450 INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 



matician. l The conclusion is analogous to that of Berkeley, 

 who was led to suppose an Eternal Being as the locus of all 

 objects. 2 Such a view does not reduce the world of science to 

 the status of hallucinations or dreams, for whereas the latter 

 are the creation of the individual mind the former is the 

 creation of the universal mind, of which "the uniformity of 

 nature proclaims the self-consistency." 3 Yet the view does 

 much to overcome the dualism between mind and matter. 

 The supposed hostility disappears "not through matter be- 

 coming in any way more shadowy or insubstantial than here- 

 tofore, or through mind becoming resolved into a function of 

 the working of matter, but through substantial matter re- 

 solving itself into a creation and manifestation of mind." 4 

 There is no longer any problem in understanding the way in 

 which mind can grasp nature, 'for it reduces merely to a 

 contact between mind and a creation of mind — like the 

 reading of a book, or listening to music." 5 



The position of Jeans is somewhat less speculative in char- 

 acter than that of Eddington. Jeans does not bring in the 

 extraneous facts of introspection and the mystic experience, 

 and consequently his position may be said to follow more 

 directly from the facts of science. One can hardly deny the 

 effectiveness of mathematical symbols in the explanation of 

 the data of science. But that this argues for a mathematical 

 reality "behind" the world of everyday objects — which then 

 become shadows — is somewhat questionable. Certainly 

 Jeans places too much emphasis on the "pure" character of 

 these mathematical notions; though they are not such as can 

 be exemplified in the gross objects of experience, and hence 

 seem to be simply creations of the mind, nevertheless they 

 can easily be shown to be derivable from these gross objects 

 provided one admits the legitimacy of certain abstractive 

 operations. This makes the "Great Architect" much less 

 a creature of pure thought, remote from experience, and 

 much more a creature in and of the actual world. Other 

 criticisms of Jeans's position will occur readily to the reader. 



» Ibid., p. 165. 2 Ibid., p. 170. 3 Ibid., p. 175. 4 Ibid., p. 186. 6 Ibid., p. 178. 



