Conclusion 365 



altogether. This arbitrary rejection of all the " imponderables," 

 which in philosophy as in politics are the most important factors 

 of experience and determinants of action, is an even more com- 

 prehensive error than the omission to consider the fact of conscious- 

 ness, which has so often been brought home to Naturalism. It is, 

 however, this latter mistake which has caused the revolt against 

 Naturalism within the ranks of science itself. Naturalism is 

 driven, by its passion for simplification, to assume that all mental 

 processes are the accompaniments of material changes, and that 

 the material changes are the causes, while the mental processes are 

 inert consequences, mere " epiphenomena." Thus the broad and 

 deep gulf which, in our experience, divides the living from the dead, 

 the organic from the inorganic, is obliterated ; the inanimate is 

 made the norm by which the animate is to be explained. The 

 method of simplification demands an even greater sacrifice. 

 Physics and chemistry are theoretically capable of reduction to the 

 fundamental laws of movement in general ; the end of the simplify- 

 ing process is a statement of the nature of reality in mathematical 

 symbols, which are valid whether there is anything corresponding 

 to them in nature or not. And so the philosophy which professes 

 to be grounded on the solid rock of observed phenomena, severely 

 rejecting all subjective human valuations, ends in pure mentalism, 

 which is independent of the existence of any external world 

 whatever. 



It is thus plain that the instinctive repugnance of the religious 

 mind to Naturalism, however clumsy the expression which it has 

 sometimes found, is not the wilful blindness to ascertained truth 

 which the scientific controversialists of the last century often assumed 

 it to be. These doughty champions of nature study, who had, we 

 must not forget, a good case against the theologians who wished to 

 forbid their investigations and discredit their conclusions in advance, 

 were in the habit of saying to the defenders of religion, " Leave 

 us alone, and we will leave you alone. Leave us the knowable, 

 and keep the unknowable for yourselves. Our province is 

 realities ; yours is dreams, and you are welcome to them." This 

 delimitation of. territory was absolutely impossible, because both 

 sides claimed to have an interpretation of existence as a whole. 

 Naturalism is not science, but a jejune and self-contradictory 

 philosophy. Its outcome is not to leave religion alone, but to 

 destroy it, along with the other interests of the human spirit which 



