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Remaking Man
| Article
# : |
11424 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1986 |
2,360 Words |
| Author
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Alexis Carrel
Alexis Carrel (1873-1944) was born and educated in France but
conducted most of his research in New York. He received the
Nobel Prize in 1912 for pioneering work on suturing blood
vessels and transplanting organs. |
We cannot undertake the restoration of ourselves and our environment before having transformed our habits of thought. Modern society has suffered, ever since its origin, from an intellectual fault-a fault which has been constantly repeated since the Renaissance. Technology has constructed man, not according to the spirit of science, but according to erroneous metaphysical conceptions. The time has come to abandon these doctrines. We should break down the fences which have been erected between the properties of concrete objects, and between the different aspects of ourselves. The error responsible for our sufferings comes from a wrong interpretation of a genial idea of Galileo. Galileo, as is well known, distinguished the primary qualities of things, dimensions and weight, which are easily measurable, from their secondary qualities, form, color, odor, which cannot be measured. The quantitative, expressed in mathematical language, brought science to humanity. The quantitative was separated from the qualitative. The abstraction of the primary qualities of objects was legitimate. But the overlooking of the secondary qualities was not. This mistake had momentous consequences. In man, the things which are not measurable are more important than those which are measurable. The existence of thought is as fundamental as, for instance, the physiochemical equilibria of blood serum. The separation of the qualitative from the quantitative grew still wider when Descartes created the dualism of the body and the soul. Then, the manifestations of the mind became inexplicable. The material was definitely isolated from the spiritual. Organic structures and physiological mechanisms assumed a far greater reality than thought, pleasure, sorrow, and beauty. This error switched civilization to the road which led science to triumph and man to degradation.
In order to find again the right direction we must return in thought to the men of the Renaissance, imbue ourselves with their spirit, their passion for empirical observation, and their contempt for philosophical systems. As they did, we have to distinguish the primary and secondary qualities. But we must radically differ from them and attribute to secondary qualities the same importance as to primary qualities. We should also reject the dualism of Descartes. Mind will be replaced in matter. The soul will no longer be distinct from the body. Mental manifestations, as well as physiological processes, will be within our reach. Indeed, the qualitative is more difficult to study than the quantitative. Concrete facts do not satisfy our mind, which prefers the definitive aspect of abstractions. But science must not be cultivated only for itself, for the elegance of its methods, for its light and its beauty. Its goal is the material and spiritual benefit of man. As much importance should
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