34
PARTISAN REVIEW
what they are capable of? Denial of reasonable freedom and
attendant responsibility to any group produces conditions which
can then be cited as reasons why such group cannot be entrusted
with freedom or given responsibility. Similarly, the low estimate
put upon science, the idea that because it is occupied with the
natural world, it is incapacitated from exercising influence upon
values to which the adjectives "ideal" and "higher," . (or any
adjectives of eulogistic connotation) can be applied, restricts its
influence.
The fruit of anti-naturalism is then made the ground
of attack upon naturalism.
If
I stated that this low opinion of science in its natural
state tended to lower the intellectual standards of anti-naturalists,
to dull their sense of the importance of .evidence, to blunt their
sensitivity to the need of accuracy of statement, to encourage
emotional rhetoric at the expense of analysis and discrimination,
I might seem to be following too closely the model set by the asper–
sions (such as have been quoted) of anti-naturalists. It may be
said, however, that while some writers of the anti-naturalistic
school say a good deal, following Aristotle, about the "intellectual
virtues," I fail to find any evidence that they have a perception
of the way in which the rise of scientific methods has enlarged
the range and sharpened the edge of these virtues. How could
they, when it is a necessary part of their scheme to depreciate
scientific method, in behalf of higher methods and organs of at–
taining extra-natural truths said to be of infinitely greater import?
Aside from displaying systematic disrespect for scientific
method, supernaturalists deny the findings of science when the
latter conflict with a dogma of their creed. The story of the con–
flict of theology and science is the result. It is played down at the
present time. But, as already indicated, it throws a flood of light
on the charge, brought in the manifesto previously quoted, that
it is the naturalists who are endangering free scholarship. Philo–
sophic anti-naturalists are ambiguous in their treatment of certain
scientific issues. For example, competent scientific workers in the
biological field are agreed in acceptance of some form of genetic
development of all species of plants and animals, mankind in–
cluded. This conclusion puts man definitely and squarely within
the natural world. What, it may be asked, is the attitude of non–
theological anti-naturalists toward this conclusion? Do those, for
example, who sign a statement saying that naturalists regard man
