formed from a living, growing, expanding entity to a set of dog-

mas. Time does not permit me to buttress my proposition. Those

of you who are scientists I feel sure will grant the correctness of

my contention.

My second point about science is this: ever since the days of

the amateur scientists of the seventeenth century, science has been

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236 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

 

not a purely individual affair but a social activity; in a sense a

communal activity. Yet it has been independent of government,

of any external authority, and like the independent churches of

the seventeenth century has rejected all attempts even within its

own domain to set up governing officials or authoritarian boards.

It has rejected the equivalent of bishops and presbyters alike.

Yet it has had a sort of discipline. In science there gradually

emerges, often after violent battles, an agreed-on scientific opin-

ion. There is neither total anarchy nor monolithic uniformity in

science; there is the recognized right of individual dissent, but

the dissenter must be ready to do battle for his views. There is

no recognized rule of the majority, neither appointed nor elected

officials have any power; there is the accepted premise that scien-

tific inquiry is important and that a science can be advanced by

controversy related to experiment and observation.  Change is

considered desirable and is taken as a matter of course.

Modern science is a vast fabric woven of many threads. To

trace any one of them back over the course of a century or two

would be to run into heresy, that is, vigorous dissent, from what

was then orthodoxy; but the clash of opinion was not sterile but

fruitful, the opposing camps of scientists in the major conflicts

eventually produced new advances by the very divergence of their

views. I submit that the history of the United States has not been

dissimilar. Turn to any number of the great issues which have

profoundly moved our people. Who can say that except in a few

instances the right lay entirely on the one side or the other? Is it

not rather that out of the conflict came new views, better prospects

for the welfare of the people, of the nation, and of our institu-

tions? So at least it seems to me. Free inquiry within an ac-

cepted framework of reason and one set of value judgments has

produced what we call science; a free competition of ideas has

each generation refined the concepts of this American society of

free men.

Twenty-five years ago anyone putting forward the thesis I am

upholding here tonight would have had difficulty in making a

contrast; he would have been hard put to it to find a contrasting

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Science and the American Tradition        237

picture to the one he was painting of the union of the traditions

of science and those of a free society. Alas, today the contrast

is readily at hand. Indeed, to my mind, it is the fundamental

issue which divides the world. Incredible as it seems to many of

my generation, the Soviet Union is not only a brutal police state

--that the world has often seen--but a society which bases all its

actions on an authoritarian philosophy of science. I use these

words advisedly. For dialectical materialism as developed by

Lenin and now interpreted by the handful of men who control the

Communist party in Russia (and the world) places science in a

central position. That may be flattering to the scientist, but we

now realize full well the price he pays. There is no free play for

the dissenters; there is on the contrary a ruling doctrine, an over-

riding official philosophy. And what is more important, there is

an official group to determine what is orthodox and what is not.

The authority of this tribunal acknowledges no limitations; the

whole field of science is quite as much within its jurisdiction as

politics or economics. Indeed, one may perhaps say even more,

for as I said a moment ago, the founders of the party doctrine

early placed the sciences in the forefront of their philosophy.

As a consequence there is a party doctrine in biology based

on the work of Lysenko. This work has been challenged by almost

all non-party biologists both inside and outside Russia. But what-

ever may be Lysenko's shortcomings as an experimenter and a

theorist, he must be a skillful intriguer, for he stands high in the

inner circles of the Communist party. Once his views were de-

clared consistent with "dialectical materialism," all other opin-

ions were declared bourgeois and anti-revolutionary. Biologists

on the other side of the iron curtain who once ventured to disagree

with Lysenko have now recanted. This is no solitary case. There

is a party line in philology, believe it or not. There is the begin-

ning of a party doctrine in atomic physics. Incredible things are

being said and written by the leaders of Soviet science.

The world is divided, then, not so much by differences in

forms of government or in the organization of economic life

(great and important as these differences are), but by the distinc-

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238 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

tion between a dynamic and a static philosophy of thought and

action. The Soviet system is static as all authoritarian systems

are. In the long run in this atmosphere new ideas in science

cannot develop any more than they can in politics or economics.

Here there are no centers of initiative, no local autonomy of in-

dependent groups; clashes between rival camps of thinkers are

soon ordered to cease and the issues settled by appeal to a single

philosophy as interpreted by the high priests in the Kremlin.

Technology, the application of scientific knowledge to specific

problems can proceed under these conditions. It is so proceeding

at a rate faster than some of us had thought possible, no doubt of

that. For the short run, in terms of efficiency the Soviet system

may seem to have a certain advantage over us. But for the longer

run I cannot see how an essentially static authoritarian philos-

ophy can compete with a dynamic philosophy in an age when tech-

nology is of such vast importance for peace and war.

Therefore, I conclude as I began with the praise of history,

and with a cautious optimism about the future drawn from the

history of science and of the American people. As long as we

stay true to our traditions, so long we will be in the course of a

strong current of history which has vastly extended the boundaries

of human knowledge and, as a by-product, transformed medicine,

agriculture, industry, and alas, the art of war. There are a few

in this country who from time to time moan because we have no

single unifying national philosophy. These people would do well

to look carefully at the Soviet scene. They would do well to ex-

amine more closely the history of our republic. If they do so

they will realize the vast sources of strength that are inherent in

that strange benign chaos we call the democratic way of life.

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