Northrop says that art cannot its own doctrine, for it has within itself no capacity to distinguish the true from the false. Truth may be beauty, but beauty needs not be truth. This is the reason, he declares, why a society becomes demoralized when it tries, as the recent modern has done, to base its theory of the good life upon the arts and the humanities, rather than upon the
sciences and a scientifically determined philosophy. There is no criterion within the arts or the humanities to determine whether on theory rather than another of the theoretic component of reality which an artist may convey analogically is the correct one.
Let us see what music is, It is audible mathematics. It is no changes co incidence that nearly all the scien-
tist are extremely musical in taste. Mathematics, a logical form, adopted by the sciences and essential to
their progress, might well be taught more effectively at the elementary levels if it were related more closely
on the one hand to music, and on the other hand to the sciences. It should arouse in the child a sense of beau-
ty as well as recognition of practicality. Much of the mathematics taught in the elementary and secondary
schools is less suited to that end than other aspects of mathematics. From the stand point of many of the
sciences the introduction of the calculus and the study of probability and statistical interpretation could be
taught much earlier than now. Neither branch is inherently more difficult than much that is taught, nor are the
scientific and social values far greater. The testing of the significance of differences could certainly be includ-
ed in high school mathematics, where it would be an invaluable adjunct to the use of experimental method
in science and the interpretation of data.
Now, let us see the philosophy of science. It is already a well-known or well-recognized, fundamental part of
philosophy and mathematical logic is another bridge between the sciences and philosophy. But what is most
important is that every man, if he is to avoid confusion of spirit, must create for himself an integrated view of
himself and his world. This is the function of philosophy, and in carrying out that function it must work within
the frame-work of scientific knowledge and concepts. At the beginning of the era of modern science, the
discoveries of Galilee and Newton led John Locke to a philosophy which was, in S. C. Northrop's words, not merely an idea of the good for the state and for culture but also a philosophy of the experimentally verified for nature. This moral philosophy, scientifically based, in turn went into the foundation of British and American
democracy quite as fully as the philosophy of Marx entered into the basic assumptions of the Communist
nations. The American declaration of Independence and Constitution were framed in the spirit of Locke,
who asserted the primary importance of the individual.
What we sadly need today is a philosophy that will embrace the rights and the needs of the individual and
also the welfare of society, as the Judases'-Christian outlook so successfully did for many centuries. At the
same time, however, the new must be a dynamic philosophy, changing with the basic shifts in man's scientific understanding of himself and his world, working toward a higher synthesis and not irrevocably tied to Newton or Einstein, Parlov or Freud, Darwin or Mendel. For all of these, however great, have seen through a glass darkly. The whole of nature is far beyond man's present comprehension, the edifice of science and philosophy, a mere foundation, and not the completed structure it will someday be. For we hope to build of our ideas and conceptions a cathedral, vast and beautiful, time-tested, wherein the human spirit may find strength and courage, peace and wisdom. For this, science has its limitations as well as powers. It tells
us much, but hardly everything. It can deal with matter and energy, space and form and time. It scarcely
measures values; it is thwarted by intangibles.
Science reveals truth as it is the fact obtained from experiments and observations, but perhaps never the
whole of truth. Its grandest conceptual schemes and theories may fail and have to be replaced. Science is
objective, not subjective, and the inner life of man is, and must always remain subjective. Science is the
product of the human mind, but the mind is we do not know till today, and, science can enhance among men
two great evils, war and tyranny. For the powers of science can be used for evil as well as good ends. As
man with previously unimagined physical and biological powers in his grasp, stands lonely and afraid in the universe, it is of himself that he is afraid, of the choice he must make between good and evil. Above all, science, in ever greater measure, must permeate the study and teaching of each of the arts, humanities
and social studies. These, on their side, must mollify, enrich and protect the sciences in this scientific age.
In a country like India, where extreme poverty, hunger and unemployed exist on one side and extreme
riches on the other, developmental works based on science may, at the most touch the upper and middle
levels, leaving a vast majority of the population untouched. Let us see where we are now. Today we are
here and tomorrow we shall be somewhere-darkness or light. In this scientific age, a nation having scientific community can fulfill scientific roles. When a scientific community does not fulfill these roles, a nation living in a region is scientifically blind. Today we are left behind in all things for we do not understand properly what science or education is. We are seen by others, but we can neither see ourselves nor the interior and exterior world even in this scientific age. Education needs to be drawn out in the society and not to be put in as a buried treasure.
The writer of this Article is the eminent educationist and erudite scholar. Recipient of National and International Awards and Honours
