NATURE 



^5 



THURSDAY, MAY lo, 1900. 



MECHANISM, IDEA, OR— NATURE? 

 Naturalism and Agnosticism. By James Ward, Sc.D. 

 2 vols. Pp. xviii + 302 and xiii + 291. (London: A. 

 and C. Black, 1899.) 



THE distinguished writer of the well-known article on 

 psychology in the " Encyclopccdia Britannica " 

 could not but be sure of a welcome for any contribution 

 towards the establishment of a world-formula that he 

 found it in him to offer. Prof. James Ward displays 

 analytical power of quite first rate quality, even when he 

 uses it perversely. He has an insight more than common 

 into the bearings of scientific methods and naturalistic 

 speculations, even when he is disputing their competency 

 or restricting their range. If his lucidity is that of the 

 successful teacher, his earnestness and his often eloquence 

 mark the great one. Finally, in meeting the apostles of 

 naturalism within the jurisdiction of their own categories, 

 and without the mystification of an alien esotericism, he 

 has set an example of hopeful augury. " Naturalism and 

 Agnosticism " is for these reasons one of the books that 

 must count. 



On the other hand, while future attempts at construc- 

 tion cannot neglect the reasonings of this very consider- 

 able work, Prof. Ward's is not a mind " to nestle in." 

 His attack upon Naturalism with Agnosticism must, we 

 venture to think, be held to have failed, his conclusion to 

 Spiritualistic Monism to be illicit. 



Prof. Ward's book embodies his Gifford lectures, in 

 defence of theism, dehvered at Aberdeen in the years 

 1896 to 1898. As they "take it for granted that till an 

 idealistic {i.e. spiritualistic) view of the world can be 

 sustained, any exposition of theism is but wasted labour," 

 they are in effect a critique of Naturalism and Agnosticism 

 singly and together, followed by a brief development of 

 a Monism of Spirit, in whose interests they are assailed. 

 Their "demurrer" to theistic inquiries is ruled out, 

 because they themselves, it is claimed, have failed. 



We may pass the question whether a Naturalism that 

 dares to say that it sees no way of access to knowledge 

 of a certain kind, " demurs '' to theism in any manner in 

 which " spiritualistic monism," with its implicit pantheism, 

 does not, and consider rather the development of Dr. 

 Ward's attack on Naturalism. He tries a fall with it in 

 three fields — Mechanism, Evolution taken as the working 

 of Mechanism, and Psychophysical Parallelism as the 

 device by which the mechanical view disposes of the 

 importunate facts of consciousness. It seems to follow 

 that unless Naturalism must be identified with Mechanism 

 our author's thesis fails. 



As regards Mechanism, Dr. Ward disclaims any pre- 

 tensions to specialism in physics, but he shows such 

 intellectual communion with the studies that are the 

 great glory of his university, that he fully sustains his 

 right to be heard. His fundamental point is the abstract- 

 ness and hypothetical character of modern physics. He 

 shows how they pass from the perceptual and actual into 

 what has been happily called " conceptual shorthand.'' 

 He finds mathematical physics " idealistic " in their 

 procedure— epistemologically, we presume, not ontologi- 



NO. I 



i93. VOL. 62] 



cally— and he claims that they do not set before us 

 " what verily is and happens." Matter, mass, energy — 

 what are these ? We seem driven to modify our ideas of 

 them again and again, till we end either in Nihilism, with, 

 for instance, Kirchhoff, or in some highly artificial 

 formula, such as, e.g. the " hydrokinetic ideal " of Lord 

 Kelvin. From the point of view of logic, the inverse 

 methods of abstract physics are such that our ultimate 

 principle will not necessarily be a vera causa in the sense 

 of one who can say hypotheses non Jingo. If, then, we 

 accept it as ultimate reality, we are simply Neopytha- 

 goreans. Can we construct from it a cosmos of qualitative 

 variety ? much less an organic world. 



Yet, starting from mechanism, such an attempt at 

 edification has been made by Mr. Herbert Spencer. To 

 him the sciences in their evolutionary gradation appear 

 to offer a closed system, a polity, a synthesis which is 

 philosophy. The absence of the two volumes essential 

 for the bridging of the gap from inorganic to organic, 

 and especially of that famous chapter in which, " were 

 it written," the transition is actually made, puts Mr. 

 Spencer's high claims out of court. But further, by playing 

 off dissipation of energy against conservation, the doctrine 

 of " First Principles " can be shown to be inadequate. 

 And Mr. Spencer's demand for instability of the homo- 

 geneous at the start, instability of the heterogeneous at 

 the finish, shows his construction to be arbitrary. To 

 get evolution to the point of a working process, we need, 

 says Dr. Ward, a teleology — " evolution with guidance," 

 or plan, or purpose. And this to our author implies 

 something incompatible with mechanism, mind in some 

 transcendental sense, god. There is perhaps a lacuna 

 in the inference, but so comes the god into the mechanism 



But if mind is thus to be, at the very least, the pre- 

 dominant partner in the world-system — it is to be much 

 more — Dr. Ward must get rid of Psychophysical Par- 

 allelism. Psychosis cannot be epiphenomenon, nor, to 

 use Huxley's unfortunately loose phrase, a "collateral 

 product." Nor can man — though this is not the same 

 thing — be a conscious automaton. We cannot have any 

 implication of "the impotence of mind to influence 

 matter.'' We must admit " interaction," because " in- 

 variable concomitance and absolute causal independence 

 are incompatible positions." 



But if there is not only room for god, as Brahma so to 

 speak, at the beginning, but also both room for and need 

 of, as it were, Vishnu, throughout the working of the 

 mechanism, to save it from nihilism, to supply "guid- 

 ance " to the evolutionary process, to infuse new energy, 

 or, as " the sorting demon of Maxwell," restore wasted 

 energy, to account for life, to work as immanent sustaining 

 force throughout, we need only to refute dualism in favour 

 of a " duality of subject and object," and the way is clear 

 for idealism. 



But is this so ? Is naturalism really refuted ? Is neutral 

 agnosticism illicit, or, in the alternative, so unstable, as 

 to be necessarily materialist or mechanical in bias .'' Or 

 has Dr. Ward haply shown that certain physicists, like 

 certain idealists, have no right to their creed ? Those, 

 namely, who fail to take their symbols as formulae, ab- 

 stractions, averages, or to see that where explanatory, the 

 range of their power of explanation is limited. Or has 

 he perhaps overthrown much in the hasty constructions 



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