Reading Notes: May 16th, 2022

“We cannot apply our anatomical knowledge to the explanation of the phenomena of life, if we do not remember that the body was dead when we dissected it; otherwise we are likely to find that the very process whereby we seek the truth has removed from our view the most important fact to be considered….He who wishes to know and to describe a living thing, endeavours first to drive the soul out of it; then he has in his hands the separate parts; only the spiritual bond, unfortunately, is gone.” (Caird, The Evolution of Religion, 323) 

“Now, among the elements of reality which are put aside or neglected by science, and which it is necessary to restore if we would have the truth of knowledge, is that of which we have been speaking, viz. the relation of all objects to a subject. Like the ordinary consciousness, and even more than the ordinary consciousness, science insists on a purely objective view of things. And here, too, the abstraction is useful and even necessary, so long as it is not forgotten that it is an abstraction. But this is just what Positivism forgets, when it attempts to universalize the mechanical view of nature and human nature. It treats the world as if it were complete in itself without any knowing subject; whereas it is almost an Irish bull to say that, if there be such a world, we do not and cannot know anything about it. The conscious self may be an important or an unimportant element of experience, of that we are not in the first instance called upon to decide; at any rate, it is an essential element. In the drama of our experience, the Ego may be the Hamlet, or it may be only a walking gentleman: one thing is certain, it is always on the stage; and, if it were not, the play could not go on. And if we wish to complete our view of the facts, we must restore to its place the part we have omitted, and consider what difference its restoration makes.” (Caird, The Evolution of Religion, 324-325) 

“We must recognise that the whole truth of our experience is not summed up in what we call the facts of the objective world, even if we add all the laws of their connexion which science has discovered or ever can discover; but that, besides, we must take account of the no less certain fact of the subjective unity of the intelligence for which these facts exist. Any merely objective explanation of the world, however complete it may be, leaves out an essential element in it, and is therefore abstract and hypothetical. For we cannot know a priori that the reintroduction of the element left out will not change our whole view of the other elements. Even if science were able to give a complete account of the world, and to explain all the relations of its parts on principles of mechanical necessity, it would not have secured the triumph of materialism. For it might well be that a careful consideration of the relation of this mechanically explained world to the mind that knows it, would invalidate or even invert all the results thus attained. A French writer has said that “If there were nothing but matter, there would be no Materialism.” The very presence of the consciousness which is implied in such a theory, is a demonstration that the theory is incomplete; and therefore that, if it be put forward as a philosophical dogma as to the nature of things, and not merely as an hypothesis which it is useful for certain purposes to assume, it is untrue.” (Caird, The Evolution of Religion, 325-326) 

“The cause of a motion is never to be sought in the wills, inclinations, or desires of matter. If a stone falls, it is not that it has any affection for the ground; if a flame rises, it is not that it has any love for the sky; if water rises in the interior of a pump, it is not that abhorrence of a vacuum is one of the elements of nature. All psychological terms, such as those of attraction, affinity, &c. &c., are metaphors; and the first condition for penetrating the real nature of phenomena is to beware of taking literally this figurative language.” (Naville, Modern Physics: Studies Historical and Philosophical, 37) 

“One of Descartes’ important errors has reference to the conception of matter. He had reduced the idea of it to the occupation of a determined part of space. The fact of occupying a determined part of space, and consequently of resisting other bodies which might tend to penetrate into the same place, is the manifestation of a force. Of this force Descartes cannot help taking account. “A body,” says he, “always occupies a part of space in suchwise proportioned to its size, that it could not fill a larger, nor contract itself to a smaller, nor, so long as it remains there, allow any other body to find place in it.” Here we find, together with the affirmation of the absolute fixity of the space occupied by the elements of matter, the necessary idea of their force of resistance. But this idea of resistance in space, which is the true motion of a body, Descartes forgets, in consequence of his exclusive pre-occupation with mathematical conceptions; he identifies body with the geometrical conception of figurate extent. In his system, body is identical with extent, and contains nothing more, so that a vacuum is impossible and inconceivable.” (Naville, Modern Physics: Studies Historical and Philosophical, 124-125) 

“The first guiding principle of all the sciences is the conviction that the phenomena are governed according to the laws of the understanding. Our understanding does not possess in itself the sources of the reality; we can discover nothing by combining simple ideas. In order to know nature, we must observe it: but observation gives scientific results only because the universe is rational. If in nature four bodies and three bodies could make eight bodies, and not seven; if in nature the third side of a triangle did not vary, according to the laws of geometry, with the length of the two other sides, and with the size of the opposite angle, it is clear that science would be forever impossible. Nature is governed in a way conformable to the laws of our understanding : and such, therefore, is the fundamental principle which directs all the researches of thought. This principle often remains unperceived, because it is instinctive, and disappears beneath the veil of the profoundest of habits. It is, in fact, supposed by the first why of the infant, as well as by the application of the highest formulæ of the infinitesimal calculus to physical phenomena. The child who asks the why of a fact asks one to give him a reason for the fact, which is as much as to say that he admits the conformity of facts and of the laws of the reason. This is the result of an instinct essential to the intellectual nature, in the absence of which no research could take place at all.” (Naville, Modern Physics: Studies Historical and Philosophical, 161) 

“Harmony, or the relation of things between themselves in a hierarchical order, is the manifestation of unity maintained in multiplicity. Nothing is isolated; everything acts upon everything, and everything is subject to the influence of everything. The different classes of beings and the relations, which, while they do not allow us to confound them, do not any the more permit us to separate them. To discover the relation which would not otherwise be perceived, is on the most essential indications of scientific genius. This principle is expressed by a word which is often upon our lips, without our comprehending its profound significance. The word universe, by which we designate the totality of existences, has as its etymological meaning, according to our best accredited philologists, “that which is turned towards one.” To conceive of all things as turned towards a unity which places them in a mutual relation, is the highest expression of the idea of harmony.” (Naville, Modern Physics: Studies Historical and Philosophical, 164-165) 

“To say that “thought is a movement of matter” is to maintain an absolutely desperate thesis. In fact, the question is to include thought as a species, in motion considered as a genus. Now, motion is specified only by its velocity and its direction. Vainly should we turn these two ideas over in all directions, we should never get anything out of them, I do not say identical with, but in the most distant degree analogous to thought, or to any fact of consciousness whatever. Recent labours are in danger of creating in this respect an illusion easy to prevent. Contemporary savants calculate the velocity and direction of corporeal motions which answer to psychical phenomena. It will be possible perhaps to determine with accuracy the time necessary for an external impression to be perceived by means of the centripetal action of the nervous system, and for a feeling or wish to be carried outwards by means of the centrifugal action of the same system. These researches are interesting; but we must well estimate their possible result. They will give greater precision to the theory of the relations between physics and morals, but without at all diminishing the distinction between those two elements. After all observations and all calculations, it will be always inconceivable that a displacement of molecules, or an undulation, or a vibration, or any mechanical phenomenon whatever, should be, not the condition of thought, but thought itself. The identity of corporeal and spiritual phenomena is an affirmation which must be consigned to the class of impossible hypotheses….To identify the two orders is, as Charles Secrétan has said: to pronounce words, the sense of which it is impossible to realise.” (Naville, Modern Physics: Studies Historical and Philosophical, 248-253) 

“If physical and chemical phenomena are only motions, it follows that, the organism being given, all manifestations of life are mechanical phenomena. This granted, and if we allow again that all feelings, all ideas, all impulses, all volitions have corresponding phenomena in the domain of matter, it follows that if we suppose a transparent cerebral organ, and an observer capable of perceiving all and knowing all the laws of physiology, such an observer would read in the cerebral organism all the psychical phenomena (feelings, ideas, wishes), just as we read all the thoughts of a writer in the different arrangements of the letters of the alphabet. This is an inductive hypothesis. I admit it, if not as absolutely demonstrated, at least as invested by contemporary science with a high probability. When the essential difference of corporeal and psychical phenomena shall be well understood, their identity will not be inferred from their relations; nor will the extravagant idea be entertained, which figures in some writings of the present day, that physiology will be able to replace psychology. Those who talk in this way forget that they would have no idea of the phenomena of consciousness if they had not the immediate inner knowledge of them, and if they were reduced to the mere observation of physiological facts, which are nothing but motions. They seek in physiology for the signs of psychical phenomena, the knowledge of which is manifestly the necessary and previous condition of the researches to which they devote themselves.” (Naville, Modern Physics: Studies Historical and Philosophical, 255-256) 

“Of course, we have no right to affirm, in an absolute sense, that there cannot exist thoughts without a cerebral organism; this would be an absolutely unwarranted induction. The inhabitant of one of the isles of Oceania who should affirm that the fauna and flora of the entire globe are identical with those of his own island would make an assertion not more imprudent than would be that of a savant who should infer, from the conditions of the spiritual phenomena observed upon our globe, the conditions of those same phenomena in the entire universe. That there exist, under other conditions than those of humanity, spirits—that is to say, beings capable of thought and will—is what a serious and prudent experimental science cannot affirm , and has not the right to deny.” (Naville, Modern Physics: Studies Historical and Philosophical, 259) 

“We do not yet possess, and perhaps never shall, a settled doctrine upon the constitution of matter. The theory of atomism—that is, of the existence in determinate number of the first elements of bodies, has an experimental basis in the law of definite proportions and in that of multiple proportions. When bodies are brought together in any quantities whatever, those bodies always combine in determinate proportions; this is the law of definite proportions. When one body forms with another several combinations, the weight of the one varies with regard to the weight of the other according to simple numerical relations; this is the law of multiple proportions. These two affirmations experimentally demonstrated, are explained by the thought that bodies are formed of indivisible parts. Besides, every attempt at mathematical synthesis intended to account for phenomena supposes that the elements of matter are definite in number. We may, therefore, consider the atomic theory as expressing one of the postulates of modern physics. But, admitting that this theory is proved, what is the nature of the atom? Is it impenetrable, as is usually supposed? Is it only a centre of force, in such a way that several atoms may coincide in one and the same place. These are questions not resolved. What remains certain is that indefinite divisibility, an undeniable character of the conception of space, cannot be applied to the element of bodies, when once that element is considered as a unity. The confusion set up by Descartes between the idea of space and the idea of matter was, as we have seen the origin of some of his errors.” (Naville, Modern Physics: Studies Historical and Philosophical, 294-295) 

“A distinction has been often drawn between two sorts of qualities, or properties of matter; the qualities called primary, which are represented objectively, and which are connected with form and motion, and the qualities called secondary, which are the causes of the different sensations designated by the names of sound, color, smell, taste. The value of this distinction has been disputed….The distinction between the first and second qualities of bodies, attacked by some philosophers, is unquestionably justified by the theories of the existing system of physics. In fact, according to these theories, the causes of our sensations, which are undetermined directly in the fact of perception, are determined scientifically, as diverse motions, whether of ponderable matter, or of ethereal fluid. We explain the second qualities by means of the first. How, after that, can the difference be ignored between phenomena explained and those which serve for their explanation; the difference between motions of matter—objective phenomena which are the object of a representation, and subjective states which result from the relation of sentient beings to motions? Here, it seems, is a question agitated by philosophers which is found to be definitively resolved by the progress of physics. It would be advantageous, we may say here, to replace the terms first and second qualities, by the terms essential and accidental qualities. Form and motion are conceptions without which the idea of body disappears; they are, therefore, essential; while sound and colour are accidental qualities, since they may disappear, as in fact they do for the deaf and blind, without the disappearance of the fundamental idea of body.” (Naville, Modern Physics: Studies Historical and Philosophical, 296-297) 

“Is it the subjective fact, the datum of consciousness, which has an objective face? What is the objective face of a subjective phenomenon? If we speak of an objective condition—that is intelligible; but an objective face of a subjective fact is not intelligible. The very terms employed show the necessity of conceiving of an object which is placed in the face of a subject. Is it the objective fact, motion, which has a subjective face?” (Naville, Modern Physics: Studies Historical and Philosophical, 301) 

“Mind, then manifests itself in the knowledge of matter, which is the object of physics, as a subject irreducible to its object; and not only does it manifest itself in a general way, but It manifests itself in its different functions, as we are going to show. What is the essential idea of matter? Its resistance in space. In the idea of resistance analysis discovers two elements—effort and obstacle. The conscious exercise of motive power is the origin of our knowledge of matter. Now, in effort mind manifests itself as will. To say that we know matter as resistance is to say that the exercise of the will is the condition of the idea of body….The will, therefore, is really the starting -point of the phenomenon which gives us “the notion of exteriority.” Without the exercise of the will, we should not have the idea, either of our own or of foreign bodies….The motive power reveals to the mind the essential qualities of matter ; whence proceeds the knowledge of the second or accidental qualities? Physics reply: Physical motions determine in living bodies physiological motions to which sensations answer. Without the existence of beings capable of sensation, there would no longer be light, heat, smell, taste, but only motions which are the objective conditions of those sensations….Without the existence of sentient beings, the properties of bodies called physical, in opposition to pure mechanism, could not make their appearance; this is the positive teaching of modern science. In the knowledge, therefore, of the second or accidental qualities of matter, mind shows itself as endued with sensibility….To recapitulate: there is no knowledge of the essential qualities of matter without the exercise of the will; there is no knowledge of the second or accidental qualities of matter without the presence of sensibility; there is no science of matter without intelligence.” (Naville, Modern Physics: Studies Historical and Philosophical, 305-310) 

“What is conceived by the mind is sometimes said to be in the mind. To be in the mind means to be the object of a conceiving, thinking, remembering, or imagining mind: not of course to be in the brain, or inside the skull.” (Joseph, An Introduction to Logic, 61)

“A word may be added upon Kant's doctrine of Categories, and its relation to that of Aristotle, though it is very difficult to put the matter at once briefly and intelligibly in an elementary treatise. Aristotle had sought to enumerate the kinds of being found in the different things that are; Kant was interested rather in the question how there come to be objects of our experience having these diverse modes of being. He maintained that in the apprehension of them we are not merely receptive and passive; on the contrary, all apprehension involves that the mind relates to one another in various ways the elements of what is apprehended; if the elements were not so related they would not be elements of one object; and they cannot be related except the mind at the same time relates them; since relation exists only for a mind. Kant called this work of relating a function of synthesis; and he desired to determine what different functions of synthesis are exhibited in the apprehension, and equally in the existence, of objects; for the objects in question are not Dinge an sich, things by themselves, existing out of relation to the perceiving and thinking mind; of these, just because they are out of relation to it, the mind can know no more than that they are, not what they are; the objects in question are objects of experience, and their being is bound up with the being of experience of them.” (Joseph, An Introduction to Logic, 61) 

“[Kant] maintained in the first place, that the mere perception of anything as extended, or as having duration, involved certain peculiar ways of relating together in one whole the distinguishable parts of what is extended or has duration. These modes of synthesis we call space and time. As to time, I know that I am the same in the succession of past, present, and future; I could not do this unless I distinguished as different the moments in which I am (as I realize) the same; I could not distinguish them except by the differences of what I apprehend in them; but unless these differences were conceived as differences in the being of something persistent and identical, I could not hold them together; hence through my function of synthesis there come to be objects combining manifold successive states into the unity of one and the same thing. It is the same with any spatial whole. I must be aware at once of its parts as distinct in place, and yet related together in space; space is a system of relations in which what is extended stands; but the relations are the work of the mind that apprehends that manifold together.” (Joseph, An Introduction to Logic, 70)