PROBLEMS OF TYPE ANALYSIS 155 



demonstrating that the universal, 'taken apart and in itself, is a 

 sufficient cause; instead, we are more likely to accept such a 

 principle as what Bertrand Russell has recently called a 'postulate', 

 unproveable, but necessary for science. "^^ Since, as a matter of 

 brute fact, we always find causes enmeshed in webs of relations, 

 many today prefer not to worry about the issue of substance. 

 Thus the pragmatist, resting content with knowledge of functions 

 and consequences, may dismiss Taine's problem as meaningless; 

 others, with Cassirer, may resolve the dilemma, not by taking one 

 of its horns, but by achieving a 'higher synthesis', escaping between 

 the horns into the new world of relativity. Nevertheless, Taine's 

 'one grand harmony' has not really been discarded, "^^ and both 

 the 'concrete individual' and the 'abstract universal' or type 

 continue to function as 'ideal limits' for the scientist's quest. 



The Issue of Absolute Idealism 



The solution of Substance as Function may be derived from 

 Cuvier's principle that an organ must be useful^ that of Absolute 

 Idealism, from Geoflfroy Saint-Hilaire's principle of its having a 

 place in a plan J "^ The latter consequence, and criticism, of the 

 doctrine of natural types results from following some of its implica- 

 tions to what seem like logically warranted, but may be empirically 

 doubtful, conclusions. If 'organic form' is characteristic of all 

 processes, and if all processes are necessarily related — so the 

 argument runs — a necessary conclusion would seem to be that 

 the universe is one huge organism. Cohen characterizes this style of 

 thinking as 'vicious organicism', which he considers to be on a par 

 with 'vicious atomism' in its falsification of the facts. "^^ The ele- 

 ment of truth in this position is what nineteenth-century thinkers 

 were fond of calling, after Leibniz, 'the principle of sufficient 

 reason', which Cohen himself has formulated as follows: 'Every- 

 thing is connected in definite ways with definite other things, so that its full 

 nature is not revealed except by its position and relations within a system.' "^^ 

 However, such a statement tends to overlook the fact, already 

 stressed above, that there are real discontinuities in nature 

 (Appendix C). Historically, this principle has been usually 

 associated with one form or another of philosophic idealism, and 

 the motivation for its use has been strongly aesthetic, as in the 

 works of Bernard Bosanquet.'^'^ 



However, it should be possible to select the valid elements 

 from such an analysis without falling prey to extremes of either 



