This electronic edition prepared by Dr. David C. Bossard
from original documents in his personal library.

August, 2006.

Copyright © 2006 by David C. Bossard.

CHAPTER VI.

ON THE KINETIC OR MECHANICAL VIEW OF NATURE.

[003] It was a favourite idea with the philosophers of antiquity that everything is in motion, that rest is to be found nowhere in nature, and that the entire process of life and sensation in particular is brought about by the communication and transference of minute movements of a purely mechanical kind. Out of the deep conviction that everything around us and in us is in perpectual flux two distinct problems resulted:... the problem of explaining the apparent rest and permanency of many observable phenomena and properties of natural objects, and the higher ethical problem of fixing upon that which is lastingly real and important in the continuous change of sensation and opinion.

[006] The kinetic view of nature, however useful and suggestive it may have shown itself to be in recent times, did not yield any fruits of real knowledge either in the hands of the ancients or even in those of the first great philosophers of modern times, in those of Descartes. Just like attraction and atomism, the kinetic theory had to be worked out by the instruments of measurement and calculation, by the exact method, before it led to any actual results.

CHAPTER VII.

ON THE PHYSICAL VIEW OF NATURE.

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[Three great generalizations: of attraction, of atoms, and of undulations.
    Astronomical view -- action at a distance
    Atomic view -- particle nature of matter
    Kinetic or Mechanical view -- constant motion]

[095] I have already remarked that none of the three great generalisations ... have been creations of the philosophers of the nineteenth century. Their first enunciation belongs to antiquity, though they have only within the last three hundred years been expressed in sufficiently precise terms to permit of practical measurements and mathematical deductions. The first step towards a scientifically comprehensive employment of the familiar but vague terms of attractions, of atoms and of undulations came, as we have seen, in each case from some solitary thiinker of this country [England -ed]: from Newton, from Dalton, from Thomas Young. The systematic elaboration belongs to the combined scientific exertions of all the civilised nations of the world. In books on astronomy, physics, and chemistry, up to the middle of the century, we can hardly find any theoretical expositions which are not based upon one or more of these three ideas.

[095] None of these three principles, however, appeared sufficient  to cover the whole field. The law of gravitation embraced  cosmical and some molar [= "human sized", visible] phenomena, but led to vagueness when applied to molecular actions. The atomic theory led to a complete systematisation of chemical compounds, but afforded no clue to the mysteries of chemical affinity. And the kinetic or mechanical theories of light, of electricity, and megnetism, led rather to a new dualism, a division of science into sciences of matter and of the ether. The unification of scientific thought which was gained by any of these three views, the astronomical, the atomic, and the mechanical, was thus only partial. A more general term had to be found ... One of the principal performances of the second half of the nineteenth century has been to find this more general term... the conception of energy.

[107 - quoting the 1837 memoir of F. Mohr "On the Nature of Heat"] "Besides the known fifty-four chemical elements there exists in nature only one agent more, and this is called 'Kraft'; it can under suitable conditions appear as motion, cohesion, electricity, light, heat, and magnetism."

CHAPTER VIII.

ON THE MORPHOLOGICAL VIEW OF NATURE.

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[215] Were the real world only one out of many possible worlds which the mathematical mind can imagine ...; were the actual forms of nature only some of the infinitely possible states of equilibrium ...; were the actual course of things -- as mathematicians since Laplace have fancifully put it -- only one particular solution of the general differential equations of the world motion, -- then the two great domains of morphology and genesis would exhaust the subject, and satisfy all the interests by which natural history has been created. Unfortunately for the pure mathematician, but fortunately for the rest of mankind, notably the poet and the artist, it is not so. An enormous gulf separates the creations of nature from the most perfect machine; and the fact that, with all the most delicate methods at her command, her most perfect machines, like the human eye, do not come up to the demands of the optician, shows us that other agencies and interests are at work than we have as yet been able to grasp. So long as astronomy was content to observe the orbits and motions of the heavenly bodies from a distance, it indeed appearred possible to define that science as merely "une question d'analyse"; but in astronomy even, spectroscopy has brought distant objects near to us and opened out endless vistas into a purely descriptive branch of the science, a natural history of the heavens. Still more so is this the case when we fix our gaze on the world immediately surrounding us -- on the things and events in which we ourselves take an active part. Here two phenomena attract our attention -- the problem of life, and the problem of consciousness or mind.

[274] The period from 1800 to 1860 can be termed the morphological period of natural science. It succeeded the period of the simpler natural history, which had been mainly occupied with classification and description of specimens. During the morphological period the knowledge of the existing things and forms of nature was not only largely extended by excursions into distant lands and periods of history, but forms were also studied in situ, and the living things visited in their habitats. A deeper knowledge of the connection and interdependence of natural things and events was thus gained.

CHAPTER IX.

ON THE GENETIC VIEW OF NATURE.

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[293 - Regarding Lyell's work in 'Principles of Geology'] When he entered upon his geological researches, which were conducted during his very extensive travels all over Europe, a new element had already been introduced into science, of which neither Hutton nor Werner had beeen able to avail themselves extensively. This was the identification of geological strata according to the fossil remains which were contained in them, -- a realization of the plan of work already dimly foreshadowed in Leibnitz's 'Protogaea,' but nevertheless accepted even by Humboldt as only a doubtful indication. This valuable branch of geological science had been started by William Smith in his 'Tabular View of the British Strata' in 1790, and further elaborated in his geological map of England (1815), which was the fruit of his own unaided labours....

[294 - quoting Lyell] "....the classification of the secondary formations belongs to England, where the labours of Smith were steadily directed to these objects; the foundation of the third brandh, that relating to the tertiary formation, was laid in France by the splendid work of Cuvier and Brongniart." To these words of Lyell we can now add that the theoretical explanations were first suggested, and the correct line of reasoning on this accumulated evidence initiated, by Sir Charles Lyell himself.

The key to the doctrines of Lyell was the study of existing causes -- the attempt to show how the slow agencies which we now see at work in nature around us are sufficient to explain the successive changes which the recognisable strata of the earth's crust with their fossil remains indicate as having occurred in former ages. ... This was to break with the idea of great and general convulsions ... and it also meant upsetting the vague notions which set a limit to the time which should be allowed for the operations of natural causes.

[356 regarding the source of the sun's heat -- a dilemma not resolved until the discovery of nuclear fusion processes, long after this book's publication - ed] Where does the heat of the sun come from, and how is it maintained? These were some of the questions which began to be asked. ...Shortly before the pioneers of the mechanical theory of heat published their first essays, experimets had already been maid by Sir John Herschel and independently by Pouillet in France, with the object of measuring the annual expenditure of heat by the sun. They had found it to be an enormous quantity. ... Mayer was the first who seems to have put the question definitely: How is this enormous expenditure of heat defrayed, which would, if not in some way compensated, have resulted, even in historical times, in a great lowering of the temperature of the sun, and hence also of that on the surface of our globe, such as is contradicted by all historical evidence?

[363 continuing the previous remarks] The stories of nature, as written from the point of view of the embryologist, the systematic zoologist and botanist, and the palaeontologist, seemed more and more to confirm and support each other. The same cannot be said if we write the history of our earth from the point of view of the geological record on the one side and from that of the purely physical data afforded by thermodynamics on the other. Lord Kelvin has shown [footnote citing his 1868 address to the Geological Society of Glasgow] that the untold ages to which geologists, since the time of Lyell, have been accustomed to reckon, are not supported by our present knowledge of the periods during which the so-called secular cooling of the earth has been going forward.

CHAPTER X.

ON THE VITALISTIC VIEW OF NATURE.

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[374] The history of biological thought ... presents us with the spectacle of a repeated oscillation between two extreme views: on the one side the conviction that the problem of life is insoluble, and on the other, the assertion that it is soluble, though it is admittedly as yet unsolved. ... We are quite satisfied that purely mechanical and physical and possibly chemical processes make up the whole of the weather problem, and that the difficulty is simply one of complexity and intricacy. A similar attitude has in the course of our century frequently been taken up with regard to the problem of life [footnote: see, for instance Huxley's comparison of an organism with a clock], but it has always been abandoned again. ... Biological knowledge has become purely chemical, physical, and mechanical, but not so biological thought. The question "What is life?" still haunts us. Let us see what position the foremost representatives of modern biological research have taken up to this question. We find that they can be divided into two classes.

    First, there are those who have studied the phenomena of living matter solely by the means which the advancing sciences of dynamics, physics, and chemistry have placed at their command. To them biology is an applied science. The question "What is life?" is, according to their view of method, only to be solved by degrees, by bring the forms and processes manifested in the living world more and more under the sway of observation, measurement, and possibly calculation. ...The stronghold in which life is intrenched is to be conquered by ... the attacking forces of dynamics, physics, and chemistry. It will have to yield some day, though that day may be far off.

    [Second], there is a larger class of students -- those who study biology as a basis of the art of healing, the medical profession. To them the question of life and death, of the normal or abnormal co-operation of many processes in the preservation of health or the phenoma of disease, is of prime interest: the knowledge of the mechanical, physical and chemical ... is only the means to an end.

    [By the first class] we are being continually told that these questions are premature or metaphysical, and that the answer which we may give to them is of no scientific importance and of no scientific value. The question, "What is electricity? What is the the ether?" cannot yet be answered; nevertheless the sciences which deal with the properties of the ether or of electrical bodies are advancing daily. So also -- we are told -- does the science of biology progress, even though we leave the question "What is life?" unanswered. This would be a tenable position if the living organism were like an electrical or an optical apparatus... but [in dealing with] the living organism we are again and again tempted to ask, "What is life? On  what does the normal and healthy co-operation of all parts in the living organism depend? In what does it consist?" Fragmentary knowledge may be well enough so far as it goes, but every medical practitioner must painfully feel it to be altogether insufficient.... Thus the question will again and again be asked, "What is life?"

[435 footnote, quoting du Bois-Reymond's Address "Darwin versus Galiani"] Here is the knot, here the great difficulty that tortures the intellect which would understand the world. Whoever does not place all activity wholesale under the sway of Epicurean chance, whoever gives only his little finger to teleology, will
inevitably arrive at Paley's discarded 'Natural Theology,' and much the more necessarily, the more clearly he thinks and the more independent his judgment. ...The physiologist may define his science as the doctrine of the changes which take place in organisms from internal causes. ...No sooner has he, so to speak, turned his back on himself than he discovers himself talking again of functions, performances, actions, and purposes of the organs. The possibility, ever so distant, of banishing from nature its seeming purpose, and putting a blind necessity everywhere in the place of final causes, appears therefore as one of he greatest advances in the world of thought's from which a new era will be dated in the treatment of these problems. To have somewhat eased the torture of the intellect which ponders over the world-problem will, as long as philosophical naturalists exist, be Charles Darwin's greatest title to glory".

CHAPTER XI.

ON THE PSYCHO-PHYSICAL VIEW OF NATURE.

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CHAPTER XII.

ON THE STATISTICAL VIEW OF NATURE.

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CHAPTER XIII.

ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF MATHEMATICAL THOUGHT DURING

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

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RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT.

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