SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 363 



one among the great paradoxes of history. Ever fond of revenges, the 

 Time-spirit becomes supremely ironical here. 



Post-Eeformation Europe accomplished much for science and phi- 

 losophy. In both fields, investigation followed clearly marked lines, 

 but the conclusions reached were of such a nature that they dove- 

 tailed easily. For science meant the mathematico-physical sciences, 

 specifically, mathematics, astronomy and 'molar' physics. Philosophy 

 meant, on the continent, the metaphysics of dualism, starting from 

 the question, How can matter and mind, extension and thought, as 

 they were then termed, be related so as to form a consistent whole; in 

 Britain, individualistic psychology, concentrated on the problem. How 

 do I get knowledge, and, when obtained, what is it? In a word, the 

 sciences and philosophy attacked the same universe — the universe as 

 conceived by Newton. Philosophy did not aspire to a higher knowl- 

 edge than that reached by science, but confined its inquiries to some 

 aspects of the world which had been left untouched by mathematics 

 and physics. Thus both arrived at consonant conclusions. Harvey, 

 for example, did not suggest that Bacon wrote on scientific questions 

 like a philosopher, as he would assuredly have done had they lived 

 forty years ago ; he said merely, the Lord Chancellor writes like a Lord 

 Chancellor — a lawyer of assured position. 



The general view of the universe then held by scientific men sup- 

 plied the framework within which the philosophers labored; it did not 

 occur to the metaphysicians that the modes of thought in which this 

 universe was conceived could be subjected to fundamental criticism. 

 What, next, was this view? Briefly, it may be called static, molar and 

 mechanical in the strictest sense of the word mechanism. It dealt with 

 self-contained bodies in equilibrium or at rest; with self-contained ag- 

 gregations of matter capable of measurement; with the relations sub- 

 sisting between self-contained wholes; that is, with external connection, 

 not with internal self-manifestation. As time passed, this general con- 

 ception of things became more and more firmly rooted, thanks to 

 Newton's genius. Indeed, it maintained itself with little change, 

 especially in the English-speaking countries and in France, till forty- 

 five years of the nineteenth century had winged their way. Whewell, 

 in his great 'History of the Inductive Sciences' (1837-57), displays 

 astonishing ignorance of the transformations that were afoot in his 

 day — of Gauss and Weber on absolute measurements, of Schwann on 

 the cell theory, of Mohl on protoplasm, of Mayer on heat, of Helm- 

 holtz on the conservation of energy, of Herapath on the mechanical 

 theory of gases and the like. If the hold of the 'Newtonian philosophy' 

 remained so strong at this date, we can infer readily how exclusive was 

 its predominance in previous times. Now the theory of the universe 

 contained in the Principia had a distinctively philosophical aspect 



