Religion and Science Part 8

Thus phenomena and law are the raw material out of which "values" are created; and these "values" themselves const.i.tute (in the eyes of Lotze) a higher reality. Thus the central doctrine of his system is that the truly Real is what has supreme worth: it is _worth_ that creates reality. The paradoxicality of this may make it difficult to accept; but Lotze is only expressing in his own way the fundamental thesis of all forms of idealism, that "the ideal is the real"; that the world of phenomena is secondary to and dependent upon a "world of spirit," or an "ideal world."

Lotze himself in the introduction to the _Microcosmos_, expresses what is at once the foundation and the kernel of his system: he says it is his purpose to show "_how absolutely universal is the extent_, and at the same time how _completely subordinate the significance, of the mission which mechanism has to fulfil in the structure of the world_."

(E.T., p. xvi.)

Mechanism is universal, _because_ it is the raw material, so to speak, out of which reality is to be made. That reality can be expressed in terms of mechanism is true, just as a poem can be described as a sc.r.a.p of paper scratched upon with a pen; but this reduction of reality to its lowest terms, ends by emptying reality of content. Mechanism is a _universal_ feature, but it is a _subordinate_ feature, of reality.

Nature requires, if we are to arrive at the truth about it, not only to be described and a.n.a.lysed, but also interpreted in the light of the idea of _value_ or _worth_.

LOTZE AND THEOLOGY.--Lotze's theories exercised an important influence upon the development in Germany and elsewhere of a type of theology known as Ritschlianism. Albrecht Ritschl, a disciple of Lotze, attempted to dissociate religion from metaphysics, and to base it upon "judgments of value." Christian dogma, for instance, is an attempt to express, in philosophical terms, _the unique value to humanity of the moral and religious consciousness of Christ_. So far as a dogma is faithful to that central idea, and makes a genuine attempt to express it, so far--and so far only--is it true.

This type of theology, uniting itself with certain philosophical tendencies which will engage our attention later, became the basis of what was known as the Modernist movement in the Roman Catholic Church.

CONCLUSIONS.--Thus in the nineteenth century, in England (and indeed on the continent also) the idealistic att.i.tude, though it sometimes might seem compromised, was never submerged; in spite of the materialistic outlook of an age only too preoccupied with scientific discovery and commercial expansion.

CHAPTER XI

SOME RECENT TENDENCIES IN PHILOSOPHY

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE.--In the last chapter we heard A. J. Balfour complaining of the absence of "a full and systematic attempt, first to enumerate, and then to justify, the presuppositions on which all science finally rests." And Mr. F. H. Bradley also drew attention to the absence of any critical philosophy of science in England. The need was for scientific standpoints to be investigated _de novo_; and the process had, as a matter of fact, already been begun on the Continent.

MACH.--Ernst Mach, Professor of Physics at Prague, and subsequently Professor of Physics at Vienna (thus combining the roles of scientist and metaphysician--always a highly instructive and fruitful combination) had as early as 1863 laid it down as the task of science to give "an economic presentation of the facts." By which phrase he meant that science takes account only of the salient features of phenomena, selecting only those which seem strictly serviceable to its own purpose.

SCIENCE "ABSTRACT" OR "SELECTIVE."--Mathematical science (which is the "pure" science _par excellence_) deals not--as is generally supposed--with "things," but with _certain selected aspects_ of things.

For example, for purposes of arithmetic, every leaf on a tree is an "unit" (i.e. all are "identical"); but, in point of fact, there exist no two leaves that are alike, as Leibniz, long ago, pointed out. Again, for geometrical purposes two fields may be regarded as of like area; but no two fields are, or ever have been, so.

Thus mathematics--where scientific method is seen at its purest--proceeds by deliberately disregarding individuality; it regards the differences between individuals as non-essential, and irrelevant to its purpose.

ECONOMY OF THOUGHT.--And mathematical science is justified in acting in this way. This method, highly abstract as it is--in fact, just because it is highly abstract--leads to invaluable results. It's justification is that it is _economical of thought_; disregarding all irrelevant considerations, it is able, by using a short-cut, to reach its goal. Did the mathematician have to take into consideration all the manifold and complex aspects of each concrete "thing" (whether it be leaf, or field, or lever, or what not) with which he deals, he would never be able to cut his way through the jungle. His method of abstraction carries him at once to his goal.

MACH ON THE "MECHANICAL VIEW."--Mach's criticism of the mechanical view of nature proceeded upon similar lines. He termed that view "a.n.a.logical," by which he meant that mechanical "laws of nature" serve us as formal patterns to which the processes of nature may (for convenience sake) be represented as conforming. A clear account, though not a _complete_ account, of all physical processes may be given in terms of mechanical "law."

And in fact it remains a question, Mach observed, "whether the mechanical view of things, instead of being the profoundest, is not in point of fact, the shallowest of all."[52]

SCIENCE NOT INVALID BUT INCOMPLETE.--This line of criticism of scientific method--i.e. that it deals with abstractions and a.n.a.logies rather than with _things_, for the sake of economy and convenience of thought--does not deprive science of validity, but only invalidates that superficial dogmatism which had crept into so many investigations. A critical estimate of scientific methods makes it evident how much and how little we have the right to expect from them. They will enable us to give a simple description of _phenomena_ as they are seen when reduced to their simplest terms of matter and motion; but of ultimate and final causes they will tell us nothing.

"The system of conceptions by which the exact sciences try to describe the phenomena of nature ... is symbolic, a kind of shorthand, unconsciously invented and perfected for the sake of convenience and for practical use ... the leading principle is that of Economy of Thought"

(Merz, Vol. III, p. 579).

BOUTROUX.--This criticism of the mechanical method of dealing with reality was seconded by Boutroux's criticism of the principle of Natural Law. emile Boutroux (1845-1918)--Professor at the Sorbonne--in two important treatises, examines with great minuteness this aspect of the scientific method. In the earlier of these works, _The Contingency of the Laws of Nature_ (1879) he suggests that these laws only give, so to speak, the _habits_ which things display. They const.i.tute, as it were, "the bed in which the stream of occurrence flows, which the stream itself had hollowed out, although its course has come to be determined by this bed" (Hoffding, _Modern Philosophers_, p. 101).

In his _Natural Law in Science and Philosophy_ (1895), Boutroux lays it down that the laws of nature, as science describes them, may indeed represent, but are by no means identical with, the laws of nature as they really are. The laws of science are true, not absolutely but relatively, i.e. are not elements in, but symbols of, reality. The notion that everything is "determined" (i.e. the opposite of "contingent"), though absolutely indispensable to the mechanical theory, is nevertheless a way of looking at things rather than a faithful picture of reality--a way in which we see things rather than the way things exist in themselves.

As Boutroux himself puts it in his final chapter: "That which we call the 'laws of nature' is the sum total of the methods we have discovered for adapting things to the mind, and subjecting them to be moulded by the will."

RESULTS.--Here we have Boutroux approaching very closely to the standpoint of Mach; indeed the theories of the two men are complementary to one another. For Mach, the mechanical view is a way of looking at things, distinctly useful for understanding and using them--an "economy of thought." For Boutroux, the determinist view is also a way of looking at things that is useful for the same purposes.

Thus the interpretation of reality in terms of mathematics and "unalterable law," is artificial; an abstract way of thinking which deals not with reality itself but with certain deliberately selected aspects of it.

RISE OF A NEW PHILOSOPHY.--This examination of the principles of natural science was the beginning of what afterwards proved to be a revolution in thought. What had been more or less negative criticism in Mach and Boutroux, became the basis of a new philosophy in the hands of William James and Bergson. The names, and even the ideas, of these two original thinkers are familiar far outside strictly philosophical circles, and it will almost be possible to presume upon a certain acquaintance with them on the part of our readers.

WILLIAM JAMES.--James himself, like Mach, was led to philosophy by the road of scientific investigation. He was a psychologist, and it is as the author of his _Principles of Psychology_ that his name will be remembered. This work is notable as containing the first complete application of the Darwinian theory to the evolution of mind. Mental action is there represented as a capacity developed by the organism to enable it to deal with its environment. As an exponent of James puts it:

"The mind, like an antenna, feels its way for the organism. It gropes about, advances and recoils, making many random efforts and many failures; always urged into taking the initiative and doomed to success or failure in some hour of trial."[53]

The corollary which attaches to propositions of this kind is that knowledge in all its varieties and developments arises from _practical needs_. And the mind (here is an echo of Mach) _selects_ those aspects of reality which concern it, and out of that selected material makes up a new (mental) world of its own. Which world is far from being a "picture" of reality, but which is "symbolic" of it (here is another memory of Mach).[54]

This view obviously cuts the ground from under dogmatic materialism. The world which that philosophy regards as _reality_, is, to the critical eye, a collection of abstractions, a mental creation arising out of the practical needs of life.

HENRI BERGSON.--This line of criticism, that of the evolutionary psychologist, opened up by James, has been carried to extreme lengths by the French philosopher Bergson. "Dig to the very roots of nature and of mind" is his advice. He begins by asking, How, as a matter of history, has human intellect developed? He then, and then only, proceeds to put the question (which uncritical thinkers always put _first_), What can the intellect do for us?

His theory of the origin of intellect is the same as that of William James. Life (through the evolutionary process) has produced it. But the conclusion that he draws from this hypothesis is that _the intellect, being itself a product of life, or a form of life, cannot understand the whole of life_. This thesis is elaborated with a wealth of ill.u.s.tration and erudition, both scientific and philosophic, and with a literary grace and charm possible only for a Frenchman, in the famous work _evolution Creatrice_ (1907).

BERGSON'S ADVANCE ON MACH AND JAMES.--Those thinkers who had made a serious attempt at a philosophy of science, had demonstrated that the "mechanical view" of nature was a mental abstraction, and not a complete representation of reality. Such is the debt of philosophy to the researches of Mach, Boutroux, James, and others who worked along their lines.

But it remained for Bergson to demonstrate that the mechanical view was _the inevitable product of the mental processes which we describe by the word "intellect."_

The path which led Bergson to this goal will have to be briefly indicated by us.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE INTELLECT.--What is the "intellect," to which we look in vain for any _complete_ explanation of existence? This is the preliminary question.

Our intellect is, as James had taught, a faculty developed by the evolutionary process in our species to enable it to deal with its _material_ environment. And Bergson was the first to point out that as a consequence of its having been developed for this particular purpose (i.e., dealing with a _material_ environment), intellect is "never quite at its ease, never entirely at home, except when it is working upon inert matter." If it has to deal with "living" matter, it "treats it as inert, without troubling about the life that animated it."

Such is the first characteristic of the intellect: it feels at home in dealing with dead matter, and living matter it prefers to treat "as inert."

Another characteristic of intellect is that, just as it treats the living as if it were non-living, so it prefers to treat the mobile as though it were motionless. Motion is a thing which the intellect simply cannot grasp; it has to treat it artificially, and represent a process which in reality is continuous and indivisible, as discontinuous and divisible--a succession of points, out of which no magic can conjure motion. Philosophy became aware of this as soon as it opened its eyes.

Hence the paradox of Zeno, that Achilles will never overtake the tortoise, if the latter once gets a start. For if s.p.a.ce and time are infinitely divisible (as intellect holds them to be), by the time Achilles has reached the tortoise's starting point, the tortoise has already got ahead of _that_ starting point, and so on _ad infinitum_; the interval between them being endlessly diminished, but never disappearing.

Zeno's paradox arises because of an innate fault in the "intellectual"

method of dealing with motion; a method which Bergson calls "cinematographical," because it regards a single movement as a succession of infinitely small motions. That method is hopeless; and if we expect to understand motion by its means,

"You will always experience the disappointment of the child, who tries, by clapping its hands together to crush the smoke. The movement slips through the interval, because every attempt to reconst.i.tute change out of states implies the absurd proposition that movement is made up of immobilities."[55]

So that the intellect is best fitted to deal, not with living and moving, but with dead and motionless matter. Of the latter it can form a clear idea; but in dealing with the former, it finds itself at a loss; it has to abstract the life and the motion from what lives or moves, and what it cannot grasp, it must treat as non-existent.

BERGSON'S ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM.--A penetrating remark of James' will help us, at this point, to understand the significance for philosophy of these new theories.

"In spite of sceptics and empiricists, in spite of Protagoras, Hume, and James Mill, rationalism has never been seriously questioned, for its sharpest critics have always had a tender place for it in their hearts, and have obeyed some of its mandates. They have not been consistent, they have played fast and loose with the enemy, and Bergson alone has been radical."[56]

Bergson's philosophy is, in fact, a reaction against intellectualism or rationalism; by which is meant the theory that pure reason is competent by its nature to give a complete and exhaustive account of reality.

But according to Bergson, intellect, which is a faculty developed to enable men to subdue and turn to advantage their material environment, and which is, as it were, "fascinated by the contemplation of inert matter," will not reveal the true meaning and nature of existence; it gives us "a translation of life in terms of inertia," and can do no more.

This criticism of the intellect (if it be sound), though it does not invalidate the work of that faculty in its own proper sphere, necessarily involves its discredit as a key to the unlocking of the final mysteries of life and of being. These things lie outside its province. "Whether it wants to treat of the life of the body, or the life of the mind, it proceeds with the rigour, the stiffness, and the brutality of an instrument not designed for such use."[57]

INTELLECT AND INSTINCT.--Since intellect, by its methods, has induced men to turn their backs on reality, and to look on abstractions instead, the only hope of reaching reality is through an entire change of method and direction. There is, according to Bergson, a non-intellectual variety of knowledge, which (from his point of view) it was a kind of original sin ever to depart from; an original sin which has vitiated all our philosophic thinking from the days of Plato.