THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY2 The Lives and Opinions

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THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY
\vill re-appear unaltered in future experience. "Law" is an observed
custom in the sequence of events; but there is no "necessity" in custom.
Only mathematical formulas have necessity they alone are inherently
**nd unchangeably true: and this merely because such formulae are tauto-
logical the predicate is already contained in the subject; "3X3 = 9"
is an eternal and necessary truth only because "3 X 3" and "9" are one
and the same thing differently expressed; the predicate adds nothing to
the subject. Science, then, must limit itself strictly to mathematics and
direct it experiment; cannot trust to unverified deduction from "laws."
''When we run though libraries, persuaded of these principles/* writes
our uncanny sceptic, "what havoc must we make! If we take in our hands
any volume of school metaphysics, for instance, let us ask, 'Does it contain
any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number?' No. 'Does it
contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and exist-
ence?' Xo. Commit it then to the flames, for it can contain nothing but
9 '4
sophistry and illusion.
Imagine how the ears of the orthodox tingled at these words. Here the
epistemological tradition the inquiry into the nature, sources, and
validity of knowledge had ceased to be a support to religion; the sword
with which Bishop Berkeley had slain the dragon of materialism had
turned against the immaterial mind and the immortal soul; and in the
turmoil science itself had suffered severe injury. No wonder that when
Immanuel Kant, in 1775, read a German translation of the works of
David Hume, he was shocked by these results, and was roused, as he
said, from the "dogmatic slumber" in which he had assumed without
question the essentials of religion and the bases of science. Were both
science and faith to be surrendered to the sceptic? What could be done to
save them?
3. FROM ROUSSEAU TO KANT
To the argument of the Enlightenment, that reason makes for materialism,
Berkeley had essayed the answer that matter does not exist. But this
had led, in Hume, to the retort that by the same token mind does not
exist either. Another answer was possible that reason is no final test.
There are some theoretical conclusions against which our whole being
rebels; we have no right to presume that these demands of our nature
must be stifled at the dictates of a logic which is after all but the recent
construction of a frail and deceptive part of us. How often our instincts
and feelings push aside the little syllogisms which would like us to behave
like geometrical figures, and make love with mathematical precision!
Sometimes, no doubt, and particularly in the novel complexities and
artificialities of urban life, reason is the better guide; but in the great
crises of life, and in the great problems of conduct and belief, we trust
*Quotcd in Royce, The Spirit of Modern Philosophy, Boston, 1892 ; p. 98.