The scientist and the literary rational represent two civilizations that are floating apart from each other to such an extent that each is going increasing ignorant of and alien to the other. and because they must stand for a organic structure of cognition as a whole. the effect is that. though specialisation. both the scientist and the rational are going efficaciously nescient. Analysis: Though C P Snow claims to be talking from a common land between the two civilizations that he envisages. I would reason that he is forthrightly placed in the scientific cantonment. and is by no agencies an rational.

The mode in which he describes the rift between the two civilizations has a distinguishable puff of “shallow optimism” about it. which is the rational trait of the scientist. He advocates a simple duologue between the two cantonments. which is really much reminiscent of Enlightenment thought. which. before the coming of modern scientific discipline. maintained that scientific instruction was the key to get the better ofing all societal ailments. and duologue is but a means to educate each other.

Snow is right in believing that the two cantonments had grown apart unawares. and that at one clip the civilized adult male endeavored to maintain abreast of cognition as a whole. But a cardinal point seems to get away him. and that is that modern scientific discipline entails specialisation. and neither does he surmise that it could be the root of the job. While he acknowledges the being of specialisation in scientific discipline. he tries to do out that it need non be dissentious. His protagonism is of a holistic apprehension. and on the strength of this supplication he wants to consequence a dialogue between the two cantonments.

“Don’t transport your specialisations excessively far. ” he seems to be stating to both the scientists and the intellectuals. “because both the humanistic disciplines and the scientific disciplines are of import. and one is in danger of going nescient if one loses complete touch with any one of them. ” The propositional content of his supplication is right. but the error is to sound it on the platform of modern scientific discipline. which is dissentious in its cardinal facet. If one is committed to the scientific mentality one must populate with specialisation. We can take his illustration about the literary rational cognizing the 2nd jurisprudence of thermodynamics as a proving point.

He thinks that literary rational should at least cognize this jurisprudence. which is accepted among physicists as being basically important. The tantamount effort of for a physicist would be of holding read a drama by Shakespeare. he suggests. But concentrating on the first point. why should one cognize the 2nd jurisprudence of thermodynamics if one will ne’er oppugn its cogency? Science maps by changeless inquiring. and no scientist is of all time trained to transport absolute dictates about with him. A literary intellectual may come to it in two ways.

He may absorb it as in inviolable dictate. in which instance it would non be scientific discipline at all. Or he may come to it with the proper mentality of the scientist. which is the oppugning one. If on the 2nd flight. he may either be captivated by the inquiry. or he may hold it non worth his piece. If he is captivated. and he remains honest to his rational propensities. so he can non but prosecute the inquiry farther. to the hurt of usual literary business. But it is more likely that he deems it non worth his piece. in which instance he returns to the field in which he is adept and interested.

And in due class. through disregard. he forgets how to province the scientific rule at all. If the last is the most natural and likeliest result. there is small point in forcing the 2nd jurisprudence of thermodynamics to the literary adult male. He has arrived at the position quo of non cognizing the jurisprudence at all. because that is the most natural province of personal businesss for him. In his state of affairs he has better things to busy himself with. For Snow to propose that he ought to cognize the 2nd jurisprudence slaps of the haughtiness of scientific discipline. which is an haughtiness rooted in naif optimism.

Then once more. a scientist should merely be expected to bask a public presentation of Shakespeare. but surely non to analyse it. Literary apprehension calls for a profound apprehension of human nature. which is surely non portion of the equipment of the scientist. who is trained to observe merely empirical grounds. To state a scientist to analyse King Lear would merely confound him. and if he tried excessively difficult it would blunt his scientific perceptual experience. Snow would be better advised to see the underlying doctrine of scientific discipline. instead than external pattern of the separate subjects.

It is a silent apprehension among members of the scientific society ( of which literary intellectual are a portion ) that each pattern his ain specialisation. Merely the fruits are to be enjoyed by all. and this is the true classless dimension of atomized scientific discipline. The impression of “progress” comes from the apprehension that the fruits of specialisation confer on all. and it is this impression of advancement that binds all members of scientific society. In its original construct modern scientific discipline was defined as an equalitarianism of cognition. and evident loss of this is what Snow is keening.

But such equalitarianism has non disappeared ; it has merely become impractical for a individual individual to maintain up with the spread outing organic structure of cognition. But more of import than cognition sharing is the doctrine that underpins it. and this doctrine still unites the atom physicist and the Shakespeare adult male. In naming for a new. and strained. equalitarianism of cognition. Snow is merely bewraying his naivety of the universe. which is the characteristic naivety of the scientist make bolding to talk on the humanistic disciplines. Works Cited Snow. Charles Percy. The Two Cultures. Ed. Stefan Collini. Cambridge. United kingdom: Cambridge University Press. 1993.