And now I find that the Drexel Triangle is fully digitized. Which is wonderful. I can see the entire article on the Forteans, plus another that Lingle wrote which makes some of the same points, while also attacking religion, synthesizing the two posts I’ve put up and showing even more strongly what he found in the Fortean Society: that it stood against dogmatic science and dogmatic religion.
Here’s the first article. It clearly rewrites some the press releases that Thayer and Aaron Sussman were putting out, but then gives the connection to Drexel, and some of the language seems to echo Lingle’s own thinking, suggesting he may have been the primary source for the article.
FORTEAN SOCIETY GAINS INFULENCE: Drexel Now Represented in New Organization; Science Debunked by Authors
Drexel Institute is now represented in the Fortean Society. This unique organization takes its name from Charles Fort, author of three amazingly heterdox [sic] books.
For twenty-six years Mr. Fort has been combatting what he calls “the bigotry of orthodox science.” His “Book of the Damned” was rejected in manuscript until Theodore Dreiser sponsored its publication. Next Booth Tarkington’s interest was enlisted and “New Lands” appeared. Recently these writers, joined by John Cowper Powys, Ben Hecht, Tiffany Thayer, Burton Rascoe, and other authors, college professors and newspaper editors, met to found a society with Charles Fort as its symbol and his works as a nucleus for the advancement and liberation of human thought. Several Drexel men are members.
These men do not necessarily agree with all of Mr. Fort’s “expressions”(to use Fortean terms). But while the Forteans differ widely among themselves in their human, scientific,
aesthetic and philosophical reactions, they are united in opposing dogmatism and intolerance.
“Science,” the Forteans say, “has finally forced its way to a position in the modern world where it has become a menace to other points of view. Now the scientific attitude is
only one way of looking at the universe. Other viewpoints are perhaps just as important—such as the human, the artistic and the religious.”
John Cowper Powys, the noted English writer, has hailed the movement as “'The New Protestantism.” But instead of nailing his theses to the Church door, Charles Fort has fastened them to the portals of the universities. His followers are characterized by an attitude of healthy skepticism rather than destructive iconoclasm.
The Forteans endeavor to suspend judgment rather than close their minds to unwelcome evidence. After all, this skepticism is the true ideal of Science itself, so seldom realized in its practical preoccupation with narrow fields of endowed research,
to the exclusion of larger and more disinterested vital syntheses.
So, to those scientific pundits who may be alarmed at the rapid growth of Fortean influence, assurance may be given that legitimate science has nothing to fear from the Forteans.
Professor E. D. McDonald says of Fort’s work: “ It has a fine imaginative sweep and a liberalizing tendency. If he should be proved wrong in his contentions even then his books still remain as amazing performances. Undoubtedly modern science needs considerable debunking.”
Apropos of the avowed Fortean policy of challenging the established institutions of learning, Professor Roy P. Lingle offers the following explanation: “ From experience and observation in our colleges and graduate schools, I can testify most emphatically that scientific research as applied to the humanities, useful as it may be in teaching method, leads almost inevitably to the rejection of vital contributions to human thought.
To call the ‘scientific’ type of scholar a philosopher, or in some cases even a thinker, is to call a gold-digger a financier, a clam-digger a sportsman, or a rag-picker a textile artist. Indeed intellectual rag-picking has been glorified by the so-called scientific method, which may even enlist the power of money for the suppression of new ideas.”
(Fortean Society Gains Influence, Drexel Triangle, 8 May 1931, 2).
Also worth noting in the article is E. D. McDonald’s use of the term debunking. In modern usage, debunking means proving something wrong. It had a different connotation at the time, taken from that arch-foe of Forteanism H. L. Mencken, who saw it more as removing the bunk—the accumulated, useless, and wrong crud—from culture. So debunking science in this case doesn’t mean proving science wrong, but cleaning out the clutter.
(By the way, I have no idea who McDonald is, but he now goes on the list.)
The second article is a response to an editorial that bemoaned college’s secularizing influence. Lingle would have none of that, in the process offering his view of religion and its correct relationship to science. (The bolded phrases are from the original editorial):
"…… Granting then, that in college a certain number of contradictory, ungrounded and unscientific assumptions—the superfluous cargo of faith—are dispelled for the thinking student, the rhetorical question brings its answer;“What substitute is given for their
underminded [sic] faith? The answer is Emphatically nothing.”
……However, let us assume that the presentation of liberal arts subjects is merely rationalistic and scientific, not sympathetically interpretative. While, as we have pointed out, something is offered, this substitute will not be given in the spirit on meaning
of the author. In such cases the students may be considered “victims of a relentless destructive criticism.” Here the objection may be nearer the
truth, as applied to the scientific method when used outside its legitimate sphere. As William James reminds us; “Science has fallen so deeply in love with the method of verification that one may even say she has ceased to care for truth by itself at all. It is only truth as technically verified that interests her. The ‘truth of truths’ might come in merely af-grmative [sic: affirmative] form, and should [sic: she] would decline to touch it.”
The Ph.D.’s turned out of our graduate schools, may themselves be victims of this ruthless scientific method applied to aesthetic or spiritual ideas in the poetry, music, art, drama and philosophy that actually transcend Science. And it is also worthy of note that a teacher might have, or believe he has, what William James calls the “truth of truths”, and because of his professional ethics, “decline to touch it” in the classroom unless concretely relevant to the subject matter of his courses.
Even research itself, except in applied science, must take an analytical or destructive trend. For, in spite of glib pedagogical catch-words and phrases such as “pushing back the ramparts of discovery”, “adding to the sum total of human knowledge,” new ideas are actually hated and feared more than the destructive criticism which the editorial deplores.”
….So if “instructors do not teach that a critical faculty can be united with a reverent spirit,” they may base their defense on professional ethics and retort, “Reverence is not in our particular province.” Or, if hard pressed, they may assert “Reverence for truth, based on respect for facts.”
…..So we move on to new horizons, with religious vistas constantly enlarged. And if religion, according to definition, is a constant rebinding and renewing of faith in the light of new experience and knowledge, it cannot be (and has never eventually dared
to be) the fixed and unchanging body of doctrine that its institutional devotees so often assert it to be. Old Ben Franklin made that plain in the passage about the Dunkers in his
Autobiography. New revelations of truth, including the revelations of Science, and what Emerson calls the “constant revelation of God in the human heart.” lead to the re-interpretation of Scripture in the light of modern thought and experience.
So, in conclusion, despite the bigotry of the pundits who employ the scientific method to insulate themselves from the shock of vital religious experience, and in spite of the
unbending rigidity of orthodoxy, the colleges and universities of the country, taken as a whole, are gradually lifting the mind of modern youth from the abasement of blind faith. Thus they move forward to new horizons of intelligent enlightenment on life and religion. Above all they are made fast with tho ligatures of knowledge to what Matthew Arnold calls “worthy notions of the will of God.” Or as Emerson wrote:“ When half gods go, the gods arrive.”
(Roy Petran Lingle, “College and Religion,” Drexel Triangle, 21 April 1933, 2, 4, all quotes from age 4.)
Here’s the first article. It clearly rewrites some the press releases that Thayer and Aaron Sussman were putting out, but then gives the connection to Drexel, and some of the language seems to echo Lingle’s own thinking, suggesting he may have been the primary source for the article.
FORTEAN SOCIETY GAINS INFULENCE: Drexel Now Represented in New Organization; Science Debunked by Authors
Drexel Institute is now represented in the Fortean Society. This unique organization takes its name from Charles Fort, author of three amazingly heterdox [sic] books.
For twenty-six years Mr. Fort has been combatting what he calls “the bigotry of orthodox science.” His “Book of the Damned” was rejected in manuscript until Theodore Dreiser sponsored its publication. Next Booth Tarkington’s interest was enlisted and “New Lands” appeared. Recently these writers, joined by John Cowper Powys, Ben Hecht, Tiffany Thayer, Burton Rascoe, and other authors, college professors and newspaper editors, met to found a society with Charles Fort as its symbol and his works as a nucleus for the advancement and liberation of human thought. Several Drexel men are members.
These men do not necessarily agree with all of Mr. Fort’s “expressions”(to use Fortean terms). But while the Forteans differ widely among themselves in their human, scientific,
aesthetic and philosophical reactions, they are united in opposing dogmatism and intolerance.
“Science,” the Forteans say, “has finally forced its way to a position in the modern world where it has become a menace to other points of view. Now the scientific attitude is
only one way of looking at the universe. Other viewpoints are perhaps just as important—such as the human, the artistic and the religious.”
John Cowper Powys, the noted English writer, has hailed the movement as “'The New Protestantism.” But instead of nailing his theses to the Church door, Charles Fort has fastened them to the portals of the universities. His followers are characterized by an attitude of healthy skepticism rather than destructive iconoclasm.
The Forteans endeavor to suspend judgment rather than close their minds to unwelcome evidence. After all, this skepticism is the true ideal of Science itself, so seldom realized in its practical preoccupation with narrow fields of endowed research,
to the exclusion of larger and more disinterested vital syntheses.
So, to those scientific pundits who may be alarmed at the rapid growth of Fortean influence, assurance may be given that legitimate science has nothing to fear from the Forteans.
Professor E. D. McDonald says of Fort’s work: “ It has a fine imaginative sweep and a liberalizing tendency. If he should be proved wrong in his contentions even then his books still remain as amazing performances. Undoubtedly modern science needs considerable debunking.”
Apropos of the avowed Fortean policy of challenging the established institutions of learning, Professor Roy P. Lingle offers the following explanation: “ From experience and observation in our colleges and graduate schools, I can testify most emphatically that scientific research as applied to the humanities, useful as it may be in teaching method, leads almost inevitably to the rejection of vital contributions to human thought.
To call the ‘scientific’ type of scholar a philosopher, or in some cases even a thinker, is to call a gold-digger a financier, a clam-digger a sportsman, or a rag-picker a textile artist. Indeed intellectual rag-picking has been glorified by the so-called scientific method, which may even enlist the power of money for the suppression of new ideas.”
(Fortean Society Gains Influence, Drexel Triangle, 8 May 1931, 2).
Also worth noting in the article is E. D. McDonald’s use of the term debunking. In modern usage, debunking means proving something wrong. It had a different connotation at the time, taken from that arch-foe of Forteanism H. L. Mencken, who saw it more as removing the bunk—the accumulated, useless, and wrong crud—from culture. So debunking science in this case doesn’t mean proving science wrong, but cleaning out the clutter.
(By the way, I have no idea who McDonald is, but he now goes on the list.)
The second article is a response to an editorial that bemoaned college’s secularizing influence. Lingle would have none of that, in the process offering his view of religion and its correct relationship to science. (The bolded phrases are from the original editorial):
"…… Granting then, that in college a certain number of contradictory, ungrounded and unscientific assumptions—the superfluous cargo of faith—are dispelled for the thinking student, the rhetorical question brings its answer;“What substitute is given for their
underminded [sic] faith? The answer is Emphatically nothing.”
……However, let us assume that the presentation of liberal arts subjects is merely rationalistic and scientific, not sympathetically interpretative. While, as we have pointed out, something is offered, this substitute will not be given in the spirit on meaning
of the author. In such cases the students may be considered “victims of a relentless destructive criticism.” Here the objection may be nearer the
truth, as applied to the scientific method when used outside its legitimate sphere. As William James reminds us; “Science has fallen so deeply in love with the method of verification that one may even say she has ceased to care for truth by itself at all. It is only truth as technically verified that interests her. The ‘truth of truths’ might come in merely af-grmative [sic: affirmative] form, and should [sic: she] would decline to touch it.”
The Ph.D.’s turned out of our graduate schools, may themselves be victims of this ruthless scientific method applied to aesthetic or spiritual ideas in the poetry, music, art, drama and philosophy that actually transcend Science. And it is also worthy of note that a teacher might have, or believe he has, what William James calls the “truth of truths”, and because of his professional ethics, “decline to touch it” in the classroom unless concretely relevant to the subject matter of his courses.
Even research itself, except in applied science, must take an analytical or destructive trend. For, in spite of glib pedagogical catch-words and phrases such as “pushing back the ramparts of discovery”, “adding to the sum total of human knowledge,” new ideas are actually hated and feared more than the destructive criticism which the editorial deplores.”
….So if “instructors do not teach that a critical faculty can be united with a reverent spirit,” they may base their defense on professional ethics and retort, “Reverence is not in our particular province.” Or, if hard pressed, they may assert “Reverence for truth, based on respect for facts.”
…..So we move on to new horizons, with religious vistas constantly enlarged. And if religion, according to definition, is a constant rebinding and renewing of faith in the light of new experience and knowledge, it cannot be (and has never eventually dared
to be) the fixed and unchanging body of doctrine that its institutional devotees so often assert it to be. Old Ben Franklin made that plain in the passage about the Dunkers in his
Autobiography. New revelations of truth, including the revelations of Science, and what Emerson calls the “constant revelation of God in the human heart.” lead to the re-interpretation of Scripture in the light of modern thought and experience.
So, in conclusion, despite the bigotry of the pundits who employ the scientific method to insulate themselves from the shock of vital religious experience, and in spite of the
unbending rigidity of orthodoxy, the colleges and universities of the country, taken as a whole, are gradually lifting the mind of modern youth from the abasement of blind faith. Thus they move forward to new horizons of intelligent enlightenment on life and religion. Above all they are made fast with tho ligatures of knowledge to what Matthew Arnold calls “worthy notions of the will of God.” Or as Emerson wrote:“ When half gods go, the gods arrive.”
(Roy Petran Lingle, “College and Religion,” Drexel Triangle, 21 April 1933, 2, 4, all quotes from age 4.)
