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The puritanic potentialities of science have never been forecast. If it evolves a body of organized rites, and is established as a religion, hierarchically organized, things more than anything else will be done in the name of 'decency'. The coarse fumes of tobacco and liquors, the consequent tainting of the breath and staining of white fingers and teeth, which is so offensive to many women, will be the first things attended to.

Wyndham Lewis#5

AuthorityEthicsReligionScience

About this quote

What does it mean?
Science could evolve into a rigid religion with strict rules about cleanliness and behavior in the name of decency.
In plain terms
Science might become like a strict religion with rules about things like hygiene and decency.
What can you take from it?
Scientific progress can become dogmatic if it forms rigid social hierarchies.

Where it applies

  • policy making
  • academic debates
  • health regulations

Putting it to work

  • question scientific authority
  • avoid moralizing facts

Questions to consider

  • When does science become doctrine?
  • Who defines decency in society?

Another view

Public health standards often require such norms.

More from Wyndham Lewis

  1. The earth has become one big village, with telephones laid on from one end to the other, and air transport, both speedy and safe.

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  2. The ideas of a time are like the clothes of a season: they are as arbitrary, as much imposed by some superior will which is seldom explicit. They are utilitari…

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  3. I have been called a Rogue Elephant, a Cannibal Shark, and a crocodile. I am none the worse. I remain a caged, and rather sardonic, lion, in a particularly con…

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