Part 8 (1/2)

Thus phenomena and law are the raw material out of which ”values” are created; and these ”values” themselves const.i.tute (in the eyes of Lotze) a higher reality. Thus the central doctrine of his system is that the truly Real is what has supreme worth: it is _worth_ that creates reality. The paradoxicality of this may make it difficult to accept; but Lotze is only expressing in his own way the fundamental thesis of all forms of idealism, that ”the ideal is the real”; that the world of phenomena is secondary to and dependent upon a ”world of spirit,” or an ”ideal world.”

Lotze himself in the introduction to the _Microcosmos_, expresses what is at once the foundation and the kernel of his system: he says it is his purpose to show ”_how absolutely universal is the extent_, and at the same time how _completely subordinate the significance, of the mission which mechanism has to fulfil in the structure of the world_.”

(E.T., p. xvi.)

Mechanism is universal, _because_ it is the raw material, so to speak, out of which reality is to be made. That reality can be expressed in terms of mechanism is true, just as a poem can be described as a sc.r.a.p of paper scratched upon with a pen; but this reduction of reality to its lowest terms, ends by emptying reality of content. Mechanism is a _universal_ feature, but it is a _subordinate_ feature, of reality.

Nature requires, if we are to arrive at the truth about it, not only to be described and a.n.a.lysed, but also interpreted in the light of the idea of _value_ or _worth_.

LOTZE AND THEOLOGY.--Lotze's theories exercised an important influence upon the development in Germany and elsewhere of a type of theology known as Ritschlianism. Albrecht Ritschl, a disciple of Lotze, attempted to dissociate religion from metaphysics, and to base it upon ”judgments of value.” Christian dogma, for instance, is an attempt to express, in philosophical terms, _the unique value to humanity of the moral and religious consciousness of Christ_. So far as a dogma is faithful to that central idea, and makes a genuine attempt to express it, so far--and so far only--is it true.

This type of theology, uniting itself with certain philosophical tendencies which will engage our attention later, became the basis of what was known as the Modernist movement in the Roman Catholic Church.

CONCLUSIONS.--Thus in the nineteenth century, in England (and indeed on the continent also) the idealistic att.i.tude, though it sometimes might seem compromised, was never submerged; in spite of the materialistic outlook of an age only too preoccupied with scientific discovery and commercial expansion.

CHAPTER XI

SOME RECENT TENDENCIES IN PHILOSOPHY

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE.--In the last chapter we heard A. J. Balfour complaining of the absence of ”a full and systematic attempt, first to enumerate, and then to justify, the presuppositions on which all science finally rests.” And Mr. F. H. Bradley also drew attention to the absence of any critical philosophy of science in England. The need was for scientific standpoints to be investigated _de novo_; and the process had, as a matter of fact, already been begun on the Continent.

MACH.--Ernst Mach, Professor of Physics at Prague, and subsequently Professor of Physics at Vienna (thus combining the roles of scientist and metaphysician--always a highly instructive and fruitful combination) had as early as 1863 laid it down as the task of science to give ”an economic presentation of the facts.” By which phrase he meant that science takes account only of the salient features of phenomena, selecting only those which seem strictly serviceable to its own purpose.

SCIENCE ”ABSTRACT” OR ”SELECTIVE.”--Mathematical science (which is the ”pure” science _par excellence_) deals not--as is generally supposed--with ”things,” but with _certain selected aspects_ of things.

For example, for purposes of arithmetic, every leaf on a tree is an ”unit” (i.e. all are ”identical”); but, in point of fact, there exist no two leaves that are alike, as Leibniz, long ago, pointed out. Again, for geometrical purposes two fields may be regarded as of like area; but no two fields are, or ever have been, so.

Thus mathematics--where scientific method is seen at its purest--proceeds by deliberately disregarding individuality; it regards the differences between individuals as non-essential, and irrelevant to its purpose.

ECONOMY OF THOUGHT.--And mathematical science is justified in acting in this way. This method, highly abstract as it is--in fact, just because it is highly abstract--leads to invaluable results. It's justification is that it is _economical of thought_; disregarding all irrelevant considerations, it is able, by using a short-cut, to reach its goal. Did the mathematician have to take into consideration all the manifold and complex aspects of each concrete ”thing” (whether it be leaf, or field, or lever, or what not) with which he deals, he would never be able to cut his way through the jungle. His method of abstraction carries him at once to his goal.

MACH ON THE ”MECHANICAL VIEW.”--Mach's criticism of the mechanical view of nature proceeded upon similar lines. He termed that view ”a.n.a.logical,” by which he meant that mechanical ”laws of nature” serve us as formal patterns to which the processes of nature may (for convenience sake) be represented as conforming. A clear account, though not a _complete_ account, of all physical processes may be given in terms of mechanical ”law.”

And in fact it remains a question, Mach observed, ”whether the mechanical view of things, instead of being the profoundest, is not in point of fact, the shallowest of all.”[52]

SCIENCE NOT INVALID BUT INCOMPLETE.--This line of criticism of scientific method--i.e. that it deals with abstractions and a.n.a.logies rather than with _things_, for the sake of economy and convenience of thought--does not deprive science of validity, but only invalidates that superficial dogmatism which had crept into so many investigations. A critical estimate of scientific methods makes it evident how much and how little we have the right to expect from them. They will enable us to give a simple description of _phenomena_ as they are seen when reduced to their simplest terms of matter and motion; but of ultimate and final causes they will tell us nothing.

”The system of conceptions by which the exact sciences try to describe the phenomena of nature ... is symbolic, a kind of shorthand, unconsciously invented and perfected for the sake of convenience and for practical use ... the leading principle is that of Economy of Thought”

(Merz, Vol. III, p. 579).

BOUTROUX.--This criticism of the mechanical method of dealing with reality was seconded by Boutroux's criticism of the principle of Natural Law. emile Boutroux (1845-1918)--Professor at the Sorbonne--in two important treatises, examines with great minuteness this aspect of the scientific method. In the earlier of these works, _The Contingency of the Laws of Nature_ (1879) he suggests that these laws only give, so to speak, the _habits_ which things display. They const.i.tute, as it were, ”the bed in which the stream of occurrence flows, which the stream itself had hollowed out, although its course has come to be determined by this bed” (Hoffding, _Modern Philosophers_, p. 101).

In his _Natural Law in Science and Philosophy_ (1895), Boutroux lays it down that the laws of nature, as science describes them, may indeed represent, but are by no means identical with, the laws of nature as they really are. The laws of science are true, not absolutely but relatively, i.e. are not elements in, but symbols of, reality. The notion that everything is ”determined” (i.e. the opposite of ”contingent”), though absolutely indispensable to the mechanical theory, is nevertheless a way of looking at things rather than a faithful picture of reality--a way in which we see things rather than the way things exist in themselves.

As Boutroux himself puts it in his final chapter: ”That which we call the 'laws of nature' is the sum total of the methods we have discovered for adapting things to the mind, and subjecting them to be moulded by the will.”

RESULTS.--Here we have Boutroux approaching very closely to the standpoint of Mach; indeed the theories of the two men are complementary to one another. For Mach, the mechanical view is a way of looking at things, distinctly useful for understanding and using them--an ”economy of thought.” For Boutroux, the determinist view is also a way of looking at things that is useful for the same purposes.

Thus the interpretation of reality in terms of mathematics and ”unalterable law,” is artificial; an abstract way of thinking which deals not with reality itself but with certain deliberately selected aspects of it.