Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/266

 DYNAMISM

222

DYNAMISM

Ada SS., May, III, 477-97; Olden in Diet. Nat. Biog.. s. v.; Gammack in Diet. Christ. Biog., s. v. Dimpna: Van Crae- wiNCKEL, Een lelie ondeT de doornen, de h. magnet Dympna (Ant- werp, 1652): BoGAERTS, Dympne d'lrkmdc; iegende du VII' sii-cle (Antwerp, 1840); Kutl. Lcgende der martelaaren !)an Ghecl, SS. Dymphna en Gerebemus (Antwerp, 1860); Idem, Gheel verni- meerderd door den eerdienst der hi. Dymphna (Antwerp, 1863); Hedckenkamp, Die hi. Dimphna (Halle, Saxony, 1887); Jans- bens, Ste Dimphne, patronne de Gheel (Lierre, 1894); Van der Essen, Etude critique et litteraire sur les Vitee des saints merovin~ giens de I'ancienne Belgique (Louvain, 1907), 313-20.

J. P. KiRSCH.

Djmamism, a general name for a group of philo- sophical views concerning the nature of matter. How- ever different they may he in other respects, all these views agree in making matter consist essentially of simple and indivisible units, substances, or forces. Dynamism is sometimes used to denote systems that admit not only matter and extension, but also deter- minations, tendencies, and forces intrinsic and essential to matter. More properly, however, it means exclusive systems that do away with the dualism of matter and force by reducing the former to the latter. Here we shall limit ourselves to this strict form of dynamism, first, indicating its chief advocates and its character- istic presentations, secondly, comparing these in order to see the points of agreement and of difference.

I. We have but a vague and incomplete knowledge of the doctrines held by the Pythagorean School, but it seems that they may rightly be considered as at least the forerunners of modern dynamism. From Aristotle's "Metaphysics" we gather that the Pytha- goreans, imbued with a mathematical spirit and accus- tomed to mathematical methods, came to look upon the principles (dpxa.1) of numbers as the principles of things themselves, to assert that the elements (o'Toixfi'a) of numbers were also the elements of reality, and that the whole heaven was a harmony and a num- ber. Various geometrical figures are but different com- binations of numbers, the unit being a point; from points are formed lines, from lines, surfaces, and from svirfaces, solids; and geometrical figures are the very substance of things. Hence, finally, " physical bodies are composed of numbers". Among the Arabian philosophers, the Mutacallimun were atomists. The atom is the only substance, and all atoms are perfectly identical in nature. The identity, however, is not of a positive, but of a merely negative character, for these primitive elements of matter are simple substances and nothing else. They have no determinations what- ever, no weight, no shape, no quantity, no extension. The atom is an indivisible and simple substantial point, the necessary subject of all accidents or deter- minations, and incapable of existing without them.

Leibniz's doctrine is a reaction against both the material mechanicism of Descartes and the substan- tial monism of Spinoza. The essence of matter cannot be extension. The laws of mechanics cannot them- selves be understood without using the notion of force. Moreover, "a substance is a being capable of action", and " what does not act does not deserve the name of substance". Hence substance implies unity and indi- viduality, and the real substance cannot be the " mate- rial" atom ((dome lie mature). Having extension, such an atom is composed of parts and clivisible without limit ; it has no real unity. The elements which com- pose material substances are "form;il" or "substan- tial" atoms (atomes de »ubsla)iee), simple and without parts. They are called monads. Bodies are "multi- tudes" and " aggreg.ates ", and the simple substances are units atid elements. As (hey have no parts, monads liave "neither extension, nor shape, nor possible di- visibility. They are the true atoms of nature, and, in a word, the elements of things. " Since it is impossible for two beings to be perfectly alike, every monad is different from every other. Monads have no external, but only an internal, activity, which is twofold: percep- tion and appetition. All monads are, in various de- grees, representations of the whole universe, but this

representation or perception becomes clearly conscious (apperception), and is accompanied with attention, memory, and reflection, only in higher monads. Appe- tition is the activity of the internal principle by which the passage from one perception to another is effected. The relative perfection of the monads depends on the degree of clearness of their perceptions. Some tmite to form an organism whose centre of imity is a higher monad or soul. This system is completed by the sup- position of a pre-established harmony. The order and harmony of the world are the result not of an inter- action between monads, but of a pre-arranged plan of the Creator who has endowed them with their power of internal evolution. In the main, Christian Wolff repro- duced and systematized Leibniz's theory.

According to Boscovich (q. v.) "the first elements of matter are points absolutely indivisible and without any extension. They are spread throughout an im- mense vacuum in such a way as to be always at some distance from one another. "The distance may increase or decrease indefinitely, but can never disappear com- pletely without a compenetration of the points them- selves, for contact between them is impossible" (The- oria Philosophise Naturalis, no. 7). Hence there can be no continuous extension. The elements are all homogeneous, and, by their numbers, distances, ar- rangements, activities, and relations produce the di- versity of material substances. They have no percep- tion and no appetition. According to their distances, they have a determination to diminish or to increase the interval that separates them. This very deter- mination Boscovich calls force, attractive in the former case, repulsive in the latter. The law of these forces is the following: if the distance between them is infinitesimal, they are repulsive, and the more so in proportion as the distance is smaller; if the distance, although remaining always very small, is increased a little, the repulsive force becomes first less intense, then null, and at a still larger distance is changed into an attractive force. This attraction again, with the in- crease of distance, goes on augmenting, then diminish- ing, till it becomes again null, antl changes into a repul- sion, which, in turn, by the same gradual process, becomes attraction. Such changes may be repeated several times, but only while the distance, though in- creasing, remains infinitesimal. At greater distances the force is exclusively attractive. To expla in the inter- action of the points, Boscovich had to admit an actio in (listans; yet he also admits the possibility of a Divinely pre-established harmony and even of occasionalism.

In his pre-critical period, Kant admitted physical monads, that is, simple and indivisible substances. His later views may be summed up as follows: matter is divisible without limit, but'not actually divided into separate atoms. Matter is what fills up a space, and to fill up a space is to defend it against any mobile which should try to penetrate it. Hence matter is essentially resistance and force. It is not impenetrable, in the absolute or mathematical sense of the Cartesians, but in a relative sense and in varying degrees; it may be compressed and condensed. There are two distinct forces, repulsion and attraction. The former is the primary constituent of matter, since by it other things are excluded from the space it occupies. It produces extension, and, without it, matter would be reduced to a geometrical point. How-ever, attraction is also essential to the occupancy of an assignable space, for otherwise matter would be scattered without limit. Repulsion can act only by contact; attraction may also act at a distance. From these two forces Kant derives all the properties of matter. It must be re- membered that (his theory is an explanation of the phenomenon only, the noumenon being inaccessible to our mind. This idealistic feature was carried still further by the German Transcendentalists; among them Schelling proposes a view the main lines of which agree with that of Kant. In more recent times.