PROFESSOR BROOKS'S PHILOSOPHY 123 



an appeal must always be made to experimentally obtained fact in order 

 to discover those constants which are actually found and used in the 

 equations of applied mechanics {vide the gravitational constant). It is 

 the failure to make this distinction between theoretical and applied 

 mechanics, with a resulting misinterpretation on both sides, that has 

 conditioned psychologically the tenets of those two schools, namely, the 

 vitalistic and the mechanistic, between which there has been so much 

 discussion of recent years. In his attitude toward mechanism the ad- 

 herent of each school has in mind a different thing, with the consequence 

 that there is no genuine joining of issue so far as the fundamental 

 problem is concerned, while there may be and, I think, really is a gen- 

 uine agreement in regard to it. Thus, in opposing the view that the 

 organism is a mechanism, the vitalist tacitly means that it is not a 

 mechanism in the sense of pure, theoretical mechanics, t. e., of the 

 " geometry of motion," as a deductive system ; and in this he is right. 

 But he really also always admits, at least tacitly, that the organism is a 

 mechanism in the second sense, t. e., that, although it has properties 

 which can not be deduced from those of its parts, the former never- 

 theless result from or are determined by the latter.^ On the other hand, 

 the mechanist, in opposing vitalism, first fails to make clear that his own 

 position is that the organism is a mechanism in the second sense, and, 

 secondly, wrongly considers the vitalist to be opposing this second view, 

 whereas he is really opposing only the first, the purely theoretical, de- 

 ductive, mechanistic position. 



This solution of the problem is, in fact, recognized by Professor 

 Brooks, and the development of its consequences forms the chief part 

 of his philosophical position, as will be seen subsequently, but it is a 

 solution which, as demanding that the actual properties of nature at 

 any level of synthesis must be found by observation and experiment, 

 both allows that the organic realm has certain properties which the 

 inorganic world has not, and yet that these should be interpreted and 

 treated mechanistically in the second sense. Most intimately connected 

 with this whole question are a number of other philosophical considera- 

 tions to which Professor Brooks gives much attention. It is from these 

 that he arrives at that which is really his ultimate philosophical 

 position, although, it must be admitted, this is not a very complex or 

 sophisticated one. For Professor Brooks, although he cites and quotes 

 from such sophisticated thinkers as, e. g., Plato, Berkeley and Kant,, 

 is predominantly (he is not always consistent) a realist, first "naive," 

 and then " critical." Thus, although he dedicates his " Foundations **" 

 to Berkeley, and quotes him oftener than any other philosopher, he 

 never seems quite to grasp this philosopher's subjective idealism. And 



* Cf. Driesch in various places in such volumes as " Naturbegriffe und 

 Natunirteile " and *' The Science and Philosophy of the Organism." 



