MALICIOUS PHILOSOPHIES
57
every rational appraisal of values . must take cognizance of the
findings of the natural and social sciences; for if the existential
conditions and consequences of the realization of values are not
noted, acceptance of a scheme of values is a species of undisci–
plined romanticism. Accordingly, unless values are to be affirmed
on the basis of uncontrolled intuition and impulse, all the elements
of scientific analysis-observation, imaginative reconstruction,
dialectic elaboration of hypotheses, and experimental verification
-must be employed. Knowledge of biology and hygiene are in–
deed not sufficient for an adequate conception of the moral life;
but if one may judge from the historical functions of some philo–
sophic and theologic ideas in perpetuating economic inequality
and human slavery, and in sanctioning the brutal shedding of
human blood, neither is a knowledge of philosophy and theology.
It is often urged that what is good for man lies outside the
province of scientific method, because the determination of human
goods requires a sympathetic understanding of the human heart
and a sensitive, individualized perception of the qualities of human
personality; and the exercise of such powers, it is maintained, has
no place in the procedures of science. But this objection rests,
at bottom, on a failure to distinguish between the psychological
and sociological conditions under which ideas originate, and the
validity of those ideas. Thus, it is reported of Schiller that he
used to place a rotting apple on his desk for the stimulus the odor
of the fruit provided to his writing; but while this is an interesting
item about the conditions under which Schiller obtained his in–
spirations, it has no bearing on the issue as to quality of his poetry.
imilarly, the unusual circumstances-whether personal or social
under which many seers and religious prophets obtained their
isions are not relevant in a consideration of the soundness of
eir moral exhortations. More generally, the psychology and the
iology of research are not identical with its logic. Those who
isparage the application of scientific methods to the evaluation
f human goods, on the ground that those methods exclude the
xercise of a sympathetic imagination, are not only mistaken in
eir factual allegations; they are also well on the road to identi-
ying the sheer vividness and the emotional overtones of ideas
ith their validity.
