| ABEL REY. MODERN PHILOSOPHY PARIS, 1908 PREFACE [6] [1] ...Science, the creation of the intellect and reason, serves only to ensure our effective power |
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| over nature. It only teaches us how to utilise things, but tells us nothing about their essence.... [7]...Thus my essential task in this study has |
| been to contrast two points of view: the positive, “scientific” and the “pragmatic”. I have tried to be as impartial as possible in outlining these two | | | | | NB |
| points of view, since I am well aware of a third and serious danger in this kind of work: that of not giving one’s adversaries their due. I do not flatter myself that I have fully achieved my aim. Such perfect “neutrality” is impossible.... CHAPTER   I THE MODERN CENTRE OF PHILOSOPHIC DISCUSSIONS § 5. BASIC CONTRADICTION OF MODERN PHILOSOPHIC THOUGHT [28-29]...But contemporary systems of philos- ophy still oppose one another, battling over a fun- damental contradiction that arises from the manner in which the philosophical problem is posed in our epoch. The form of the antithesis is therefore si- multaneously the form taken by the succession of philosophical views at different times and the form taken by the views existing at the same time. What, in the present position of the philoso- phical problem in general, are the possible alterna- tives? There can be only one, for it is a matter of keeping science and practice in the closest possible unity, without sacrificing one to the other, without opposing one to the other. This means either that practice will be the consequence of science or, on the other hand, science will be the consequence of practice. In the first case, science covers prac- tice; in the second, practice covers science. It is a question of preserving a logical connection be- tween the two terms, and it can only be varied by reversing them, making the first dependent on the |
| second, or the second on the first. In the one case we get rationalistic, intellectualist, and positivist systems: the dogmatism of science. In the other, we get systems of pragmatism, fideism or active intuition (like that of Bergson): the dogmatism | | | | NB |
| of action. According to the first systems, one has to know in order to act: cognition produces action. According to the second, knowledge follows the requirements of action: action produces cognition. It should not be thought that these lattet systems resurrect contempt for science and the philosophy of ignorance. It is after serious investigation, scientific erudition often of the most excellent kind, after profound critical thinking about sci- ence, and even through thoroughly “thinking out this science,” as certain of these philosophers like to put it, that they arrive at the derivation of |
| science from practice. If in so doing they belittle science, it is only indirectly; for many of them, on | | | NB |
| the contrary, believe that they are revealing its full value.... § 6. THE INTEREST OF CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS [33-35]...Let us, however, allow for a moment |
| that the thesis of pragmatism is correct and that science is only a particular art, an appropriate technique for satisfying certain requirements. What results from that? First of all, truth is reduced to an empty word. A true affirmation appears as the recipe for an artifice that will prove successful. And since there | | | | | | |
| are several artifices capable of ensuring our success in the same circumstances, since different individ- uals have extremely different requirements, we shall have to accept the pragmatist thesis: all propositions and arguments which lead us to the same practical results are of equal value and are equally true, all ideas which yield practical results are equally legitimate. From this new meaning of the word “truth,” it follows that our sciences are purely contingent and fortuitous structures, that they could have been totally different and yet just as true, that is to say, just as suitable as means of action. |
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| The bankruptcy of science, as a real form of knowledge, as a source of truth, there you have the first conclusion . The legitimacy of other | | | | (1) |
| methods differing considerably from the methods |
| of intellect and reason, such as mystical feeling, there you have the second conclusion . It is for | | | | (2) |
| the sake of these conclusions that this entire philosophy, which to all appearance is crowned by them, was actually constructed.... What a good argument it is, therefore, to pay back these powerful thinkers in their own coin! |
| Scientific truths! But they are only truths in name. They, too, are beliefs, and beliefs of a lower order, beliefs that can be utilised only for material action; they have only the value of a technical instrument. Belief for the sake of belief, religious dogma, metaphysical or moral ideology, are far superior. | | | | NB NB |
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| In any case, they need not be embarrassed before science, because its privileged position has crumbled. |
| |
| Indeed, the bulk of the pragmatist army , in the face of scientific experience, hastens to rehabilitate moral experience, metaphysical experience and, particularly, religious experience . All these types | | | | NB |
| of experience develop side by side with one another and can in no way hinder one another, because they are directed towards different needs, quite distinct aspects of practice (satisfaction of mate- rial needs, of moral consciousness or religious sentiments), and create different values .... [37]...The metaphysicians would not be slow |
| to take advantage of such a windfall. Besides restoring religion, pragmatism helps to restore metaphysics. Since Kant and Comte positivism |
| during the nineteenth century has invaded almost the entire sphere of cognition.... |
| |
| [39-40]...Thus, the pragmatist attitude , and those others which, while not being so philosophi- cal, original and interesting, lead to similar con- clusions, always have as their consequence the rehabilitation of obsolete guiding forms of human thought which since the middle of the eighteenth century had been victoriously displaced by scien- tific positivism: religion, metaphysics, moral dog- matism i.e., basically social authoritarianism. That is why it is one of the two poles, between which |
| all contemporary thinking, all contemporary phi- losophy, vacillates. It is the pole of dogmatic reaction, of the spirit of authority in all its forms. This attitude is the more dangerous since it is at first presented, by its greatest adherents too, as the boldest and latest revolt of the free spirit, a revolt against the only barrier still remaining and which hitherto served as a lever for overthrow- ing all the rest: science and scientific truth. On the other hand, the opposite pole of modern philosophical thought, the purely scientific atti- tude—since in making practice the consequence of knowledge it subordinates everything to sci- ence—is characterised above all by an endeavour towards emancipation and liberation. It is here that one finds the innovators. They are the inheri- tors of the Renaissance spirit; their fathers and direct teachers are especially the philosophers and scientists of the eighteenth century, the great century of liberation, of which Mach so truly said: “He who, if only through books, has had the opportunity of participating in this upsurge and liberation, will throughout his life preserve a |
| feeling of melancholy regret for the eighteenth century.” For thinkers of this type a truth exists | | | | | | ?!! |
| which, if not immutable, is one that can continual- ly be approached. It cannot be reached except by scientific methods, and it cannot be found any- where outside science; truth, science are the neces- sary and sufficient conditions for all human activ- ity.... § 8. THE METHOD.—RÉSUMÉ AND
CONCLUSIONS |
| [48-49]...It is a matter of its [science’s] objective significance. Some will think that it is insufficient |
| to exhaust the reality which comprises its object, even though they admit, from a certain viewpoint, that it is necessary.... CHAPTER   II THE PROBLEM OF NUMBER AND EXTENSION. QUANTITATIVE PROPERTIES OF MATTER § 2. THE OLD ARGUMENT BETWEEN EMPIRICISM AND APRIORISM [55]...But is not the elimination of all empirical element also an unattainable limit? The mathema- tician, the rationalists note, could continue to increase the wealth of his science even if the ma- |
| terial world were suddenly annihilated. Yes, undoubtedly, if it were annihilated now, but could he create mathematics if the material world had never existed?... |
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| § 3. THE CONTEMPORARY FORM OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM OF NUMBER AND EXTENSION. THE “NOMINALIST” AND “PRAGMATIST” ATTITUDE [61]... Bergson , who perhaps more than any other helped to propagate these ideas in philoso- phical literature, would not accept without reserva- tion the word “artifice”. He believes that science is greater and higher than merely an artifice, in |
| relation to matter. But for him matter is not true reality it is reality that is diminished, regressive and dead. And in relation to true reality, which is living, spiritual and creative, mathematics and science as a whole can hardly have more than an artificial and symbolical character . In any case, | | | | | | |
| the fact remains that it was for action on matter, and not for cognition of its essence, that mathema- tics was created by the intellect, that first instru- ment forged under the pressure of practical require- ments in relation to matter.... |
| |
| [62]...ls it not mathematics which, of all the sciences, has in our day most strongly inclined certain minds towards pragmatism, and towards that sophistry of pragmatism, namely scientific agnosticism ? In point of fact, it is in mathematics |
| that we feel furthest from the concrete and real, nearest to the arbitrary playing with formulas and symbols, so abstract that it appears empty.... [62-63]...All the truths, more relative and less exact, which other sciences try to express mathe- matically and with which they endeavour to supplement mathematics, gravitate towards this absolute, as planets to the sun. § 4. RATIONALISM, LOGICISM AND INTELLECTUALISM [65]...The rigid and homogeneous space of geometry is not sufficient; the mobile and hetero- geneous space of physics is required. The universal mechanism of nature does not signify that matter contains nothing but geometry; According to |
| modern hypotheses, it can signify that there also exists the release or transformation of energy or the movement of electrical masses.... | | | | NB |
| |
| § 5. GENERAL IMPORTANCE OF THE PROBLEM OF QUANTITY: BASICALLY IT IS A PROBLEM OF REASON [74]...It is, in the first place, incontestable that reason, no matter how disinterested, has a utilitar- ian function. Scientists are neither mandarins nor dilettantes. And pragmatism is not wrong in em- phasising the usefulness of reason, its pre-eminent usefulness. Only, has it the right to assert that reason has only a utilitarian function? Cannot the rationalists reply very plausibly that the use- fulness of reason results only from the fact that, |
| in deducing propositions from propositions, it simultaneously deduces from one another the relations between the facts of nature? It thus allows | | | | NB |
| us to act on these facts; not that this is its aim, but this follows from it. Logic and the science of quantity created by the mind, insofar as it simply analyses the relations it perceives, extend their power to things themselves because quantitative relations are simultaneously the laws of things, and of the mind. If to know is to be able, then it is not, as the pragmatists think, because science was created by our practical requirements and for their sake, so that reason is of no value apart from |
| its usefulness, but because our reason, in learning to cognise things, provides us with the means for acting on them.... | | | | NB |
| |
| § 6. IDEAS OF POINCARÉ, THE MATHEMATICIAN [75-76]...The great mathematician, Poincaré, [2] |
| insists particularly on this arbitrary nature of mathematics . | | | | NB |
| |
| Of course, our mathematics fully corresponds to reality, in the sense that it is adapted to the symbolic expression of certain relations of the real; strictly speaking, it was not prompted by experience; experience merely gave the mind the occasion for creating it. But, our mathematics, as it gradually became constituted for conveniently expressing what we needed to express, is only one of the infinitely numerous possible mathematics or, rather, a particular case of some much more general mathematics which the mathematicians of the nineteenth century have tried to attain. Having got this clearly in mind, we at once realised that mathematics, by its essence and nature, is abso- lutely independent of its application in experience |
| and, consequently, absolutely independent of experience. It is the free creation of the mind , the most striking manifestation of its own creative power. Axioms, postulates, definitions, conventions are, in essence, synonymous terms. Therefore, every | | | | Poincaré |
| imaginable mathematics can lead to conclusions which, when properly expressed by a suitable system of conventions, would permit us to discover absolutely identical applications to. the real.... [77-79]...This theory is a good criticism of absolute rationalism and even of the attenuated rationalism of Kant. it shows us that it was not inevitably necessary for the mind to have elaborat- ed just that mathematics which is so well adapted for describing our experience; in other words, mathematics is not the expression of a universal law of reality, whether our conception of reality (of the kind that is given us, of course) is the Carte- sian, Kantian or some other. But Poincaré pre- |
| sents this conclusion in quite a different way from that of pragmatism . |
| |
| Some pragmatists , and even all the commenta- tors on Poincaré that I have had occasion to read, seem to me to have very largely failed to under- stand his theory. We have here an excellent exam- ple of distortion by interpretation. They have made of Poincaré — on this point as also on others, where their error is still greater—a pragmatist without the name. But who can fail to see that true pragmatism makes mathematics indirectly dependent upon experience? It is a decree of the mind, as with Poincaré, but a decree of the mind directed towards practical action, the free will of active thought, as the new philosophy conceives it. For the pragmatist there is no purely contem- plative and disinterested thought; there is no pure reason. There is only thought which desires to understand things and to this end alters the representation that it makes of them, for its great- est convenience. Science and reason are the ser- |
| vants of practice. For Poincaré, on the other hand, thought has to he taken to a certain degree in the Aristotelian sense of the word. Thought thinks, reason reasons, for its own satisfaction; and then, over and above this, it turns out that certain results of its inexhaustible creative power can be useful to us for other ends than purely spiritual satisfaction. |
| |
| But, in that case, practice is the servant of science and reason, which go far beyond the bounds of usefulness. “Thought is only lightning, but this lightning is everything.” [3] One may not fully accept Poincaré’s theory; but it should not be distorted in order to invoke |
| its authority. Insufficient attention has been paid to its connection with Kantianism , from which it | | | | | | Poincaré and Kant |
| fully borrows the theory of synthetic judgements a priori, with the proviso (and it is here that Kant’s rationalism seems to Poincaré too rigid) that these synthetic judgements a priori, on which our mathematics (Euclidean) rests, are not to be considered the only possible and necessary postu- lates of rational mathematics.... § 7. THE RELATION BETWEEN THE MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES AND THE OTHER NATURAL SCIENCES [80]...Does Poincaré’s theory assign to expe- rience the role which seems to be its due? Strange! |
| I would like to tell the pragmatists, who have con- stantly enlisted it for their own ends and used | | | NB |
| its author’s name like an artillery piece, that I find very little of the pragmatic in it.... § 8. INDICATIONS RELATIVE TO THE GENERAL EVOLUTION OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD AND KNOWLEDGE [87]...And if science then develops thanks to its material usefulness, it should not be forgotten that only owing to its intellectual usefulness and the disinterested satisfaction of the mind that desires to cognise things did it free itself at the outset from a crude empiricism in order to become true |
| science. It first enables us to cognise reality , prior to allowing us to act on it. And it is necessary that it should first enable us to cognise in order later to allow us to act.... |
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| § 9. MACH’S IDEAS, REASON AND THE ADAPTATION OF THOUGHT [90-91]...Does this not give us a valuable indica- tion of the nature and scope of logic and rational thought, of which mathematics has always been considered the pure emanation? And perhaps, also, of the nature and scope of reason? Here we are |
| not far from the thought of Mach, who was also frequently made out to be a pragmatist without the name. | | | | NB |
| |
| He seems to us to be much closer to rationalism, in the sense which,in our opinion, should henceforth be put into that term —a rationalism which by |
| no means excludes a psychological history of reason with its opportunities and temporary contingencies and, above all, does not in any way belittle the role of experience; reason being only codified ex- perience and, reciprocally, the necessary and uni- versal code of every kind of experience, taking into account simultaneously both the moment of evolu- tion and the psychological organisation of man.... [93-94]...Hence one sees that reason, subjected to abstract analysis in the consciousness of the rational being, is capable, with the help of the principles discovered in it and the ideal develop- ment of these principles, of agreeing with the laws of the environment and expressing them. One sees, further, that, given what we are and what the environment is, reason cannot be different from what it is: it is then, as the rationalists claim, necessary and universal. In a certain sense, it is |
| even absolute, but not in the sense that this word is understood by traditional rationalism. For this latter it means that things exist as reason conceives |
| them. From our point of view, on the contrary , we do not know how things exist in themselves , and to this extent Kantian or positivist relativism has its raison d’être. But we have the right to say | | | | !! !! |
| that if, in a being of a totally different constitu- tion, the needs of evolution had established a con- formity with the environment different from our own (since one of the two factors of which it is the product would be different), one would always be able to establish a system of translation that would make these two kinds of conformity coincide with each other. There is nothing absurd in this hypothesis, because to a certain degree this should occur between domestic animals and ourselves.... |
| |
| [95-96] ...Number and extension, despite their abstractness, arise from the nature of the real | | | | NB |
| because reality is multiplicity and extension, and because relations in space are real relations arising from the nature of things . | | | | Compare 93-94 ! |
| |
| In that case, does it not appear that extremely important conclusions could be deduced from these initial propositions? Scientific abstraction was often considered synonymous with non-reality. Increased abstractness would then signify con- tinual movement beyond the limits of the real, further and further removal from it. Is that cor- rect? Mathematics, in progressively moving away from sensuous space in order to rise to geometrical space, does not become removed from real space, i.e., from the real relations between things . Rather does it come closer to them. According to the data of modern psychology, each of our senses seems to give us extension and duration (i.e., definite connections and relations of the real) in its own fashion . Perception begins to eliminate this subjec- tivity which depends on the individual or on accidental peculiarities of the structure of the species: it builds up a homogeneous and uniform space, as well as a uniform duration—those syn- theses of all our various sensuous notions of space. |
| Why should not scientific work pursue this progress towards objectivity ? In any case, its strictness, its | | | NB |
| exactitude, its universality (or its necessity, they are one and the same) are so many arguments in favour of the objectivity of its results . Consequently number, order and extension, in spite of our critical and subjective habits of thought, can he regarded as properties of things, i.e., real relations;—the more real because science has gradually freed them from the individual and subjective distortions, with which they were originally presented to us in concrete and immediate sensations. Should we not, therefore, rightly consider that what re- mains after all these abstractions is the real and permanent content, which imposes itself on every |
| species with equal necessity, for it depends neither on the individual nor the moment of time, nor the point of view ?... | | | NB |
| |
| § 10. WHAT DOES MATHEMATICS TEACH US? |
| [97]...Psychology, for its part, teaches that all our sensations (which are the direct and ultimate data of experience ) possess one property: extensiveness | | | | sensation = the ultimate |
| or extension. This property is totally unlike geometrical extension, particularly if we consider the sensations that affect us most.... [98]...Geometrical space is the result of an abstract interpretation of optical space, which de-individualises, generalises, and makes more manageable for the mind the relations implied by |
| this optical space. We would willingly supplement | | | | | | )) |
| Mach’s thought by saying that the aim of this operation has been to give these relations their most exact and precise expression, a universal | | | | | | Mach + objectivity |
| and necessary expression, hence their objective expression. Thus geometrical space is the outcome | | | | | | )) |
| of an evolution, which has made our thought increasingly better adapted to certain properties of the environment. This was a prolonged and con- tinuous experience, the success of which has cons- tantly strengthened certain habits of thought that have become the principles of our geometry.... [100]...Thus, what mathematics teaches us are the relations between things from the point of view of order, number and extension . By analysing the real relations that exist be- tween things, our mind naturally acquires the capacity to form similar relations from them, thanks to associations by resemblance. It can, therefore, also imagine combinations which are not found in reality; basing itself on those which |
| are found in it. After having formed conceptions that are copies of the real , we can form ideas that are models, as Taine says, in a slightly different | | | !!! |
| sense. § 11. RÉSUMÉ AND CONCLUSIONS [103-105]...Absolute rationalism would seem to have sufficiently good grounds for asserting, by a kind of idealist realism, that the laws of reason coincide with the laws of things. But is it not at all wrong in separating reason from things, and in thinking that reason by itself alone, in splendid |
| isolation, obtains cognition of the laws that govern things? It would have to be admitted, then, that | | | | NB |
| by virtue of some sort of agreement or miraculous grace, we possess intuitive knowledge of these laws or at least a germ of it. Revived in this way, the Platonic myth of reminiscence seems to be an extremely gratuitous and extremely uneconomical hypothesis. |
| |
| Yes, the analysis of reason becomes co-extens- ive with the analysis of nature . Yes, mathematics, in being concerned with the former, is at the same time concerned with the latter, or, if you prefer, | | | | NB |
| provides some of the elements necessary for the latter. But is it not simpler to suppose that this is because our psychological activity is gradually formed through adaptation to the environment and to the practical conditions in which it has to be exercised?... Hence, despite very great differences between absolute rationalism and the theory outlined here on the question of genesis and history, we reach, on the other hand, very similar conclusions on the |
| question of the value and scope of mathematics: this value and this scope are absolute , in the human sense of the word. As regards the superhuman sense | | | | | | |
| and a transcendental point of view, I confess that I have not yet unearthed the secret of it, and am |
| very little concerned to do so. The possibility of attaining human understanding of things and of translating them truthfully into human language is enough for me.... Is not this conclusion superficial and too petty? |
| In my view, pragmatism goes to the other extreme, diametrically opposed to that of traditional ration- alism . The latter took the end point for the point | | | | golden mean!! |
| of departure and transferred the properties of the result to the beginning. Pragmatism, on the con- trary, approximates the end point to the point of departure to the extent of confusing the two and ascribes to the result the properties of the beginning. Is it not more rational to think that mathematics, after emerging from a utilitarian anthropomor- phism, gradually burst through the subjective limits of this initial horizon? By constantly improv- |
| ing its analysis, it arrived at certain real, objective universal and necessary relations of things. |
| |
| [107]... It has its foundation in the nature of things , just like our reason and our logic, of which | | | | | | )) |
| it is a particular application and which are basically formed in a similar fashion. It does not matter what path has been taken to arrive at reality if , by investigating it more and more closely, we finally envelop it from all sides. CHAPTER   III THE PROBLEM OF MATTER § I. THE HISTORY AND PRESENT STATUS OF THE PRODLEM OF MATTER [l09-110]...First of all, after the failures of the “physicist” philosophers, the great philosophical |
| tradition of the Greeks, headed by the Eleatics and Plato throws doubt on the very existence of | | | | NB |
| matter. Matter is only appearance or, at any rate, the barest minimum of existence; the science of material things, in its turn, can only be a purely relative science, and there is no true science but that of spiritual things. Thus the problem of matter begins to be solved by suppressing the problem itself. Matter can only exist as the indefinable boundary of the mind and as a function of the |
| mind, and everything relating to matter is of a lower order.... | | | NB |
| |
| [111]...Thus disputes about the reality of the external world, idealism, spiritualism, material- ism, mechanism, dynamism, increasingly appear | | | | | | |
| to be an outdated and sterile game which must be left to classic philosophy, understanding this expression in the sense in which Taine did, philos- ophy for the classroom.... | | | | | | |
| |
| [113]... Vulgar materialism borrows from it [physics] all that is basic, as well as all that is exaggerated and monstrous in it. What a lucky chance for the religious spirit, if it can show that | | | | NB |
| physics knows nothing about the things on which it allows us to act, and that its explanations are not explanations at all! | | | | | | )) |
| |
| § 2. THE CRISIS IN PHYSICS AT THE END OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: ENERGETISTIC PHYSICS In point of fact, at the time when this philo- sophical hope was horn and growing strong in the minds of educated and sincere believers, every- |
| thing in physics seemed destined to justify and realise it . | | | NB |
| |
| [114]...The new physics, energetistic physics, come into opposition with this traditional mecha- |
| nistic physics. “ Come into opposition” —is this phrase quite correct? As regards a large number of physicists, one would be tempted to say, rather: “is used interchangeably” (according to the case in hand) with the mechanistic method. |
| |
| [115-116] Indeed, energy is nothing but the ability to perform work, it is a mechanical concept and can always be measured mechanically , i.e., | | | | | | )) |
| with the aid of motion and the science of motion. Helmholtz, Gibbs and many others by no means broke with the mechanistic tradition when they added to mechanics the next chapter, generalising it in its application to physical realities. They |
| wished for nothing more, and in fact they did nothing more than correct and further develop mechanical conception in line with the progress | | | NB |
| of physics, as had always been done since the time of Galileo and Descartes. Side by side with the principles of mechanics and within the mechanical interpretation of reality, they put forward the principle of the conservation of force or of energy, the principle of Carnot and the principle of least action, one which had already played an important role since the time of Maupertuis. Thus, the word “energetics” has primarily the meaning which makes it part of the science of physics, as recognised by all scientists. Let us add that in France this part of physics is more usually called thermodynamics , and although, etymological- ly, this word has too restricted a meaning for the |
| | | | ! |
| The second use of this word relates not to a part of physics, but to a general theory of physics as a whole.... [117]...This law was not incompatible with the mechanical conception. The latter had good reasons for claiming that the different manifesta- tions of energy were basically only different |
| appearances caused by one and the same basic reality—motion .... |
| |
| [120-122]...But if everything can be reduced to the principles of classical mechanics, then, in the opinion of the energeticists there was no explana- tion for this increasing waste of force, this diminu- tion of usable energy. Nature ought to be capable of going back, as it were, and endlessly recommenc- ing the same cycle of transformations; for classical mechanics is essentially the science of reversible transformations, for which time is of no account, and which, like happy peoples, have no history. In reality, however, the systems would be no hap- pier than peoples. They would all the same have a history. That is why certain physicists have refused to regard physics simply as the continua- tion of classical mechanics. They have wanted to throw off the yoke of tradition, finding it, like all good revolutionaries, too narrow and too tyranni- cal. Hence the trivial criticism and later the revi- sion of the basic principles of mechanics. From these efforts there arose a new conception of physics, perhaps not so much in opposition to the former, as was sometimes asserted, but in any case con- taining profound modifications. In general it can be said that, finding classical mechanics to he an insufficient basis for physics, |
| the latter has ceased to see in physical phenomena that which until then was always seen in them: the various kinds of motion, forming precisely the science of classical mechanics. Until then, to | | | | NB |
| explain a physical phenomenon, to study it, meant reducing it to forms of motion: the motion of |
| material masses, of atoms, or vibrations of the universal transmitting medium—the ether . Thus, | | | NB |
| every physical explanation could be represented diagrammatically with the aid of the geometry of motion. |
| |
| The new conception, which, it was proposed, should replace the former, consisted in the first place in the absolute rejection of all the figurative representations, of those “mechanical models,” as the English say, without which at one time there | | | | | | |
| was no real physics. Mach severely accuses them of being nothing but “mythology .” Like all mythol- ogy, it is childish; it could be useful when we did not know how to look at things directly; but he who can walk without crutches is not likely to |
| make use of them. Let us throw away the crutches of atomism and vortices in the ether. Having | | | | !! |
| reached the age of maturity, physics no longer has need of crude images for worshipping its gods. The ahstract language of mathematics is alone capable of suitably expressing the results of expe- rience. It alone will be able to tell us what actually is, without adding and concealing anything, with the strictest accuracy. Magnitudes, defined algeb- raically and not geometrically, and even less mechanically, numerical variations measured with the aid of a conventional scale, and no longer perceptible changes measured by displacements in space in relation to a local origin—there you have the materials of the new physics: conceptual |
| physics in opposition to mechanistic or figurative physics.... | | | NB |
| |
| [123]... This new general theory of physics , which Rankin already had in mind in 1855, was |
| elaborated particularly by Mach, Ostwald and | | | | NB |
| Duhem. “The aim of every science is to replace experience by the shortest possible operations |
| of the mind,” says Mach; this formula could be the motto of scientific energetics.... |
| |
| § 3. THE PHILOSOPHICAL INTERPRETATION OF ENERGETICS [127]... It is clear how philosophy, desiring to |
| silence the arguments drawn from science against certain particular dogmas and against the religious standpoint in general, could use this ingenious interpretation. Do you put forward certain physical | | | | NB |
| truths in opposition to certain beliefs? Well, the new physics desires only one thing, to return to the ideas of the great epoch of faith. After the stormy onslaught of three centuries, it returns, like a new prodigal son, to the paternal bosom of the most orthodox Thomism. What is the most serious of all is that a scientist renowned for the mathematical precision and ele- gance of his works, particularly known for his active propagation of the new physics, for the limpid, admirably French form in which he has expounded it, and for his splendid generalisations in the sphere of energetistic mechanics—this scien- |
| tist himself considered it possible to align himself with this philosophical interpretation of the new scientific theories. We refer to Duhem. Of course, | | | | !! |
| in doing so he has tried carefully to draw a strict line between his scientific and his metaphysical conceptions.... [130]...Developing this point of view, the new philosophy could almost immediately deduce from the contemporary attempts at reforming physics the purely descriptive character of this physics, which made no pretence of explaining anything. |
| And this played into the hands of “fideism.” Science | | | NB |
| is powerless to go beyond the limit of qualities; therefore it has to restrict itself to describing them. It has to be a simple analysis of sensations, to use Mach’s expression which, however, our new philos- ophy fears to borrow from him in its true sense, which is of a completely “scientific-like” character. [131-134]... In contemporary literature , one can quite often encounter ideas of this kind in exposi- |
| tions varying considerably in quality: | the sciences of matter tell us nothing about the real, for matter, as they understand it, matter itself, in the popular sense of the word, does not exist . Simple, everyday | | | | NB |
| perception already distorts external reality. It builds it up wholly according to the requirements of our activity. Science then further processes these raw materials. What it shows us under the name of matter is only a rough scheme in which all the living wealth of the real is lost through the sieve of scientific laws, or a heterogeneous mixture of abstract elements, arbitrarily isolated or com- bined, and entirely fabricated by us. Thus the road lies open for justifying the most mystical forms of idealism .... Without dwelling on these extreme misconcep- tions one can nevertheless note that even among serious and well-informed thinkers there remains |
| a tendency to apply to the physical sciences a crit- icism analogous to that which Poincaré applied | | | NB |
| to the mathematical sciences, despite the energetic protestations of Poincaré himself. From this point of view physics, like mathematics, is a symbolic language , intended simply to make things more intelligible, by making them simpler and clearer, more communicable and, above all, more flexible in practice. To make something intelligible evi- dently means systematically to distort and alter the ideas we obtain directly from reality, in order to be able to make better use of the latter for satisfying our needs. |
| |
| Intelligibility , rationality have nothing to do with the nature of things. They are merely instru- | | | | NB |
| ments of action. Moreover, every new discovery seems to directly contradict our reason, for it upsets our old habits. The mind has to adapt itself to it (just as the body first has to learn to ride a bicycle), for the new law in its turn to appear to us as rational, arising from our apparent need of intelligibility. We grossly deceive ourselves when we think that this arbitrary symbolism teaches us anything that could satisfy our pure curiosity, our need for disinterested knowledge. For knowledge, for cognition in the full sense of the word, it is necessary to turn elsewhere.... § 4. CRITIQUE OF CONTEMPORARY CRITICISM OF PHYSICS |
| Although the attitude of the vast majority of physicists to this interpretation of physical science has been one of silence or contempt , it cannot be | | | | NB |
| disregarded by philosophical criticism. Though scientists have the right to say: the dogs bark, the caravan goes on, philosophical criticism which is necessarily interested in the social and educa- tional significance of doctrines, is compelled to stop and take notice. |
| |
| [136-138]...The majority of the adherents of the new philosophy have addressed themselves exclu- sively to the scientists, supporters of energetistic physics and resolute opponents of mechanistic physics. But among physicists, the extreme sup- | | NB |
| porters of energetistic physics are altogether a small minority. In the main, physicists continue to be mechanistic; of course, they are changing their mechanical conceptions in order to bring them into accord with the nexv discoveries, for they are | | | | | | |
| not scholastics. But they always seek to depict and explain physical phenomena with the aid of movements open to sensuous perception. On the other hand, it should not be forgotten that, while energetics has produced a number of |
| elegant theories and expositions, almost all the great discoveries of recent times are due to mecha- nistic physicists and are connected with attempts to present a picture of the material structure of phenomena. It is worth giving some thought to this circumstance. |
| |
| In order to provide theoretical physics with geometrical rigour, energetics decided to make it |
| simply a more concise and economically-worded exposition of experimental data; but can the theory of physics be reduced to a mere instrument of economically-worded exposition? Can it totally | | | | | | |
| ban hypotheses from a science that has always been made fertile by hypotheses? Should it not con- stantly orientate itself for the discovery of the real with the help of theories which, like the mechanis- tic theories, are always anticipations of experience, attempts to obtain a clear idea of the real? Does it not follow then that to construct the philosophy of physics by relying exclusively on purely energetistic physics amounts to a peculiar narrowing of the basis on which this philosophy |
| should be built? The new philosophy in essence turns for confirmation of its ideas only to those who can be well disposed towards it, and tbey are only a small minority. This is a convenient ruse, but a ruse nevertheless. |
| |
| Besides, are they a vourably inclined towards it as it imagines? This is more than doubtful. Almost all the scientists appealed to by pragmatism or so-called nominalism have made serious reservations, includ- ing Poincaré. Let us now turn to them. § 5. WHAT CONTEMPORARY PHYSICISTS THINK [138]...Thus, physics is a science of the real, and even if it seeks to express this reality in a “con- venient” fashion, it is nevertheless always reality that it expresses. The “convenience” is only in the means of expression. What is concealed behind these means of expression which the mind can vary in searching always for the most convenient, is the “necessity” of the laws of nature. This neces- |
| sity is not arbitrarily decreed by the mind. On the contrary, it constrains the mind, confines its means of expression within narrow limits. Within the limits close to the approximations of experi- |
| ence, and the small differences which physical phe- nomena, governed by one and the same law, retain because they are never identical, but only very |
| similar—within these limits the law of nature is dictated to us from outside and by things them- selves: it expresses a real relation between things . [139]...Duhem will say, too, that one should |
| not take the experience of the physicist as a copy of reality. Every physical experiment consists of measurements, and these measurements presuppose | | | | | | |
| a multitude of conventions and theories.... [140]...Duhem will never deny this truth to the propositions of physics: they are the description of reality. Moreover, physical theory is not only an exact description of the real, it is a well-arranged description, for it always strives for a natural classification of physical phenomena— a natural |
| classification, hence one which reproduces the order of nature. No dogmatist, whether Descartes, Newton or Hegel, has ever demanded more.... | | | | ha-ha!! |
| |
| [141]...Moreover, even if the latter [Dubem] |
| believes in the necessity for metaphysics side by side with science, then why does be adhere to Thomist metaphysics? Because it seems to him |
| that it is in better agreement with the results of physical science.... |
| |
| [142-143]... Ostwald’s “scientism” is very close to that of the great Viennese mechanist, Mach, who on these grounds even refuses to be called | | | | | | |
| a philosopher. |
| |
| Sensation is absolute. Through our sensations we cognise reality. But science is the analysis of our | | | NB |
| sensations. To analyse sensations is to discover the exact relations between them, in short, to |
| discover the order of nature, giving this expression its most objective sense , for the order of nature is | | | | NB |
| nothing but the order of our sensations.... |
| [144]... In the criticisms of Mach by the rational- ists, he was sometimes reproached for a tendency towards pragmatism. He was accused of sceptical relativism. Is it because this brilliant historian of science often traces for us its humble beginnings | | | | NB |
| in the primitive arts of our ancestors? After all, these were only a first attempt at adaptation. To give it a precise evaluation, it is necessary to take a look at the result, at the final point reached. Or is it because his biological theory of science makes truth into human truth? But human truth remains truth; moreover, it is the only truth for man. Sensation is evidently something human. |
| Nevertheless it is the absolute, and human truth |
| is absolute truth, because for man it is the whole truth and the only truth, the necessary truth. The properties of man and the universe being what they are, it is based on the nature of things. It is, in human terms, the cognition of everything that exists.... [147]...It is possible to imagine the existence of microbes even though they were invisible up to |
| the moment when some reagent reveals them. Why then should we not have the right to imagine matter as having a certain structure, which expe- rience will some day reveal ? |
| |
| § 6. MATTER ACCORDING TO CONTEMPORARY PHYSICS: GENERAL REVIEW [148]...In that case what is the sense of the cam- paign begun by Brunetière and continued by reli- gious-minded people, who were certainly sincere but who desired to destroy everything that could be a stumbling-block; a campaign which, if it did not lead to pragmatism, at any rate led to some definite form of pragmatism?... [149-150]...Just as in mathematics we use terms of order, number and extension to denote certain groups of relations on which our sensations depend, and just as mathematics takes these relations for |
| its subject, so, further, we denote by the extremely general name of “matter” a very large number of relations —far more complex— on which our sensa- tions also depend. Physics makes a study of these | | | NB |
| relations. This is all we wish to express when we say that physics is the science of matter.... [152]...To many people it might seem natural that physics should have as its subject the elements capable of entering into these relations and giving them a real content, and filling them up as it were. This was Spencer’s idea in his classification of the sciences. However, this idea cannot be considered a happy one. We register the elements of reality directly, immediately, just as they are, and as they cannot help being. Their existence requires no justification. One cannot ask whether it is possible for them to be |
| other than they are. To assert that would mean restoring the old metaphysical idol of the thing-in- itself, i.e., in essence, idle verbalism in one form or another. Experience should be simply accepted. It is its own justification, because in the scientific sphere it is for the positive mind the justification of every proposition. | | | | NB The es- sence of Rey’s agnosti- cism |
| |
| [154-155]...Is then agnostic criticism of science |
| correct? And is there a thing-in-itself which is out of the reach of science? etc., etc. Here, surely, we have metaphysics and its inevitable playing with words! Let us try to see clearly into this matter. If the relative signifies something that deals with relations , then physics is relative . But if the relative means something that has not penetrated to the | | | | NB |
| basis of things, then physics, as we understand it, is not relative, but absolute, because the basis of things, that at which analysis inevitably ar- rives in order to explain them, consists of relations or, rather, the system of relations on which our |
| sensations depend. Sensations, the given, are permeated with subjectivity: these fleeting, lightn- ing flashes are what they are made by a system of relations which will probably never be repeated in exactly the same form and which determines my state and the state of the environment at the moment under consideration. But here the scientist steps in to separate out the universal which is part of the composition of the individual moment, | | | | | | |
| those laws of which it is the complex expression, those relations which made it what it is. All scientific laws in effect tell us why and how the given thing is what it is, by what it was condi- tioned and created, because they analyse the rela- tions on which it depends. And they will reveal |
| to us absolute human truth , [4] when this analysis | | | | ha-ha! |
| has been completed, if ever it can be. § 7. THE CONCRETE DATA OF CONTEMPORARY PHYSICS [156-157]...All the relations on which the trans- formation and reduction, the diffusion or dispersion of energy, depend are grouped in the general physical theory called energetics. |
| This theory tells us nothing about the nature of the energies considered and, consequently, about the nature of physico-chemical phenomena . It simply describes how, at the expense of what, and | | | NB |
| in what direction, physical or chemical changes of the state of a given body take place. The energeticists claim that it is not possible to go further, that energetics gives us the complete, necessary and sufficient explanation of material phenomena, that is to say, the sum-total of the |
| relations on which they depend. In order to give more objectivity to their view, some even raise energy to a sort of substance which is alleged to be the true material substance, the real and acting cause of all our sensations, the model according to which we should build our idea of nature. | | | an amusing fellow, this “positivist” |
| |
| Here energy takes the, place of the corpuscles of the atomic theories. It plays the same role and has the same kind of existence: it is the basis of things, their final nature, the absolute. Accord- ing to Ostwald, for example, the description of the transformations of energy gives us absolute knowl- edge of the material universe. “When you are struck with a stick, what do you feel: the stick or its energy?” Energy—that is the substantial reality which lurks beneath all material phenom- ena... |
| |
| [158]... The mechanists claim, on the other hand, that it is possible to proceed further. Energetics, in their opinion, remains as it were on the surface of things, but its laws should either be reduceable to other, more profound, laws or, at any rate, supplement them, by presuming their existence. | | | | Mechanists versus ener- getics. NB. Plus loin [5] than mate- rialistically interpreted (p. 157) ener- getics! |
| |
| As already said, the vast majority of physicists , and particularly the experimental physicists to whom physics owes its latest successes, belong to the mechanistic school. |
| |
| The supporters of this school criticise in the first place the conception of energy and show that one cannot raise it, as some people do, to a physical or metaphysical entity. The energy of a system signifies only the capa- city of the system to perform work: potential when it does not result in detectable work, actual or kinetic in the opposite case. Consequently, the concept of energy is co-relative with the concept |
| of work, which is a mechanical concept. Hence, it does not seem possible to represent energy exper- imentally without turning to mechanics and motion . But, in that case, to provide an intelligible |
| explanation of physico-chemical phenomena, should not energetics be joined with mechanics, be estab- lished as its continuation and, consequently, be reconciled with the consideration of mechanical ideas?... [159-161]...From this point of view, mechanics, physics and chemistry form a vast theoretical system, and mechanics represents the fundamental |
| basis of this system, just as motion is the ultimate essence of physico-chemical phenomena. |
| |
| Of course, modern mechanists no longer claim that the mechanics of today, any more than the laws governing transformations of energy, have reached their final form, that science has found its unshakable foundation. Having encountered |
| the criticism of the energeticists— and that is one of the advances which modern physics certainly owes to it—they abandoned the rather narrow dogmatism of the old mechanistic and atomic views. They think that the new discoveries should |
| broaden the scientific horizon and introduce cons- tant changes in the idea of the external world. Have we not been witnessing during the last fifty years the reconstruction, almost the overthrow, of classical mechanics? The old framework was smashed first of all by the principle of the conserva- tion of energy (Helmholtz) and Carnot’s principle. The phenomena of radioactivity, which allowed us to penetrate more deeply into the nature of the atom, led to the idea of the possibility of an electri- |
| cal structure of matter and of the necessity of sup- plementing the principles of classical mechanics by those of electro-magnetism. | | | | NB |
| |
| Indeed, the mechanistic viewpoint now tends |
| to adopt the form which is termed the electron theory . Electrons are the ultimate elements of all physical reality. Simple electrical charges, or else modifications of the ether, symmetrically | | | | The electron theory = “mechanism” |
| distributed around one point, by virtue of the laws of the electro-magnetic field, perfectly represent inertia, i.e., the basic property of matter. The latter, therefore, is nothing but a system of elec- trons. Depending on the nature of the modifica- tions of the ether ( modifications as yet unknown ) electrons are positive or negative; a material atom consists of an equal quantity of each of them, or at least possesses positive and negative charges of equal size, the positive charge apparently occupying the centre of the system. The negative |
| electrons, or perhaps only part of them, revolve round the remainder like planets round the sun. |
| Thus, molecular and atomic forces are only mani- festations of the movement of electrons, just like the various forms of energy (light, electricity, heat). |
| |
| Hence, the remarkable conclusion: the concept of the conservation of mass (or of the quantity of matter), which, together with the concept of inertia, formed the basis of mechanics, cannot, apparently, be retained in electro-magnetic mechan- |
| ics: gravitational mass remains constant only at moderate velocities , less than one-tenth of that |
| of light; but, being a function of velocity, it increases together with it, and the more rapidly |
| the closer we approach the velocity of light. This hypothesis presupposes either the existence of various electrical charges and the ether, or the ether alone, of which the electron is only a modifi- cation. Finally, at the present time, the works of Dr. Le Bon [6] and certain English physicists lead us, apparently, to the conclusion that neither the quantity of matter nor even the quantity of energy remains constant. They are both only relations depending on the state of the ether and on its motion. [7] [163-171]...Today nothing remains, nor should anything remain, of this idea. We have arrived |
| at the diametrically opposite viewpoint. All physicists are prepared to revise the fundamental principles of their science or to restrict their application as soon as new experimental data |
| provide the necessary motive for doing so. The experimental method consists in rising from particular facts to general laws, and from the latter to still more general laws, constantly deepening the nature of the given thing by this ascending movement. It deduces particular laws from general laws in its systematising theories only to the extent that it encounters these general laws on its path; and it encounters them by means of particular experiments and by hypotheses which these experiments are called upon to ver- ify. But should it be concluded from this that |
| physicists thereby abandon the hope of arriving at basic principles and increasingly deep-seated elements that will explain and embrace an ever | | | | | | |
| greater part of the given thing? Such a conclusion, even though it opposes the mistake of the ancient mechanists, would he a no less dangerous error. The present-day spirit of the physico-chemical sciences, the scientific modern spirit, is not such as to retreat before the unknown. It advances more and more boldly towards conquest of it, but by increasingly reliable methods. The stability of the principles of physics will be assured only at the end of the task. That is why we are witness- ing today, and will witness more than once again, so many revolutions produced in former, or in future, ideas by the unforeseen discoveries which have already thrown light on the path or |
| are destined to do so in the future. Progressive physicists, as we have seen, are no longer frightened by doubt being cast on the principles of the conservation of mass or of gravitational |
| matter. |
| |
| Truth is not given ready-made; every day something more is added to it. That is the con- clusion which should be constantly repeated. Thanks to scientific work, our mind daily becomes | | | | | | Agnosticism = shamefaced materialism [8] |
| adapted more closely to its subject, penetrating more deeply into it. The assertions which we |
| believed we could put forward after studying the mathematical sciences present themselves here, too, in an almost necessary way, and at least in a very natural way. Every moment scientific progress establishes between things and ourselves a conformity which is at once closer and deeper. We are comprehending more and better. And we invariably see that a result established by scien- tific experiment, i.e., carried through methodically, may no longer, in the light of new results, have the same degree of importance but yet continues to exist by itself, intact and indelible, eternal as truth, for it is a truth. He who would claim that this effort is fruitless, or that it will always be only strictly limited, is very daring and is refuted in advance by everything that the history of science reveals to us. The dispute between energeticists and mecha- nists, a dispute often extremely lively, particularly on the part of the energeticists, is properly only a moment of the progress of the physico-chemical sciences and, moreover, a necessary moment. Far from breaking the unity of development which all historians have noted in these sciences, it would rather seem to have its natural place there, like the old disputes between Cartesians and atomists, between Cartesians and Newtonians or Leibnitzians, between the kineticists and the dynamists. And just as in the case of the old theoretical disputes, the encounter between the two great contemporary theories or, better still, their parallel development, has rather had fruitful results. It has promoted the forward movement of science. In the first place, energetics has put us on our guard against certain abuses of mechanist models, |
| against the temptation of taking these models for objective reality. Further, it has deepened thermo- |
| dynamics and shown very well the universal significance of its basic laws which, instead of being restricted to researches relating to heat, have a legitimate and necessary application to the whole field of the physico-chemical sciences. By extending the scope of these laws, energetics has greatly contributed to making their formulas more exact. More than this, while energetics has shown itself to be less fruitful than mechanism, from the viewpoint of discoveries, it nevertheless always represents a splendid instrument of exposi- tion—sober, elegant and logical. Finally, and |
| this is particularly notable in such chemists as Van’t Hoff, Van der Waals and Nernst, but is |
| more and more frequently encountered also among the pbysicists, both theories are readily accepted; in each case that theory which best lends itself to the investigation is selected. They are used concurrently; scientists start out from the general equations of mechanics or from the general equa- tions of thermodynamics, depending on whether the path thus followed appears simpler or more successful. The point is that physical theories are essentially hypotheses, instruments of investiga- tion and exposition, or organisation. They are forms, frameworks, which have to be filled in by the results of experiment. And it is these results alone that constitute the true, real content of the physical sciences. It is on these that all physicists agree, and their constantly increasing quantity, ever more con- current and harmonious, characterises the prog- ress of physics, its unity and its lasting nature. They are the touchstone of the theories and hypo- theses which served to discover them and which endeavour to organise them, while respecting |
| their real affinities, reproducing as closely as possible the order of nature. And these theories, although they are always hypothetical and, it follows, are always losing something—at times |
| a great deal—to the extent that experience brings us new discoveries, never, however, die completely. They become integrated by becoming transformed into more comprehensive, more adequate, new theories. It was so with the Cartesian theory and with the atomic theory and, from the latter, with Newton’s theory. Evidently it will be so with energetics and the old mechanism. And are not the kinetic hypotheses of the present day preparing for this integration and this reconcilia- tion? “The chronicler should note the fact that the majority of modern results in the field of physical chemistry were achieved by means of a successful combination of thermodynamic methods and the views of the molecular theory, in exactly the same way as the creators of the modern theory of heat simultaneously devoted their best efforts to the development of atomistics, in particular the kinetic theory. “...We should regard, as an outstanding result |
| of the latter, the transference of atomistics to the science of electricity.... Through this marvellous widening of its horizon, atomistics threw a totally | | | | NB |
| new light on a number of physical and chemical processes....” [9] § 8. RÉSUMÉ AND CONCLUSIONS If the unknown is boundless, it would neverthe- less be wrong in our day to call it incognisable, as was done a few years ago. The repeated and irreparable setbacks of metaphysical attempts led physics to constitute |
| itself as a science by resolutely eliminating the | | | | | | ? |
| problem of matter . Thereafter it sought only the laws of individual phenomena. This was “ physics without matter. ” But the growing successes due to |
| this new method permit us, it seems, to assert today, contrary to the too narrow positivism of the Auguste Comte kind, that it changed only the method and not the subject or significance of physics. Instead of approaching the problem of matter in all its generality and from its most difficult and basic sides, it approached it, on the contrary, through superficial details and from the most accessible side. This was putting common sense before audacious pride. Common sense was rewarded, for nowadays, as a result of so much work in approaching, we are beginning to compre- hend the problem in all its generality and in all its depth. In conformity with history, invariably repeated by the human mind ever since it has been striving to know things, science has taken a new subject of study from the world of metaphysical chimeras. |
| The nature of matter is no longer a metaphysical problem because it is becoming a problem of an experimental and positive order. True, this problem | | | NB |
| has not been solved scientifically; there is still room for many surprises; but one thing now seems certain: it is science and not metaphysics that will solve it. Furthermore, I think, and I have tried in another place to demonstrate it, that kinetic ideas will always be closely linked with the progress of physics, because they constitute an eminently useful, if not indispensable instrument of discovery, and because they are best adapted to the conditions |
| of our knowledge. That is why I see the future of physics in the continuation of mechanistic theories. | | | NB |
| That is why I have just said that the energetics theory will probably be absorbed, as was the old mechanism, into a kinetic theory which is more flexible and stricter from the viewpoint of the admission of hypotheses. But mechanistic hypo- theses, despite the repugnance felt for them by abstract minds too preoccupied with mathematical rigour, will probably always remain necessary for the progress of physics, because they are hypotheses, while the deliberate aim of the energetics theory is to exclude hypotheses. More than this: they are hypotheses that above all appear capable of becoming the object of experiments, because they are expressed in objective terms, in terms of per- ceptions, which if not real are at any rate possible. Indeed, science cannot do without guiding hypo- theses. CHAPTER   IV THE PROBLEM OF LIFE § 1. HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION [173-174]...With the problem of life we come to the basic differences which can separate philos- ophy from science. Up to now the argument has been, one might say, above all theoretical. The majority of the philosophers worthy of the name admit that, practically speaking, scientific results are valid for matter. If from the speculative point of view they were able to raise some objections to this validity, they nevertheless recognise that everything takes place as though the conclusions of science were, if not based on right, at least |
| applicable in fact to material reality . To some | | | NB |
| extent this reality can be expressed by mathematic- al, mechanical and physico-chemical relations. For matter, therefore, geometrism and mechanism remain a good formula for study.... [177] Animism , which was in former times partly supported by Plato and Aristotle, considers that all the phenomena of life are due to a rational force, hence to the soul. In contradistinction to the Greek physicians who sought the causes of health or sickness (the theory of humours) in the data of observation, in contradistinction to Descartes who absolutely separates the thinking soul from organic and material facts, Leibnitz and particularly Stahl support the view that the inner life processes, although they have nothing in common with conscious and rational actions, are nonetheless manifestations of the soul. Barthez and the Montpellier school, persisting in the belief that the phenomena of life can be due |
| only to a special cause, refer them to a vital force distinct both from material forces and the soul: hence the name vitalism [10] given to this theory.... |
| |
| § 3. THE DEMARCATION LINE BETWEEN MECHANISM AND NEO-VITALISM [189-190] If we try in some way to synthesise neo-vitalism according to its chief representatives, scientists or philosophers, it seems we arrive at |
| the following: the criticism which the neo-vitalists make of biological mechanism is closely linked with that which the pragmatist, anti-intellectual- ist or agnostic philosophies made of the mathe- matical and physico-chemical sciences. It appears | | | | NB |
| to us that we change the problem when we pass from matter to life. Essentially, we are once more faced, as we surmised at the outset, with the same basic problem, and that problem is again the problem of the value of science insofar as it is knowledge. Only the particular terms in which it is essentially raised are changed. With what, in fact, did the new philosophy reproach the mathematical or physico-chemical sciences? With being an arbitrary and utilitarian symbolism created for the practical requirements of our mind, our reason, which are faculties of action and not of cognition. Thus, when we extend the physico-chemical method to biological facts we naturally also transfer in the results that it allows us to attain the consequences it implies, as regards the value of these results. Hence the physico- chemical mechanism will be an excellent formula for giving us a practical grasp of living things; |
| it will be totally powerless to enlighten us as to what life itself is. As with the physico-chemical sciences in the sphere of matter, physico-chemical | | | NB |
| mechanism in the sphere of life will allow us to act, but never to know.... |
| |
| [192-194] ...The neo-Thomists restore force, aspi- ration, desire in matter, re-animate it with the |
| spirit, although heathen, of hylozoism, from which the Greeks, and in particular Aristotle, seem never to have fully departed. Incidentally they distort the Hellenic doctrine. For them matter has no other activity but the force which the creator put into it: the memory, so to speak, of its creation and the indelible impression of it which it bears. Hence its activity is not essential but borrowed, it is creative only by authorisation. But precisely thanks to that, it does not escape at all from the complete grasp of mechanism. Moreover, the nominalists, who have a close affinity to this neo-scholastic movement, [11] and the pragmatists, pursuing a regular flirtation with these philosophies of belief (all too often one has rather to call them philosophies of believers), considered that they had the right to say that the content of their subject is not exhausted by the sciences of matter. In order truly to know, it is necessary “to proceed further.” A fortiori, will they support the view that when we approach life the limits of science become still more re- stricted? Physico-chemical mechanism will be applicable only to the material conditions of life, but not to life itself. To sum up, for the pure disciples of Bergson it will be all the material conditions of life, only these, but all of them, that mechanism will be able to attain. For the others, it will not even be all the material conditions of life, but, insofar as matter is already to a certain degree living and stamped with finality, only that which is mechani- cal and inert that we can abstract from it, only that which we can adapt from it for our practical needs. And these formulas can already serve for answering the question that has been raised and for fixing exactly the part of vitalism in mechan- ism. Is it not possible to find a more expressive formula of demarcation? For the vitalist life plays the part of a creative force; but precisely because it depends besides on material conditions, it is not at all a creation ex nihilo. As a result of its operation it will certainly give something new and unpredictable, hut in order to arrive at that, it will operate on pre-existing elements which it will have combined, and above all starting from |
| pre-existing elements to which it will have added. The mutations observed by the botanist De Vries who, as a mechanist, interprets them differently would here be the manifestation itself and the proof of these creative additions. | | | | NB |