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Religion and Science from Galileo to Bergson

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[Pg 111] 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 "analogical," 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,[Pg 112] "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 analogies 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. Émile 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[Pg 113] constitute, 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" (Höffding, 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. [Pg 114]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[Pg 115] "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 illustration and erudition, both scientific and philosophic, and with a literary grace and charm possible only for a Frenchman, in the famous work Évolution Créatrice (1907). Bergson's Advance on Mach and James.—Those thinkers who had made a serious attempt at a[Pg 116] 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[Pg 117] 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 space 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 reconstitute 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[Pg 118] 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[Pg 119] 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. This variety of knowledge is more original and fundamental than any which the processes of the intellect, vitiated as these are by certain inherent perversions, can give us. Intellect cannot correct itself; we must call in the aid of some other faculty if we would understand reality. Bergson finds this faculty in what he calls "instinct." According to him, consciousness has developed in two divergent directions—instinct and intellect; and the difference between these is not one of intensity or degree, but of kind.[58] They are two divergent developments of the same original consciousness, of which common origin they both retain traces, for they are not entirely dissimilar, nor is either of them ever found in a pure state. Intellect is characteristic of man. Instinct is most highly developed among certain insects, notably the hymenopterae (i.e., bees and ants).[59] Blindness of Intellect.—And the difficulty of the philosophical problem for man arises from the[Pg 120] anomalies of his own constitution (as interpreted by Bergson in the light of his theory of instinct and intellect). As he puts it: "There are things that Intelligence (or intellect) alone is able to seek, but which, by itself, it will never find. These things instinct alone could find; but it will never seek them." (Creative Evolution, p. 159). "If the consciousness which slumbers in instinct were to wake up ... if we knew how to question it, and if it knew how to reply, it would deliver to our keeping the most intimate secrets of life." Thus Bergson regards it as impossible that intellect should ever supply us with the complete truth about reality; there are things, e.g. life itself—which altogether elude its grasp. Intuition.—The situation, however, is not entirely hopeless. Man possesses some measure of instinct, which, when it has "become disinterested, self-conscious, and capable of reflecting upon its object," Bergson calls intuition. By means of this faculty, man is able, darkly perhaps but not ineffectually, to grope his way towards an understanding of reality. Characteristics of the New Philosophy.—Just as the criticisms of Cusanus and others freed thought from an incubus which seemed likely to prevent its further development, so the movement initiated by Mach and culminating (for the present) in Bergson, has done much to discredit "a certain new scholasticism that has grown up during the latter half of the nineteenth century around the physics of Galileo, as the old scholasticism grew up around Aristotle."[60] Mechanical determinism was characteristic of much[Pg 121] nineteenth-century thought in Europe, not only amongst materialists, but also, in certain cases, amongst idealists as well. Against this aspect of contemporary philosophy, the work of James and Bergson has been a revolt. "Indeterminism," i.e. a belief in the reality of freedom and spontaneity, is an essential part of their system. Their indeterminism is indeed the necessary and logical accompaniment of their anti-intellectualism. For determinism is "a fabrication of the intellect," a device which makes reality more manageable, more amenable to logic, more easily systematised. Freedom, like life and motion, eludes the categories of the intellect. The Mechanical View Assailed.—Such are the lines upon which the new criticism of the mechanical view (the most radical criticism it has had to meet since Kant) proceeds. That view, and the idea of predetermined human action which it involves, is an inevitable product of an intellect naturally incapable of understanding freedom and spontaneity. These, as they destroy its scheme of thought, it casts out as an illusion. "Incorrigibly presumptuous," it insists on interpreting freedom by means of those notions which suit inert matter alone, and therefore always perceives it as necessity. So that all life, far from being subjected to mechanical necessity, as had seemed the inevitable conclusion of naturalistic philosophy, was spontaneity (so to speak) materialised and embodied: "All the living hold together, and all yield to the same tremendous push. The animal takes its stand on the plant, man bestrides animality, and the whole of humanity ... is one immense army galloping beside and before and behind each of us in an overwhelming charge, able to beat down every resistance[Pg 122] and clear the most formidable obstacles, perhaps even death."[61] We have indeed travelled a long way from the austere abstractions of Mr. Herbert Spencer. The new evolutionism is very different from the old. It substitutes for "mechanism" another conception—that of "dynamism," according to which the process of evolution is something undetermined and impredictable—"creative," in fact. The world of organic life is embodied "creative activity," and what this "creative activity" is, we ourselves experience every time we act freely. Pluralism.—The philosophy of Bergson is a reaction against the mechanical evolutionism (i.e. naturalism) of the nineteenth century. Closely allied with it is another movement of thought, known as pluralism. This, too, is a reaction, not so much against naturalism, as against certain forms of idealism. Idealism, it will be remembered, seeks to interpret reality in terms of mind or spirit. And it does this in certain cases—notably in the case of F. H. Bradley—by regarding all phenomena as forms or aspects of the one absolute mind or spirit. This has seemed to many thinkers a philosophy too abstract and too remote from the world of experience. Hence the question arose whether it might not be possible to interpret nature in terms of mind without being compelled to take refuge in the abstractions of "absolutism." And pluralism is an attempt to solve the problem. Leibniz Revived.—Leibniz' system of "monads," the nature of which will hardly have been forgotten, has been the model to which philosophers have looked[Pg 123] in constructing their new system. And the "Monadology" may be taken as the type to which all modern attempts to construct a "pluralistic" philosophy more or less conform. The essence of "pluralism"—whether Leibnizian or other—lies in the proposition that there exists an indefinite variety of beings, some higher, some lower than ourselves. The pluralist agrees with the idealist in declaring that the essence of reality is spirit, but differs from him in declining to allow independent spirits to be absorbed by an "all-devouring Absolute." Pluralism and Theism.—William James himself, in a work A Pluralistic Universe (1909) outlined a philosophy of spirit radically opposed to "Absolute Idealism," which he subjects to a good deal of criticism. Another important work, written from a similar point of view, is Professor James Ward's Pluralism and Theism (1911).[62] With regard to modern pluralism, the notable features are two. In the first place, it is a philosophy of personality, which it regards as the most fundamental form of reality; and also, that it is theistic in a sense peculiar to itself. It believes in a God who may be termed the supreme monad, i.e. the head of a system of monads; but whose power may be said, in certain respects, to be limited. And indeed some such position seems to be the logical conclusion that follows from the premises with which pluralists start, and also (we may add) from the facts of experience.[63] Pluralists unite in affirming that their God is (what[Pg 124] they deny the idealistic Absolute to be) the God of the religious consciousness. James elaborates this thesis with his usual resourcefulness and skill. The controversy, however, is one into which it does not seem necessary for us to enter. Pluralism and idealism are or may be both definitely spiritual philosophies, and perhaps they appeal to different types of mind. We, at any rate, shall not undertake to judge between them. Both alike are preferable to dogmatic naturalism. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 125] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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