abstract character seeks a unity which is realized only by neglecting differences. Science, for example, so interprets the law of the conservation of energy as to represent that all "forces" are merely co-ordinate forms of a single ultimate force. For philosophy there is an order among forces, a perfect distinguishedness as well as unity, a regulated difference of relation to pure self-consciousness depending upon the ratio of ideality to reality in forces. And as regards the law of evolution, philosophy again insists upon a difference neglected by science, namely, a difference in that the successive forms in the evolutional series are, as it were, separate manifestations of one and the same concrete energy, instead of being merely altered reproductions, one of another. And, again, as regards the constitution of matter, philosophy, in so far as it allows the existence of atoms, affirms qualitative differences instead of maintaining merely a mechanical similarity among them as does abstract science.
We have spoken of natural science chiefly in the empirico-mathematical, the merely mechanical, sense, natural science as a would-be absolute domain of knowledge. Happily there are indications that such science will not always be regarded by men of science as true science, or as adequate to the notion of real and final truth concerning nature. The example of Professor Huxley,[1] who thinks that there is more truth in the Cartesian non-atomic conception of matter than in the modern atomic conception, and more truth in the Aristotelian than in either (or both together?) points to an epoch not far distant when mechanical science will have given place, as a final arbiter in truths natural, to a real philosophy of nature, somewhat in the too much neglected ancient Platonico-Aristotelian sense. Doubtless as philosophy acquires its rightful influence as a study and a branch of real knowledge in our institutions of learning, and the philosophy of nature receives its proper place among philosophical branches, mechanical science will cease to tyrannize over men's thought of nature. Such a result the earnest student of true philosophy would fain see.
ANN ARBOR, MICH.
- ↑ See his Advance of Science in the Last Half Century.
