Man the unknown / by Alexis Carrel.

  • Carrel, Alexis, 1873-1944.
Date:
1948
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Man the unknown / by Alexis Carrel. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    in addition to body and consciousness, their relations with the material and mental world, take in sociology and eco- nomics, and become the very science of the human being. Its aim, then, would be not only to cure or prevent diseases, but also to guide the development of all our organic, mental, and sociological activities. It would become capable of build- ing the individual according to natural lav/s, and of inspir- ing those who will have the task of leading humanity to a true civilization. At the present time, education, hygiene, religion, town planning, and social and economic organiza- tions are entrusted to individuals who know but a single aspect of the human being. No one would ever dream of sub- stituting politicians, well-meaning women, lawyers, literary men, or philosophers for the engineers of the steel-works or of the chemical factories. However, such people are given the incomparably heavier responsibility of the physiological, mental, and sociological guidance of civilized men, and even of the government of great nations. Medicine, aggrandized according to the conception of Descartes, and extended in such a manner as to embrace the other sciences of man, could supply modem society with engineers under- standing the mechanisms of the body and the soul of the individual, and of his relations with the cosmic and social world. This super-science will be utilizable only if, instead of being buried in libraries, it animates our intelligence. But is it pos- sible for a single brain to assimilate such a gigantic amount of knowledge? Can any individual master anatomy, physio- logy, biological chemistry, psychology, metapsychics, patho- logy, medicine, and also have a thorough acquaintance with genetics, nutrition, development, pedagogy, aesthetics, morals, religion, sociology, and economics? It seems that such an accomplishment is not impossible. In about twenty-five years of uninterrupted study one could learn these sciences. At the age of fifty, those who have submitted themselves to this discipline could effectively direct the construction of the