SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1125 



porarily in human individuality ? Is, there- 

 fore, the formula for the individual B-\-W? 



Or is the idealist correct in maintaining 

 that the individual is in reality spiritual — 

 a "Will or "Ego" with physical manifesta- 

 tions ? Is the body of the organism an ideal 

 (though none the less real) body — a mech- 

 anism through the agency of which the will 

 or Ego operates ? Is, therefore, the formula 

 of individuality W(b) ? 



Upon the answer given to these questions 

 by the philosopher will depend the future 

 standing of vitalism in science. 



The considerations which have led most 

 philosophers and many men eminent in sci- 

 ence to repudiate the materialistic assump- 

 tion and to conclude that in ultimate anal- 

 ysis and in reality our world and the indi- 

 vidual is spiritual are in brief as follows: 



In the first place, the data of science are 

 phenomena in consciousness. For any^- 

 thing to be outside of consciousness, there- 

 fore, is to be unknown, and hence outside of 

 the field of science which deals with the 

 known. To postulate an external world of 

 atoms and electrons ■ independent of — or 

 outside of — consciousness is to postulate an 

 unknowable world— a metaphysical world. 

 It is a wholly erroneous notion that this 

 conclusion of philosophy involves the denial 

 of an external world — the ' ' permanent pos- 

 sibility of sensation." There is indeed — to 

 the idealist not less than to the realist — an 

 external world which is the cause of our 

 ideas. But this external world of ours 

 must be a world of ideas — that is, if it is 

 like our ideas as we believe it is. But if the 

 objects in this external world are like our 

 ideas, then they must be ideas. Therefore, 

 "either the real external world is a world 

 of ideas — an outer world of mind which 

 each of us may in a measure comprehend 

 through experience, or — so far as it is ex- 

 ternal and real — it is wholly unknowable" 

 (Eoyce, '92). "It was Berkeley," says 



Lloyd Morgan ('05), "who knocked the 

 bottom out of materialism as a philosophy 

 so that no amount of tinkering can make it 

 again hold water. ' ' Materialism, therefore, 

 as a philosophy, has long been in disrepute 

 among philosophers. It is, therefore, almost 

 incomprehensible why an outworn and dis- 

 carded philosophy should be made the basis 

 of a scientific discussion of the problem of 

 individuality. Are we to assume that 

 "one assumption is just as good as an- 

 other" and that it is impossible to distin- 

 guish between true and false assumptions? 

 Does it not matter to us whether our basic 

 assumptions are philosophically sound or 

 not? Are the conclusions reached by mod- 

 ern philosophy of no concern to the biol- 

 ogist in the discussion of the problem of 

 individuality ? 



The acceptance of the materialistic postu- 

 late by scientific men notwithstanding its 

 philosophical disrepute appears to be due in 

 part to the confusion of philosophical with 

 scientific materialism, and in part to the 

 strong prejudice against philosophical views 

 owing to the excesses of philosophers dur- 

 ing the romantic period. The combination 

 of this prejudice with that against philos- 

 ophy as the "handmaid" of religion makes 

 it to-day almost impossible for philosophical 

 arguments to receive a fair hearing in the 

 court of physical science. How in the his- 

 tory of human thought the mechanistic in- 

 terpretation of the phenomena of the exter- 

 nal world became gradually transformed 

 into a philosophy of life may best he under- 

 stood by a brief statement of its genesis in 

 the thought of the individual. 



The untrained person considers the world 

 to be just about what his senses tell him it 

 is. Later, however, he learns to distinguish 

 between an internal reality and an "exter- 

 nal" reality and he finally comes to ask, 

 "How much can I know of external real- 

 ity?" He soon learns that all he can know 



