The Essays of Torahiko Terada ----- A Japanese Intellect
Introduction
Torahiko Terada was a Japanese physicist and writer born in Tokyo Japan in 1878.
He wrote many essays in his lifetime until he died in 1935 at the age of 57, and they have been widely read in Japan.
When he was a high school student in Kumamoto (a city in Kyushu, southern Japan), he studied English and literature under Soseki Natsume (a renowned Japanese writer) and physics under Takuro Tamaru (a prominent Japanese physicist). These two men greatly influenced him and infused him with a lifelong passion for science and literature.
As a physicist, he graduated from the Department of Experimental Physics, Faculty of Science, Tokyo Imperial University at the top of his class in 1903, received his PhD in science in 1908, and was appointed to an assistant professor. In 1909, he went to study abroad at the University of Berlin, visited various places in Europe, and returned to Japan via the United States in 1911. After that, he engaged himself in research in various fields of physics with many remarkable results. In 1917, he received the Imperial Prize of Japan Academy for his achievements.
As a writer, he started writing Haiku (a form of short Japanese poetry) under the tutelage of Soseki Natsume, and then went on to write prose and essays. Since he was a physicist as well as a writer, the subject of his essay varies widely, and the interest of his essays differed greatly depending on the subject matter. We find some are scientific and academic, some are literary and sentimental, and some are philosophical.
There is, however, a remarkable feature common to all of his essays: his attachment to logic, objectivity, honesty and curiosity, and his hatred of deception, hypocrisy, dishonesty and indifference. These traits resonate in the readers’ mind like the basso continuo in baroque music throughout his essays, leaving a comforting feeling of warmth, humility, profundity, and humanity.
His essays were written in Japanese in Japan about 100 years ago. So the social background of them is quite different from that of other parts of the world today. Nevertheless, his essays arouse our sympathy and call for our attention that seems even more imminent now than ever. This must be because there is something to be called a universal truth in his thoughts beyond time and space. The purpose of this blog is to introduce his such thoughts to the people in the world.
Needless to say, the difference in time, place and language are great obstacles to the above purpose, and moreover, it is almost impossible to transmit perfectly a thought written in one language in another language, so the complete achievement of the purpose cannot be expected. However, it must be worthwhile to transmit even a part of his thoughts to the world now that the world seems to have gone off course in the stormy sea of conflicts between ideologies, forces, religions and sense of values.
I would like to start introduction of one essay at a time every month. The first 9 essays, that express his basic attitude toward science, study and society, are from “The Essays of Torahiko Terada - A Japanese Intellect” published by Amazon Kindle eBook.
Praying this small attempt may contribute to world peace, --- even a little,
Bogey Bogwood 2022-11-16
The Essays of Torahiko Terada
― A Japanese Intellect ―
Vol. 1
Translated by Bogey Bogwood
The Value and Harm of Authority in Science
The efficacy of authority in science is so obvious that it needs little to be discussed, especially today. Science of various fields is making rapid progress and its frontage widened, its depth deepened as never before. So it is not easy for a layman to get the overview by looking at it from outside the gate. Not only that, but also various subdivided divisions are rapidly being developed in the branch of science which already has its own independent name, such as physics or chemistry. Even though the number of laws and principles governing the rapidly-advancing latest studies is not increasing, the number of the facts which should be governed by these laws and principles is only gradually increasing. Therefore, in the field of physics too, the number of specialized divisions will gradually increase and the range covered by each division will become narrower. If this continues at current speed, it will become quite difficult to study physics. Unless the competence of human being is being developed at the same speed, for an ordinary man it will become not quite easy to acquire even only general knowledge of the whole physics. If he tries to cover the entire whole range, he can acquire only shallow knowledge, and if he wants to get deep knowledge, he should give up to cover the entire whole range.
In such an era, if there is a scholar who has the knowledge covering the whole science field with wide frontage and deep depth, and if he guides learners, and consults with specialized researchers or scholars of respective field, that is certainly the best. However, such authority will become fewer and fewer in the future. So, it may possibly be the case of inevitable alternative authority: either with wide frontage but no deep depth, or with deep depth and no wide frontage. Of course, even such a one-dimensional authority is extremely necessary for learners, researchers and scholars.
Now, here is a person who is going to a hot spring for summer holiday. For him, first of all, something like a guidebook of nationwide hot springs is extremely useful. He studies the guidebook and decides which hot spring to go, and then he wants advice from someone who is familiar with the hot spring. The two authorities mentioned above are just like those two: the guidebook, and the person familiar with the hot spring. The guidebook cannot tell detailed information of respective hot spring, but can give clear advice about the features of each hot spring that is useful to make his choice. While the person familiar with a certain hot spring cannot make the comparison between the hot spring and others clear.
Anyway, one of the missions of academic authority is just like that of a tourist guide. If you want to make your Kyoto tour most effective within a certain period of time, it is convenient to have a suitable guide or a guidebook. Otherwise, you might miss something important to see. Especially in case of alpine trips that are popular recently, it is quite so. If you walk on an uncertain route without any guide, you might get lost and will have to meet a terrible disaster.
The value of the guide’s authority is obvious, but people who think that there are harmful effects of the guide as well are rather few.
For tourists who just pass by and want to see the Kinkaku-ji Temple, the guide boy is very useful. But for a person who wants to really see it satisfactorily with his own eyes, the guide boy is rather a disturbance. The guide boy just recites the fixed general explanation about only a few items printed in his manual, nothing more, and "Move to next, please." Even someone wants to stop and see in a little more detail, he has to pass it by following his group. This happens also when we study in school, and must be the most suitable and effective way to show many students the outline of the study at the same time. However, if such a way of this guide boy is carried out all the way, undoubtedly it would be a great nuisance for someone who really wants to study science.
During my stay in London, I once went to see Hampton Court Palace with a friend. He guided and explained me consulting Paedeker’s Great Britain constantly and minutely, so I enjoyed the tour very much. In the book, there was a guidance about a certain room instructing us to look outward from what number window towards which direction to enjoy the most beautiful scenery. At that time, I said something like this. "It's like we let the writer of Paedeker’s book have us see, but don't see freely by ourselves." The attitude of my company, thanks to his docile and modest nature, to absolutely obey the authority of Paedeker’s book and to appreciate the Palace only through Paedeker’s book made me admire him, but also frustrated. And when I thought about students of natural science, I couldn’t help wondering how many of them observe nature with their own eyes and mind while most of them see it only through textbooks or notes of their teacher’s lecture.
For students, textbooks and notes of their teacher’s lecture are a great authority. But the harm of their putting too much confidence in these authorities unquestioningly must be greatly worried. What if they accept whatever the note or the textbook teaches wholly as it is, and never think nor see anything more by themselves? They will become just a living textbook and will have no gain in the natural science itself.
Since the objective of natural science is, after all, the nature itself, we never know the truth unless we learn it directly from the nature. Textbooks and lecture notes are only just a guide which is essential, unless the guide makes mistakes, for those who don't know the direction at all. Those knowledges learnt from textbooks and lecture notes may be good enough as a common sense, good for casual Kyoto tourists to tell their casual souvenir stories, similar to a scenery seen in a painting, but is not real and live knowledge. Not to mention, if the tourist himself happens to be blind, even though the guide takes trouble to bring him around all the way, it is of no use.
Even if it is assumed that everything the guide says is correct and there are no slight errors, it is inevitable that if you rely solely on it, you will paralyze your own observing ability and thinking ability. If you just swallow anything without chewing, it cannot be digested and the chewing ability of your teeth will be declined and what you eat will not be nutritious. Whereas, whoever the guide may be, it cannot be assured that he never makes an error. No matter how erudite scholar you may have as a guide to see the sights, and each of his explanation may have some solid grounds, it may be rather rare that there is not even a little doubt in his explanation after strict and critical probe into each ground of it. Some people may argue that it may be so in the case of guidance about historical sites or antiques, but such ambiguity cannot be possible in the authority of science. However, unfortunately it is more or less so, even in the case of scientific matters.
Authority is inherently relative. For the scientific knowledge of elementary school students, those with a secondary education should usually be qualified to be authoritative. University graduates should be able to become the authority of society in general in their speciality. Therefore, those who are called physicist should be the authority of all people in their specialized knowledge acquired. Well then, is the degree of erudition of every university professor same? It cannot be said so. But there can be the authority in each field of physics, and these authorities can form an ideal group of authority. Then, what may be the degree of authority that such a group of authority, like an incorporated foundation, has? It also can never be absolute.
That is to say, something that has the latest knowledge available in each field, and at the same time, can give the proper guidance for the future course should be called the ideal authority, shouldn't be?
Is it actually possible today to know all the up-to-date scientific knowledge without any omission in the strict sense? Probably not. But it is possible to pursue the very latest knowledge on a special subject by checking through up-to-date study reports of major researchers in major academic countries. It is the job of most scientists to pursue and find the front line of the latest knowledge as of today, and then to proceed one step more beyond that line. Those who are called scientific authorities are those who have a bird’s-eye view of such front line in as wide a range as possible, and guide those who are trying to step out of this line from all directions. But there cannot be a guide whom we can trust all the way. No matter how precise the General Staff Headquarters’ map may be, it doesn’t show the position of each and every tree and leaf. However precisely the map might have been written down at the time of the survey, such things like loggers’ pass way are unable to be forecasted how they might change in a few years. If you rely on the map being precise only to such an extent, you are to blame. It goes without saying that the harmful effect of trusting each and every word of authority is obvious, and what is more, the harm of putting too much confidence in authority is not limited to these trifling problems but also applicable to more important and fundamental policy of research.
In every field, anyone who did a great work is one who has strong self-confidence. The same is true for scientists too. But, "Even Homer nods sometimes." When someone’s conclusion or hypothesis is correct 99 out of 100 and remaining 1is wrong, he often is rather slow to admit the 1 mistake. On the other hand, most of unquestioning laymen, who are overwhelmed by the greatness of the authority with 99 percent correctness, usually swallow the remaining 1 percent mistake too. The great harm of authority lies there. Such examples in the history of science are too many to count. It is well-known how much Sir Issac Newton’s advocacy of the corpuscular theory of light hindered the approval of the wave theory of light. Also, historians admit that Pierre Simon Laplace’s view of heat as a substance impeded progress of the thermal energy theory not a few times. It is not limited to the past, and I think there are still many such cases now. It is usual that the hypothesis of someone called an authority, even if it is quite suspicious, is trusted in overconfidence. When it comes to someone known as an authority on something, it is customary that his hypothesis is believed to be absolutely right as a divine message. I think the authority is not to blame for this, but rather those laymen who swallow the absoluteness of the authority unquestioningly must be to blame. In the first place, it is a matter of course that one who is recognized as an authority by the general public must be careful to publish or insist his hypothesis, but, "Even Homer nods sometimes." If he worries about making even one mistake out of millions, he should rather stop expressing any of his opinions. If even one mistake should not be taught, school teachers of the whole world must resign. It is the same to say that you should not live in earthquake-prone Japan if you worry about even a single danger at all. It should be the blindly following psychology of the unquestioning crowd to be worried about, but not the authority. It is the annihilation of such blindly following psychology that someone who wants not only to study true science, but also to engage himself in it must not forget. In other words, try to be as perverse as you can, and never swallow anything whoever tells you whatever, until you are fully convinced. Had it not been for such perverse character, what would have happened to the progress of science? The very reason why scientific progress has stagnated for a long time during the scholastic era is nothing but the absence of such perverse character. The Renaissance was an era when many great perverse characters were produced. Galileo Galilei had to suffer imprisonment because of his obstinate perverse character. It is also the case that Isaac Newton did that great achievement from the standpoint of "Hypotheses non fingo", leaving the physics derived from the Cartesian view of the metaphysical universe. Huyghens and Young broke the corpuscular theory of light, Faraday neglected the action at a distance, Einstein laid the foundation of the principle of relativity, overthrowing the traditional theory of time and space. These are all because of nothing but those great men’s perverse characters, being free from the shackles of the authority of tradition.
Artists are trapped in laws of painting and lose sight of nature, priests are trapped in scriptures and forget about living humans, and scholars are trapped in authority and forget to observe the material world naked. Artists sometimes should go back to primitive men to see nature. Priests have to return to the heart of a baby. And, scientists sometimes must go back to the ignorant and illiterate man to think. Though we think we are exploring the depths of physics, we often find that the questions sometimes asked by children and amateurs point out the basic weakness of physics, unexpectedly.
Julius Robert von Mayer, the founder of the theory of the conservation of energy, must have been, in the physical world of the time, a rather perverse and obstinate gaffer.
（1915）
*Translator’s Reflection on “Value and Harm of Authority in Science”
Authority has both value and harm. When we consider the efficacy of authority, its value is unquestionable and we need it even if it has harmful effects. So, it is essential for us to deal with authority paying attention to its harmful effects. How? Terada says, “Never swallow anything whoever tells you whatever, until you are fully convinced.”
The Covid pandemic that broke out at the end of 2019 continues even after more than two years, and is changing the world in every way.
WHO, Ministry of Health and Medical Association are scientific authorities in the Covid pandemic. And the media, which is not supposed to be authoritative, are now made authoritative by the public who accept it blindly.
Looking back over the past two years, it is obvious that information given by those authorities had been late, inaccurate, biased and strayed, thence caused delays in the initial response, failure to identify the cause of the outbreak, stray in countermeasures, delays in vaccine development, and worsened the situation. It is clear how important it was for the recipients of information from those authorities “never to swallow anything whoever tells you whatever, until you are fully convinced.”
And this goes for every single person in those authorities too; if only each and every one working in WHO, Ministry of Health, Medical Association, and the media had practiced a little more of this lesson “Never swallow anything whoever tells you whatever, until you are fully convinced”, the situation would not have been so bad. In those authoritative organizations, also there is the authority and non-authority: seniors and juniors, bosses and subordinates, and between departments.
WHO staff, Ministry of Health staff, members of Medical Association, media announcers – hadn’t they “swallowed whatever, whoever told them, before they had been fully convinced?”
What would they do when they are in a position to transmit the information by which “they are not fully convinced”? Would or could they refuse to despatch the information? It is not so easy when they think of the impact of their refusal on the organization and on themselves.
The staff of WHO or Ministry of Health may be removed from the secretariat, the member of Medical Association may have to leave the association, and the announcer may lose his job if he refuses to read the draft which he is not fully convinced of. Their own future and their family may be affected, and in some cases, they may be alienated from the society.
This is not limited to the staff of WHO or Ministry of Health, the members of Medical Association or the media announcers. Each one of us can be authoritative or non-authoritative at different times, sometimes even without conscious.
“Never to swallow anything whoever tells you whatever, until you are fully convinced” is not so easy to follow. It requires scrupulous care and a willingness to risk even one’s life. In reality, how much can we do? We cannot force ourselves to die. We can do only whatever the best we can do in our respective position, according to our respective judgement, based on our respective sense of values, which we should keep trying, at the very least.
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