Science and the modern worldWhitehead, Alfred North
Religion
Science and the modern world
Whitehead, Alfred North
Science
My last lecture described the influence upon the eighteenth century of
the narrow and efficient scheme of scientific concepts which it had
inherited from its predecessor. That scheme was the product of a
mentality which found the Augustinian theology extremely congenial. The
Protestant Calvinism and the Catholic Jansenism exhibited man as
helpless to co-operate with Irresistible Grace: the contemporary scheme
of science exhibited man as helpless to co-operate with the irresistable
mechanism of nature. The mechanism of God and the mechanism of matter
were the monstrous issues of limited metaphysics and clear logical
intellect. Also the seventeenth century had genius, and cleared the
world of muddled thought. The eighteenth century continued the work of
clearance, with ruthless efficiency. The scientific scheme has lasted
longer than the theological scheme. Mankind soon lost interest in
Irresistible Grace; but it quickly appreciated the competent engineering
which was due to science. Also in the first quarter of the eighteenth
century, George Berkeley launched his philosophical criticism against
the whole basis of the system. He failed to disturb the dominant current
of thought. In my last lecture I developed a parallel line of argument,
which would lead to a system of thought basing nature upon the concept
of organism, and not upon the concept of matter. In the present lecture,
I propose in the first place to consider how the concrete educated
thought of men has viewed this opposition of mechanism and organism. It
is in literature that the concrete outlook of humanity receives its
expression. Accordingly it is to literature that we must look,
particularly in its more concrete forms, namely in poetry and in drama,
if we hope to discover the inward thoughts of a generation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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