210 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



its qualitative period, 1 for it was quite a natural result of 

 regarding mechanical theories as mere fictions to reject 

 them completely as mere ballast, superfluous for a pure 

 description of phenomenalities. But in spite of these 

 attacks mechanical physics still lives in our days, and, 

 more than that, in the theory of electrons it is undergoing 

 a remarkable renaissance. 



That seems to prove that there is a great vitality in 

 these theories, and indeed it seems to me that they are 

 much more than mere fictions, though, on the other hand, 

 they by no means relate to anything absolute. It is owing 

 to innate necessities of the human mind that they arise 

 again and again. They always arise whenever science tries 

 to reach the final problem of " the Material " as such, 

 and when science tries to explain the varieties of material 

 states and of ordinary qualities on the same basis. A 

 system of nature that is complete and at the same time 

 free from logical and real contradictions needs mechanical 

 physics of a certain form, and cannot be satisfied until it 

 has succeeded in demonstrating the variety of the " Given ' 

 as being due to a mere arrangement or constellation 

 of some elements, the law of whose behaviour is known 

 aprioristically, at least as to its general scheme. To modern 

 "purely" phenomenological science the combination of pro- 

 perties, of constants in particular, in one and the same 

 " thing " is a mere given state, a something that is merely 



1 It is not the place here to deal with the elimination of causality as 

 advocated by some modern empiristic phenomenalists. As may easily 

 be conceived, this elimination is based upon a philosophical doctrine that 

 is altogether incomplete, and so too is the mathematical form of this 

 "functional " phenomenalism. The philosophy of nature cannot be satisfied 

 by the mere statement of necessary dependence ; it asks for causality in its 

 strict ontological form. 



