260 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IX. No. 216. 



this school is divided into two classes — those 

 who believe force to be the substrate of bodies^ 

 and those who believe motion to be the sub- 

 strate of bodies. Those who believe that force 

 is a substrate believe that force is attraction 

 and repulsion ; those who believe that motion 

 is the substrate believe that attraction can be 

 resolved into repulsion and hence that force is 

 a mode of motion. 



The idealist believes also that force is attrac- 

 tion and repulsion, for this seems necessary to 

 his doctrine that psychosis is the substrate of 

 phenomena. 



In Science for January 27th two eminent men 

 review my little book on 'Truth and Error.' 

 One seems to be an idealist, for he is marked 

 with the paint- pot of this philosophy, though he 

 repudiates it. The other seems to be a ma- 

 terialist as the term was defined in the book. 

 Of course, the terms used do not characterize 

 their theology or their religion, but only their 

 philosophy. The philosophy of the second 

 writer would be characterized better if it were 

 called dynamism ; but the popular designation 

 is materialism, and the use of the term dynam- 

 ism would probably offend Mr. Ward. Mr. 

 Ward is the most illustrious champion of this 

 philosophy in America, and he has written a 

 work on this subject, entitled ' Dynamic Soci- 

 ology,' which is dynamic philosophy applied to 

 sociology. 



During the last decade of this century great 

 activity has been developed in scientific psy- 

 chology. The new science is confronted with 

 this problem, which is solved in the way I have 

 tried to indicate. All psychologists are drawn 

 into a whirlpool of disputation, and those scien- 

 tific men engaged in other departments of re- 

 search often drift into it. 



Usually the idealist sneers at a philosophy 

 of science, for ' science deals only with phe- 

 nomena,' mere appearance — and philosophy 

 deals with the substrate, the thing in itself — 

 psychosis. Dynamism always advocates a me- 

 chanical philosophy when its votaries attempt 

 to philosophize, as Ward has done and as Spencer 

 did before him. 



In the same number of Science to which 

 reference has been made there is a review of 

 Mivart's book, probably from the standpoint of 



a dynamist, but perhaps from the standpoint 

 of an idealist, for this philosophy is of many 

 kinds. Notwithstanding the denial by the 

 idealist of a possibility of a philosophy other 

 than idealism, the warfare between the two 

 philosophies is rife, and at the present day is 

 the subject of disputation, as evolution was the 

 subject a few years ago. Every new publica- 

 tion on the broader aspect of science takes up 

 the gauntlet for one or another of these sub- 

 jects. Now, I believe that these metaphysical 

 philosophies are mutually destructive, like the 

 cats of whom Mr. Brooks speaks; yet I believe 

 that both contain an element of truth, and that 

 the Kantian doctrine of antinomies, which was 

 elaborated into a doctrine of contradictories by 

 Hegel, is a fallacious logic. 



Of course, I do not expect to please the ideal- 

 ist or the dynamist, nor do I expect to kindle the 

 love of those who believe that all philosophizing 

 is in vain, but of this class there are compara- 

 tively few. There are engaged in scientific re- 

 search many men who cultivate a special field 

 and who attempt to harmonize opinions only 

 within that field. There are others who survey 

 larger fields and make wider attempts to arrive 

 at congruities, and there are still others who 

 attempt to make all fundamental doctrines of 

 science congruous, and this is what I have at- 

 tempted to do in my book. 



Consciousness and choice, as the fundamental 

 judgment, certainly inhere in animals, and I 

 have proposed as an hypothesis worthy of con- 

 sideration that all particles have these elements 

 of judgment. Besides animals there are other 

 bodies in the universe ; these are molecules, 

 stars, rocks and plants. In the science of 

 chemistry it is universally recognized that there 

 is a phenomenon in chemical reaction which is 

 called affinity and which eminent chemists be- 

 lieve to be choice. The late T. Sterry Hunt 

 was an advocate of this doctrine. If there is 

 choice of one particle for another there must 

 be consciousness, and this is the doctrine held 

 by Hunt. I merely cite the example and aflirm 

 that there are many such chemists. Chemistry 

 is not my special field of investigation, but the 

 doctrine which I learned from chemists and 

 which has been advocated by many others, 

 especially physicists, like Herschel, is taken by 



