C. Judson Herrick

From Philosopedia

Herrick, C. Judson (1868—1960)

Herrick, an editor of Journal of Comparative Neurology, wrote his views about humanism to the book review editor of The Humanist:

Humanism means to me, as a biologist, the search for those vital values that make for more efficient, productive, and satisfying living for all people. This statement is intentionally very general, because every domain of human experience and endeavor is significant for the enrichment of life. The artificial barriers which traditionally separate these domains must be broken down. This calls for a type of cooperation which is rare and a tolerance for ideologies which we may not share that is still more difficult to achieve. We look to science, philosophy, economics, art, religion, and every other field of human experience for reinforcement and guidance, and we aim to bring them together in a united effort for human betterment with all available resources.

My personal conception of modern Humanism does not exactly fit any of the seven categories of your list. I am a scientific humanist, but life embraces more than science as conventionally defined. I cannot accept some of the restrictions insisted upon by most of the naturalistic humanists. A naturalist may (or may not) be a theist, if these terms are properly defined. I object to the dogmatic rejection, expressed by many humanists, of the legitimacy of any hypotheses regarding the supernatural. I grant that there is no scientific evidence for the supernatural. Obviously there cannot be, for natural science by definition deals only with the natural. Now, what is nature? We cannot talk rationally about the supernatural without first defining the natural. All science is a human construction, based on human experience. It cannot go further than the range of possible experience. This sets a logical and an operational limit to nature and to natural science as envisaged scientifically and practically. We may, accordingly, accept the definition given by Santayana in 1905, “Nature is the sum total of things potentially observable, some observed actually, others interpolated hypothetically.” We cannot now say what are the limits of the observable, but assuredly there are such limits for any finite mind. It is, then, arrogant for any naturalist to dogmatize about what may, or may not, exist beyond those limits. The implications of this doctrine are far-reaching. Some of them are mentioned in the Epilogue of my book entitled The Evolution of Human Nature (University of Texas Press, Autumn 1956) and more fully elaborated in a short article which may at some later time see the light.

This conception of a liberalized naturalistic humanism I got from my older brother, the late C. L. Herrick, as I have explained in his biography (Trans. Am. Philosophical Soc., 45 (1): 1-85, 1955). Later influence came from many sources, notably William James, George Santayana, John Dewey, Roy Wood Sellars, and G. E. Coghill.

In 1956, Herrick was named Humanist of the Year by the American Humanist Association. His New York Times obituary described him as an internationally prominent neurologist, a leader in his field. He was quoted as writing,

• A thought is a manufactured process as truly as a pair of shoes or a magnetic field. The conclusion that thinking is a mechanistic process, a natural function of physical organs, breaks down the last barrier which formerly blocked the path to scientific study of human nature—all of it, not merely the parts that we share with beasts.

{HNS; HNS2; WAS, 29 July 1956}