Homo Faber

A Study of Man's Mental Evolution

G. N. M. Tyrrell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367273538
• eBook ISBN: 9781000063769
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Originally published in 1951, Homo Faber is an examination of the scientific outlook on human mental evolution through the lens of parapsychology. The book aims to undermine what its terms, the 'scientific outlook' examining the human interpretation of the world, and the preconceived scientific concepts that reality does not extend beyond the realm that our senses reveal. The book expands upon this and moves to examine the broader human understanding of the entire cosmos, challenging the scientific conception that this can be grasped in principal by human intellect, arising from the chance combination of material particles. The book argues that the scientific outlook prevents humans from discovering in the Universe the meaning and purpose which are everywhere to be found if sought in the appropriate contemplative states of mind. This book provides a unique take on the examination of human psychology and the evolution of the brain from an alternative scientific stance. It will be of interest to anthropologists, historians and psychologists alike.

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

TO-DAY the specialist is king. If a non-specialist ventures to raise his voice on any matter of importance, his views are likely to be dismissed as those of a mere amateur, trespassing on matters he does not understand. Specialist inquiry has been carried into so many departments of knowledge that it appears as if everything has been brought under its sway and that it has given us, not only infallible truth about every detail, but also a valid picture of the whole. Has not the scientific method proved itself to be infallible and omnipotent? Has it not succeeded in carrying everything before it? Has it not launched humanity on the first epoch of genuine progress known to history?

This is the current opinion of our time; and it is held with curious tenacity despite the tremendous problems which science has raised, despite the fact that scientific achievement has left human morality and wisdom so far behind that it has passed beyond human control. It is tenaciously clung to, despite the black and pessimistic picture of the universe which science has drawn. Many believe that no light can shine from any other quarter.

It is not our present aim to deny the validity of the scientific method within its limitations nor to deny the immense successes which this method has achieved. But, in the following chapters, we shall question whether the method is a fool-proof instrument. It will be gradually disclosed to us that there is a subtle factor underlying the scientific method, and also underlying much else; and we shall see that this factor has never been fully and consciously recognized or taken into account. We shall question whether the rational faculty of man is as immaculate and immune from error as it is tacitly assumed to be. We shall maintain that it has not escaped the moulding hand of Nature but has been adapted, along with the physical side of man, to the highly special conditions of the world we live in.

This will not result in the degradation of reason; for the progress of the human mind has always been the result of an uprising from the level on which it was adapted by nature to a condition of freer consciousness, in which reason comes more and more to its own.

It will be shown that the adapted characteristics of the mind act beneficially in the ordinary situations of life, which include the region of applied science; and that it is only when remoter types of problem arise that they are apt to lead the mind astray. This has happened in the formation of the general conception of the cosmos, which has arisen during the scientific epoch. This adapting factor is intangible and cannot easily be defined, for it lies outside the usual province of metaphysics and epistemological theory, which is based on reason. It is difficult to take hold of and only gradually does it filter into the mind as we come to realize its presence by looking at it from different angles. Yet it is fundamental and all-pervasive. The scientific method cannot detect it because it is inserted in the mind at a lowly level and is already operating before that method begins. The influence it exerts is invisible. Specialist technique has, indeed, the effect of rendering it more obscure instead of bringing it to light; for it introduces into that technique unconsciously accepted premises. If we liken the scientific method to a biochemist’s filter, then this elusive factor is like a micro-organism which passes through the filter unobserved. The scientist, because tied to his own method, looks only at what the filter has arrested. It is outside his province to examine the filtrate. But it is in the filtrate that this all-important element lies. It can be detected, but not by cut-and-dried specialist technique. It becomes visible only when seen from the non-specialist’s angle of approach, which consists in making a comprehensive survey and in keeping the mind alive to every situation. From this point of view, it becomes obvious that the specialist has failed to see that introspection is a vital factor and that by omitting it he has started his investigation a step too late.

Part of the subtlety of the undetected factor arises from the fact that it is inherent in its own character that it should remain invisible. The natural reaction of the mind is therefore to deny its existence. It may seem at first sight that the existence of such a tendency, even if admitted, would be no more than an academic matter, the concern of philosophers, perhaps, but of no practical importance to mankind. But it turns out, as we look into it, that the more the existence of this hidden factor is realized the more practical importance it is seen to possess. So long as the mind of man is trying to deal with practical matters in the world to which nature has adapted him, this unperceived factor assists him in arriving at the truth. But the more the mind attempts to leave the familiar world and to explore into far removed matters the more this factor deflects it away from truth and fosters illusion. In the end, this deflecting tendency becomes a matter of central importance in the human situation. The micro-organism has passed into the human system.

It may be asked, how can one who is no specialist in psychology hope to detect a psychological factor in the human mind? The answer is that the specialist’s method of analysing data supplied by his senses compels him to keep his face close to the ground. On the other hand, the non-specialist is able to take a bird’s-eye view of the scene as a whole. If a party of archæologists are at work on the site of some ancient building, they trench, they dig, they sift with all the skill of trained specialists and only by means of these methods are their detailed finds secured. But an airman, who may know little or nothing of archæology, flying above the site, can see the outline of all the buried foundations extending to a distance, which the experts on the ground cannot see at all. It is the airman and not the specialist who obtains the correct general view of things. It would be entirely wrong to regard him as a meddling interloper trespassing in matters he does not understand. He assists the experts. He does not interfere with them. His work and theirs are mutually complementary.

So it is with the sciences which are the products of expert technique. They have accumulated mountains of detailed knowledge. This knowledge is true so long as we regard it as a collection of piecemeal facts, like objects unearthed by the archæologists. Yet these objects do not reveal the plan of the original builders in the enlightening and informative manner of a picture taken from the air. Specialist scientific information resembles a collection of photographs of the streets and buildings of a town, placed side by side and seen independently. They may be extremely accurate photographs but they will not give the instantaneous conception of the town as a whole which a single aerial photograph will produce. It is an aerial picture, in general outline, that we shall attempt to construct in the following chapters.

Science has illuminated the world which is given by the senses as if with a searchlight and modern philosophy has, to a great extent, been drawn into the searchlight area and has assumed that a valid perspective of the cosmic whole can be constructed by analysing the sense-world. At the same time the physical universe, sense-revealed, is to-day accepted unquestioningly as embracing the entire cosmos. The underlying cause responsible for everything is taken to be a meaningless flux of physical forces from which mankind has emerged, a product of purposeless, physical change. Religion is looked upon as a delusion, born in the mind of ignorant man before the dawn of scientific illumination and as no more than a product of wishful thinking. It is taken as axiomatic that reality does not extend beyond the realm that the senses reveal. Everything is projected upon the flat screen that the sense-world provides. The universe, as seen to-day, is without perspective; and it is assumed that the entire cosmos can be grasped in principle by the human intellect. Side by side with this assumption, and in grotesque contrast with it, is the belief that this intellect arose from a chance combination of material particles. The whole modern outlook is a combination of childish naivety with the superb analytical skill of the specialist.

In examining Materialism, our object is not to defend religious orthodoxy against the current philosophy which has been produced by science, but rather to examine from a non-technical and non-specialist standpoint the foundations on which Materialism has been built. And it is not the materialist doctrine alone with which we are concerned but also the far-reaching results, which ramify in many directions, of certain instinctive acceptances which have been fixed by nature in the base of the human mind. It is these which scientists, among others, have unconsciously, but with momentous consequences, incorporated into their system of thought. As we proceed it will become more and more evident that conscious recognition of this instinctive mental structure throws light, not only on the nature of science, but on the whole situation of man. The organism which has passed unnoticed through the scientist’s filter is among the most important factors of all.

CHAPTER II

THE NON-SPECIALIST STANDPOINT

AUNIVERSAL difficulty presents itself whenever the human mind tries fully to understand. The question or problem that arises, the fact with which it is faced, may appear simple at first sight; but the more thoroughly it tries to understand it, the more complex and the more elusive it becomes. In dealing with it mentally, we are therefor obliged to shape it to fit ourselves, so that when we say that we understand it, we understand something that is partly a creation of our own. We have drawn it into a mould of our own making and have fitted it to the structure of our own mind. We simplify, we abstract, we modify until this is achieved. The idea that is needed in order to grasp the thing as it is, must be modified until it assumes a form which can be expressed by our existing vocabulary. A rough simile of the kind of difficulty we encounter when we try to understand anything exhaustively, is provided by the act of looking at a contour-map. The eye takes it in at a glance, but to give a full description in words of the relation of all the features which the map contains would be an impossible task.

This difficulty permeates human knowledge. The more precisely we attempt to define a thing, the more the indefinable in it escapes us. We realize this very little because a partial understanding of things is all that is needed for practical life, and that partial understanding can be rendered clear and simple and can remain within the competence of words. In fact, it is the adequacy of language, when dealing with practical matters, which has created the belief that language is universally valid. Science has done much to strengthen this belief, for it arose in the practical world by dealing practically with visible and tangible things and has continued to assume that what serves for them will serve for everything. The result is that the scientific picture keeps on growing, but never integrates. No specific answer is forthcoming to the question: What picture of the universe has science produced? The picture is not in the nature of a conclusion methodically arrived at, but has grown up by itself out of masses of detail accumulated by specialists. However inadequate or distorted this picture may be when seen from a distance, it appears to the specialist, from his ground-level standpoint, to be complete. It is quite understandable that this should be so. If we stand on the shore of a lake and look out over the water, it seems to us that we are looking at a complete and perfectly proportioned scene. But when we climb the mountain behind the lake and look down on the same scene from above, we see how distorted the ground-level view really was. Only when we get away from the ground-level and survey the maplike outline of the lake and its islands from the mountain-top do we see it as it really is.

I was once invited to attend a series of lectures on the philosophy of science, and I rejoiced at what I supposed to be an opportunity of learning from experts the significance which each science had for knowledge as a whole. But each lecturer gave a clear epitome of his own science, and then, remembering the title of the course, bowed politely to the philosophers and handed the general significance over to them. Having reached the limits of his special preserve, he tossed the ball to the group of specialists next door. Indeed, philosophy has become far more a technical study within a fence of its own than a general interpretation of knowledge. Surrounded, as we are, by mountains of print and masses of detail, our great need is to find a single thread which will lead us through the maze of specialist learning and show us a true outline of what it means and whither it is leading. But we cannot expect such an outline to be supplied by more and more analysis: it must be reached by synthesis; and synthesis means a departure from the analytical technique of specialists.

It is our object in the present volume to attempt a contribution, however small, towards the creation of an outline-view set in a perspective which only the non-specialist can provide. Technical problems of science and philosophy will be left, as far as possible, to the specialist and the expert while we endeavour to stand back and look at their creations from afar. The risk of being prosecuted for trespass is one which we must unavoidably run. Many questions arise as we stand back and look at science as a whole; and one of these is whether the analytical method on which scientists so largely depend is adequate even for science itself. The following pertinent passage occurred in a paper read by Dr. J. Gray to the Zoological Section of the British Association in 1933: “Each year it becomes more difficult to review the progress which is being made in the diverse fields of modern zoology, for as individuals we are necessarily specialists, and we tend to forget that the greatest contribution which zoology has ever made to human thought was not the result of a specialized inquiry. The concept of organic evolution was, on the contrary, a brilliant process of integration from every branch of the subject, which spread its effect far beyond the confines of zoology itself.”¹

Integration here revealed a vast, general principle. Yet one feels that the routine-minded specialist strongly objects to integrative methods. I believe it has been doubted by some whether the work of Darwin should be classed as scientific, because it did not depend on quantitative methods or on analysis. A. N. Whitehead throws out the idea that the concepts to which analysis leads are dangerously narrow: “Is it not possible”, he asks, “that the standardized concepts of science are only valid within narrow limitations, perhaps too narrow for science itself?”

¹ The Times, September 8th, 1933.

How can we obtain a picture which is an integrated whole, and not a collection of detailed pictures placed side by side?

It must be admitted that the non-specialist who, in the present age, attempts to review the work of specialists, suffers from serious disadvantages. His method, for one thing, is altogether out of favour. Instead of minutely examining samples of what lies before him, he closes his eyes to detail and tries to acquire an impression of the whole. In contrast to analysis, his method, if it were to receive a name, would have to be called “convergent synthesis”; for he does not work on the inductive principle of generalization from examples but on the quite different principle of allowing light to converge from many different sources until a picture of the situation grows up in his mind. It is a method which depends more on intuition than on logic and is therefore likely to be opposed by the specialist, although the latter often relies on intuition without being fully aware of it.

The non-specialist suffers also from the lack of a recognized position and the lack of credentials. A forceful argument is likely to be brought against him. It will be said: How can you expect to deal with anything unless you have the exact knowledge and the power of precise expression which come only from special training? Without these, you will wander away into vagueness and, in the end, you will get nowhere. The reader must decide, if he pursues the present volume to the end, whether this indictment is true.

Again, the specialist has the advantage of a recognized position, which the non-specialist (as a non-specialist) necessarily lacks. If argument fails, the former can always point to his position:

Whatever you may say, Sir
I am the vicar of Bray, Sir.

Also a non-specialist is almost sure to be misrepresented as an amateur attempting to compete with experts; whereas he is, in reality, taking, from quite a different standpoint, a view which includes much that specialists are unaware of or ignore.

But the advantages are not all on the specialist’s side. The non-specialist is a free lance. In the true sense of the word, he is a “free thinker”. He is immersed in no groove: he is attached to no camp: he is not obliged to weigh every word he utters in the light of its probable effect on his reputation. Also, he need not stop short at the artificial boundaries which divide one specialist province from another: he can appeal from any fact to any other fact, however widely separated the two may be. By doing this he has a chance of lighting upon ideas that the specialist would never think of. He can make light from different quarters converge.

It is a prevalent idea to-day that only a specialist can arrive at a goal. But we shall boldly turn the tables. While admitting the specialist’s supremacy in his own field, we shall maintain that only the non-specialist can see the whole in proper proportion. It is, of course, possible for the sanie individual to adopt both the specialist’s and the non-specialist’s angle of approach; but this is rarely done. People who have looked at things broadly have, however, realized something of the advantage of...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Preface
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• Chapter I. Introductory
• Chapter II. The Non-Specialist Standpoint
• Chapter III. Science in Action
• Chapter IV. Science in Discovery
• Chapter V. What Psychical Research Disclosed
• Chapter VI. Homo Faber
• Chapter VII. Nature’s Problem
• Chapter VIII. The Intruder
• Chapter IX. Adaptation in Ordinary Life
• Chapter X. The Adapted Mind in Physics
• Chapter XI. Putting Nature to the Question
• Chapter XII. The Adapted Mind in Biology
• Chapter XIII. Mechanism, Vitalism and Emergence
• Chapter XIV. The Pattern Behind the Pattern
• Chapter XV. The Adapted Mind in Psychology
• Chapter XVI. The Lighted Foreground
• Chapter XVII. The Adapted Mind in Philosophy
• Chapter XVIII. The Fallacy Behind the Modern Outlook
• Index