Taiwan Today

Editor's note: This is Dr. Hu Shih's last major speech and­—as usual—a controversial one. Delivered at the four-nation Sci­ence Education Conference in Taipei November 6, 1961, it touched off fiery debate on the spiritual values of East and West.

What are the social changes necessary for the growth of science—in our countries in the Far East?

I am sure that our honored visitors who have been working for the promotion of science education in many Asian lands are far better qualified than I to speak on this big and important subject and to open up fruitful discussions at the conference.

I suspect that I am invited to speak today because our friends in charge of the arrangements for the conference probably had a wicked design on me and on you: They probably wanted me to play of the Advocatus diaboli at the opening of your conference, to say some unpleasant things for you to tear to pieces during your quiet deliberations.

So here I am, appearing before you in the capacity of an "advocate of the Devil," to say a few naughty and unpleasant things for you to tear to pieces.

I would like to present a few propositions all of which are in the realm of intellectual and educational change—which I believe to be funda­mental in all social changes.

I believe that, in order to pave the way for the growth of science, in order to prepare ourselves to receive and welcome the modern civilization of science and technology, we Orientals may have to undergo some kind of intellectual change or revolu­tion.

This intellectual revolution has two aspects. Negatively, we should get rid of our deep-rooted prejudice that, while the West has undoubtedly excelled in its material and materialistic civilization, we Orientals can take pride in our superior spiritual civilization. We may have to get rid of this un­justifiable pride and learn to admit that there is very little spirituality in the civilization of the East. And positively, we should learn to understand and appreciate that science and technology are not materialistic but are highly idealistic and spiritual values; indeed they represent a true idealism and spirituality sadly underdeveloped in our Oriental civilizations.

First, I submit that there is not much spiritu­ality in our older civilizations of the East. What spirituality is there in a civilization which tolerated so cruel and inhuman an institution as footbinding for women for over a thousand years? Or in a civilization which tolerated the caste system for many thousands of years? What spiritual values are there in a civilization which considers life as painful and not worth living and which glorifies poverty and mendicancy and sanctifies disease as an act of the gods?

Indeed, what spirituality is there in an old beggarwoman who dies in dire destitution but who dies still mumbling Namo Amitabha!—dying in the hope that her soul may go to that blissful paradise presided over by the Amita Buddha?

It is high time that we Orientals begin to confess that there is little or no spirituality in such old civilizations which belong to an age when man had reached physical senility and mental sluggish­ness and felt himself impotent to cope with the forces of nature. Indeed, a full realization of the total absence of spirituality and even of vitality in such old civilizations seems to be a necessary in­tellectual preparation for a full understanding of the modern civilization of science and technology which glorifies life and utilizes human intelligence for betterment of the conditions of life.

Second, it is equally important and necessary for us of the Orient to acknowledge freely that this, new civilization of science and technology is not something forced upon us, nor something to be despised or reluctantly tolerated as the material civilization of the materialistic peoples of the West —but something which we must learn to love and respect as the truly great spiritual achievement of man. For modern science is the cumulative achieve­ment of that which is the most spiritual and indeed most divine in man, namely, the creative intelligence of man, which seeks to know, to find, to wring from nature her little secrets by means of rigid methods of research and experimentation.

"Truth is never easily found," and never reveals itself to insolent souls who approach nature with unaided hands and untrained sense-organs. The history of science and the lives of the great scientists are most inspiring documents to enable us fully to understand the spiritual nature of the men of science,—the patience, the perseverance, the selfless search for truth, the disheartening failures, and the truly spiritual joy and raptures at moments of successful discovery and verification.

In the same sense, even technology is not to be viewed as merely application of scientific knowledge to the making of tools and machines. Every tool of civilization is a product of the intelligence of man making use of matter and energy for the embodiment of an idea or a vast combination of ideas or concepts. Man has been defined as Homo faber, as a tool-making animal. And it is tool-making that constitutes civilization.

Indeed tool-making was so highly regarded by men that many a great invention such as fire was attributed to some of the greatest gods. Even Confucius was reported to have made the wise observation that all implements of civilization are spiritual in origin; they all came from "ideas" (hsiang).

"When conceived, they are called ideas. When materially embodied, they are called implements. When instituted for general use, they are called models or patterns. When wrought into the every­day life of all the people, the people marvel at them and call them the work of the gods."

So it is not unbecoming for us Orientals to regard science and technology as highly spiritual achievements of men.

In short, I propose that we of the East, on the threshhold of new civilization of science and technology, would do well to acquire for ourselves some such intellectual preparation for its proper reception and appreciation.

In short, we in the Orient would do well to acquire a philosophy of the scientific and technological civilization.

Some thirty-five years ago, I proposed to reconsider and re-define the much misused and very confusing phrases: "Spiritual civilization," "Material civilization," and "Materialistic civilization."

The term "Material civilization" ought to have a purely neutral meaning, for all tools of civiliza­tion are material embodiments of ideas, and a stone axe or a clay idol is no less material than huge modern ocean liner or a jet-propelled airplane. An Oriental poet or philosopher sailing on a primitive sampan boat has no right to laugh at or belittle the material civilization of the men flying over his head in a modern jet airliner.

But I proposed that the term "Materialistic civilization," which has often been applied to stigmatize the scientific and technological civilization of the modern Western World, seems to me to be a more appropriate word for the characterization of those backward civilizations of the older world. For to me that civilization is "materialistic" which is limited and weighed down by its material environment and incapable of transcending it, which fails to make full use of human intelligence for the conquest of nature and for the improvement of the conditions of Man. In short, I would consider a civilization abjectly "materialistic" which feels itself powerless against its material environment and conquered by it.

On the other hand, I propose to regard the modern civilization of science and technology as highly idealistic and spiritual. This is what I said some thirty-five years ago: "That civilization which makes the fullest possible use of human ingenuity and intelligence in search of truth in order to control nature and transform matter for the service of mankind, to relieve the human body from unnecessary hardship and suffering, to multiply man's power by thousand times and hundred-thousand times, to liberate the human spirit from ignorance, superstition, and slavery to the force of nature, and to reform and remake human institu­tions for the greatest good of the greatest number—such a civilization is highly idealistic and truly spiritual."

That was my enthusiastic eulogy of the modern civilization of science and technology—first spoken and written in Chinese in 1925 and 1926, later spoken many times in Britain and the United States in 1926, and 1927, and later published in English in 1928 as a chapter in a symposium entitled Whither Mankind edited by Porfessor Charles A. Beard.

It was no blind condemnation of the older civilizations of the East, nor blind worship of the modern civilization of the West. It was a considered opinion of a young student of the history of thought and civilization.

As I now look back, I still stand by what I said some 35 years ago. I still think it a fairly just appraisal of the civilizations of the East and the West. I still believe that such a reappraisal of the older civilizations of the East, and of the modern civilization of science and technology is an intel­lectual revolution necessary to prepare us Orientals for a sincere and wholehearted reception of modern science.

Without some such heartsearching reappraisals and re-evaluations, without some such intellectual convictions, there may be only halfhearted accept­ance of science and technology as an unavoidable nuisance, as a necessary evil, at best as something of utilitarian value but of no intrinsic worth.

Without acquiring some such a philosophy of the scientific and technological civilization, I am afraid, science will not take deep root in our midst, and we of the Orient will never feel quite at home in this new world.