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REASON IN SCIENCE
Volume Five of "The Life of Reason"
GEORGE SANTAYANA
ή γάρ νου ενέργεια ζωή
DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.NEW YORKThis Dover edition, first published in 1982, is an unabridged republication ofvolume five of
The Life of Reason; or The Phases of Human Progress
, originallypublished by Charles Scribner's Sons, N.Y., in 1905.
REASON IN SCIENCE
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
TYPES AND AIMS OF SCIENCEScience still young.—Its miscarriage in Greece.—Its timid reappearance inmodern times.—Distinction between science and myth.—Platonic status ofhypothesis.—Meaning of verification.—Possible validity of myths.—Anydreamed-of thing might be experienced.—But science follows the movement ofits subject-matter.—Moral value of science.—Its continuity with commonknowledge.—Its intellectual essence.—Unity of science.—In existence, judged byreflection, there is a margin of waste.—Sciences converge from different points oforigin.—Two chief kinds of science, physics and dialectic.—Their mutualimplication.—Their coöperation.—No science
a priori
.—Role of criticism.
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CHAPTER II
HISTORYHistory an artificial memory.—Second sight requires control.—Nature the themecommon to various memories.—Growth of legend.—No history withoutdocuments.—The aim is truth.—Indirect methods of attaining it.—Historicalresearch a part of physics.—Verification here indirect.—Futile ideal to survey allfacts.—Historical theory.—It is arbitrary.—A moral critique of the past ispossible.—How it might be just.—Transition to historical romance.—Possibilityof genuine epics.—Literal truth abandoned.—History exists to be transcended.—Its great rôle.
CHAPTER III
MECHANISMRecurrent forms in nature.—Their discovery makes the flux calculable.—Looserprinciples tried first.—Mechanism for the most part hidden.—Yet presumablypervasive.—Inadequacy of consciousness.—Its articulation inferior to that of itsobjects.—Science consequently retarded, and speculation rendered necessary.—Dissatisfaction with mechanism partly natural, and partly artificial.—Biassed judgments inspired by moral inertia.—Positive emotions proper to materialism.—The material world not dead nor ugly, nor especially cruel.—Mechanism to be judged by its fruits.
CHAPTER IV
HESITATIONS IN METHODMechanism restricted to one-half of existence.—Men of science not speculative.—Confusion in semi-moral subjects.—"Physic of metaphysic begs defence."—Evolution by mechanism.—Evolution by ideal attraction.—If species are evolvedthey cannot guide evolution.—Intrusion of optimism.—Evolution according toHegel.—The conservative interpretation.—The radical one.—Megalomania.—Chaos in the theory of mind.—Origin of self-consciousness.—The notion ofspirit.—The notion of sense.—Competition between the two.—The rise ofskepticism.
CHAPTER V
PSYCHOLOGYMind reading not science.—Experience a reconstruction.—The honest art ofeducation.—Arbitrary readings of the mind.—Human nature appealed to ratherthan described.—Dialectic in psychology.—Spinoza on the passions.—Aprinciple of estimation cannot govern events.—Scientific psychology a part of
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biology.—Confused attempt to detach the psychic element.—Differentia of thepsychic.—Approach to irrelevant sentience.—Perception represents things intheir practical relation to the body.—Mind the existence in which form becomesactual.—Attempt at idealistic physics.—Association not efficient.—- It describescoincidences.—Understanding is based on instinct and expressed in dialectic.—Suggestion a fancy name for automatism, and will another.—Double attachmentof mind to nature.—Is the subject-matter of psychology absolute being?—Sentience is representable only in fancy.—The conditions and objects ofsentience, which are not sentience, are also real.—Mind knowable and importantin so far as it represents other things.
CHAPTER VI
THE NATURE OF INTENTDialectic better than physics.—Maladjustments to nature render physicsconspicuous and unpleasant.—Physics should be largely virtual, and dialecticexplicit.—Intent is vital and indescribable.—It is analogous to flux in existence.—It expresses natural life.—- It has a material basis.—It is necessarily relevant toearth.—The basis of intent becomes appreciable in language.—Intent starts froma datum, and is carried by a feeling.—It demands conventional expression.—Afable about matter and form.
CHAPTER VII
DIALECTICDialectic elaborates given forms.—Forms are abstracted from existence by intent.—Confusion comes of imperfect abstraction, or ambiguous intent.—The fact thatmathematics applies to existence is empirical.—Its moral value is thereforecontingent.—Quantity submits easily to dialectical treatment—Constancy andprogress in intent.—Intent determines the functional essence of objects.—Alsothe scope of ideals.—Double status of mathematics.—Practical rôle of dialectic.—Hegel's satire on dialectic.—Dialectic expresses a given intent.—Its empire isideal and autonomous.
CHAPTER VIII
PRERATIONAL MORALITYEmpirical alloy in dialectic.—Arrested rationality in morals.—Its emotional andpractical power.—Moral science is an application of dialectic, not a part ofanthropology.—Estimation the soul of philosophy.—Moral discriminations arenatural and inevitable.—A choice of proverbs.—Their various representativevalue.—Conflict of partial moralities.—The Greek ideal.—Imaginativeexuberance and political discipline.—Sterility of Greek example.—Prerationalmorality among the Jews.—The development of conscience.—Need of Hebraic
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