RECENT ADVANCES IN SCIENCE 



PHILOSOPHY. By Hugh Elliot. 



The study of philosophy has for a long time past fallen into 

 disrepute among men of science. The long succession of 

 philosophers and the almost unbroken uniformity of their 

 failures have given rise to the belief that the questions with 

 which philosophy undertakes to deal are insoluble, and that the 

 search for ultimate solutions is a vain and unprofitable under- 

 taking. There is indeed no question of the general validity of 

 this conclusion. And yet it seems probable that the reaction 

 against every form of overt philosophy has been too extreme. 

 For in effect everyone has some philosophy of life, including 

 even those who most strenuously advocate the agnostic position . 

 It is impossible to attack metaphysical systems without using 

 metaphysical weapons, a procedure which not even Huxley or 

 Spencer could avoid. In Spencer the effort to do so is almost 

 ludicrous. So intent was he upon slaying the dragon of meta- 

 physics, that he remained unconscious of the fact that he 

 himself was giving birth on the field of battle to a new meta- 

 physical system, fully as untenable as those he intended to 

 destroy. There is something inevitable and omnipresent about 

 metaphysics, which, when combined with the total failure of all 

 attempts to deal with it, leads to an attitude of impotent 

 despair. Take for instance such a problem as the relation of 

 mind to matter. There are some philosophers who say that 

 all matter is mind, there are some who say that all mind is 

 matter, and there are others who affirm that the problem is 

 insoluble. Yet none of these three views can be justified even 

 in appearance, without entry into the dangerous morasses of 

 metaphysics. The very question itself presupposes a meta- 

 physical theory. It sets out with the assumption that there 

 are two fundamental and distinct things, which may or may not 

 be brought into some relation ; and that assumption constitutes 

 already a metaphysical belief. Too often the attitude of so- 

 called common-sense is merely a crude metaphysical system, 



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