All our science lacks a human side.
From Beauty, Essays, Second Series by Ralph Waldo Emerson
For at least as long as I have been eligible to vote, health and health care is on the minds of politicians and citizens. Today, as politicians weigh whether or not the federal government has a responsibility to ensure health care for all, this quote seems especially appropriate.
Whether it is the science of health or economics, there doesn't seem to be enough humanity in it. Why is that?
The motive of science was the extension of man, on all sides, into Nature, till his hands should touch the stars, his eyes see through the earth, his ears understand the language of beast and bird, and the sense of the wind; and, through his sympathy, heaven and earth should talk with him. But that is not our science.
Earlier in the essay, Emerson talks about the lack of poetry and feeling that he thinks belongs in the sciences.
The formulas of science are like the papers in your pocket-book, of no value to any but the owner.
Again, he encourages self-reliance in order to experience and design "grand aims" and "hospitality of soul."
