Science and the modern world : Lowell lectures, 1925.

  • Alfred North Whitehead
Date:
1926
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Science and the modern world : Lowell lectures, 1925. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    elusion lies upon the surface of Hume’s philosophy. Take, for example, the following passage from Section IV of his Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding: In a word, then, every effect is a distinct event from its cause. It could not, therefore, be discovered in the cause; and the first invention or conception of it, a priori, must be entirely arbitrary. If- the cause in itself discloses no information as to the effect, so that the first invention of it must be entirely arbitrary, it follows at once that science is impossible, except in the sense of establishing entirely arbitrary connections which are not warranted by anything intrinsic to the natures either of causes or effects. Some variant of Hume’s philosophy has generally prevailed among men of science. But scientific faith has risen to the occasion, and has tacitly removed the philosophic mountain. In view of this strange contradiction in scientific thought, it is of the first importance to consider the antecedents of a faith which is impervious to the demand for a consistent rationality. We have therefore to trace the rise of the in¬ stinctive faith that there is an Order of Nature which can be traced in every detailed occurrence. Of course we all share in this faith, and we therefore believe that the reason for the faith is our apprehension of its truth. But the formation of a general idea—such as the idea of the Order of Nature—, and the grasp of its im¬ portance, and the observation of its exemplification in a variety of occasions are by no means the necessary conse¬ quences of the truth of the idea in question. Familiar things happen,and mankind doesnot bother about them. It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysisof the obvious. Accordingly I wish to consider the stages in which this analysis became explicit, and finally became unalterably impressed upon the educated minds of Western Europe.
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