Its (naturalism) aim, as we have seen, is not propaganda; neither is it self-deception. It is seeking not a pleasant feeling state nor a comfortable belief, but the truth. And Naturalism believes that the truth is what it is, no matter what we think about it. Nature, the world of reality, has a character, a structure of its own, and our opinions are true only in so far as they conform to this actual situation. (...) Another form of the Will-to-Believe which the naturalist cannot share is the attitude of the man who, more or less deliberately, allows his view of Reality to be colored or determined by the romantic and poetic tendencies of the human mind. This does not mean that the naturalistic view will necessarily be unpoetic or ugly. That will be as it will be. But the influences which, in the last analysis, determine the naturalistic Weltanschauung are not the appeal of the beautiful or the pathetic, the tragic or the pleasing, but unprejudiced reason and empirical observation. The naturalist may or may not be a poet: but while he is investigating the nature of Reality he is bound to be a realist. He may be fond of poetry and he will be fond of knowledge.
No comments:
Post a Comment