29 JAN 2015 by ideonexus
Science as a Religion
"On the contrary. That was the time to begin all-out prevention of war. I
played them one against the other. I helped each in turn. I offered them
science, trade, education, scientific medicine. I made Terminus of more
value to them as a flourishing world than as a military prize. It worked
for thirty years."
"Yes, but you were forced to surround these scientific gifts with the most
outrageous mummery. You've made half religion, half balderdash out of it.
You've erected a hier...24 JAN 2014 by ideonexus
Knowing One Thing Well is Barbaric
To know only one thing well is to have a barbaric mind: civilization implies the graceful relation of all varieties of experience to a central humane system of thought. The present age is peculiarly barbaric: introduce, say, a Hebrew scholar to an ichthyologist or an authority on Danish place names and the pair of them would have no single topic in common but the weather or the war (if there happened to be a war in progress, which is usual in this barbaric age). The enlightened mind knows many things, specialization means we live among many barbarians.