THE ALLEGED MECHANICAL BASIS OF NATURAL 



SCIENCE. 



By Rev. Father Kelly, S.S.M. 



The object of this paper is to criticise the theory of the mechan- 

 ical basis of Natural Science, and to criticise it from the point 

 of view, not of philosophy, but of Natural Science itself. If, 

 then, I am to speak in the name of Science, I need make no apology, 

 — since I cannot claim to be a scientific specialist, — for the adoption 

 of the method of extensive quotation from the writings of men 

 who may be taken to represent the scientific standpoint. 



My paper will raise more questions than it attempts to solve ; 

 and yet it may not be without some scientific value, since the 

 systematic questioning of its hypotheses is an important element 

 in scientific investigation. 



I. Statement of the Mechanical Theory. 



The mechanical theory of Natural Science may be stated in the 

 following way : — It assumes that all the phenomena of the Universe, 

 physical, chemical, and organic, can be reduced to the movements 

 of material particles, and it assumes that these movements are 

 conformed to the recognised laws of kinematics or dynamics. 

 These particles, according to the older chemistry, would be con- 

 ceived of as the atoms of the elements, but according to the newer 

 chemistry as the corpuscles or electrons or ions of which the atoms 

 are themselves composed 



The following quotations will throw further light on this theory, 

 and will, at the same time, show its prevalence. 



Huxley, speaking of the origin of the Universe (a point with 

 which we are not now concerned) says, 



" The more purely a mechanist the speculator is, the more firmly does 

 he assume a primordial molecular arrangement of which (and here is 

 the point with which we are concerned) all the phenomena of the Universe 

 are the consequences."* 



Professor Hicks, in an address to the British Association (1895) 

 says : — 



" Science will have reached its goal when it shall have reduced ultimate 

 laws to one or two. . . . These ultimate laws — in the domain of physical 

 science at least — will be the dynamical laws of the relations of matter 

 to number, space, and time. The ultimata data themselves will be 

 number, matter, time, and space themselves. When these relations shall 

 be known, all physical phenomena will be a branch of pure mathematics. 

 Before this can be attained we must have the working drawings 

 of the details of the mechanism with which we have to deal. 

 It is a slow and laborious process. The wreckage of rejected theories is 

 appalling ; but a knowledge of what is actually going on behind what 

 we can see or feel is surely if slowly being attained." (Quoted Ward 130.) 



We shall be better able to do justice to Professor Hick's meaning 

 when we take into account certain other passages from the same 

 address which will be given later on in another connection. 



* Darwin's " Life and Letters," voL ii, p. 201. 



