“Fear not that I shall be the instrument of future mischief,” cries Mary

Shelley’s monster at the end of her novel (243). I am not relieved. That future is
now and there is yet much monstrous mischief about; and the chief mischief is
this: When the Archangel floes bore away Victor Frankenstein’s pride (if not his
joy) to wind and frozen darkness—so like Dante’s Hell!—they left for us an eerie
innocence of the intellect; eerie because it is only the illusion of innocence. I
mean we can easily see the hubris of a man like Frankenstein and we can attack
him because he is, in Shelley’s fine phrase, “generous and self-devoted” (240), a
man exalted by his own ardent imagination (81). Not so a man like Charles
Darwin, to pick a modern scientist,1 and one who came only a little after Shelley.
Darwin is generous and, plainly, devoted; that is, his imagination exalts his
science, not his person. It is hard to bring to reckoning the selfless man or the
selfless science. There is something touching in this attitude, in a “heroic
surrender to an ideal,” says Jacques Maritain (Maritain). But hubris, as Homer
knew, has less to do with pride and exaltation and more to do with recklessness,
with running, as the expression goes, Hell-bent.
Since Shelley’s day, science has dropped its white lab coat and clad itself in
the grey habit of the monk, believing that its research is pure and will reveal the
truth of all things. But it has not taken on the other habits of the monk, especially
the understanding that a monk is a man. Monks pray and nuns pray and remain
people praying; I find it hard to picture anything more human than men and
women on their knees. But scientists are not (or are no longer) men and women
who do science; they are only scientists. Everything must give way before their
profession, even the human nature of the scientists themselves: Science is that
“great object,” says Frankenstein, “which swallows up every habit of my nature”
(83).
I wonder that in the small hours of June 16, 1816, in the Villa Diodati on
shores of Lake Geneva this is what gave Shelley her waking nightmare that
inspired her novel. She attributes her terror to a conversation between Byron and
Percy Shelley about “the nature of the principle of life” (19). Mary Shelley
undoubtedly wanted to issue a Faustian warning. But Frankenstein is not
anti-scientific. Shelley’s radical text was her father’s Political Justice, not
Agrippa’s de Occulta. The active and zealous rationalism that initially made
Godwin’s book so exciting, that so excited her mother in the Vindications,
ultimately turns forbidding and cold for Shelley2. When Walton discovers
Frankenstein on the Russian ice and writes to his sister that he has never seen a
man in so miserable condition, so “dreadfully emaciated by fatigue and
suffering,” (58) we do not at first know the double meaning of those words.
Shelley’s story is tale of a man…of man eaten alive. Marlowe’s Faustus deals
with the devil, but he remains a man dealing with the devil. Goethe’s Faust bets

1
Darwin began a Victorian or natural scientist, but I would argue that with Origin of Species he
undid the close association of science and religion and philosophy and ended as a modern
scientist.
2
MacDonald and Sherf in the introduction to the novel, p. 11.

1
with the devil, but he remains a betting man. Shelley’s touch was to turn this old
story around. Frankenstein does not battle with dark forces and lose; science
battles Frankenstein and wins. I for one feel no special relief that the
Frankenstein’s monster is gone, but only an enormous disappointment that
Frankenstein did not live.
Now, I do not wish to characterize the modern problem in education as one of
science versus religion, which is too often assumed to be the case. Rather, it is a
matter of science versus other ways of thinking, especially metaphysical ways of
thinking, which includes but is by no means limited to religious thinking.
Science—scientism is a better word—now has a nearly unassailable position of
authority in the modern West, if not the world. But, the belief that all things can
be explained scientifically, is a special form of idealism, for it puts one form of
thinking above all others (Nagel 9) and it leads to a pinching of discourse and a
myopia of thought3. Galileo’s telescope magnified objects 15 to 20 times, nearly
an order of magnitude better than existing spyglasses, but its field of view was
very small. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, could see all of heaven. This
is no statement about merit. It is only to say that Galileo and the Vatican saw
different things when they turned their eyes to the stars; and also to say they saw
the same things differently because the one saw by the light of reason, the other
by light of revelation.
In the early 17th century century, Cardinal Barberini, Galileo’s friend and later
Pope Urban VIII, saw a divided and ranked universe as Dante and Hildegard von
Bingen did; and he saw a single, mathematically perfect universe organized
around God’s greatest creation. Now, if that idea seems naïve let me suggest it is
really not unlike saying, as today’s physicists do, that the universe is
mathematically elegant and can be understood with a single so-called grand
unified theory. The only difference is that the Church began with that idea and
physicists seem to be ending with it.4 By 1610, the year Galileo first saw Jupiter’s
moons, we come though to a new truth, namely, as Galileo plainly saw, that the
disposition of the stars and planets may indeed be described simply, empirically,
mathematically, coldly; that is without theological gloss.
Like most moderns, Bertolt Brecht misrepresents, if he does not
misunderstand, the way these truths collided. His play, Galileo, depicts a struggle

3
In particular, it can give no moral grounds for action. In his hit documentary, An Inconvenient
Truth, Al Gore repeatedly voices his frustration when presenting his data on global warming to the
American Congress, big business and even on occasion, the public. The numbers, he says, present
a moral imperative. His problem, aside from the real self-interest of those he meets, is the data,
however frightening as they may be, present no such thing. As Hume said, we cannot derive an
“ought” from an “is.” Science is merely descriptive, not prescriptive.
4
"This is an exceedingly strange development, unexpected by all but the theologians. They have
always accepted the word of the Bible: In the beginning God created heaven and earth... [But] for
the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He
has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; [and] as he pulls
himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for
centuries." Jastrow, Robert. God and the Astronomers. New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1978.
116.

2
between authority and independent reason. No doubt the Church was heavy-
handed with poor Galileo, but surely no apology is necessary here. The Galileo
affair was really about the sorts of truth claims that religion and the emerging
sciences of astronomy and physics could make. Maurice Finocchiaro makes that
clear enough in his book, The Galileo Affair. In turn, that spun on what people
understood about hypotheses.
Since Descartes, we have understood the word to be a reflection of probability;
were I a modern scientist I would say my theory is probably close to reality.
Experiment may later vindicate me. But before Descartes I would have taken a
more practical view and said my theory preserves the appearances and nothing
more. Indeed, I would be hesitant to make claims about the fundamental nature of
reality, which, except for what was revealed in the Bible, was ultimately beyond
knowing. Both the Church and Galileo recognized Copernicus’ model as a valid
proposition, but Galileo saw it as a probability whereas Barberini saw it as a
practicality that did not require reordering the cosmos. If Copernicus and Galileo
could help sailors navigate the oceans, fine, so long as they could do it without
turning the universe inside out.
Not surprisingly, since Descartes threw away our theories of everything, we
still find it slippery going when it comes to our discussion of these two ideas:
metaphysics and education. We seem unable to imagine that religion, for
example, may indeed speak a truth and we seem unable to get our heads out of the
clouds when we talk education; and that because we have no philosophy either to
draw our eyes heavenward or to give us something firm on which to stand. Says
G. K. Chesterton, everything matters except our theory of everything:

We are more and more to discuss details in art, politics, literature.

A man's opinion on tramcars matters; his opinion on Botticelli
matters; his opinion on all things does not matter. He may turn
over and explore a million objects, but he must not find that
strange object, the universe […] (Chesterton).

Now, it is one problem that philosophies, first principles, metaphysics, faiths,

beliefs—let us continue to use these interchangeably—are not taught in schools,
generally speaking. Religions may be taught here and there, but only as historical
phenomena, or in comparative studies, not as sources of truth. Probably such
philosophies cannot be taught for what they are, except in denominational
schools, simply because they are beyond the competency of most teachers5;
depending on how we see the relationship between schools and family, first
principles may be beyond the jurisdiction of most schools, too. Certainly, in any

5
Theodore Christou, PhD. candidate in the Faculty of Education Curriculum Studies Department
of Queens University, Canada, says foundational courses that provide teacher candidates with a
“comprehensive perspective of educational issues are endangered species.” “The Diminishing
Role and Influence of Foundations in Teacher Education: The Unexamined Life is not Worth
Living.” International Symposium on New Directions in the Humanities. Columbia Univeristy,
New York, February 24, 2007.

3
case, no single set of principles could be taught over another in a pluralistic
society, not in state-run schools anyway. But, it is another, much bigger problem
that first principles are not taught to matter, whatever they might be.
In Canada, they are not taught to matter because we falsely believe that the
way around the first problem of promoting, or proselytizing, is to say nothing. An
entrenched political correctness effectively neuters the teaching of metaphysics,
as it does with most discussions in the public square.6 Beliefs are regarded as,
well, mere beliefs and exclusively private possessions without play in the public
domain, except so far as the right to hold them is constitutionally protected.
However, this supposed neutrality of Canadian authorities, such as the Charter,
the courts and the various political jurisdictions, cannot be securely held for long.
As Thomas Nagel says, there is no view from nowhere, and our refusal to
acknowledge one kind of thinking amounts to affirmation of another. What
appears as neutrality is really a bias toward secularism—a misunderstood
secularism. Historically, says Iain Benson, executive director of the Centre for
Cultural Renewal, in Canada, the word secular meant something like non-
sectarian, not non-faith as it is commonly understood today. In the Western
Christian tradition, the secular distinguished that which fell outside religious or
monastic rule, but it never stood opposed to the sacred. “A proper understanding
of secular […]” says Benson, “will seek to understand what faith claims are
necessary for the public sphere […] (Benson 520).”
We should note that our understanding should be of what faith claims belong
in the discussion, not whether they should be there or not. If we each had a
philosophy, a real and substantial one, we could have a real and substantial talk
about education—or any other matter—instead of inconclusive chatter about
grade inflation or where our country ranks on standardized math exams; for we
can only disagree in a meaningful way about really big ideas. People do not
seriously argue that red cars are better than blue cars, but they do seriously
disagree about whether we should drive cars at all. First principles matter. First
principles govern all we do. We may do “in the name of God” or in the name of
the almighty dollar, but in either case we are doing because we believe in
something that we do not empirically prove: that God exists or that God does not
exist. Even the coldest science rests on metaphysical assumptions; that matter
exists, for example, or that we can trust our senses. So we may speak, without

6
I might even say judicially entrenched. The protections offered by the Canadian Charter of
Rights and Freedoms, Part I of the Constitution Act, 1982 Charter (hereafter Charter) include
provisions of rights, freedoms and equalities to be expected in a working democracy: freedom of
conscience, religion and thought; the right to life, liberty and security of the person; equal
treatment regardless of race, ethnicity, sex and so on. Section 1 of the Charter establishes that
these protections extend without limit except when there are “reasonable limits prescribed by law
as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society (qtd. in Benson 522).” The issue
in challenges to these limits, as Iain Benson argues, is that the elites, such the courts, politicians
and Royal Commissions, are “insufficient[ly equipped] to deal adequately with either the rights
enumerated or the society within which rights disputes are being adjudicated (523)” principally
because they have a thin understanding of metaphysical arguments.

4
distortion, of both religious and secular faiths. Aldous Huxley brings us to the
point:

It is impossible to live without a metaphysic. The choice that is

given us is not between some kind of metaphysic and no
metaphysic; it is always between a good metaphysic and a bad
metaphysic, a metaphysic that corresponds reasonably closely with
observed and inferred reality and one that doesn’t (Huxley 252).

Benson goes on to suggest, rightly, that the task ahead of Canadians is to

express a more richly grounded understanding of the place of faith in culture and
in relation to human freedom generally. The ability to speak clearly the language
of faith claims—of metaphysics—is essential to that task:

If citizens (religious and non), continue to attempt to speak to

surrounding cultures in confused language (such as by misusing
the term “secular” or using the pseudo-moral language of “values”
when they mean an objective category of truth and meaning), they
will never succeed in communicating those matters that are deepest
and most essential to citizenship and culture (Benson 543).

Here is the place to return to practicalities. It falls on school teachers to teach

that language, the grammar of metaphysics, if you will, just as it falls on them to
teach the other grammars of mother tongue, literature, mathematics, and science
that are so important in public discourse. It is, by the way, no excuse to say
metaphysics is too complex for children to understand. Double-entry bookkeeping
or calculus are too complex for kindergarten children, but that does not prevent us
teaching them to count. At the middle school where I teach, we give our students
an introduction to practical reasoning and we find that even grade six and seven
students can easily distinguish between conceptual, empirical and evaluative
claims7. It would be a straightforward step to add a study of metaphysical claims
to the curriculum. Their understanding will not be sophisticated, but it will
develop, just as their skills with numbers will develop. And this is the main fact
with all knowledge: it grows.
The other fact about knowledge is that it is not one thing, but a composition of
understandings gleaned from varied disciplines hanging together in a particular
way. Our understanding of the nature of things resolves itself into psychology,
biology, history, mathematics, geography, geology and so on. We are happy with
this division of labour, mostly, because it allows us to take the vast and complex
universe in manageable pieces. The subjects differ in importance, in scope and in
depth but all in their ways converge on our understanding of the universe. Yet

7
Island Pacific School (www.islandpacific.org), on Bowen Island just off the coast of Vancouver,
British Columbia, is a non-denominational, co-ed, private school for grade six to nine students.
Enrolment is about 60 students per year.

5
these divisions are really abstractions and not literal separations. They have more
to do with the relations of things than with things themselves (Newman 33). They
tell us what things are mainly by assigning predicates to subjects, so that a chunk
of crystal is salt to geologist, is sodium chloride to the chemist, is a flavouring to
the chef. Salt is all those things, and more. The removal of anyone of these “is”
claims thus diminishes our knowledge of both salt itself, and, correspondingly, of
our total understanding of the nature of things.
Theology, says Cardinal Newman, is also a branch of knowledge, and a special
one. Here we may still use theology interchangeably with the more publicly
palatable words metaphysics or first principles without abusing Newman’s belief
that “religious truth is not only a portion, but a condition of general knowledge
(Newman 54).” He tells us we ought to have some account of, for instance, what
called salt into existence in the first place. Newman says God, we might say the
Big Bang, but we need something like either of those if we are to say anything
about salt at all. Though we cannot prove the existence of matter, we must believe
such stuff actually exists or we are quite literally speaking of figments of our
imagination.
While we can make a solid case that teaching particular religious or
metaphysical views over others is beyond the competency and jurisdiction of
public schools, as I said earlier, it is not outside the purvey of schools to tell
students that should search for one. Neither is it beyond the scope of public
schools to provide the tools for evaluating metaphysical claims, just as they give
tools for evaluating scientific claims. At the very least we need to redress the
implicit bias toward scientism in contemporary education. If faith is this primary
fact of life then we do disservice to children if we characterize the human project
as an argument between faith and fact, as we have since Galileo.

6
Works Cited
An Inconvenient Truth. Dir. Davis Guggenheim. Perf. Al Gore. Paramount

Pictures, 2006.

Benson, Iain. “Notes Towards a (Re)Definition of the Secular.” University of

British Columbia Law Review (vol. 33), 2000. 519-545.

Brecht, Betolt. Galileo. tr. Charles Laughton. ed. Eric Bentley. New York: Grove

Press, 1966.

Chesterton, G. K. Heretics. Project Gutenberg. January 1996. June 2000.

< http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/470>

Finnochiaro, Maurice. The Galileo Affair. Berkeley, California: University of

California Press, 1989.

Huxley, Aldous. Ends and Means. London: Chatto and Windus, 1937.

Maritain, Jacques. “Lectures on the Theory of Knowledge in St. Thomas”

University of St. Thomas. Novemeber 2006.

<http://www.stthom.edu/academics/centers/cts/Maritain.html>.

Nagel, Thomas. The View From Nowhere. New York; Oxford : Oxford University

Press, 1986.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus. 1818 version 2nd ed. D.

L. Macdonald and Kathleen Sherf eds. Peterborough, ON: Broadview

Literary Texts, 2004.