Science and Philosophy
This Surprising World : a Journalist Looks at Science. By. Gerald Heard. (Cobden-Sanderson. :Is. ad.)
Philosophical Aspects of Modern Science. By C. E. M. .toad. (Allen and Unwin. 10s. 6d.)
Tin; title and stub-title of the first of these books give the entirely false impression that it is yet another of the many designed to introduce the layman to the discos-cries of modern science. Actually it is a plea, passionately earnest to the point of incoherence, to the professional scientist, whatever his branch of knowledge, to be more than a departmental expert, and to assume his share of responsibility for the advance of science as a whole. He must not merely state dogmatically the results of his studies, but also expose himself and his methods, rational or otherwise, to the critical questioning of the layman who demands an interpretation of the cosmos. There must be less of the priest-like authoritarianism which sometimes characterizes the public pr cements of eminent nun of science. Only those who have worked in laboratories can know how much this needed saying, or can realize, with Mr. Heard, how far irrational motives necessarily modify the
pure, unemotional reason of the scientist.
The reason for this plea is that the scientific spirit, having again smashed the devil-god of anthropomorphism, is again confronted, as in the days of stoicism, by a cosmology of inapprehensiblc, senseless law, which main can neither control nor understand, and which threatens to wreck his social
order as it wrecked the civilizations of the past. But this time there is the hope, if we will go forward • bravely, synthetically, and understand ourselves, of finding in the cosmos a divine sense, a real order in which we have a part.
A notice such as this cannot do justice to the amount of well-disciplined thinking in Mr. Joad's book, which is a philosopher's critical examination of the metaphysical theories lately advanced by eminent physicists, mainly Eddington, ,Jeans, and Russell. Mr. Joad cuts away much confusion and mistiness of thought and, in the latter and constructive part of the book, brings both physics and metaphysics into relation with the familiar world and the worlds of the artist and the mystic. The book is logical and—when allowance is made for a clumsy style—lucid, while it introduces a new and acceptable note of humility into the arrogance of human speculations on the cosmos. It seems to indicate, too, that metaphysics is coming down to earth, after a long time in the air, and that it is physics which has now got lost in a realm of sun-tipped clouds.
But both these books are really gallant attempts at achieving the impossible ; for each of them, in the fashion of the time, is mainly concerned with the relation of physics, the foundation of the universe, to " psychics," the very latest development ; and the gulf between them is too large to be spanned so ambitiously. If we are to understand ourselves and the world in which we live, we must end, not begin, by exploring the furthest points of the distant and misty horizon. The need at the moment is to bring into relation those branches of knowledge which are at present independent, and especially to splice together the two main branches, physics and biology —for it is the latter which spans the gulf between physics, the world of matter, and psychology, the world of mind. Mr. Heard looks to psychology as the inter-relating science, but does not realize either how speculative that science still is, nor that it can never be sure until it rests solidly upon biology—upon physiology, since the psychological attributes of man are but the development of his physiological nature. Mr. Joad is more aware of the need to bridge these gaps in our knowledge, but even he is guilty, in practice, of considering " science " synonymous with physics.
If we are to enlarge and round off our knowledge of the cosmos, the next step must be to achieve an' intellectual liaison between the physicist and the biologist. If the former will momentarily forget to puzzle about what matter is, and will co-operate to discover how living matter differs from " dead " matter, then the biologist can go forward to explain the living organism and to suggest how mind can arise out of matter. There Inc can make contact with the psychologist, who will at last understand mind and so complete the circle by explaining to the physicist how mind comprehends matter. Our remote descendants may then be able to consider the nature of the universe. But no one man can jump from an electron to a soul, from a table to the mind that knows it.
ELDON MOORE.
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