Good and evil

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

So I think where Radagast shows passivity, Saruman shows - as alatar said - aggressivity in seeking knowledge; and Gandalf, therefore, presents the "mild middle point", the best alternative.

You state it much better than I. I thought that the word' aggressively' was too strong, but the alternate - assertively - seemed not right.

A note about Saruman, who you rightly place in the too much pile: In science, there are times that you have to break things to figure out what's going on. Think that what Tolkien meant was research that wasn't carefully done, nor done with any thought or respect or consideration of the means and cost/benefit ratio. If you had one palantir, it would not be wise to cast it into Sammath Naur just to see what happens. You have to step back a moment and ask, "What will I learn, and what price am I willing to pay for that knowledge?" Saruman fooled himself thinking that the price that he payed was small compared to what he learned, but actually it was the reverse. "Can you cross Orc and Man?" may be an interesting question, but just how did Saruman get his subjects and perform the experiments?

Such callousness to the suffering of others eventually did him in.