Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 59.djvu/381

Rh the universe, they accepted this as a presupposition. To begin with, matter and mind were not one, but two; they were different, that is. Given this difference, then, how explain them? By showing that, in the time series, mind came second, and was therefore caused by matter. The laughable paradox is that men steeped in the biological view, which utterly overturns this mechanical externality, adopted the latter as the means adequate to account for the former! Of course, a man may do this, if he please, but at his peril. For, Hume and Kant and the biological sciences have combined to show that, even before it could be stated, this doctrine had become, not merely untenable, but positively unthinkable. It was now the philosophers' turn to blaspheme their brethren of science. If the errors of 'Naturphilosophie' had handed speculative thought over to the tender mercies of exact science, the ludicrous obtuseness of the so-called materialists respecting what was possible in philosophy brought the thinkers their due revenge. Thus the dispute became interminable and the Jew had no dealings with the Samaritan. For science, philosophy appeared so much vague or formal speculation; for philosophy, science, in so far as it tried to explain the world, seemed nothing but a blind blundering among exploded errors peculiar to Locke and the French encyclopedists. Despite Lotze's effort at mediation, too complacent towards both parties to command the respect of either, this was the substantial situation from 1850 till 1885. And, when we hear to-day of the opposition between science and philosophy, our ears are really ringing with echoes from the period of the great paradox. The later developments of physics, chemistry, biology and psychology have brought scientific men to a point where they can see that the mere adoption of the 'Newtonian philosophy,' minus the 'agent acting constantly according to certain laws,' is a far too simple solution of the obscure problems on hand. Seductive it may be, it fails notoriously to fill the bill. Similarly, philosophers begin to understand that Hegelianism must go as a system, even though they feel that they must retain Hegel's one contribution to progress—the principle that experience can be explained, if at all, only by reference to itself. Also they evince symptoms of perceiving that the watchword, 'Back to Kant!' valuable enough in 1860, must be replaced by the new rallying cry, 'Forward from Kant.' The critical philosophy cleared a site upon which it is possible and proper for science and speculation to cooperate in building now.

Science and philosophy may easily return to the old footing, then, if they will but have a mind to rid themselves of the peculiar dogmas that have afflicted each during the last century. This implies mutual self-sacrifice, but sacrifice of the unimportant, very likely of the harmful. There is no good ground for the belief that with the circle