Naturalism and agnosticism - 1899 Author:James Ward Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE MECHANICAL THEORY LECTURE II ABSTRACT DYNAMICS The demurrer of modern scientific thought, though illegitimately, yet practically, forecloses theisti... more »c inquiries. A discussion of its fundamental positions therefore called for in the interest of such inquiries. Natural knowledge to be examined (i) formally as knowledge, (ii) as a body of real principles. Beginning with the latter, we have (a) the mechanical theory of Nature, (6) the theory of Evolution, and (c) the psychophysical theory of Body and Mind. A. The Mechanical Theory:—The Laplacean calculator; different views of him; he excludes the teleological. Abstract dynamics, a strictly mechanical science, the basis of this theory, which thus divests itself of the real categories of Substance and Cause, and substitutes for them the quantitative terms'Mass' and 'Force' (or Mass-acceleration). But if this be so, Laplace's calculator never attains to real knowledge. Any attempt in these days to discuss the problem of theism is, we have seen, liable to demurrers more or less emphatic from what we may fairly call the spirit of the age. Naturalism, speaking in the name of science, de- i clares the problem superfluous, and agnosticism, profess- ,' ing to represent reason, declares it to be insoluble. This attitude we have traced to that positivist conception of knowledge which the rapid advances of science and the repeated failures of philosophy have jointly encouraged. Referring to this conception G. H. Lewes remarks: " A new era has dawned. For the first time in history an explanation of the world, society, and man is presented which is thoroughly homogeneous and at the same time thoroughly in accordance with accurate knowledge; having the reach of an all-embracing system, it condenses human knowledge into a Doct...« less