246 Heredity. 



among these hypotheses there are some which share in the present 

 imperfection of the sciences, but which may be accepted in advance, 

 there are others which so far transcend all possible experience 

 that there is no rashness in rejecting them. 



2. Idealism is not so easily set forth as the opposite theory : 

 not that it is less simple, or that it does not hang so well together, 

 but because it conversely follows the scientific order, proceeding 

 always from the end to the subordinated means, descending step 

 by step the series which mechanism ascends step by step. The 

 starting-point of mechanism is very definite, if it is not very certain; 

 idealism at the outset takes up its position in the absolute, which 

 is the only point of view from which the universe can be surveyed, 

 ' For God serves to explain the soul, and the soul to explain nature.' 

 We are here beyond the reach of experience, and consequently 

 of science. Yet we must attain to science, must pass from the 

 absolute to the relative, from ourselves to phenomena. But how, 

 by what mysterious operation is this done ? Idealism answers only 

 in metaphors which is inevitable, since the finite and the infinite 

 are incommensurable, and, ex hypothesi, there is no possible ratio 

 between the first and the second term. If we suppose this first 

 difficulty solved, we are then on the ground of experience, in 

 possession of a reality derived from the absolute, which will serve 

 ultimately to measure and explain everything. This reality is 

 thought. 



According to Schopenhauer and his school, thought would 

 occupy only the second place, intelligence would be only ' the 

 physics of the mind ' imprisoned in the subjective forms of time, 



consequently of the same nature. To say that mind is the greater and matter 

 the less, is to be the dupe of words ; it is to apply to quality what is true only of 

 quantity. The relation of mind to matter is not a relation of greater and less, 

 but of object to object. 



It is also said that the meclianieal theory subordinates the higher to the 

 lower. This refutation, for which we are indebted to A. Comte, is more exact, 

 because it substitutes the qualitative point of view for the quantitative. For my 

 own part, I certainly consider the psychological order superior to the vital 

 order, and the latter to the inorganic world. But these ideas of higher and 

 lower may well possess only a subjective value, and be only a mere human way 

 of considering things, so that this refutation, however true in fact, has no logical 

 cogency or true scientific value. 



