THE PHILOSOPHIC ORIGINS OF SCIENCE

NTINOS C . MYRIANTHOPOULOS

Two cultures have evolved along different paths,
but converge every once in a while.

On March 8, 1988, the New York Times noted that

A small but growing number of American philosophers have opened private practices as “philosopher practitioners” offering a therapy based on the idea that solutions to many personal, moral, and ethical problems can be found not in psychotherapy or Prozac but deep within the 2,500-year-old body of philosophical discourse.

This may be startling news, perhaps, to someone who has spent years practicing or receiving psychotherapy, but not to anyone who has enjoyed the pleasure of delving into the history of philosophy and its relevance to the scientific process. Today, science and philosophy are largely distinct areas of study and research, but this was not always the case. Indeed some of the works by the early Greek philosophers, including Aristotle, shed ample light on the philosophic origins of science.

THE EARLY PHILOSOPHERS

The quest for knowledge is an old preoccupation with roots in prehistory. Starting with Adam and Eve, ancient man sought to study and understand the world—trees, animals, children, heavenly bodies, and the like—the natural phenomena we now refer to as the natural sciences.

Among the earliest civilizations, the Babylonians and Egyptians contributed considerably to the sciences, practiced primitive medicine and surgery, and collected facts about natural history and biology. But it was the Greeks who expanded the scope of these collections and formulated from the facts a united concept of nature and the laws that govern it. The oldest Greek thinkers were natural philosophers. It was much later that ethical issues and other problems found a place in Greek thought. Practically all philosophers were teachers; many had their own schools and taught several subjects (rhetoric, ethics, poetics, astronomy, physics, biology). A few of these philosophers were also poets, and wrote their own books in verse; Empedocles, for example, wrote two treatises, “On Nature” and “Purifications,” in dactylic hexameter.

One of these early philosophers, Democritos (circa 450 B.C.) was the antithesis of the usual image of a brooding philosopher. Democritos was nicknamed “the laughing philosopher” because he was good humored and jolly all of the time; one of his noteworthy treatises is entitled “On Cheerfulness.” Today, Democritos is known mainly as the father of the atomic theory, which is not quite the case. It was his teacher, Leukippos, who first conceived and formulated the atomic theory, which Democritos immediately espoused and refined. Democritos wrote on physics, psychology, logic, astronomy, the senses, the mind, music, poetics—virtually every field of inquiry pursued at the time. Aristotle thought highly of Democritos and refers to his work frequently, particularly in his various biological writings.

Aristotle was certainly the greatest of this genre of philosophers, and is justly considered one of the greatest thinkers of all time. He was born in 384 in Stageira, Macedonia, where his father was the physician to the royal court. At age 17 he was sent to Athens to study with Plato in the Academy, where later he also taught. King Philip of Macedon appointed him to tutor his impetuous and brilliant teenaged son, Alexander, and after three years he moved back to Athens. Now a well-to-do man under the protection of Alexander, he founded his own school, the Lyceum, which served as the prototype of a learned educational institution throughout the world. Here he taught while taking walks with his students and collaborators, and wrote an incredible amount on various and different subjects, including logic, physics, ethics, art, poetry, politics, economics, psychology, and biology. He retired to Chalkis, in Euboea, where he died at age 62.

All of Aristotle’s writings are illuminating. One treatise, the “Generation of Animals,” is less well known than many of his writings, but is of special interest, particularly to biologists, since it is the first systematic treatise on animal reproduction and embryology, taxonomy, and evolution. Errors and all, this treatise combines accurate observations, deductive reasoning, and logical conclusions, in accord with the precepts of the scientific method set down by Aristotle himself.

In this treatise, Aristotle points out that his predecessors’ work and conclusions were often marred by insufficient observation. He, himself, after a remarkable analysis of the reproduction of bees, states that he cannot arrive at certain conclusions because

The facts have not yet been sufficiently ascertained. And if at any future time they are ascertained, then credence must be given to the direct evidence rather than to the theories; and to the theories also, provided that the results which they show agree with what is observed.

This, indeed, is the principle upon which his work is based. It is also the definition of the scientific method, which, later broadened in scope, especially by Bacon, by and large constitutes the basis of scientific methodology in practice today.

There is a subtle, yet critical, point to note. Aristotle does not say “the results prove the theory,” but “the results agree with the observations.” Today, we take this reasoning for granted, that science proceeds and progresses not by proving hypotheses, but by disproving them. If the observations do not agree with an hypothesis, we reject it. If the observations do agree with a high enough level of certainty and consistent repetition of the results, we accept the hypothesis, but we can never prove it.

ARISTOTLE ON ANIMALS

Up to the time of Aristotle, there had been no serious attempts at classification of animals. Thus, his classification was based almost entirely on his own observations. For animals not found in Greece, he referred to credible observations by others, such as Herodotus. In this area, also, he made very important contributions by characterizing and differentiating between a number of systematic categories. In his own words, “Animals may be characterized according to their way of living, their actions, their habits, and their bodily parts.

Although the first three criteria may be helpful in classifying animals, the most important criterion is certainly the parts of the animals, both external and internal: organs of movement, respiration, senses, blood circulation. And by combining various qualities, the groups are defined and characterized. Aristotle’s two major categories are blooded animals (he refers to red blood only) and bloodless animals. The most important part of his classification is the final two categories, the genus and the species, the latter referring to the individual animal form: horse, dog, lion, etc. This is a farsighted classification, and though it cannot be compared to the Linnaen system with its manifold categories, it is certainly a pioneering achievement.

Aristotle has also been called the first evolutionist. His theory of evolution lies not only in the sphere of discovery, but also in his system of thought embracing all phenomena of life. Here we find enunciated for the first time a really complete theory of evolution subject to natural laws and progressing from the lower to the higher forms of being.

Aristotle constantly compares nature and the products of nature with art and the products of art. Nature works to produce a finished product as the artist or craftsman does. And nature, like the artist, uses instruments charged with specific modulations in order to bring these products to fulfillment. And the most typical of these products of nature are, of course, the living creatures. It is doubtful that Aristotle had any idea of nature outside of the individual things that he describes as her works. In fact, he goes as far as to say, “No abstraction can be the object of study because nature makes all that she makes to serve some purpose.” Nature aims always to produce a finality in the sense of a completely formed individual and that is the Final Cause in each case. “There is,” he says, “more beauty and purpose found in the works of nature than in those of art.” And who can disagree?

THE TWO CULTURES

Although Aristotle was not the last of the era in which the study of nature was in the province of philosophy, by the time of his death there were already signs of specialization. Philosophers began to be concerned mainly with ethics and metaphysics, leaving the other subjects to those more informed about them. Later, with the increase of knowledge and ease in its dissemination, the establishment of libraries, and the appearance of the printed word, graduates of schools of higher education came to be recognized either as scientists, biological or physical; or as artists, poets, writers, painters, musicians, etc., and received different credentials, known now as a Bachelor of Arts or a Bachelor of Science. In spite of the widening schism, the philosophic origin of the sciences and the arts is acknowledged and maintained today in the award of the highest academic degree, that of Doctor of Philosophy.

C.P. Snow (1905-1980) first used the phrase “The Two Cultures” in his controversial 1959 Rede Lecture in Cambridge to describe two different worlds, the world of sciences and the world of the arts, which by this time had become cultural isolates. Snow, a distinguished physicist, made significant contributions to the British and Allied effort during World War II, and for his services was elevated to the peerage. He was also an excellent novelist. His magnum opus, Strangers and Brothers, comprises 11 volumes written over a period of 30 years, in which he recounts the saga of lives, events, and the passage of time both for individuals and for English society as a whole. As Snow himself described his existence,

There have been plenty of days when I have spent the working hours with scientists and then gone off at night with some literary colleagues. I mean that literally. It was through living with these groups and much more, I think, through moving regularly from one to the other and back again that I got occupied with the problem of what, long before I put it on paper, I christened it to myself as “the two cultures.” For constantly I felt I was moving among two groups— comparable in intelligence, identical in race, not grossly different in social origin, earning about the same incomes, who have almost ceased to communicate at all, who in intellectual, moral, and psychological climate had so little in common, that instead of going from Burlington House or South Kensington to Chelsea, one might have crossed an ocean.

Snow, of course, was addressing a situation prevalent in England and Europe in general in the late 1950s, but at that time conditions on the North American side of the Atlantic may have been a little bit better. Nevertheless, the two cultures still exist as such and combine very rarely in a few, exceptional individuals.

Every era has had such individuals. The Renaissance produced a sprinkling of them, the towering and awesome figure of that era being Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), the Italian painter par excellence and sculptor, but also architect, engineer, musician, inventor, anatomist, physiologist, geologist, botanist, and everything that you can imagine, and many you can not. Indeed, a thumbing through his voluminous diaries will find him discussing, in addition to the subjects already mentioned, philosophy, geography, flight physics, mathematics, warfare, sailing, and scores of prophesies on scores of subjects. His biological writings constitute about 20 percent of his total output. They encompass discourses on anatomy, physiology, medicine, optics, and acoustics, and are illustrated with exquisite drawings based on his own observations, dissections, and experiments. It is impossible to discuss this work at length, but I would like to quote him ruminating on the nervous system:

The frog dies instantly when the spinal cord is pierced. Previous to this it lived without head, without heart, or any bowels or intestines or skin. And here, therefore, it would seem lies the foundation of movement and life.

Da Vinci’s counterpart in the 20th century undoubtedly is Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965), the Alsatian physician, philosopher, musician, theologian, and great humanitarian. Those who recognize his name know him as the doctor who founded a hospital in Equatorial Africa. Actually, he came to medicine rather late, and by that time he was already an accomplished musician and organist and had written a monumental biography of J.S. Bach and an analysis of his work, to be followed later with his edition of Bach’s organ music, all of which had made him the outstanding authority on Bach. He also attained the rank of professor of theology and director of the Strasbourg Seminary. But he was resolved to become a doctor in French Equatorial Africa, and at age 30 he began his medical studies, meanwhile continuing his activities of the “other” culture.

In his mid-thirties, he went to Lambarene in Gabon, where he established a primitive hospital that eventually grew into an extensive medical facility, including a leprosarium. And, except for a long period during World War I, when he was a prisoner of war, he remained there most of the time to minister to the poor and the sick with the help of a small, dedicated staff. He traveled fairly frequently to Europe to raise money for the hospital, and once to the United States, in 1949, to address the Goethe festival in Colorado. On these trips he was honored in many countries for his work as a scientist, his artistry as an organist and musical scholar, and his contributions as a philosopher. In a three-volume series entitled Philosophy of Civilization, he developed his own philosophy, which is summed up in the term “Reverence for Life,” a universal code of ethics that requires respect for the lives of all other beings. His theological writings include The Quest of the Historical Jesus, in which he expresses a dissatisfaction with the way that the gospels treat the facts of the life of Jesus, and The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle. He described his early years in Lambarene in On the Edge of the Primeval Forest and, in the mid-thirties, wrote his autobiography, Out of My Life and Thought. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1952.

Norman Cousins, the editor of the now sadly defunct Saturday Review, visited Schweitzer in Lambarene. In a book about this visit, he gives us this scene of life in Lambarene, the customary singing of a hymn after dinner:

There was a piano in the dining room, old, dilapidated, unable to hold its tune because of the heat and the moisture. When I saw Dr. Schweitzer sit down at the piano and prop up the hymnbook, I winced. Here was one of history’s greatest interpreters of Bach, a man who could fill any concert hall in the world. The best grand piano made would not be too good for him. But he was now about to play a dilapidated upright virtually beyond repair. And he went at it easily and with the dignity that never leaves him.

THE RARE AND PRECIOUS FEW

The Aristotles, the da Vincis, the Goethes, the Jeffersons, the Schweitzers are, indeed, rare individuals, true descendants of those early philosophers of the ancient world. Their works and their writings continue to have profound influences on life and civilization worldwide. Although we may admire and even stand in awe of them, they are in a sense remote to us, way beyond us. It is the work, writings, and contributions of those individuals in whom the elements of the two cultures are combined in a more modest scale that are understandable to us and accessible to us. And they are the ones who influence us as individuals in our occupations and interests, and enrich our personal lives. Some of them have attained a measure of fame and we can read about them in any encyclopedia or even a good dictionary. Most of them are unknown unless we come upon them and their works by accident or referral.

One such individual, unknown even among biologists, is British naturalist Langdon Smith, who conducted excellent biological research, and also wrote exquisite poetry. Smith was born in Scotland in 1877, and came to the United States when he was 14. Practically nothing is known about his education, except that in his early twenties he was engaged by the Museum of Natural History in New York to do research, and that he was often invited by scientific societies to lecture. He also wrote articles on scientific subjects for newspapers. He died at a young age of tuberculosis. He wrote a particularly beautiful poem about evolution titled “A Tadpole and a Fish.” Published initially in 1909, the poem was included in anthologies published by the Haldeman-Julius Company of Girard, Kansas, in 1922 and 1924. The poem makes a felicitous conclusion to this essay: like the essay, but in a grand context, it takes us back to our roots.

When you were a tadpole and I was a fish,
In the Paleozoic Time,
And side by side in the ebbing tide
We sprawled through the ooze and slime,
Or, skittered with many a caudal flip
Through the depths of the Cambrian fen
My heart was rife with the joy of life,
For I loved you even then.

Mindless we lived and mindless we loved,
And mindless at last we died;
And deep in a rift of the Caradoc Drift,
We slumbered side by side.
The world turned on in the lathe of time,
The hot land heaved amain,
’Till we caught our breath from the womb of death
And crept into light again.

We were Amphibians scaled and tailed,
And drab as a dead man’s hand;
We coiled at ease ’neath the dripping trees,
Or trailed through the mud and the sand,
Croaking and blind with our three-toed feet,
Writing a language dumb,
With never a spark in the empty dark,
To hint at a life to come.

Yet happy we lived and happy we loved,
And happy we died once more;
Our forms were rolled in the clinging mold
Of a Neocomian shore.
The aeons came and the aeons fled,
And the sleep that held us fast,
Was riven away in a newer day,
And the night of death was past.

Then light and swift through the jungle trees
We swung in our airy flights,
Or breathed in the balms of the fronded palms,
In the hush of the moonless nights.
And, O! What beautiful years were these,
When our hearts clung each to each,
When life was filled and our senses thrilled,
With the first faint dawn of speech.

Thus life by life and love by love,
We passed through the cycles strange,
And breath by breath, and death by death,
We followed the chain of change,
’Till there came a time in the law of life
When o’er the nursing sod,
The shadows broke and the soul awoke
In a strange dim dream of God.

I was thewed like an Auroch Bull,
And tusked like the Great Cave Bear;
And you, my sweet, from head to feet
Were gowned in your glorious hair.
Deep in the gloom of a fireless cave,
When the night fell o’er the plain,
And the moon hung red, o’er the river bed,
We mumbled the bones of the slain.

I flaked a flint to a cutting edge,
And shaped with brutish craft;
I broke a shank from a woodland dank,
And fitted it head and haft.
Then, I hid me close to the ready tarn
Where the Mammoth came to drink.
Through brawn and bone I drave the stone
And slew him upon the brink.

Loud I howled through the moonlight wastes,
Loud answered our kith and kin;
From west and east to the crimson feast
The clan came trooping in.
O’er joint and gristle and padded hoof
We fought and clawed and tore.
And cheek by jowl with many a growl,
We talked the marvel o’er.

I carved that fight on a Reindeer bone,
With rude and hairy hand;
I pictured his fall on the cavern wall
That men might understand,
For we lived by blood and the right of might,
E’er human laws were drawn,
And the age of sin did not begin
’Till our brutish tusks were gone.

And that was a million years ago
In a time that no one knows;
Yet, here, tonight in the mellow light
We sit in Delmonico’s;
Your eyes are as deep as the Devon Springs,
Your hair is as dark as jet.
Your years are few, your life is new,
Your soul untried, and yet—

Our trail is on the Kimmeridge Clay
And the scarp of the Purbeck flags;
We have left our bones in the Bagshot stones,
And deep in the Coraline Crags.
Our love is old, our lives are old,
And death shall come again;
Shall it come today what man may say,
“We shall not live again.”

God wrought our souls from the Tremadoc beds
And furnished them wings to fly;
He sowed our spawn in the world’s dim dawn,
And I know that I shall not die,
Though cities have grown above the graves
Where the crook-boned men made war,
And the ox-wain creaks, o’er the buried caves,
Where the mummied mammoths are.

Then as we linger at luncheon here
O’er many a dainty dish,
Let us drink anew to the time when you
Were a tadpole and I was a fish.

—Langdon Smith

Ntinos C. Myrianthopoulos (CC ‘81) is a scientist emeritus, the National Institutes of Health, where he conducted research on the genetics of nervous system disorders. Born in Cyprus, he served as an officer with the British forces during World War II and completed his studies in the United States. This article is based on the Aristotelian Lecture presented in Cyprus at the Ninth International Clinical Genetics Seminar, July 4, 1998.

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