Decembee 5, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



795 



to be living in a time when, under the bril- 

 liant and effective leadership of such 

 thinkers as Professor Bergson and the late 

 Professor James, the method of concepts, 

 the method of intellect, the method of sci- 

 ence, is being powerfully assailed; and, 

 whilst I heartily welcome this attack of 

 criticism as causing scientific men to reflect 

 more deeply on the method of science, as 

 exhibiting more clearly the inherent limita- 

 tions of the method, and as showing that 

 life is so rich as to have many precious in- 

 terests and the world much truth beyond 

 the reach of that method, yet I can not re- 

 frain, he will say, from attempting to point 

 out rather carefully what seems to me a 

 radical error of the critics, a fundamental 

 error of theirs, in respect to what is the 

 highest function of conception and in re- 

 spect to what is the real aim and ideal of 

 the life of intellect. For we shall thus be 

 led to a deeper view of our subject proper. 

 These critics find, as all of us find, that 

 what we call mind or our minds are, in some 

 mysterious way, functionally connected 

 with certain living organisms known as 

 human bodies; they find that these living 

 bodies are constantly immersed in a uni- 

 verse of matter and motion in which they 

 are continually pushed and pulled, heated 

 and cooled, buffeted and jostled about — a 

 universe that, according to James, would, 

 in the absence of concepts, reveal itself as 

 "a big blooming buzzing confusion" — 

 though it is hard to see how such a revela- 

 tion could happen to any one devoid of the 

 concept "confusion," but let that pass; 

 they find that our minds get into some 

 initial sort of knowing connection with that 

 external blooming confusion through what 

 they call the sensibility of our bodies, yield- 

 ing all manner of sensations as of weights, 

 pressures, pushes and pulls, of intensities 

 and extensities of brightness, sound, time, 

 colors, space, odors, tastes, and so on ; they 



find that we must, on pain of organic ex- 

 tinction, take some account of these ele- 

 ments of the material world ; they find that, 

 as a fact, we human beings constantly deal 

 with these elements through the instrumen- 

 tality of concepts ; they find that the effec- 

 tiveness of our dealing with the material 

 world is precisely due to our dealing with it 

 conceptually: they infer that, therefore, 

 dealing with matter is exactly what con- 

 cepts are for, saying with Ostwald, for 

 example, that the goal of natural science, 

 the goal of the conceptual method of mind, 

 ' ' is the domination of nature by man ; ' ' not 

 only, our speaker will say, do our critics; 

 find that we deal with the material world 

 conceptually, and effectively because con- 

 ceptually, but they find also that life has; 

 interests and the world values not acces- 

 sible to the conceptual method, and as this 

 method is the method of the intellect, they 

 conclude, not only that the intellect can not 

 grasp life, but that the aim and ideal of 

 intellect is the understanding and subjuga- 

 tion of matter, saying with Professor Berg- 

 son "that our intellect is intended to think 

 matter," "that our concepts have been 

 formed on the model of solids," "that*^the 

 essential function of our intellect ... is 

 to be a light for our conduct, to make ready 

 for our action on things," that "the intel- 

 lect is characterized by a natural inability 

 to understand life," that "intellect always 

 behaves as if it were fascinated by the 

 contemplation of inert matter," that "in- 

 telligence . . . aims at a practically use- 

 ful end," that "the intellect is never quite 

 at its ease, . . . except when it is working 

 upon inert matter, more particularly upon 

 solids," and much more to the same effect. 

 Now, ladies and gentlemen, our speaker 

 will ask, what are we to think of this? 

 What are we to think of this valuation of 

 the science-making method of concepts? 

 What are we to think of the aim and ideal 



