SEPTEMBER 22, 1899. ] 
DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE, 
NATURALISM AND AGNOSTICISM. 
CIRCUMSTANCES, which need not be detailed 
here, having led me to pay somewhat careful 
attention to Professor Ward’s most skillful 
‘Gifford Lectures,’ I read Professor Brooks’ re- 
view (SCIENCE, September Ist) of this work 
with keen interest. The notice cannot be 
termed unfair, unless, indeed, one take ex- 
ception to the superfluous statement, ‘‘ nothing 
is easier than for one who is not a naturalist to 
improve upon the work of Charles Darwin.’’ 
Nothing in Ward’s attitude, except, possibly, 
his tremendous castigation of Spencer, war- 
rants such harshness. On the other hand, 
Brooks’ entire outlook is so different, and the 
position he adopts so far removed from that of 
his author that there is a real danger lest 
readers of SCIENCE should tend to misprize a 
book wrought out, not only with remarkable 
analytic insight, but also in competent famili- 
arity and sympathy with scientific methods. I 
cannot find that Brooks anywhere indicates 
what task precisely Ward attempts; on the 
contrary, he sometimes blinks the issue. And 
yet, this may be stated with directness, and 
without disrespect to the reviewer, which, I 
need hardly say, is far from my mind. 
The advance of science in the eighteenth and 
nineteenth centuries has gradually crystallized 
into four theories, not of scientific phenomena, 
but of the universe as a whole. (1) The Me- 
chanical Theory. This founds on abstract Dy- 
namics, which deals with molar phenomena ; 
on Molecular Mechanics, which is concerned 
ultimately with ideals of matter ; while, latterly, 
Mechanical Physics has tended, in some hands, 
to give way before Energetics, which regards all 
change as either a transference or a transforma- 
tion ofenergy. (2) The Theory of Mechanical 
Evolution, which seeks to trace back the phe- 
nomena of the universe, as they now are, to an 
original condition that can be expressed accord- 
ing to purely mathematico-physical formule— 
the theory of Spencer. (3) Biological Evolu- 
tion as implied in the work of Lamarck, C. 
Darwin and their followers. (4) The Theory of 
Psychophysical Parallelism, involving Clifford’s 
‘mind-stuff,’ the ‘double-aspect’ theory, the 
‘conscious automaton’ (Huxley) theory and, 
SCIENCE. 
417 
generally, the view that ‘mind’ is an epiphe- 
nomenon of ‘matter.’ The task essayed by 
Ward may be put in the form of the following 
question : Taking the fundamental conceptions 
employed by the various exponents of these 
theories, what can they be shown to involve 
when subjected to the analyses of Episte- 
mology? In other words, to what conclusions 
do they lead inevitably, and are these conclu- 
sions sufficient to account for all that is actually 
involved in man’s universe? Brooks’ hint of 
dogmatism may be traced to an incomplete ac- 
ceptance of the fact, fully accepted by Ward, 
that, for man, there is no universe but man’s 
universe; and here all dogmatism is out of 
place. 
So far as ‘simple-minded men of science’ are 
concerned, I think we may admit that Ward has 
exploded, beyond peradventure, the assorted 
dogmas peculiar to the first, second and fourth 
of these theories of the universe. Iam by no 
means sure that he has achieved similar success 
with the third, possibly because it still remains 
so fluid, and I have a tolerably strong convic- 
tion that his constructive alternative, termed 
Spiritual Monism, will prove as unsatisfactory 
to others as to Brooks. At the same time, one 
must remember that he has stated this in the 
briefest and, therefore, most tentative fashion. 
Brooks’ review dwells almost exclusively on 
the third theory and, consequently, he hardly 
does justice to Ward’s positive achievement ; 
while, further, his difficulty in adapting him- 
self to the epistemological standpoint seems to 
lead him to attribute to Ward positions which 
his author is far from holding. The sections of 
the review dealing with figurative language 
show this. The former lapse may be omitted 
as unimportant. The latter calls for some 
notice. The reason for Brooks’ difficulty in en- 
visaging Ward’s standpoint comes out plainly 
in the following statement: ‘‘The naturalist 
agrees with Ward that our conception of the 
order of nature is not absolute, but contingent 
or relative, but he is not prepared to assert 
that itis a hypothesis; for a hypothesis is a 
mental product, and he does not know whether 
the contingency is mental or organic.’? Waiv- 
ing the question whether there possibly can be 
an order of nature distinct from our conception 
