The Origin of Science and the Science of its Origin [antikvár]

FOREWORD In endowing in 1943 a short course of lectures, Sir Francis Fremantle, a Balliol man from 1891 to 1894, stipulated that the lectures should serve the purpose of making known 'the relation of Science to Christianity and the Christian life {a) in essence, {h) in its application to the education, thought and hfe of the masses of our people, (c) in its sympathetic explanation of the differences between several religious communities with a view to a common basis for the defence and spread of Our Lord's Gospel'. Stipulations of this sort are as a rule interpreted with much latitude, a stance which is often a virtue though taking Sir Francis' will at its face value may not necessarily be a vice. A strict compliance with Sir Francis' stipulations is the unabashed aim of these lectures. They aim at showing the crucial role played in the origin of science by a widely shared behef in the first article of Christian creed, an article placing the origin of all in the creative act of God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. Such an endeavour is far from being novel. One possible way of implementing it does not, however, seem to have been tried so far. It consists in an evaluation of various theories offered about the origin of science and in tracing their obvious inadequacies and inconsistencies to an oversight of or antagonism to that article of faith either in its theoretical relevance or in its historical significance, or both. Authors of those theories had therefore to credit sundry factors—economic, psychological, sociological, pohtical— for the rise of science as a self-sustaining enterprise. That all such factors played a part is all too obvious. That none of vii