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CHAPTER XV

THE WORLD AS MECHANISM

THE analyses of the psychologist and of the metaphysician reveal to us that the real world in space and time is an orderly system of things given in terms of touch and movement sensations. This is the world of matter in motion which the science of mechanics attempts to describe to us. It is quite possible to treat of it intelligently without being either psychologist or metaphysician, for one may confine oneself to certain aspects of it without attempting to discuss certain others.

When a physicist loosely describes matter as "everything that one can touch," and then busies himself with the changes that take place in the world of matter, ignoring all epistemological problems, he confines himself to a definite field of investigation, and the results he obtains within that field need not be at all vitiated by the fact that he neither raises nor suggests certain other questions with which other men busy themselves. Without leaving the plane of the common understanding, he may ask himself whether he is to look upon the material world as through and through a mechanism, or whether he must abandon this conception as being unsatisfactory. He has a right to expect that the arguments pro and con will be such as to appeal to men of intelligence who are not devoted adherents of this or that metaphysical theory.

Notwithstanding the fact that a series of eminent names may be cited as favoring the opposite doctrine, the statement does not appear unwarranted that the man of science, as such, is coming to incline more and more to the view that the changes which take place in the world of matter form an unbroken series and are all explicable according to mechanical laws.

It ought to be frankly admitted by every one that the material world is not known to be such a system. We may, indeed, conceive it to have swept through an unbroken series of changes, from the cosmic mist in which our ignorance looks for its begin

nings, to the organized whole in which vegetable and animal bodies play their part; but, even as we call before us the vision, we realize that it is revealed only to the eye of faith, and is but dimly discerned through the obscurity which enshrouds it. Even if we leave out of view the difficulties connected with the structure of the atom and the nature of the ether, we are forced to admit that scarce so much as a beginning has been made in the direction of a mechanical explanation of the combination of atoms into molecules and the origin of the kinds of matter of which, as the chemist informs us, our world is made up. Given, too, the chemical elements and the laws of their combination as empirically known to the chemist, we still search in vain for an explanation of the phenomena of living organisms, and fail to account for their appearance upon this planet. Chemistry, physics, biology — these are as yet relatively independent realms, and it remains for a perhaps far distant future to give them all a solid basis in mechanics and thus to unite our present fragmentary glimpses into the nature of things into a reasonable and comprehensive whole. We have a collection of sciences whose relations to each

other are not clearly seen. We have not yet a science which can string on a single thread the beads that we have with such labor collected together.

But it is one thing to admit our present ignorance, and it is quite another to maintain that it is, in the nature of things, ultimate and irremovable. The steady growth of science encourages those who are imbued with the scientific spirit to hope that, in our knowledge of nature, discontinuity will gradually give place to continuity, and that there will become more and more clear before our eyes an orderly mechanical system, the successive stages in the evolution of which will not have to be accepted as inexplicable fact, but will be seen to be the appropriate steps in a series of changes, the inevitable succession of which we may infer with confidence, and which we are unable to comprehend only where we are still hampered by our ignorance.

That this faith in the mechanism of nature is justified cannot be proved by the philosopher in his closet. It can be proved only by the actual extension of our knowledge of nature, and until this has taken place, the doctrine can be no more than a working hypothesis. It is, however, sometimes urged that it should not be held even as a working hypothesis, and various considerations are

brought forward to prove that the doctrine is inherently absurd. Upon certain of these I shall dwell briefly in what follows.

1. It has recently been ingeniously argued that the fundamental concepts of the science of mechanics are found, when carefully examined, to be self-contradictory and absurd. The detailed discussion of Dr. Ward's strictures may safely be left to the student of natural science. But it is not out of place for me to point out here that the criticism as a whole appears to arise out of a misconception of the foundation upon which the science of mechanics rests.

It should not be forgotten that the science of mechanics, like other sciences, has its foundation in our common experience; that it is merely the systematization, refinement, and extension of our ordinary knowledge of things and their motions.

The savage, who uses a stick to pry a stone out of its setting, the boy who throws a bit of coal at a cat, even these have made a beginning in the knowledge of a mechanical system of things. That no little advance has been made from such a beginning is patent to any one familiar with contemporary science. The notion of mechanism is a perfectly familiar one, and to it we constantly turn for an explanation of changes which we perceive to be taking place in the world about us. Whatever may become of the doctrine of atoms and molecules, it remains true that we can calculate with some degree of accuracy the position of the moon with reference to the earth on a particular day and hour, and we can trace with some accuracy the path of a projectile. Whether we may not justly expect to find in the notion of mechanism the explanation of all the changes that take place in the material world, is a question that it is by no means absurd to raise, even when one is not at all in a position to prove that all changes in matter are mechanical. One may raise the question, and may be inclined to give it an affirmative answer, although one be in doubt whether any proposed theory of the intimate constitution of matter be the correct one.

Very early in the history of speculative thought it occurred to men's minds that those things which, by reason of their minuteness, are concealed from our view, might be reasoned about by analogy with those things which are more open to inspection. With the principle itself we can have no quarrel. We act upon such prin1 Dr. James Ward, "Naturalism and Agnosticism," Part I.

ciples in every department of human thought. It is, of course, important that we should not reason loosely, and should not too hastily arrive at conclusions. And if any assumptions which we have been impelled to make should turn out upon closer inspection to entail consequences which we cannot accept, we should know how to repudiate those assumptions without tossing overboard with them that whole body of observed facts and well-grounded generalizations which have established their right to be regarded as a science, if only an imperfect one.

There is such a body of facts and generalizations that constitutes the science of mechanics. To laugh at this science because it has its limitations is unwise, and it is a misconception to suppose that a science must be completed before it can have a foundation. In the present instance, it is the apex of the pyramid that is hid in clouds, not its foundation, for this lies in plain view, and no man can afford to despise it.

What are commonly called the fundamental principles or concepts of the sciences are not fundamental in the sense that they must be definitely established and placed beyond the possibility of being called in question, before the science can be built up at all. Such principles or concepts are the ideal of a completed science, if such a term may be used. They are not to be found in a science in the making. Hence one may freely admit that men of science are not at one touching the final definition of matter, and are not agreed upon the proper formulation of the laws of motion, without on that account being compelled to deny that there is such a science as mechanics, and that in it we find a satisfactory explanation of a vast number of the changes which we observe to be taking place in the world.

And one may make these admissions without being compelled to abandon the hope that, with the extension of human knowledge, a vast number of other changes, which cannot now be seen to find their explanation as these do, may be found to fall in the same general class, and may become luminous with a significance now denied to them. It is dogmatism to insist that the material world cannot be a perfect mechanism, merely on the ground that, in the present state of our knowledge, it cannot be proved to be such. What we should ask ourselves is this: What, on the whole, is it reasonable for us to believe, and with what degree of assurance should we believe it? He who is accustomed to weigh evidence,

and who realizes the limitations of our actual knowledge, will take his position on such a subject tentatively, and will hold himself in readiness to abandon it when good reason is adduced for his doing so.

There is one general consideration, touching the attitude of Dr. Ward and of many other persons toward the mechanical view of the system of nature, that is of no little significance. It is this: The energetic rejection of the doctrine that the material world may be regarded as a perfect mechanism appears to arise (if one may judge by what is written upon the subject) out of the conviction that such a view of the world militates against certain beliefs to which men cling with a good deal of energy and which they relinquish with reluctance.

We do not find that attacks upon the conception of mechanism are wholly destructive in their aim. Those who cannot find in mechanics an explanation of the changes which take place in the material world, are inclined to find such an explanation in the action and interaction of minds. They do not merely abandon a proposed view of nature because they find it unsatisfactory, and content themselves with holding no view at all. They abandon one view to take up with another. It seems just to ask oneself whether, if there were the same emotional bias against the second view that appears to exist against the first, it would be found so satisfactory as many seem to find it? Are there no difficulties connected with the second view? Do we there find everything clear and comprehensible?

Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that we discover, upon reflection, that the conception of matter remains to us obscure; that we can gain no very clear notion of what is meant by mass; that we are more or less in the dark as to how the idea of causality can be connected with the changes in the material world; that the laws of motion, as at present formulated, do not seem to us to account satisfactorily for the behavior of all material particles in the presence of each other. Shall we on this account repudiate the science of mechanics, and give up all attempts at a mechanical explanation of the changes which take place in the world of matter?

If so, what should we do in the case of mind? Are there no disputes as to the ultimate nature of the mind? Is there a science, or even the beginning of a science, that sets forth with any

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