Religion and Science from Galileo to Bergson

Religion and Science defined. "Accurate and systematic knowledge" necessarily affects our "attitude to life." Can our systematised knowledge sanction a religious attitude? This...

The old World-Scheme described. Aquinas and Scholasticism. Cusanus criticises conventional ideas of space. The New Astronomy of Copernicus. Bruno and an infinite universe. Galil...

The New Science creates a New Philosophy. Universality of Mechanics. Importance of Harvey's discovery. Descartes extends the mechanical theory to cover physiology and psychology...

A Law of Thought. Spinoza. A Mechanical Universe spiritually interpreted. _Natura Naturans_, what it means. The _Ethics_. Spinoza's mysticism. His personality. Leibniz and a phi...

Importance, for the mechanical view, of Locke's theory of knowledge. Weakness of speculative philosophy. Rise of the "critical" philosophy. Kant. He seeks to solve the problem:...

Kant clears the ground for a new philosophy. Significance of Rousseau. His attitude to culture. The new philosophy in Germany, its goal. Fichte. Hegel a rationalistic-romanticis...

Early decline of Romanticism in Germany. Comte and the "positive" philosophy. Materialism in Germany. Darwinism and the "argument from design." Haeckel. Spencerian evolutionism....

German idealism naturalised in England by Coleridge and Carlyle. These writers described. _Sartor Resartus._ Idealism at Oxford, T. H. Green. F. H. Bradley. Balfour's plea for a...

A new philosophy of Science. Mach on "Economy of Thought." "Abstractness" and artificiality of scientific method. Boutroux and natural law. James' view of the mind carried furth...

History of Thought supplies no material for dogmatising. Yet a progress of ideas is evident. Permanency of "spiritual" view of reality. Its continual revival. Sabatier's saying....

Numerous attempts to define religion have made it evident that religion is indefinable. We may, however, say this much about it, that religion is _an attitude towards life_: a w...

We have seen that there are classic religious periods when faith and knowledge have seemed to approximate to one another. The Middle Ages in Europe constituted such a period; no...

DECLINE OF SCHOLASTICISM.--By the time of Lord Bacon, the Scholastic philosophy might have been described as extinct; it no longer survived as a living system. The loss was a se...

A LAW OF THOUGHT.--Whenever a tendency of thought has been vigorously prosecuted for any length of time, a reaction invariably displays itself. This rule is illustrated by the h...

ATMOSPHERIC CONDITIONS.--As we have seen, a mechanical view of the universe was not felt by thinkers like Descartes or Newton, or even Hobbes, to involve any consequences that w...

AN UNSTEMMED TIDE.--In spite of those important reactions of thought which we have associated with the name of Spinoza, Leibniz, and Pascal, the mechanical view had not ceased,...

KANT AND AFTER.--With Kant the hey-day of rationalism terminated. He had put an end to the superficial psychology upon which it rested. For the rationalists, the life of the min...

RECAPITULATORY.--We have already observed the mechanical theory, in the hands of Descartes, expanding itself to cover organisms and the phenomena of life, and in La Mettrie's _L...

FROM SCIENCE TO PHILOSOPHY.--The record of certain important scientific discoveries has occupied us in two recent chapters, and it is now time to examine the philosophic results...

VICISSITUDES OF IDEALISM.--At the beginning of the last chapter we noticed the early collapse of idealism in Germany. But the prophets of Romanticism, when they were no longer h...

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE.--In the last chapter we heard A. J. Balfour complaining of the absence of "a full and systematic attempt, first to enumerate, and then to justify, the...

SCIENTIFIC METHOD.--In the last chapter, attention was drawn to some important attempts to supply science with a sound philosophy of method, i.e. to give a critical account of t...

VALUE OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY.--It may perhaps be felt that our protracted excursion has not advanced us far beyond the position at which we stood in the opening chapter. I...