On the Significance of Science and Art

The essay argues that modern science and cultivated art often serve to rationalize social inequalities by presenting selective facts and abstract theories as objective truths; intellectual fashions like Hegelianism or Malthusianism secured authority not because they were verifiable but because their deductions suited the interests of the idle and powerful. The author traces how purportedly neutral methods—induction, experiment, and critical analysis—depend on prior choices about which facts to study, and warns that aesthetic and scientific claims devoid of moral purpose fail to guide human life. He urges a reorientation toward principles that connect thought and feeling with ethical responsibility rather than social justification.