An Interview with Robert Graves on Science and Society

Abstract

Bruno Friedman. Mr. Graves, as a poet, classical scholar, and novelist whose books are based on the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, you are particularly qualified to look at modern science from a historical perspective. I'd like to start by referring to an intriguing remark you made in a letter addressed to Impact a few weeks ago. You wrote: 'Science ceased to be what it pretended to be, an idealistic search for wisdom, some time in the thirteenth century-though some insist on backdating this to the twelfth.' What did you mean by that ? Robert Graves. Just what I said. Science has lost its virgin purity, has become dogmatic instead of seeking for enlightenment and has gradually fallen into the hands of the traders. I was thinking of alchemy, which in its original form was a humble search for knowledge and truth based on intuition, but was gradually taken over by perverters and frauds who sought to persuade kings that they could turn base metal into gold. B.F. And you feel that the motive of making money has dominated scientists, thus science, since that period ? R.G. It's only one of several irrelevant motives that have dominated science since that time. There always have been scientists-seekers after wisdom-though for a long time they were not specifically identified as such. When they were first recognized as a separate class, in fact, they were called 'philosophers'-our current word 'scientist' being a rough translation of the word 'philosopher'. Almost certainly, the earliest science was connected with the mystery religions, had become a part