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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XI. No. aSO. 



reference to or reliance upon any supposed 

 special, exceptional or so-called miraculous rev- 

 elation." "I wish it considered just as astron- 

 omy or chemistry is," the Founder writes. In 

 these circumstances, readers of Science might 

 expect to find many matters of direct interest 

 in the lectures, especially when they recall that 

 courses have been delivered by Sir George 

 Stokes, Sir Michael Foster, and Professor 

 William James, or that Helmholtz and Lord 

 Kelvin were requested to accept election. It 

 so happens, however, that Natural Theology 

 has been more and more transformed from the 

 semblance of its old self by Metaphysic, during 

 the nineteenth century, and some of the lec- 

 turers, like the Master of Balliol and Professor 

 Ward of Cambridge University, and now Pro- 

 fessor Royce, attach principal importance to 

 this aspect of the inquirj'. Thus, although Mr. 

 Boyce's 'Supplementary Essay,' on the One, 

 the Many, and the Infinite, cannot but attract 

 mathematicians, especially such as are con- 

 cerned about the theory of numbers, his book 

 does not appear, otherwise, to contain much 

 matter of direct moment for readers of this 

 Journal. I say ' appear' advisedly ; for here, 

 as so often, appearances happen to be deceitful. 



Although the whole of Mr. Royce' s work is 

 metaphysical, and sometimes very technically 

 metaphysical, there are but two of the ten lec- 

 tures (i and iv) which possess little direct bear- 

 ing upon that scientific view of the universe 

 formulated almost entirely since the time of 

 Laplace. Further, lectures iii, v, vi, vii, viii 

 and ix are of vital importance for contemporary 

 conclusions regarding, not what man can know, 

 but what he does know — must know in the na- 

 ture of the case. The titles of these discourses 

 are as follows : — the Independent Beings — a 

 Critical Examination of Realism ; the Outcome 

 of Mysticism, and the World of Blodern Critical 

 Rationalism ; Validity and Experience ; the In- 

 ternal and External Meaning of Ideas ; the 

 Fourth Conception of Being ; Universality and 

 Unity. 



Everyone knows that the sciences, not ex- 

 cepting psychology, presuppose a dualistic atti- 

 tude towards human experience, for the very 

 simple and very defensible reason that this best 

 consorts with the impartiality necessary to ob- 



taining the most accurate results. So long as 

 he confines himself to his observations and ex- 

 periments, no scientific man doubts that there 

 is a world of real being existing on its own ac- 

 count in entire independence of thought or 

 its processes. Nevertheless, and curiously 

 enough, he also never doubts — for here lies 

 the whole vitality of his quest — that he can 

 obtain valid knowledge of this foreign sphere. 

 Further, and still more curiously, he is 

 perfectly willing to accept the conclusions 

 of others as valid — co-operation being one 

 leading note of contemporary science. In a 

 word, paradox though it be, dualism and the 

 negation of dualism are equally presuppositions 

 of detailed scientific inquiry. Hence originates 

 what Mr. Royce calls realism, the dogma critic- 

 ally examined and conclusively shown to be 

 untenable in his third chapter. But, while 

 this dualistic metaphysic — unconscious albeit — 

 could remain complacent and, but for Berkeley, 

 comparatively undisturbed, throughout the 

 domination of what has been aptly called the 

 astronomical (or molar) view of the universe, 

 more modern researches, particularly in the 

 field of physiology, gave it the lie direct and 

 from the strictly scientific side. Physiological 

 physics set dualism somersaulting. As Helm- 

 holtz said: "I hold that to speak of our ideas 

 of things as having any other than a practical 

 value is absolutely meaningless. They can be 

 nothing but symbols, natural signs, which we 

 learn to use for the regulation of our move- 

 ments and actions. When we have learned to 

 read these symbols aright, we are able with 

 their aid to direct our actions so that they shall 

 have the desired results ; that is, that the ex- 

 pected new sensation shall arise." Or, as Hux- 

 ley put it, even more pointedly : " All that we 

 know about motion is that it is a name for cer- 

 tain changes in the relation of our visual, tac- 

 tile and muscular sensations. . . . It is as absurd 

 to suppose that muskiness is a quality inherent 

 in one plant as it would be to imagine that pain 

 is a quality inherent in another, because we 

 feel pain when a thorn pricks the finger." 

 Here we discover the root of that Critical Ra- 

 tionalism, so popular with scientific men during 

 the past generation, and now subjected to such 

 merciless exposure in Mi'- Royce's fifth and 



