The knowledge that in our time is taken for science does more to hinder than to promote the good of human life.
Astonomy, mechanics, physics, chemistry and all the other sciences, both collectively and apart, are all developing the facets of life that are their subjects, without attaining any results on life as a whole. Only in their primitive state—i.e. a state of ambiguity and uncertainty—did some of these sciences try to encompass the whole of the phenomena of life from their perspective and became confused, inventing new words and concepts. Thus it was with astronomy when it was astrology and with chemistry when it was alchemy. The same is happening now with that experimental evolutionary science, which, by observing one or several facets of life, claims to study life as a whole.
Science fulfills its task not by explaining the causes of the appearance of sunspots, but by discovering the laws of our own lives and the consequences of their transgression.
— John Ruskin
In relation to nature, experience gives us rules and is a source of truth; but in relation to moral laws, experience sadly turns out to be the mother of delusion. This is why it would be most unworthy to want the laws of what I ought to do be derived from or limited by what happens in nature or has happened in history.
— Kant
Knowledge humbles the one who is great, amazes the one who is ordinary and inflates the one who is small.
The sciences are food for the mind. And this food can be as harmful to the mind as bodily food is to the body if it is not consumed in moderation. If you consume too much intellectual food, you can make yourself sick. To avoid this, you must do the same as with bodily food: consume it only when you absolutely need it.
— After Ruskin
For knowledge to be important, it must serve the good—it must unite people. People unite among themselves by accepting a truth that they all share. The expressions of this truth must be clear and comprehensible. The expressions of present day science are unclear and incomprehensible.
Socrates said that every science is easy for those who want nothing more than to become good, because in every science they want to know only what is necessary.
The wisdom of Socrates consisted in his not thinking that he knew that which he did not.
— Cicero
However great knowledge may be, it cannot help you fulfill life’s primary purpose: moral self-perfection.
