412 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



including Spencer, in the organisation, the demands, and 

 the authority of human society. But it must be re- 

 marked that naturalism is not, in our present stage of 

 knowledge, identical with mechanism, and that the 

 extreme view mentioned above implies the assertion 

 that the phenomena of life, individual and social, and 

 those of consciousness can be explained on purely 

 mechanical principles. This is, at the present moment, 

 impossible, and naturalists such as du Bois Eeymond, 

 Herbert Spencer, and Haeckel have been, perhaps 

 reluctantly, forced to admit this ; whereas, on the other 

 side, thinkers whose own original work was confined 

 to purely mechanical reasoning, have either, with Lord 

 Kelvin, distinctly asserted the impossibility of under- 

 standing the phenomena of living matter on purely 

 mechanical principles, or have, with Clifford, invented 

 a theory of " mind-stuff'." ■•■ 



^ An interesting article dealing 

 with this subject will be found in 

 the American ' Philosophical Re- 

 view ' (1896), with the title 

 " Morality the last of Dogmas," 

 by Antonio Llano. The author 

 identifies the naturalistic with the 

 purely mechanical point of view — 

 in fact, he practically accepts what 

 du Bois Reymond termed the 

 " Laplacian world-formula." This 

 position is, to say the least, prema- 

 ture, and the contention that 

 " naturalistic and utilitarian phil- 

 osophers ; who — strange to say — 

 establish the premises as indispen- 

 sable, shrink before their logical 

 consequences," is not correct if 

 applied to such thinkers as the 

 author deals with. But assuming 

 that it were possible to reduce 

 everything in human life and 

 conduct to purely mechanical 



sequences, and that the author's 

 conclusions were established " that 

 morality with its machinery of obli- 

 gation, conscience, and duty, being 

 based on feelings originated in 

 superstition and slavery, and in 

 an inadequate and unscientific con- 

 ception of the world in general, 

 and of man in particular, is doomed 

 to vanish under the pressure of en- 

 lightened reason, which will cease 

 to consider it either necessary or 

 profitable," we may ask the ques- 

 tion, What is to take the place 

 of morality ? The author is very 

 definite on this, saying that " the 

 evolution (I might better say the 

 dissolution) of morality is from 

 ' duty ' towards ' right,' the former 

 diminishing as the latter increases. " 

 Now this suggests a very important 

 distinction. Tiie word "right" 

 has several meanings, and the use 



