PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTISTS AND NEW INSTITUTIONS OF LEARNING

PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTISTS AND NEW INSTITUTIONS OF LEARNING

We saw that in the old Greek days there was no sharp line of

demarcation between the field of the philosopher and that of the

scientist. In the Hellenistic epoch, however, knowledge became

more specialized, and our recent chapters have shown us

scientific investigators whose efforts were far enough removed

from the intangibilities of the philosopher. It must not be

overlooked, however, that even in the present epoch there were

men whose intellectual efforts were primarily directed towards

the subtleties of philosophy, yet who had also a penchant for

strictly scientific imaginings, if not indeed for practical

scientific experiments. At least three of these men were of

sufficient importance in the history of the development of

science to demand more than passing notice. These three are the

Englishman Francis 12512c213m Bacon (1561-1626), the Frenchman Rene

Descartes (1596-1650); and the German Gottfried Leibnitz

(1646-1716). Bacon, as the earliest path-breaker, showed the way,

theoretically at least, in which the sciences should be studied;

Descartes, pursuing the methods pointed out by Bacon, carried the

same line of abstract reason into practice as well; while

Leibnitz, coming some years later, and having the advantage of

the wisdom of his two great predecessors, was naturally

influenced by both in his views of abstract scientific

principles.

Bacon's career as a statesman and his faults and misfortunes as a

man do not concern us here. Our interest in him begins with his

entrance into Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took up the

study of all the sciences taught there at that time. During the

three years he became more and more convinced that science was

not being studied in a profitable manner, until at last, at the

end of his college course, he made ready to renounce the old

Aristotelian methods of study and advance his theory of inductive

study. For although he was a great admirer of Aristotle's work,

he became convinced that his methods of approaching study were

entirely wrong.

"The opinion of Aristotle," he says, in his De Argumentum

Scientiarum, "seemeth to me a negligent opinion, that of those

things which exist by nature nothing can be changed by custom;

using for example, that if a stone be thrown ten thousand times

up it will not learn to ascend; and that by often seeing or

hearing we do not learn to see or hear better. For though this

principle be true in things wherein nature is peremptory (the

reason whereof we cannot now stand to discuss), yet it is

otherwise in things wherein nature admitteth a latitude. For he

might see that a straight glove will come more easily on with

use; and that a wand will by use bend otherwise than it grew; and

that by use of the voice we speak louder and stronger; and that

by use of enduring heat or cold we endure it the better, and the

like; which latter sort have a nearer resemblance unto that

subject of manners he handleth than those instances which he

allegeth."[1]

These were his opinions, formed while a young man in college,

repeated at intervals through his maturer years, and reiterated

and emphasized in his old age. Masses of facts were to be

obtained by observing nature at first hand, and from such

accumulations of facts deductions were to be made. In short,

reasoning was to be from the specific to the general, and not

vice versa.

It was by his teachings alone that Bacon thus contributed to the

foundation of modern science; and, while he was constantly

thinking and writing on scientific subjects, he contributed

little in the way of actual discoveries. "I only sound the

clarion," he said, "but I enter not the battle."

The case of Descartes, however, is different. He both sounded the

clarion and entered into the fight. He himself freely

acknowledges his debt to Bacon for his teachings of inductive

methods of study, but modern criticism places his work on the

same plane as that of the great Englishman. "If you lay hold of

any characteristic product of modern ways of thinking," says

Huxley, "either in the region of philosophy or in that of

science, you find the spirit of that thought, if not its form,

has been present in the mind of the great Frenchman."[2]

Descartes, the son of a noble family of France, was educated by

Jesuit teachers. Like Bacon, he very early conceived the idea

that the methods of teaching and studying science were wrong, but

be pondered the matter well into middle life before putting into

writing his ideas of philosophy and science. Then, in his

Discourse Touching the Method of Using One's Reason Rightly and

of Seeking Scientific Truth, he pointed out the way of seeking

after truth. His central idea in this was to emphasize the

importance of DOUBT, and avoidance of accepting as truth anything

that does not admit of absolute and unqualified proof. In

reaching these conclusions he had before him the striking

examples of scientific deductions by Galileo, and more recently

the discovery of the circulation of the blood by Harvey. This

last came as a revelation to scientists, reducing this seemingly

occult process, as it did, to the field of mechanical phenomena.

The same mechanical laws that governed the heavenly bodies, as

shown by Galileo, governed the action of the human heart, and,

for aught any one knew, every part of the body, and even the mind

itself.

Having once conceived this idea, Descartes began a series of

dissections and experiments upon the lower animals, to find, if

possible, further proof of this general law. To him the human

body was simply a machine, a complicated mechanism, whose

functions were controlled just as any other piece of machinery.

He compared the human body to complicated machinery run by

water-falls and complicated pipes. "The nerves of the machine

which I am describing," he says, "may very well be compared to

the pipes of these waterworks; its muscles and its tendons to the

other various engines and springs which seem to move them; its

animal spirits to the water which impels them, of which the heart

is the fountain; while the cavities of the brain are the central

office. Moreover, respiration and other such actions as are

natural and usual in the body, and which depend on the course of

the spirits, are like the movements of a clock, or a mill, which

may be kept up by the ordinary flow of water."[3]

In such passages as these Descartes anticipates the ideas of

physiology of the present time. He believed that the functions

are performed by the various organs of the bodies of animals and

men as a mechanism, to which in man was added the soul. This soul

he located in the pineal gland, a degenerate and presumably

functionless little organ in the brain. For years Descartes's

idea of the function of this gland was held by many

physiologists, and it was only the introduction of modern

high-power microscopy that reduced this also to a mere mechanism,

and showed that it is apparently the remains of a Cyclopean eye

once common to man's remote ancestors.

Descartes was the originator of a theory of the movements of the

universe by a mechanical process--the Cartesian theory of

vortices--which for several decades after its promulgation

reigned supreme in science. It is the ingenuity of this theory,

not the truth of its assertions, that still excites admiration,

for it has long since been supplanted. It was certainly the best

hitherto advanced--the best "that the observations of the age

admitted," according to D'Alembert.

According to this theory the infinite universe is full of matter,

there being no such thing as a vacuum. Matter, as Descartes

believed, is uniform in character throughout the entire universe,

and since motion cannot take place in any part of a space

completely filled, without simultaneous movement in all other

parts, there are constant more or less circular movements,

vortices, or whirlpools of particles, varying, of course, in size

and velocity. As a result of this circular movement the particles

of matter tend to become globular from contact with one another.

Two species of matter are thus formed, one larger and globular,

which continue their circular motion with a constant tendency to

fly from the centre of the axis of rotation, the other composed

of the clippings resulting from the grinding process. These

smaller "filings" from the main bodies, becoming smaller and

smaller, gradually lose their velocity and accumulate in the

centre of the vortex. This collection of the smaller matter in

the centre of the vortex constitutes the sun or star, while the

spherical particles propelled in straight lines from the centre

towards the circumference of the vortex produce the phenomenon of

light radiating from the central star. Thus this matter becomes

the atmosphere revolving around the accumulation at the centre.

But the small particles being constantly worn away from the

revolving spherical particles in the vortex, become entangled in

their passage, and when they reach the edge of the inner strata

of solar dust they settle upon it and form what we call

sun-spots. These are constantly dissolved and reformed, until

sometimes they form a crust round the central nucleus.

As the expansive force of the star diminishes in the course of

time, it is encroached upon by neighboring vortices. If the part

of the encroaching star be of a less velocity than the star which

it has swept up, it will presently lose its hold, and the smaller

star pass out of range, becoming a comet. But if the velocity of

the vortex into which the incrusted star settles be equivalent to

that of the surrounded vortex, it will hold it as a captive,

still revolving and "wrapt in its own firmament." Thus the

several planets of our solar system have been captured and held

by the sun-vortex, as have the moon and other satellites.

But although these new theories at first created great enthusiasm

among all classes of philosophers and scientists, they soon came

under the ban of the Church. While no actual harm came to

Descartes himself, his writings were condemned by the Catholic

and Protestant churches alike. The spirit of philosophical

inquiry he had engendered, however, lived on, and is largely

responsible for modern philosophy.

In many ways the life and works of Leibnitz remind us of Bacon

rather than Descartes. His life was spent in filling high

political positions, and his philosophical and scientific

writings were by-paths of his fertile mind. He was a theoretical

rather than a practical scientist, his contributions to science

being in the nature of philosophical reasonings rather than

practical demonstrations. Had he been able to withdraw from

public life and devote himself to science alone, as Descartes

did, he would undoubtedly have proved himself equally great as a

practical worker. But during the time of his greatest activity in

philosophical fields, between the years 1690 and 1716, he was all

the time performing extraordinary active duties in entirely

foreign fields. His work may be regarded, perhaps, as doing for

Germany in particular what Bacon's did for England and the rest

of the world in general.

Only a comparatively small part of his philosophical writings

concern us here. According to his theory of the ultimate elements

of the universe, the entire universe is composed of individual

centres, or monads. To these monads he ascribed numberless

qualities by which every phase of nature may be accounted. They

were supposed by him to be percipient, self-acting beings, not

under arbitrary control of the deity, and yet God himself was the

original monad from which all the rest are generated. With this

conception as a basis, Leibnitz deduced his doctrine of

pre-established harmony, whereby the numerous independent

substances composing the world are made to form one universe. He

believed that by virtue of an inward energy monads develop

themselves spontaneously, each being independent of every other.

In short, each monad is a kind of deity in itself--a microcosm

representing all the great features of the macrocosm.

It would be impossible clearly to estimate the precise value of

the stimulative influence of these philosophers upon the

scientific thought of their time. There was one way, however, in

which their influence was made very tangible--namely, in the

incentive they gave to the foundation of scientific societies.