Science and faith, or, Man as an animal, and man as a member of society with a discussion of animal societies / by Paul Topinard.

  • Paul Topinard
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Science and faith, or, Man as an animal, and man as a member of society with a discussion of animal societies / by Paul Topinard. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE. In 1895, the editors of The Mom'sf’extendcd to a number of prominent European and American thinkers an invitation to discuss, from the points of view of their several specialties, the main problems of the philosophy of science and of the récon- ciliation of science and faith. The most extensive outcome of this invitation was the présent work, by Dr. Paul Topinard, the eminent French anthropologist. Dr. Topinard’s book is essentially a contribution to sociology; but it possesses the additional merit that it has been made by an original inquirer of high rank in a department of science which constitutes the groundwork of sociology, and that conse- quently its conclusions hâve sprung from a direct and Creative contact with the facts, and not from dérivative and secondary théories about those facts. Wha.tever objections, therefore, some of its spécial tenets may evoke, its importance as a first- hand investigation, and the weight consequently due to its utterances, cannot be underrated. But, while written by a specialist, the discussion is not ex- clusively anthropological and ethnological. The physical, historical, cultural, and psychological factors of social évo- lution reçoive the same emphasis of considération as the bio- logical and sociological proper. We shall briefly indicate Dr. Topinard’s central view. To begin with, anthropology, supposing it not to concern itself with sôcieties, discovers in man an animal only; man is in his primitive stage perforce subjective, and by a rigorous natural logic egocentric; the law of self-preservation, as de- termining his conduct, both towards nature and his fellow- animals, is paramount with him. Sociologically considered, therefore, man’s animality, man’s primitive and inhprited egocentrism, is the primai source of ail the difificulties that arise in society, the arch-enemy to be combated. And this contradiction, apparent or real, between the individual and • • •
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