Humans, especially men, became much wiser with the Age of Enlightenment (also called the Age of Reason) which an intellectual and philosophical awakening following the beginning of the Scientific Revolution born out of the Renaissance. Man felt freed to discover truth for himself and no longer depended upon revelation. Much of what was “discovered” by science was then applied to society and culture as if all of experience was limited to physical laws of nature. Eventually Reason was seen as a more rational basis for all areas of life – beyond science and mathematics. The foundations of mathematics came to be part of the scientific method and fostered the belief that observation was a reliable means of determining truth.
Most ancient cultures were founded upon the idea that what mankind knew to be true had been given them by a divine and higher power which had understanding beyond man’s perception. Truth was believed to be “given” or “revealed” to beings rather than the result of their existential perspective of what was real. Early civilizations believed they received Truth from beyond themselves but, culminating with the Enlightenment, moved to a belief self-discovery of what would be True. The application of the method of observation, hypothesis, theorizing, analysis and proposal of truth became a new standard so that by the time of Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection and the tenet of survival of the fittest in the mid-1800s, science and social philosophy had become willing to extend the theory beyond the animal and plant world and into human experience. Within fifty years, philosophers were proposing the benefits of eugenics and other means of social engineering as ‘modern’ science and truth worth following. Darwin had never applied his theories to social engineering but Herbert Spencer and then Alfred Wallace began the application to society. By the early Twentieth Century, the idea of eugenics1 was embraced by a progressive, liberated thinkers. What had started as a movement for better prenatal care for mothers, became reasoned into encouraging conception in the “better” elements of society and a discouragement of offspring among the ‘lower’ ethnic groups or levels of society. This was an example of Reasoning, the rationalizing of a social construct, to intend to create a desired result. While the proposition of improving the genetics of a society dates all the way back to the example of ancient Sparta in Greece where the council of elders of the city-state would “inspect” every male child to evaluate whether it was suitable to live on, the movement that began with Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton, in the late 1800s sought to update Survival of the Fittest by controlling genetics through “best” use of hereditary science. The movement eventually suggested genetic screenings before conception, sterilization of lesser quality beings, marriage restrictions and abortions of inappropriate offspring. All of this was based in perception of what would have the “best” outcome for civilization even though it was long before means existed to determine the full genetics of any person beyond appearance.
Not all that appears to be True is True. Science is largely a matter of hypothesis and theory which may or may not actually be certifiable, provable as reality. In today’s world of science, if enough observations point to a theory it may well become accepted by a significant-enough number of theorists to become considered by them as True even though it is impossible to prove by repeatable results of experimentation.
We fully admit that Revelation is no more provable than Reason because neither has sufficient data to satisfy the scientific method but is either less a matter of Faith than the other? Revelation believes that there is Existence beyond the observable while Reason believes we are intelligent enough, have pure enough powers of observation and judgment enough to determine that which is beyond, that which is in the realm of hypothesis. Which takes more belief in the unknowable?
Have you really thought about the depth of your belief?
1 Eugenics – the philosophy of improving mankind by controlled, selective reproduction of the best of population
“man” and derivations of man is not limited to males but historically women were not part of the public discussion even in the Age of Enlightenment (not agreeing, just recording the way it was)
