REQUISITES FOR SOCIAL PROGRESS
It has been the purpose of these lectures to analyse the reactions of
science in forming that background of instinctive ideas which control
the activities of successive generations. Such a background takes the
form of a certain vague philosophy as to the last word about things,
when all is said. The three centuries, which form the epoch of modern
science, have revolved round the ideas of _God_, _mind_, _matter_, and
also of _space_ and _time_ in their characters of expressing _simple
location_ for matter. Philosophy has on the whole emphasised _mind_, and
has thus been out of touch with science during the two latter centuries.
But it is creeping back into its old importance owing to the rise of
psychology and its alliance with physiology. Also, this rehabilitation
of philosophy has been facilitated by the recent breakdown of the
seventeenth century settlement of the principles of physical science.
But, until that collapse, science seated itself securely upon the
concepts of matter, space, time, and latterly, of energy. Also there
were arbitrary laws of nature determining locomotion. They were
empirically observed, but for some obscure reason were known to be
universal. Anyone who in practice or theory disregarded them was
denounced with unsparing vigour. This position on the part of scientists
was pure bluff, if one may credit them with believing their own
statements. For their current philosophy completely failed to justify
the assumption that the immediate knowledge inherent in any present
occasion throws any light either on its past, or its future.
I have also sketched an alternative philosophy of science in which
_organism_ takes the place of _matter_. For this purpose, the mind
involved in the materialist theory dissolves into a function of
organism. The psychological field then exhibits what an event is in
itself. Our bodily event is an unusually complex type of organism and
consequently includes cognition. Further, space and time, in their most
concrete signification, become the locus of events. An organism is the
realisation of a definite shape of value. The emergence of some actual
value depends on limitation which excludes neutralising cross-lights.
Thus an event is a matter of fact which by reason of its limitation is a
value for itself; but by reason of its very nature it also requires the
whole universe in order to be itself.
Importance depends on endurance. Endurance is the retention through time
of an achievement of value. What endures is identity of pattern,
self-inherited. Endurance requires the favourable environment. The whole
of science revolves round this question of enduring organisms.
The general influence of science at the present moment can be analysed
under the headings: General Conceptions Respecting the Universe,
Technological Applications, Professionalism in Knowledge, Influence of
Biological Doctrines on the Motives of Conduct. I have endeavoured in
the preceding lectures to give a glimpse of these points. It lies within
the scope of this concluding lecture to consider the reaction of science
upon some problems confronting civilised societies.
The general conceptions introduced by science into modern thought cannot
be separated from the philosophical situation as expressed by Descartes.
I mean the assumption of bodies and minds as independent individual
substances, each existing in its own right apart from any necessary
reference to each other. Such a conception was very concordant with the
individualism which had issued from the moral discipline of the Middle
Ages. But, though the easy reception of the idea is thus explained, the
derivation in itself rests upon a confusion, very natural but none the
less unfortunate. The moral discipline had emphasized the intrinsic
value of the individual entity. This emphasis had put the notions of the
individual and of its experiences into the foreground of thought. At
this point the confusion commences. The emergent individual value of
each entity is transformed into the independent substantial existence of
each entity, which is a very different notion.
I do not mean to say that Descartes made this logical, or rather
illogical, transition, in the form of explicit reasoning. Far from it.
What he did, was first to concentrate upon his own conscious
experiences, as being facts within the independent world of his own
mentality. He was led to speculate in this way by the current emphasis
upon the individual value of his total self. He implicitly transformed
this emergent individual value, inherent in the very fact of his own
reality, into a private world of passions, or modes, of independent
substance.
Also the independence ascribed to bodily substances carried them away
from the realm of values altogether. They degenerated into a mechanism
entirely valueless, except as suggestive of an external ingenuity. The
heavens had lost the glory of God. This state of mind is illustrated in
the recoil of Protestantism from aesthetic effects dependent upon a
material medium. It was taken to lead to an ascription of value to what
is in itself valueless. This recoil was already in full strength
antecedently to Descartes. Accordingly, the Cartesian scientific
doctrine of bits of matter, bare of intrinsic value, was merely a
formulation, in explicit terms, of a doctrine which was current before
its entrance into scientific thought or Cartesian philosophy. Probably
this doctrine was latent in the scholastic philosophy, but it did not
lead to its consequences till it met with the mentality of northern
Europe in the sixteenth century. But science, as equipped by Descartes,
gave stability and intellectual status to a point of view which has had
very mixed effects upon the moral presuppositions of modern communities.
Its good effects arose from its efficiency as a method for scientific
researches within those limited regions which were then best suited for
exploration. The result was a general clearing of the European mind away
from the stains left upon it by the hysteria of remote barbaric ages.
This was all to the good, and was most completely exemplified in the
eighteenth century.
But in the nineteenth century, when society was undergoing
transformation into the manufacturing system, the bad effects of these
doctrines have been very fatal. The doctrine of minds, as independent
substances, leads directly not merely to private worlds of experience,
but also to private worlds of morals. The moral intuitions can be held
to apply only to the strictly private world of psychological experience.
Accordingly, self-respect, and the making the most of your own
individual opportunities, together constituted the efficient morality of
the leaders among the industrialists of that period. The western world
is now suffering from the limited moral outlook of the three previous
generations.
Also the assumption of the bare valuelessness of mere matter led to a
lack of reverence in the treatment of natural or artistic beauty. Just
when the urbanisation of the western world was entering upon its state
of rapid development, and when the most delicate, anxious consideration
of the aesthetic qualities of the new material environment was
requisite, the doctrine of the irrelevance of such ideas was at its
height. In the most advanced industrial countries, art was treated as a
frivolity. A striking example of this state of mind in the middle of the
nineteenth century is to be seen in London where the marvellous beauty
of the estuary of the Thames, as it curves through the city, is wantonly
defaced by the Charing Cross railway bridge, constructed apart from any
reference to aesthetic values.
The two evils are: one, the ignoration of the true relation of each
organism to its environment; and the other, the habit of ignoring the
intrinsic worth of the environment which must be allowed its weight in
any consideration of final ends.
Another great fact confronting the modern world is the discovery of the
method of training professionals, who specialise in particular regions
of thought and thereby progressively add to the sum of knowledge within
their respective limitations of subject. In consequence of the success
of this professionalising of knowledge, there are two points to be kept
in mind, which differentiate our present age from the past. In the first
place, the rate of progress is such that an individual human being, of
ordinary length of life, will be called upon to face novel situations
which find no parallel in his past. The fixed person for the fixed
duties, who in older societies was such a godsend, in the future will be
a public danger. In the second place, the modern professionalism in
knowledge works in the opposite direction so far as the intellectual
sphere is concerned. The modern chemist is likely to be weak in zoology,
weaker still in his general knowledge of the Elizabethan drama, and
completely ignorant of the principles of rhythm in English
versification. It is probably safe to ignore his knowledge of ancient
history. Of course I am speaking of general tendencies; for chemists are
no worse than engineers, or mathematicians, or classical scholars.
Effective knowledge is professionalised knowledge, supported by a
restricted acquaintance with useful subjects subservient to it.
This situation has its dangers. It produces minds in a groove. Each
profession makes progress, but it is progress in its own groove. Now to
be mentally in a groove is to live in contemplating a given set of
abstractions. The groove prevents straying across country, and the
abstraction abstracts from something to which no further attention is
paid. But there is no groove of abstractions which is adequate for the
comprehension of human life. Thus in the modern world, the celibacy of
the medieval learned class has been replaced by a celibacy of the
intellect which is divorced from the concrete contemplation of the
complete facts. Of course, no one is merely a mathematician, or merely a
lawyer. People have lives outside their professions or their businesses.
But the point is the restraint of serious thought within a groove. The
remainder of life is treated superficially, with the imperfect
categories of thought derived from one profession.
The dangers arising from this aspect of professionalism are great,
particularly in our democratic societies. The directive force of reason
is weakened. The leading intellects lack balance. They see this set of
circumstances, or that set; but not both sets together. The task of
coördination is left to those who lack either the force or the character
to succeed in some definite career. In short, the specialised functions
of the community are performed better and more progressively, but the
generalised direction lacks vision. The progressiveness in detail only
adds to the danger produced by the feebleness of coördination.
This criticism of modern life applies throughout, in whatever sense you
construe the meaning of a community. It holds if you apply it to a
nation, a city, a district, an institution, a family, or even to an
individual. There is a development of particular abstractions, and a
contraction of concrete appreciation. The whole is lost in one of its
aspects. It is not necessary for my point that I should maintain that
our directive wisdom, either as individuals or as communities, is less
now than in the past. Perhaps it has slightly improved. But the novel
pace of progress requires a greater force of direction if disasters are
to be avoided. The point is that the discoveries of the nineteenth
century were in the direction of professionalism, so that we are left
with no expansion of wisdom and with greater need of it.
Wisdom is the fruit of a balanced development. It is this balanced
growth of individuality which it should be the aim of education to
secure. The most useful discoveries for the immediate future would
concern the furtherance of this aim without detriment to the necessary
intellectual professionalism.
My own criticism of our traditional educational methods is that they are
far too much occupied with intellectual analysis, and with the
acquirement of formularised information. What I mean is, that we neglect
to strengthen habits of concrete appreciation of the individual facts in
their full interplay of emergent values, and that we merely emphasise
abstract formulations which ignore this aspect of the interplay of
diverse values.
In every country the problem of the balance of the general and
specialist education is under consideration. I cannot speak with
first-hand knowledge of any country but my own. I know that there, among
practical educationalists, there is considerable dissatisfaction with
the existing practice. Also, the adaptation of the whole system to the
needs of a democratic community is very far from being solved. I do not
think that the secret of the solution lies in terms of the antithesis
between thoroughness in special knowledge and general knowledge of a
slighter character. The make-weight which balances the thoroughness of
the specialist intellectual training should be of a radically different
kind from purely intellectual analytical knowledge. At present our
education combines a thorough study of a few abstractions, with a
slighter study of a larger number of abstractions. We are too
exclusively bookish in our scholastic routine. The general training
should aim at eliciting our concrete apprehensions, and should satisfy
the itch of youth to be doing something. There should be some analysis
even here, but only just enough to illustrate the ways of thinking in
diverse spheres. In the Garden of Eden Adam saw the animals before he
named them: in the traditional system, children named the animals before
they saw them.
There is no easy single solution of the practical difficulties of
education. We can, however, guide ourselves by a certain simplicity in
its general theory. The student should concentrate within a limited
field. Such concentration should include all practical and intellectual
acquirements requisite for that concentration. This is the ordinary
procedure; and, in respect to it, I should be inclined even to increase
the facilities for concentration rather than to diminish them. With the
concentration there are associated certain subsidiary studies, such as
languages for science. Such a scheme of professional training should be
directed to a clear end congenial to the student. It is not necessary to
elaborate the qualifications of these statements. Such a training must,
of course, have the width requisite for its end. But its design should
not be complicated by the consideration of other ends. This professional
training can only touch one side of education. Its centre of gravity
lies in the intellect, and its chief tool is the printed book. The
centre of gravity of the other side of training should lie in intuition
without an analytical divorce from the total environment. Its object is
immediate apprehension with the minimum of eviscerating analysis. The
type of generality, which above all is wanted, is the appreciation of
variety of value. I mean an aesthetic growth. There is something between
the gross specialised values of the mere practical man, and the thin
specialised values of the mere scholar. Both types have missed
something; and if you add together the two sets of values, you do not
obtain the missing elements. What is wanted is an appreciation of the
infinite variety of vivid values achieved by an organism in its proper
environment. When you understand all about the sun and all about the
atmosphere and all about the rotation of the earth, you may still miss
the radiance of the sunset. There is no substitute for the direct
perception of the concrete achievement of a thing in its actuality. We
want concrete fact with a high light thrown on what is relevant to its
preciousness.
What I mean is art and aesthetic education. It is, however, art in such
a general sense of the term that I hardly like to call it by that name.
Art is a special example. What we want is to draw out habits of
aesthetic apprehension. According to the metaphysical doctrine which I
have been developing, to do so is to increase the depth of
individuality. The analysis of reality indicates the two factors,
activity emerging into individualised aesthetic value. Also the emergent
value is the measure of the individualisation of the activity. We must
foster the creative initiative towards the maintenance of objective
values. You will not obtain the apprehension without the initiative, or
the initiative without the apprehension. As soon as you get towards the
concrete, you cannot exclude action. Sensitiveness without impulse
spells decadence, and impulse without sensitiveness spells brutality. I
am using the word “sensitiveness” in its most general signification, so
as to include apprehension of what lies beyond oneself; that is to say,
sensitiveness to all the facts of the case. Thus “art” in the general
sense which I require is any selection by which the concrete facts are
so arranged as to elicit attention to particular values which are
realisable by them. For example, the mere disposing of the human body
and the eyesight so as to get a good view of a sunset is a simple form
of artistic selection. The habit of art is the habit of enjoying vivid
values.
But, in this sense, art concerns more than sunsets. A factory, with its
machinery, its community of operatives, its social service to the
general population, its dependence upon organising and designing genius,
its potentialities as a source of wealth to the holders of its stock is
an organism exhibiting a variety of vivid values. What we want to train
is the habit of apprehending such an organism in its completeness. It is
very arguable that the science of political economy, as studied in its
first period after the death of Adam Smith (1790), did more harm than
good. It destroyed many economic fallacies, and taught how to think
about the economic revolution then in progress. But it riveted on men a
certain set of abstractions which were disastrous in their influence on
modern mentality. It de-humanised industry. This is only one example of
a general danger inherent in modern science. Its methodological
procedure is exclusive and intolerant, and rightly so. It fixes
attention on a definite group of abstractions, neglects everything else,
and elicits every scrap of information and theory which is relevant to
what it has retained. This method is triumphant, provided that the
abstractions are judicious. But, however triumphant, the triumph is
within limits. The neglect of these limits leads to disastrous
oversights. The anti-rationalism of science is partly justified, as a
preservation of its useful methodology; it is partly mere irrational
prejudice. Modern professionalism is the training of minds to conform to
the methodology. The historical revolt of the seventeenth century, and
the earlier reaction towards naturalism, were examples of transcending
the abstractions which fascinated educated society in the Middle Ages.
These early ages had an ideal of rationalism, but they failed in its
pursuit. For they neglected to note that the methodology of reasoning
requires the limitations involved in the abstract. Accordingly, the true
rationalism must always transcend itself by recurrence to the concrete
in search of inspiration. A self-satisfied rationalism is in effect a
form of anti-rationalism. It means an arbitrary halt at a particular set
of abstractions. This was the case with science.
There are two principles inherent in the very nature of things,
recurring in some particular embodiments whatever field we explore—the
spirit of change, and the spirit of conservation. There can be nothing
real without both. Mere change without conservation is a passage from
nothing to nothing. Its final integration yields mere transient
non-entity. Mere conservation without change cannot conserve. For after
all, there is a flux of circumstance, and the freshness of being
evaporates under mere repetition. The character of existent reality is
composed of organisms enduring through the flux of things. The low type
of organisms have achieved a self-identity dominating their whole
physical life. Electrons, molecules, crystals, belong to this type. They
exhibit a massive and complete sameness. In the higher types, where life
appears, there is greater complexity. Thus, though there is a complex,
enduring pattern, it has retreated into deeper recesses of the total
fact. In a sense, the self-identity of a human being is more abstract
than that of a crystal. It is the life of the spirit. It relates rather
to the individualisation of the creative activity; so that the changing
circumstances received from the environment, are differentiated from the
living personality, and are thought of as forming its perceived field.
In truth, the field of perception and the perceiving mind are
abstractions which, in the concrete, combine into the successive bodily
events. The psychological field, as restricted to sense-objects and
passing emotions, is the minor permanence, barely rescued from the
nonentity of mere change; and the mind is the major permanence,
permeating that complete field, whose endurance is the living soul. But
the soul would wither without fertilisation from its transient
experiences. The secret of the higher organisms lies in their two grades
of permanences. By this means the freshness of the environment is
absorbed into the permanence of the soul. The changing environment is no
longer, by reason of its variety, an enemy to the endurance of the
organism. The pattern of the higher organism has retreated into the
recesses of the individualised activity. It has become a uniform way of
dealing with circumstances; and this way is only strengthened by having
a proper variety of circumstances to deal with.
This fertilisation of the soul is the reason for the necessity of art. A
static value, however serious and important, becomes unendurable by its
appalling monotony of endurance. The soul cries aloud for release into
change. It suffers the agonies of claustrophobia. The transitions of
humour, wit, irreverence, play, sleep, and—above all—of art are
necessary for it. Great art is the arrangement of the environment so as
to provide for the soul vivid, but transient, values. Human beings
require something which absorbs them for a time, something out of the
routine which they can stare at. But you cannot subdivide life, except
in the abstract analysis of thought. Accordingly, the great art is more
than a transient refreshment. It is something which adds to the
permanent richness of the soul’s self-attainment. It justifies itself
both by its immediate enjoyment, and also by its discipline of the
inmost being. Its discipline is not distinct from enjoyment, but by
reason of it. It transforms the soul into the permanent realisation of
values extending beyond its former self. This element of transition in
art is shown by the restlessness exhibited in its history. An epoch gets
saturated by the masterpieces of any one style. Something new must be
discovered. The human being wanders on. Yet there is a balance in
things. Mere change before the attainment of adequacy of achievement,
either in quality or output, is destructive of greatness. But the
importance of a living art, which moves on and yet leaves its permanent
mark, can hardly be exaggerated.
In regard to the aesthetic needs of civilised society the reactions of
science have so far been unfortunate. Its materialistic basis has
directed attention to _things_ as opposed to _values_. The antithesis is
a false one, if taken in a concrete sense. But it is valid at the
abstract level of ordinary thought. This misplaced emphasis coalesced
with the abstractions of political economy, which are in fact the
abstractions in terms of which commercial affairs are carried on. Thus
all thought concerned with social organisation expressed itself in terms
of material things and of capital. Ultimate values were excluded. They
were politely bowed to, and then handed over to the clergy to be kept
for Sundays. A creed of competitive business morality was evolved, in
some respects curiously high; but entirely devoid of consideration for
the value of human life. The workmen were conceived as mere hands, drawn
from the pool of labour. To God’s question, men gave the answer of
Cain—“Am I my brother’s keeper?”; and they incurred Cain’s guilt. This
was the atmosphere in which the industrial revolution was accomplished
in England, and to a large extent elsewhere. The internal history of
England during the last half century has been an endeavour slowly and
painfully to undo the evils wrought in the first stage of the new epoch.
It may be that civilisation will never recover from the bad climate
which enveloped the introduction of machinery. This climate pervaded the
whole commercial system of the progressive northern European races. It
was partly the result of the aesthetic errors of Protestantism and
partly the result of scientific materialism, and partly the result of
the natural greed of mankind, and partly the result of the abstractions
of political economy. An illustration of my point is to be found in
Macaulay’s Essay criticising Southey’s _Colloquies on Society_. It was
written in 1830. Now Macaulay was a very favourable example of men
living at that date, or at any date. He had genius; he was kind-hearted,
honourable, and a reformer. This is the extract:—“We are told, that our
age has invented atrocities beyond the imagination of our fathers; that
society has been brought into a state compared with which extermination
would be a blessing; and all because the dwellings of cotton-spinners
are naked and rectangular. Mr. Southey has found out a way he tells us,
in which the effects of manufactures and agriculture may be compared.
And what is this way? To stand on a hill, to look at a cottage and a
factory, and to see which is the prettier.”
Southey seems to have said many silly things in his book; but, so far as
this extract is concerned, he could make a good case for himself if he
returned to earth after the lapse of nearly a century. The evils of the
early industrial system are now a commonplace of knowledge. The point
which I am insisting on is the stone-blind eye with which even the best
men of that time regarded the importance of aesthetics in a nation’s
life. I do not believe that we have as yet nearly achieved the right
estimate. A contributory cause, of substantial efficacy to produce this
disastrous error, was the scientific creed that matter in motion is the
one concrete reality in nature; so that aesthetic values form an
adventitious, irrelevant addition.
There is another side to this picture of the possibilities of decadence.
At the present moment a discussion is raging as to the future of
civilisation in the novel circumstances of rapid scientific and
technological advance. The evils of the future have been diagnosed in
various ways, the loss of religious faith, the malignant use of material
power, the degradation attending a differential birth rate favouring the
lower types of humanity, the suppression of aesthetic creativeness.
Without doubt, these are all evils, dangerous and threatening. But they
are not new. From the dawn of history, mankind has always been losing
its religious faith, has always suffered from the malignant use of
material power, has always suffered from the infertility of its best
intellectual types, has always witnessed the periodical decadence of
art. In the reign of the Egyptian king, Tutankhamen, there was raging a
desperate religious struggle between Modernists and Fundamentalists; the
cave pictures exhibit a phase of delicate aesthetic achievement as
superseded by a period of comparative vulgarity; the religious leaders,
the great thinkers, the great poets and authors, the whole clerical
caste in the Middle Ages, have been notably infertile; finally, if we
attend to what actually has happened in the past, and disregard romantic
visions of democracies, aristocracies, kings, generals, armies, and
merchants, material power has generally been wielded with blindness,
obstinacy and selfishness, often with brutal malignancy. And yet,
mankind has progressed. Even if you take a tiny oasis of peculiar
excellence, the type of modern man who would have most chance of
happiness in ancient Greece at its best period is probably (as now) an
average professional heavy-weight boxer, and not an average Greek
scholar from Oxford or Germany. Indeed, the main use of the Oxford
scholar would have been his capability of writing an ode in
glorification of the boxer. Nothing does more harm in unnerving men for
their duties in the present, than the attention devoted to the points of
excellence in the past as compared with the average failure of the
present day.
But, after all, there have been real periods of decadence; and at the
present time, as at other epochs, society is decaying, and there is need
for preservative action. Professionals are not new to the world. But in
the past, professionals have formed unprogressive castes. The point is
that professionalism has now been mated with progress. The world is now
faced with a self-evolving system, which it cannot stop. There are
dangers and advantages in this situation. It is obvious that the gain in
material power affords opportunity for social betterment. If mankind can
rise to the occasion, there lies in front a golden age of beneficent
creativeness. But material power in itself is ethically neutral. It can
equally well work in the wrong direction. The problem is not how to
produce great men, but how to produce great societies. The great society
will put up the men for the occasions. The materialistic philosophy
emphasised the given quantity of material, and thence derivatively the
given nature of the environment. It thus operated most unfortunately
upon the social conscience of mankind. For it directed almost exclusive
attention to the aspect of struggle for existence in a fixed
environment. To a large extent the environment is fixed, and to this
extent there is a struggle for existence. It is folly to look at the
universe through rose-tinted spectacles. We must admit the struggle. The
question is, who is to be eliminated. In so far as we are educators, we
have to have clear ideas upon that point; for it settles the type to be
produced and the practical ethics to be inculcated.
But during the last three generations, the exclusive direction of
attention to this aspect of things has been a disaster of the first
magnitude. The watchwords of the nineteenth century have been, struggle
for existence, competition, class warfare, commercial antagonism between
nations, military warfare. The struggle for existence has been construed
into the gospel of hate. The full conclusion to be drawn from a
philosophy of evolution is fortunately of a more balanced character.
Successful organisms modify their environment. Those organisms are
successful which modify their environments so as to assist each other.
This law is exemplified in nature on a vast scale. For example, the
North American Indians accepted their environment, with the result that
a scanty population barely succeeded in maintaining themselves over the
whole continent. The European races when they arrived in the same
continent pursued an opposite policy. They at once coöperated in
modifying their environment. The result is that a population more than
twenty times that of the Indian population now occupies the same
territory, and the continent is not yet full. Again, there are
associations of different species which mutually coöperate. This
differentiation of species is exhibited in the simplest physical
entities, such as the association between electrons and positive nuclei,
and in the whole realm of animate nature. The trees in a Brazilian
forest depend upon the association of various species of organisms, each
of which is mutually dependent on the other species. A single tree by
itself is dependent upon all the adverse chances of shifting
circumstances. The wind stunts it: the variations in temperature check
its foliage: the rains denude its soil: its leaves are blown away and
are lost for the purpose of fertilisation. You may obtain individual
specimens of fine trees either in exceptional circumstances, or where
human cultivation has intervened. But in nature the normal way in which
trees flourish is by their association in a forest. Each tree may lose
something of its individual perfection of growth, but they mutually
assist each other in preserving the conditions for survival. The soil is
preserved and shaded; and the microbes necessary for its fertility are
neither scorched, nor frozen, nor washed away. A forest is the triumph
of the organisation of mutually dependent species. Further a species of
microbes which kills the forest, also exterminates itself. Again the two
sexes exhibit the same advantage of differentiation. In the history of
the world, the prize has not gone to those species which specialised in
methods of violence, or even in defensive armour. In fact, nature began
with producing animals encased in hard shells for defence against the
ills of life. It also experimented in size. But smaller animals, without
external armour, warm-blooded, sensitive, and alert, have cleared these
monsters off the face of the earth. Also, the lions and tigers are not
the successful species. There is something in the ready use of force
which defeats its own object. Its main defect is that it bars
coöperation. Every organism requires an environment of friends, partly
to shield it from violent changes, and partly to supply it with its
wants. The Gospel of Force is incompatible with a social life. By
_force_, I mean _antagonism_ in its most general sense.
Almost equally dangerous is the Gospel of Uniformity. The differences
between the nations and races of mankind are required to preserve the
conditions under which higher development is possible. One main factor
in the upward trend of animal life has been the power of wandering.
Perhaps this is why the armour-plated monsters fared badly. They could
not wander. Animals wander into new conditions. They have to adapt
themselves or die. Mankind has wandered from the trees to the plains,
from the plains to the seacoast, from climate to climate, from continent
to continent, and from habit of life to habit of life. When man ceases
to wander, he will cease to ascend in the scale of being. Physical
wandering is still important, but greater still is the power of man’s
spiritual adventures—adventures of thought, adventures of passionate
feeling, adventures of aesthetic experience. A diversification among
human communities is essential for the provision of the incentive and
material for the Odyssey of the human spirit. Other nations of different
habits are not enemies: they are godsends. Men require of their
neighbours something sufficiently akin to be understood, something
sufficiently different to provoke attention, and something great enough
to command admiration. We must not expect, however, all the virtues. We
should even be satisfied if there is something odd enough to be
interesting.
Modern science has imposed on humanity the necessity for wandering. Its
progressive thought and its progressive technology make the transition
through time, from generation to generation, a true migration into
uncharted seas of adventure. The very benefit of wandering is that it is
dangerous and needs skill to avert evils. We must expect, therefore,
that the future will disclose dangers. It is the business of the future
to be dangerous; and it is among the merits of science that it equips
the future for its duties. The prosperous middle classes, who ruled the
nineteenth century, placed an excessive value upon placidity of
existence. They refused to face the necessities for social reform
imposed by the new industrial system, and they are now refusing to face
the necessities for intellectual reform imposed by the new knowledge.
The middle class pessimism over the future of the world comes from a
confusion between civilisation and security. In the immediate future
there will be less security than in the immediate past, less stability.
It must be admitted that there is a degree of instability which is
inconsistent with civilisation. But, on the whole, the great ages have
been unstable ages.
I have endeavoured in these lectures to give a record of a great
adventure in the region of thought. It was shared in by all the races of
western Europe. It developed with the slowness of a mass movement. Half
a century is its unit of time. The tale is the epic of an episode in the
manifestation of reason. It tells how a particular direction of reason
emerges in a race by the long preparation of antecedent epochs, how
after its birth its subject-matter gradually unfolds itself, how it
attains its triumphs, how its influence moulds the very springs of
action of mankind, and finally how at its moment of supreme success its
limitations disclose themselves and call for a renewed exercise of the
creative imagination. The moral of the tale is the power of reason, its
decisive influence on the life of humanity. The great conquerors, from
Alexander to Caesar, and from Caesar to Napoleon, influenced profoundly
the lives of subsequent generations. But the total effect of this
influence shrinks to insignificance, if compared to the entire
transformation of human habits and human mentality produced by the long
line of men of thought from Thales to the present day, men individually
powerless, but ultimately the rulers of the world.
INDEX
The numbers refer to pages; and ‘_e.s._’ stands for ‘_et seqq._’, where
the reference is to the succeeding pages of the chapter in question.
Abruptness (in Ingression), 239.
Absolute, The, 129.
Abstract, 221.
Abstraction, 233, _e.s._
Abstraction (in Mathematics), 28, _e.s._
Abstractive Hierarchy, 234, _e.s._
Acceleration, 66.
Actualisation, 222.
Adam Smith, 280.
Aeschylus, 14.
Alexander, S., _preface_.
Algebra, 42, 44.
Alva, 2.
Ampère, 139.
Analytical Character (Eternal Objects), 228.
Anselm, St., 80.
‘Any,’ 229.
Aquinas, Thomas, 12, 13, 205.
Arabic Arithmetical Notation, 42.
Archimedes, 7, 8, 9, 10.
Arguments (of functions), 44.
Aristotle, 7, _e.s._; 41, 42; 64, _e.s._; 180, 187; 236, _e.s._
Arnold, Matthew, 115.
Art, 279, _e.s._
Art, Medieval, 18, _e.s._
Aspect, 98; 146, _e.s._
Associated Hierarchy, 237.
Aston, F. W., 260.
Atom, 140, 144.
Augustine, Saint, 266.
Bacon, Francis, 11; 56, _e.s._; 92, 136.
Bacon, Roger, 7.
Base of Abstractive Hierarchy, 235.
Being, 227.
Belisarius, 19.
Benedict, Saint, 21.
Bergson, 72; 202, _e.s._
Berkeley, George, 93, _e.s._; 105, 120, 198.
Bichât, 141.
Biology, 58, 88, 144.
Bonaventure, Saint, 12.
Boyle, Robert, 57.
Brown University, _Preface_.
Bruno, Giordano, 1.
Byzantine Empire, 19.
Carlyle, 85.
Cervantes, 56.
Change, 121.
Chaucer, 22.
China, 8, 106.
Clairaut, 85, 193.
Classification, 41, _e.s._
Clough, A. H., 115.
Cognition, 97.
Coleridge, 115, 116.
Columbus, 22, 49.
Complex Eternal Objects, 232.
Components, 232.
Conic Sections, 42.
Connexity (of a Hierarchy), 235.
Connectedness (of an occasion), 237.
Conservation of Energy, 142, _e.s._
Continuity, 140.
Copernicus, 1, 22, 56, 184.
Cosmas, 254.
Cromwell, Oliver, 23.
D’Alembert, 80, 85.
Dalton, John, 140, 141.
Da Vinci, Leonardo, 60.
Darwin, 263.
Democritus, 140.
Demos, R., _Preface_.
Density, 70, 189.
Desargues, 78.
Descartes, 25; 43, _e.s._; 56, 57; 104; 115; 195, _e.s._; 272.
Determinism, 110.
Differential Calculus, 78.
Discontinuous Existence, 51; 190, _e.s._
Distance, 173.
Divinity, Scholastic, 17.
Divisibility, 177.
Education, 277, _e.s._
Egyptians, 20, 43.
Einstein, 14, 41, 86, 88; 173, _e.s._; 263.
Electron, 50, _e.s._; 111, _e.s._; 185, _e.s._
Empty Events, 214.
Endurance, 121; 147, _e.s._; 169, _e.s._; 186, _e.s._; 212.
Endurance, Vibratory, 51.
Energy, Physical, 51, _e.s._
Environment, 155, _e.s._
Envisagement, 148, _e.s._
Epochs, 177.
Epochal Durations, 192.
Essence, 175.
Eternal Objects, 121, _e.s._; 146, _e.s._; 221, _e.s._
Ether, 184.
Euripides, 14.
Event, 102; 168, _e.s._
Evolution, 130; 142, _e.s._
Exhaustion, Method of, 42.
Extension, 177.
Extensive Quantity, 178.
External Relations, 223, _e.s._
Extrinsic Reality, 146.
Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness, 72, _e.s._; 82.
Faraday, 139.
Fate, 14.
Fermat, 78.
Finite Abstractive Hierarchy, 235.
Form, 230.
Force, 64, _e.s._
Fourier, 85.
Francis of Assisi, 258.
Frederick, the Great, 89.
Frequency, 181, _e.s._
Fresnel, 139.
Frost, Robert, 22.
Future, 245, _e.s._
Galileo, 2, _e.s._; 43, 45; 56, _e.s._; 88, 162, 187; 255, _e.s._
Galvani, 88.
Gauss, 86, 88.
Geometry, 31, _e.s._
George II, 93.
Germany, 57.
Gibson, 206.
God, 17, 86, 129; 242, _e.s._
Gradation of Envisagement, 247.
Gravitation, 65, 172.
Greece, 8, _e.s._
Gregorovius, 265.
Giotto, 22.
Gregory, The Great, 21, 265.
Harvey, 56, 57.
Heath, Sir T. L., 180.
Hegel, 40.
Herz, 86, 88.
Historical Revolt, 11, _e.s._; 55, 150.
Hooker, Richard, 13.
Hume, 5, 47, 61, 73; 80, _e.s._; 107, 198.
Huyghens, 45; 57, _e.s._; 256.
Idealism, 89; 127, _e.s._
Immediate Occasion, 36, _e.s._; 62.
Individual Essence, 222, _e.s._
Induction, 34; 60, _e.s._
Infinite Abstractive Hierarchy, 235.
Ingression, 99, _e.s._; 222.
Integral Calculus, 42.
Internal Relations, 175; 223, _e.s._
Intrinsic Reality, 146.
Invention, 136, _e.s._
Ionian Philosophers, 9.
Irresistible Grace, 105.
Isolated Systems, 66.
Isolation of Eternal Objects, 230.
Isotopes, 260.
Italy, 57.
James, Henry, 3.
James, William, 3; 199, _e.s._
Joseph, Hapsburgh Emperor, 89.
Justinian, 19, 20.
Kant, 47; 93, _e.s._; 116, 142, 178; 193, _e.s._
Kepler, 9, 45, 57, 67.
Lagrange, 84, _e.s._
Laplace, 85, 142.
Lavoisier, 84, 146.
Law, Roman, 16.
Laws of Nature, 45, 150.
Least Action, 87, 150.
Lecky, 15, 16, 254.
Leibniz, 43, 44, 48, 57, 92, 115; 198, _e.s._
Life, 58.
Limitation, 225, _e.s._
Lloyd Morgan, _Preface_.
Location, Simple, 69, _e.s._; 81, _e.s._; 95.
Locke, John, 43, 47; 57, _e.s._; 89, 94, 115, 198.
Locomotion, Vibratory, 184, _e.s._
Logic, Abstract, 37, _e.s._
Logic, Scholastic, 17.
Lucretius, 140.
Macaulay, 285.
Milton, 108, _e.s._
Mind, 79.
Mass, 64, _e.s._; 144.
Mathematics, 10, 23; 28, _e.s._
Mathematics, Applied, 34, _e.s._
Matter, 24, 94, 58, 144.
Matter (philosophical), 231.
Maupertuis, 85, _e.s._
Max Müller, 178.
Maxwell, Clerk, 85, _e.s._; 139, _e.s._; 161.
Mechanical Explanation, 23.
Mechanism, 107, _e.s._
Mechanistic Theory, 71.
Memory, 73.
Mersenne, 46.
Michelson, 162, _e.s._
Mill, John Stuart, 110.
Modal Character of Space, 90, _e.s._
Modal Limitation, 248, _e.s._
Mode, 99.
Moral Responsibility, 109, _e.s._
Motion, Laws of, 65, _e.s._
Müller, Johannes, 141.
Narses, 19.
Natural Selection, 158.
Naturalism in Art, 22.
Newman, John Henry, 115, 255.
Newton, 8, 9, 15; 43, _e.s._; 58, _e.s._; 84, _e.s._; 161; 255, _e.s._
Not-Being, 227.
Objectivism, 124, _e.s._
Occasions, Community of, 63.
Occupied Events, 215.
Oersted, 139.
Order of Nature, 5, _e.s._; 39, _e.s._; 55.
Organic Mechanism, 112, 151.
Organism, 51, _e.s._; 58, 90; 105, _e.s._; 111, _e.s._; 145; 185,
_e.s._; 209.
Padua, University of, 57, 58.
Paley, 107.
Papacy, 13, 20.
Pascal, 57, 78.
Past, 245, _e.s._
Pasteur, Louis, 141, _e.s._
Pelagius, 266.
Perception, 101.
Periodic Law (Mendeleëf), 141.
Periodicity, 45, _e.s._
Perspective, 98.
Petavius, 255.
Philosophy, 122.
Physical Field, 138.
Physics, 57.
Plato, 10; 41, _e.s._; 180.
Pope, Alexander, 108, _e.s._
Possibility, 223.
Prehension, 97, _e.s._; 207.
Prehensive Character of Space, 90, _e.s._
Present, 245, _e.s._
Primary Qualities, 76.
Primate, 185, _e.s._
Prime Mover, 242, _e.s._
Primordial Element, 51, _e.s._
Process, 102.
Professionalism, 271, _e.s._
Proton, 51, _e.s._; 185, _e.s._
Psychology, 88, 103.
Pusey, 115.
Pythagoras, 39, _e.s._; 240.
Quality, 73, _e.s._
Quantum Theory, 50; 181, _e.s._
Rationalism, 12, _e.s._; 55.
Ramsay, Sir William, 259.
Rawley, Dr., 58.
Rayleigh, Lord, 259.
Realism, 127, _e.s._
Reformation, 11.
Reiteration, 147; 186, _e.s._
Relational Essence, 223, _e.s._
Relativity, 68; 165, _e.s._
Retention, 147.
Riemann, 86, 88.
Romans, 8.
Roman Law, 20.
Rome, 21.
Rousseau, 50, 93, 135.
Royal Society, 43, 73.
Russell, Bertrand, 216.
Sarpi, Paul, 12, 26.
Schleiden, 141.
Schwann, 141.
Scientific Materialism, 24, 25.
Scientific Movement, 11.
Secondary Qualities, 76, 127.
Seneca, 15.
Sense-Object, 99.
Separative Character of Space, 90, _e.s._
Shakespeare, 56.
Shape, 92.
Shelley, 116, _e.s._
Sidgwick, Henry, 197.
Simple Eternal Objects, 232.
Simple Location, 69, _e.s._; 81, _e.s._; 95; 127, _e.s._; 217.
Simultaneity, 174.
‘Some,’ 229.
Southey, 285.
Space, Physical, 32.
Spatialisation, 72, 175, 206.
Specious Present, 148.
Spinoza, 43, 57, 99, 115, 116, 175, 198, 248.
Sophocles, 14.
Standpoint, 99, _e.s._
Stoicism, 16.
Struggle for Existence, 158.
Subjectivism, 123, _e.s._
Substance, 73, _e.s._; 175.
Substantial Activity, 152, 174, 231.
Superject, 230.
Synthetic Prehension, 224, _e.s._
Technology, 135, _e.s._
Temporalisation, 179.
Tennyson, 108, _e.s._
Time, 169, _e.s._
Tragedy, 15.
Translucency of Realisation, 240.
Trent, Council of, 12.
Trigonometry, 42.
True Propositions, 224.
Unknowns (in Mathematics), 44.
Universals, 221.
Untrue Propositions, 221.
Value, 123, _e.s._; 226, 249.
Variable, The, 37, _e.s._; 229.
Vasco da Gama, 22.
Velocity, 64, _e.s._; 165, _e.s._
Vertex of Abstractive Hierarchy, 236.
Vesalius, 1.
Vibration, 186, _e.s._
Vibratory Organic Deformation, 184, _e.s._
Virtual Work, 88.
Vitalism, 111, _e.s._; 145.
Volta, 88.
Voltaire, 57; 80, _e.s._; 143.
Walpole, 89.
Washington, George, 89.
Watt, James, 135.
Wesley, John, 93.
Whitman, Walt, 22.
Wordsworth, 22; 108, _e.s._
Young, Thomas, 139.
Zeno, 178, 179, 192.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcriber’s Note
The printer employed the diaeresis in words like ‘coördination’ or
‘coöperation’. On p. 157, the first syllable of ‘coöperating’ fell on
the line break, and the word was hyphenated as ‘co-operating’, since the
diaeresis was not needed. The word has been joined here and the
diaeresis employed as ‘coöperating’.
The following words appear both with and without a hyphen: to-day,
non-entity, half-way, inter-connected, non-entity.
Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and
are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the original.
20.10 restraining g[i/o]vernment. Replaced.
21.31 is kept in contact w[ti/it]h Transposed.
57.30 Now the scientific philosop[h]y Inserted.
69.9 no other way of putting[s] things Removed.
77.6 these relationships constitute[s] nature. Added.
157.20 societies of c[o-/ö]perating organisms. Replaced.
160.8 These divis[i]ons are Inserted.
176.3 extends beyond[s] the spatio-temporal continuum Removed.
177.6 by the reali[z/s]ation of pattern Consistency.
177.25 character of spatio-temporal [of ]extension Removed.
183.5 radiate its energy i[s/n] an integral number Replaced.
195.4 history of the Christi[o/a]n Church Replaced.
195.7 apocalyptic forecast[e]s Removed.
202.21 This divis[i]on of territory Inserted.
213.10 what anything is in i[t]self. Inserted.
245.27 even [al]though any such discrimination Removed.
274.14 its sta[k/t]e of rapid development Replaced.
276.17 The task of coö[r]dination is left Inserted.
279.22 What I mean is art [(]and aesthetic education. Removed.
288.33 mutually coö[o]perate. Removed.
290.3 it bars coö[o]peration. Removed.