Some Problems of Philosophy

No one could have foreseen in advance the extraordinary fertility of the more insipid mathematical aspects which these geniuses ferreted out. No one could have dreamed of the control over nature which the search for their concomitant variations would give. ‘Laws’ describe these variations; and all our present laws of nature have as their model the proportionality of v to t, and of s to t which Galileo first laid bare. Pascal’s discovery of the proportionality of altitude to barometric height, Newton’s of acceleration to distance, Boyle’s of air-volume to pressure, Descartes’ of sine to sine in the refracted ray, were the first fruits of Galileo’s discovery. There was no question of agencies, nothing animistic or sympathetic in this new way of taking nature. It was description only, of concomitant variations, after the particular quantities that varied had been successfully abstracted out. The result soon showed itself in a differentiation of human knowledge into two spheres, one called ‘Science,’ within which the more definite laws apply, the other ‘General Philosophy,’ in which they do not. The state of mind called positivistic is the result. ‘Down with philosophy!’ is the cry of innumerable scientific minds. ‘Give us measurable facts only, phenomena, without the mind’s additions, without entities or principles that pretend to explain.’ It is largely from this kind of mind that the objection that philosophy has made no progress, proceeds.