Samayasara

Author(s): A Chakravarti
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

Page 24

SAMAYASARA
method, Bacon prescribes certain conditions as a necessary intellectual preparation. Generally the mind of a scientist may be crammed with certain traditional beliefs and superstitions. Such preconceived notions which Bacan calls 'Idola' should be entirely got rid of and the student of science should approach Nature with an unbiassed open mind which alone will give a correct insight into the Laws of Nature. This experimental method prescribed by Bacon if adopted by a student of science will give inductive generalisations relating to the constitution of Nature and her Laws, generalisations which would be of a certain amount of high probability. Though the inductive generalisations arrived at by scientific research do not have the absolute certainty, characteristic of mathemetical propositions, they were considered by Bacon to be of great practical value for the benefit of mankind. The attitude has been perfectly justified by the development of modern scienee with the practical application of scintific generalisations which have transformed the life of man in the modern world. Such a reconstruction of human society based upon scientific achievements was foreseen by Bacon in his essay on the New Atlantis. This new experimental approach to Nature has conquered for science, realm after realm, departments of Nature as Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, Geology etc. This successful conquest of the realms of Nature by science resulted in complete elimination of mind of man as a factor for interpretation of natural events. This elimination of consciousness, completely, from the field of research ultimately resulted in scientific reconstruction of Nature as a huge mechanical system in which the Law of Causation was the only principle of operation. In this mechanical system all events are guided by necessary causal conditions. There is no scope of intellectual interference either to modify or to suppress the occurrence of natural events according to the desires of man. The old thought which entertained the possibility of interference with the natural events by supernatural agencies was completly discredited as a pure mythology having no place in the realm of Nature, whose constitution is revealed to the student of Science. This inductive method adopted by modern science finally resulted in the generalisation of conservation of mass and energy as the basis of nature and in relegation of consciousness to an extremely subordinate place as a sort of a by-product in the operation of natural events. Such a generalisation suggested by the physical science was also adopted by Charles Darvin to explain the phenomena relating to the animal kingdom. He also fell in with the general trend of physical science and formulated his famous Law of Evolution, based upon natural selection and survival of the fittest. This principle of explanation of the origin of species also relegated consciousness as an unnecessary factor not required for the explanation of life phenomena which he considered to be quite intelligible on the same principle of mechanical Law of Causation. This intellectual attitude which attempted to explain both the organic and the inorganic realms of nature purely on the principle of mechanical Law of Causation was designated Naturalism as contrasted with prescientific thought which introduced supernaturalism. Such was the state of modern thought at the end of 19th century. But this