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Scientific Method in Biology. Elizabeth Blackwell
Читать онлайн.Название Scientific Method in Biology
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isbn 4064066068240
Автор произведения Elizabeth Blackwell
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
Elizabeth Blackwell
Scientific Method in Biology
Published by Good Press, 2020
EAN 4064066068240
Table of Contents
THE NECESSITY OF MEDICAL RESEARCH
RATIONAL EXPERIMENT IN RESEARCH
THE RANGE OF PAINLESS RESEARCH
INTRODUCTION.
A CONTROVERSY is persistently carried on between an increasing body of the non-professional laity and an important section of the medical profession, in relation to the methods pursued in investigating biological phenomena.
The criticism of medical research by non-medical people is naturally resented by some who are engaged in experimentation; and it is stated seriously that non-scientific persons will impede progress if they interfere with, or succeed in restricting, the efforts of those who specially devote themselves to this branch of research.
This controversy is still going on in ever-widening circles; and it is bound to do so, until the present confusion of thought which exists on this subject is removed, and the broad distinction between right and wrong experimentation is more fully acknowledged and more clearly defined. Our relation to the lower animals has never yet been brought fully into the clear light of reason and conscience. Yet in the order of Providential development it must so come forward.
As advancing humanity has gradually recognised natural rights as existing in the various races of mankind—is carrying on a persistent warfare against human slavery—is slowly awakening to the moral crime of introducing disease and vice amongst native races; and the rights, as well as duties, of women and of children are being gradually recognised; so the time has come when the natural rights of inferior living creatures must be seriously studied.
This study has become obligatory, not only in regard to the welfare of the brute creation, but for the sake of our own human growth as rational and moral beings.
The common-sense of mankind recognises our right to use the lower animals for human benefit, whilst our superior intelligence gives us the power to so use them. But 'can' and 'ought' are different aspects of our mental constitution, which require to he harmonized. What we can do is not the true measure of what we ought to do, in any department of life.
We can starve a child, or lash a horse to death, but we have no right to do so.
The laws of our human constitution compel us to recognise that intellect and conscience, although essential parts, are not identical parts of our nature. Long experience shows us that social progress can only become permanent when conscience guides intelligence.
How far the guidance of conscience can extend, with the practical results to medical research involved in the recognition of such guidance, forms the subject of present consideration.
I.
THE GROWTH OF CONSCIENCE.
IT is through the gradual and harmonious development of intelligence with that element in our nature that we name conscience that the human race passes from lower to higher states of civilization. In pursuing our ideals, conscience is our instinctive monitor of right and wrong.
Our great naturalist, Darwin, laid down as a law of evolution that 'the moral sense, or conscience, is by far the most important of the differences between man and the lower animals. Duty—“ought”—is the most noble of all the attributes of man.'
Victor Hugo, with the prophetic insight of genius, calls conscience ‘that modicum of innate science with which each one is born.’
The growth of human conscience, in its perception of justice and in its sympathetic relation to creation, is the surest measure of individual and national progress. Various intellectual theories may be formed as to the origin and growth of conscience. It may be held to be intuitive—springing up as inevitably as the instinctive feelings born with the natural relations of life; or it may be looked upon as gradually evolved—the ‘result of countless experiences of fear, love, utility, transmitted through generations.’
But however originating, conscience is a positive and potent fact. It is, indeed, the mightiest factor in social life. It is the great controller of selfhood. It enlarges human character and guides human conduct. The deepening of this principle through the growth of justice and sympathy marks an advancement in the type of humanity. Increasing respect for life is one of the clearest signs of growing conscience. Our reverence for the principle of life grows with our enlarging intellectual perception of its universality and its unlimited power of development.
As life is marked by activity, and cannot remain stationary, so conscience shares this law of life. It must inevitably advance or retrograde.
The degradation as well as the development of conscience may be seen amongst us in the midst of our present civilization. It is contrary to the most rudimentary element of conscience to feed upon one's kind, and cannibal tribes who devour their captives represent the lowest type of humanity; even the dogs of the Arctic voyager will endure the slow agony of starvation for days before their human taskmasters can compel them to eat the flesh of their companions. The well-known naturalist, Mr. W. H. Hudson, states that wolves, when pressed with hunger, will sometimes devour a fellow-wolf; as a rule, however, rapacious animals will starve to death rather than prey upon one of their own kind.
Yet shipwrecked sailors, even of our own English race, have been known