バートランド・ラッセル「科学の伝統への影響」

* 原著: The Impact of Science on Society, 1952, chapt. 1: Science and Tradition
* 出典：牧野力(編)『ラッセル思想辞典』

（要旨訳です。なお、牧野訳をかなり修正してあります。）
　科学は、教育のある人々の信念を決定する支配的な要因として、約三百年間（注：本書の出版は1952年）これまで存在してきた。また、経済的技術の一つの源泉として、約百五十年存在してきた。科学は、この短期間に、信じられない程に強力で革命的な力であることを自ら証明してきた。
(Science, as a dominant factor in determining the beliefs of educated men, has existed for about 300 years; as a source of economic technique, for about 150 years. In this brief period it has proved itself an incredibly powerful revolutionary force.)

　日食や月食は人間を迷信から脱却させ、科学へと目を向かわせた最も古い自然現象だった。・・・
　人類学の研究成果は、文明化される以前の人類の生活を支配した考えや行事に何の根拠もないことを教えてくれた。
( Eclipses were the earliest natural phenomena to escape from superstition into science. ...
The study of anthropology has made us vividly aware of the mass of unfounded beliefs that influence the lives of uncivilized human beings. ...)

　十八世紀の科学的世界観には、(1)事実についての言明は観察に立脚し、証拠のない権威に従ってはならない、(2)無生物の世界は自動的で自己継続的な体系で、そのあらゆる変化が自然法則に順応している、(3)地球は宇宙の中心でなく、また恐らく人間が宇宙の目的でもない、更に「目的」という概念は科学的には無用であるという、３つの重要な要素が含まれていた，と私は考える。僧侶はこれらを非難した。
( I think there were three ingredients in the scientific outlook of the eighteenth century that were specially important:
(1) Statements of fact should be based on observation, not on unsupported authority.
(2) The inanimate world is a self-acting, self-perpetuating system, in which all changes conform to natural laws.
(3) The earth is not the center of the universe, and probably Man is not its purpose (if any); moreover, "purpose" is a concept which is scientifically useless. These items make up what is called the "mechanistic outlook," which clergymen denounce.)

　この３つの要素の各々について、以下のことを言っておかなければならない。
（1）観察により確認する態度は古い迷信的権威と対立し、科学と権威との死闘の源になった。・・・
（2）物理的世界の自律性：おそらく最も強力な解決策はガリレオの運動の第一法則（慣性の法則）であろう。デカルトは死せる物質だけでなく、動物の身体も物理学の諸法則に全く支配されていると主張した。心と物質との関係について、自由思想家はアリストテレスやスコラ学派と考え方が正反対だった。十八世紀の唯物論者らはあらゆる原因を物質的なものとみなし、精神的な現象を作用力のない副産物と考えた。・・・
（3）人間は何事にも目的があると考え易いが、あらゆる物に目的があると主張できるかどうかは、哲学者にも科学者にも未解決である。だが、科学的法則を探求する場合には「目的」概念を使わずに説明できた。・・・
（4）科学は、宇宙における人間の位置について、一方で冥想によって己を卑下する影響力を、他方で能動的に己を高揚させる影響力を人間に与え、共に重要である。またダーウィニズムは目的概念の追放以外にも、人間の人生観や世界観に多くの影響を与えた。・・・
( Something must be said about each of the above ingredients of the mechanistic outlook.
(1) Observation versus Authority: To modern educated people, it seems obvious that matters of fact are to be ascertained by observation, not by consulting ancient authorities. But this is an entirely modern conception, which hardly existed before the seventeenth century. Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths. He said also that children will be healthier if conceived when the wind is in the north. ...)
(2) The autonomy of the physical world: Perhaps the most powerful solvent of the pre-scientific outlook has been the first law of motion, which the world owes to Galileo, though to some extent he was anticipated by Leonardo da Vinci. ... Only living beings, it was thought, could move without help of some external agency. Aristotle thought that the heavenly bodies were pushed by gods. Here on earth, animals can set themselves in motion and |can cause motion in dead matter. There are, it was conceded, certain kinds of motion which are "natural" to dead matter. ...　Descartes held that not only dead matter, but the bodies of animals also, are wholly governed by the laws of physics. Probably only theology restrained him from saying the same of human bodies. In the eighteenth century French free thinkers took this further step. In their view, the relation of mind and matter was the antithesis of what Aristotle and the scholastics had supposed. For Aristotle, first causes were always mental, as when an engine driver starts a freight train moving and the impulsion communicates itself from truck to truck. Eighteenth-century materialists, on the contrary, considered all causes material, and thought of mental occurrences as inoperative by-products.
(3) The dethronement of "purpose''':　... But although it is still open to the philosopher or theologian to hold that everything has a "purpose," it has been found that "purpose" is not a useful concept when we are in search of scientific laws. ...
(4) Man's place in the universe: The effect of science upon our view of man's place in the universe has been of two opposite kinds; it has at once degraded and exalted him. It has degraded him from the standpoint of contemplation, and exalted him from that of action. The latter effect has gradually come to outweigh the former, but both have been important....
Darwinism has had many effects upon man's outlook on life and the world, in addition to the extrusion of purpose of which I have already spoken.