“Soon afterward, in 1896, he published a two-volume work that became one of the most influential books of the fin de (last) siècle: A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom. White began his account with a metaphor based on a Russian memory. In early April he looks out from his room above the Neva River in St. Petersburg at a crowd of peasants using their picks to break the ice barrier still damming the river as the spring thaw approaches. The peasants are cutting hundreds... of small channels through the ice, so that the swollen river behind may flow gently through, and not burst the dam in a great flood initiated by sudden collapse of the entire barrier: The waters from thousands of swollen streamlets above are pressing behind [the ice dam]; wreckage and refuse are piling up against it; every one knows that it must yield. But there is a danger that it may break suddenly, wrenching even the granite quays from their foundations, bringing desolation to a vast population … The patient mujiks are doing the right thing.MoreLessRead More Read Less
User Reviews: