Degeneration / by Max Nordau.

  • Nordau, Max Simon, 1849-1923.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Degeneration / by Max Nordau. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    126/584 (page 106)
    consequences must inevitably be weariness, and disgust av and despair of reason ? . . . Science had^rased tL loTd mystery With the same stroke of the pen she had expunged tfri^r. f T'^' c''^' l^um^nity. ... And now mys- ticism takes from Science, the intruder and usurper not onlv all that she had stolen, but something also, it may be of le^ own property. The reaction against ?he sh^meless^and miser- able negations of scientific literature ... has taken the form ot an unforeseen poetical restoration of Catholicism ' Another graphomaniac, the author of that imbecile book Rembrmidt^ as Educator, drivels in almost the same way' Interest in science, and especially in the once so popular natural science, has widely diminished of late in the German world. . . . There has been to a certain extent a surfeit of induction ; there is a longing for synthesis ; the days of obiec tivity are declining once more to their end, and, in its place subjectivity knocks at the door.'* * Edouard Rodf says: 'The century has advanced without keeping all its promises'; and further on he speaks again of 'this ageing and deluded century.' In a small book, which has become a sort of gospel to imbeciles and idiots, Le Devoir present, the author, M. Paul Desjardins,! makes continual attacks on 'so-called' scientific empiricism,' and speaks of the ' negativists, the empiricists, and the mechanists, whose attention is wholly taken up with physical and inexorable forces,' boasting of his intention 'to render invalid the value of the empirical methods.' Even a serious thinker, M. F. Paulhan,§ in his investigation of the basis of French neo-mysticism, comes to the conclusion that natural science has shown itself powerless to satisfy the needs of mankind. ' We feel ourselves surrounded by a vast unknown, and demand that at least access to it should be per- mitted to us. Evolution and positivism have blocked the way. . . . For these reasons evolution could not but show itself incapable of guiding the mind, even if it left us great thoughts.' Overwhelming as may appear this unanimity between strong minds commanding respect and weak graphomaniacs, it does not, nevertheless, contain the slightest spark of truth. To assert that the world turns away from science because the 'empirical,' which means the scientific, method .of observation and registration has suffered shipwreck, is either a conscious lie or shows lack of mental responsibility. A healthy-minded and honourable man must almost feel ashamed to have still to * Rembrandt ah Erzieher. Leipzig, 1890, p. 2. •f Edouard Rod, Les Idees morales du Tempsp}-esent. Paris, 1892, p. 66. X Paul Desjardins, Le Devoir prdsc?it. Paris, 1892, pp. 5, 8, 39. § F. Taulhan, Le noiiveaii Mysttci's/fie. Paris, 1891, p. 120.