Note 239 — Chapter XI · THE INTELLECTUAL SENTIMENT.

Two American psychologists, without mentioning the principal forms we have just studied, reckon among contemporary aberrations of the intellectual feeling some tendencies which appear to me to be very slight infirmities by comparison: (1) “A more subtle form is that distinctively nineteenth-century disease, the love of culture, as such. When the feeling is directed, not towards objects, but towards the state of mind induced by the knowledge of the objects, there originates a love of knowing for the sake of the development of the mind itself. The knowledge is acquired because it widens and expands self. Culture of our mental powers is made an end in itself, and knowledge of the universe of objects is subordinated to this. The intellectual feelings are separated from their proper place as functions of the integral life, and are given an independent place in consciousness. Here, as in all such cases, the attempt defeats itself. The only way to develop self is to make it become objective; the only way to accomplish this is to surrender the interests of the personal self. Self-culture reverses the process and attempts to employ self-objectification or knowledge as a mere means to the satisfaction of these personal interests. The result is that the individual never truly gets outside of himself” (Dewey, Psychology, pp. 305, 306). This criticism is just. We might say, more simply, that the pursuit of intellectual emotion for its own sake borders on scientific dilettantism—i.e., a superficial disposition and a tendency of the mind to run in every direction without going very deeply into anything. But we cannot reckon as morbid the love of abstract and purely speculative research; for in this the intellectual feeling remains faithful to its nature, i.e. curiosity, and its mission, i.e. the pursuit of truth. Besides, the speculations which in appearance are the most useless and merely theoretical, may some day show themselves in results susceptible of practical application. (2) Ladd, Psychology Descriptive and Explanatory, pp. 566 et seq., considers as a morbid form of the intellectual sentiment the personification of Science, which is so popular at the present day (in my opinion, it is rather a disease of thought, an instance of the incurable tendency of the human mind to realise abstractions and bow the knee before idols of its own fabrication), and also criticises the growing love of minutiæ and the obstinate pursuit of small facts. It must be acknowledged that this tendency sometimes becomes a nuisance in sciences founded on observation, experiment, or documents, and that those whose attention has been confined to this kind of work have a natural disposition to exaggerate its importance; but it is nevertheless necessary, and is the price paid for all progress in science. Each individual contributes in his degree and according to his strength; there is no architecture without labourers.