THE PRESENT SITUATION.--During the nineteenth century the mechanical view received some accession of strength owing to the reduction of biology to what seemed like subjection. But, at the same time, an idealistic philosophy had taken a strong hold in England, and towards the end of the century critical students of scientific method cast doubt upon the _finality_ of the mechanical view. They regarded it as artificial, abstract, and symbolic only of reality. This critical movement may be associated with the names of Mach, Boutroux, and (perhaps above all) of Bergson. Moreover, towards the end of the century, a number of new facts in physics, biology, and psychology came to light and tended to discredit the mechanical view as a final explanation of reality. The indestructibility of matter, even the conservation of energy and of mass (corner stones of the mechanico-materialist view) began openly to be questioned, not by metaphysicians, but by men of science themselves. The foes of materialism were those of its own household.[80] Thus assailed from without by the philosophers, and from within by the scientists themselves, the mechanical view, after a reign of three centuries (disturbed though these may have been by successive rebellions) seems destined to disappear. It may indeed subsist as an approximate and convenient way of regarding reality, of which it will no longer pretend to give an absolute and complete account. It will continue to reign as a constitutional monarch, but the days of its tyranny are at an end. And it is not unlikely that future generations will look with surprise upon our respect for a theory which to them will wear something of the same aspect as medieval astrology now presents to ourselves. SOME DEDUCTIONS.--If the history of thought showed no other results than the impaired prestige of naturalism, it would be worth attention and study. The facts undoubtedly compromise that prestige, for history indicates that at no period has naturalism been able to impose itself permanently. If there has been a movement in that direction, it has elicited a corresponding reaction. The human mind seems unable to remain satisfied with the negations which systematised common sense seeks to impose upon it. There is an instinctive appetite in humanity for a spiritual view of things, and Sabatier was undoubtedly right in observing that mankind is "incurably religious." Neither Hobbes, nor Holbach, nor Buechner, with the best will in the world, can exorcise from the human heart that instinct which seeks for itself personal relations with the universe--which sees a mind behind phenomena. This is one of those instincts of which it is true that the more you repress them the more insurgent they become--they will have their way in the end.