Science and Morals and Other EssaysWindle, Bertram Coghill Alan, Sir
Religion
Science and Morals and Other Essays
Windle, Bertram Coghill Alan, Sir
Essays; Religion and science; Science
Now, this matter of "arrangement" or of "pre-determination," when put
forward as an explanation, even tentatively, necessitates a step
further. That step might possibly be in the direction of pantheism,
though, according to Driesch,[11] pantheism is the doctrine "that
reality is a something which makes itself ('_dieu se fait_,' in the
words of Bergson), whilst theism would be any theory according to which
the manifoldness of material reality is predetermined in an immaterial
way." And he concludes "that those who regard the thesis of the theory
of order as necessary for everything that is or can be, must accept
theism, and are not allowed to speak of '_dieu qui se fait_.'" It is
difficult to see how anyone who has studied the rigid order exhibited by
experiments on Mendelian lines can resist the logic of this argument
unless indeed he takes a place on Plate's platform, which admits that a
law entails a lawgiver, but declares that of the Lawgiver of Natural
Laws we can know nothing.[12]
There is a further point in connection with Mendelian theories which is
worth noting in this connection. It would appear that no new factor is
ever brought into being, that is, no _addition_ is ever made by
variation. According to this theory the things which appear to be
added--a new colour or a new scent--were there all the time. They were
"stopped down" or inhibited by some other factor, which, when
eliminated, allows them to come into play, and thus to become obvious to
the observer from whom they had been hidden. Thus, Professor Bateson
(M., p. 17) has confidence "that the artistic gifts of mankind will
prove to be due, not to something added to the make-up of an ordinary
man, but to the absence of factors which in the normal person inhibit
the development of these gifts. They are almost beyond doubt to be
looked upon as _releases_ of powers normally suppressed. The instrument
is there, but it is 'stopped down.'"
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