NATURALISM AND AGNOSTICISM.• PROFESSOR WARD, whose excellent account of the
psychology of Herbart marked him out as a careful and trained thinker, has now given us a work which does much to redeem Cam- bridge as a centre of philosophical thought, and which, if we mistake not, will prove one of the most important contribu- tions to philosophy made in our time in England. This work deals with the same subject as that of Mr. A. J. Balfour, but it is more elaborate and profound. Indeed, we are unable to think of any English work in which so complete a grasp both of science and philosophy is shown as in this remarkable treatise. Professor Ward, in a modest preface, only claims to have discussed "in a popular way certain assumptions of ' modern science' which have led to a widespread, but more or less tacit, rejection of idealistic views of the world." The word " popular," however, must not be taken to imply that one can read this work, as Macaulay in his superficial way said one should read Plato, "with his feet in the fender." For we have here a long and sustained piece of reasoning, every sentence of which is compact of severe thought, and not one line of which can we afford to miss. On the other hand, the author, though dealing with the most difficult problems of the mind, is invariably lucid and thorough. No aspect of his subject is left till it has been threshed out, and the author's conclusions made plain. Professor Ward is not afraid of repeating himself so as to bring home in the most forcible way his central ideas, and to each chapter is attached an excellent synopsis stating exactly what is the subject- matter contained therein.
Naturalism and agnosticism have, as Professor Ward. puts it, formed a working alliance. They are different con- cepts, but they have played into one another's hands, and have thus constructed a theory of the world which leaves no room for the " God, freedom, and immortality " given in ideal- ism. Mr. Balfour hardly distinguished between the elements which be generally classed under the head of naturalism. Here the classification is made clear. By naturalism we mean a dogmatic creed founded on the supposed " solid ground of Nature," which ultimately gives us "an unbroken concatenation of laws, binding Nature fast in fate." Agnos- ticism, on the other hand, is, in a word, sceptical dualism dividing the world into the known, and the unknown and the unknowable. The Cartesian dualism has thus developed into the creed of Huxley and Spencer, which has been supposed by some to be the last word in philosophy. Now the singu- lar fact about this alliance is that while naturalism is in essence a creed of materialism, agnosticism is by no means such, since it posits a spiritual unknown, concerning which Mr. Spencer makes some extraordinary admissions that seem to cut the ground from under his feet, while his American disciple, Mr. Fiske, evolves from this unknown power a being not essentially different from the Theist's object of worship. Therefore, as Professor Ward says, the scientific creed which has grown out of this combination finds itself in a curious impasse,—while protesting, as Huxley did, against the charge of materialism, it must either lapse into materialism, or it must move on to spiritualism, since its " neutral monism " is an untenable position.
Professor Ward examines the three chief forms in which naturalism occurs,—the mechanical theory, the theory of evolution, and the theory of psychical epiphenomena, and he shows by powerful and convincing analytic reasoning the real error of naturalism. This consists in confounding two things,—the ultimate realities and the assumptions neces- sarily involved in scientific method. The third and fourth chapters on " The Relation of Abstract Dynamics to Actual Phenomena" and on " Molecular Mechanics, its Indirect- ness" deal in a most powerful way with the error made, so far as the mechanical theory of the world is concerned. It is shown that the mechanical theory cannot be at once • Naturalism and Agnosticism : the Gifford Lectures Delivered before VU University of Aberdeen in the Years 1896-98. By James Ward, Sc.D., Professor of Mental Philo,ophy and Logic in the University of Cambridge. 2 vols. London Adam and Charles Black. [19s. net.]
rigorously exact and adequately real. Therefore, uncon- ditional mechanical statements about the real world are un- warrantable. A special discussion of one of these statements —the conservation of mass—follows. Professor Ward examines historically the mechanical views from the time of Galileo and Newton to our own day. We start with definite material particles distinct from one another, but which are able to cohere. We pass to the calculator of Laplace, in which a purely abstract dynamics divests itself of the real categories of substance and cause, and so never attains, or can attain, to real knowledge. The old mechanical theory was then converted into a dynamical theory,—i.e., the idea of definite particles was resolved into a theory of persistent force. This has gradu- ally developed into the " kinetic " theory, under which we find the nature of the primal matter-stuff made up of nega- tions, and so presenting us with the very metaphysical problems which materialism desired to exclude. To avoid this danger it was proposed to make energy fundamental. We have gone through the stages of the " manufactured article " theory, of the " prime-atom," of the vortex-atom, and now it is proposed by the school of naturalism to replace mechanical physics, which cannot yield what is demanded of it, by the science of energetics. We are a long way from Newton's definite particles of matter ; the theory now is that all change is either a transference or a transformation of energy. Respecting this view, Professor Ward shows that it warrants no assertion about the past or future of the universe. It does not and cannot mean that energy is the substance of the universe, and it is at best a mere relative postulate. The general outcome of this keen analysis, to which we can do no justice here, is that the view of the world formulated by naturalism in its stages of development is not self-sufficing. Its theories are mere assumptions, useful for provisional human purposes, but certainly not identical with the real condition and fundamental being of things.
The discussion which follows of Mr. Spencer's interpretation cf evolution is undoubtedly the most searching criticism to which the Spencerian philosophy has been subjected, and few competent thinkers will conclude that Professor Ward's assault leaves much of that edifice standing. It is shown that the theory of the universe as a single object alternately evolved and dissolved is impossible, even on the ground of Mr. Spencer's own mechanical principles; that evolution with- out guidance and evolution with guidance are equally com- patible with Mr. Spencer's fundamental idea; that for Mr. Spencer the cosmos can only be a chance hit among many misses, for the doctrine of a "primitive collocation" is rejected by Mr. Spencer. In his interpretation of evolution Mr. Spencer is found starting with the doctrine of the " instability of the homogeneous," but this is a palpable error. So with his constant succession of formulas, which seem to have a strictly mechanical sense, though when we examine them they are figurative. He confounds abstraction with analysis, and abstracts till he has nothing left. In a word, Mr. Spencer has not in the least shown—as neither he nor any other thinker ever will be able to show—how, out of space, time, and mass (the three factors in his evolutionary process), progress, development, history, meaning of any kind can evolve.
Having analysed the mechanical and the evolution theories, Professor Ward comes to what he terms the theory of psy- chophysical parallelism,—that is to say, the theories which attempt to answer the question how psychical changes are related to the physical changes in the organism. To explain this on the grounds of naturalism, we have had the theories of "mind-stuff," which, as Professor Ward says, is only matter-stuff over again; the double-faced unity theory, which assumes that two inconsistent standpoints can be resolved into one ; and the " conscious automaton " view, which leaves the dualism untouched, and merely keeps the two series of phenomena going on together, while showing no connection beyond that very parallelism which is the fact to be explained. The mere movements are not explained in the absence of the unifying and directing power of volition. The sum and sub- stance of the whole view of naturalism in its three aspects is that mechanism by itself is chaotic and meaningless, and that only with mind come universal law and order. Alike in evolution, in natural selection, in psychophysics, we see mind Implied as the great directive power. The latter part of this work treats first of a refutation of dualism, and second, of the sole theory which can be of aid in.
helping us to catch even a glimpse of the true meaning of the universe,—viz., spiritual monism. The general contention as regards dualism is that what we find is not a dualism of mind and matter, but a duality of subject and object in the unity of experience. For experience is life, a purely cognitive experience is impossible, practical interests are never absent in experience, even spatial elements including factors due to activity initiated by feeling. There is a unity of individual and universal experience, there being in both the same articulation of objective and subjective factors. In short, experience is an organic unity. But, if so, what is the nature and meaning of this fact, in what terms can it alone be stated ? Agnostic monism has capitulated, for it has been obliged to admit that the great certainty is the existence of the mental world, and that the notion of necessity has "a logical and not a physical foundation." So it parts company with naturalism. Now an examination of Nature shows that it is teleological, or, in other words, has ends in view, and also that it is amenable to human ends. It is by human activity that this assimilation of Nature by man is achieved. We are now obviously so close to the spiritual conception of the world that it only remains to ask what are the laws of Nature. Either Nature is intelligent or there is intelligence behind it. Either it is itself causally efficient or there is a. causal agent behind it. We can explain facts in no other way. Mr. Spencer deals with this causal datum of conscious- ness, which he finds to be the " same Power which in our- selves wells up under the form of consciousness." A remarkable surrender ! Once divest ourselves of the bias which created the materialistic views examined, and we see the universe as no mechanism but a " realm of ends." This is but the most imperfect summary of a work of profound interest, which will certainly affect powerfully the religious thought of our day. If the Gifford bequest had given us this work only, its donor would have laid us under lasting obligations.
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