Science and the modern world · Alfred North Whitehead
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
My previous lecture was occupied with the comparison of the nature-poetry of the romantic movement in England with the materialistic scientific philosophy inherited from the eighteenth century. It noted the entire disagreement of the two movements of thought. The lecture also continued the endeavour to outline an objectivist philosophy, capable of bridging the gap between science and that fundamental intuition of mankind which finds its expression in poetry and its practical exemplification in the presuppositions of daily life. As the nineteenth century passed on, the romantic movement died down. It did not die away, but it lost its clear unity of tidal stream, and dispersed itself into many estuaries as it coalesced with other human interests. The faith of the century was derived from three sources: one source was the romantic movement, showing itself in religious revival, in art, and in political aspiration: another source was the gathering advance of science which opened avenues of thought: the third source was the advance in technology which completely changed the conditions of human life. Each of these springs of faith had its origin in the previous period. The French Revolution itself was the first child of romanticism in the form in which it tinged Rousseau. James Watt obtained his patent for his steam-engine in 1769. The scientific advance was the glory of France and of French influence, throughout the same century.
Also even during this earlier period, the streams interacted, coalesced, and antagonised each other. But it was not until the nineteenth century that the threefold movement came to that full development and peculiar balance characteristic of the sixty years following the battle of Waterloo. What is peculiar and new to the century, differentiating it from all its predecessors, is its technology. It was not merely the introduction of some great isolated inventions. It is impossible not to feel that something more than that was involved. For example, writing was a greater invention than the steam-engine. But in tracing the continuous history of the growth of writing we find an immense difference from that of the steam-engine. We must, of course, put aside minor and sporadic anticipations of both; and confine attention to the periods of their effective elaboration. The scale of time is so absolutely disparate. For the steam-engine, we may give about a hundred years; for writing, the time period is of the order of a thousand years. Further, when writing was finally popularised, the world was not then expecting the next step in technology. The process of change was slow, unconscious, and unexpected. In the nineteenth century, the process became quick, conscious, and expected. The earlier half of the century was the period in which this new attitude to change was first established and enjoyed. It was a peculiar period of hope, in the sense in which, sixty or seventy years later, we can now detect a note of disillusionment, or at least of anxiety.
The greatest invention of the nineteenth century was the invention of the method of invention. A new method entered into life. In order to understand our epoch, we can neglect all the details of change, such as railways, telegraphs, radios, spinning machines, synthetic dyes. We must concentrate on the method in itself; that is the real novelty, which has broken up the foundations of the old civilisation. The prophecy of Francis Bacon has now been fulfilled; and man, who at times dreamt of himself as a little lower than the angels, has submitted to become the servant and the minister of nature. It still remains to be seen whether the same actor can play both parts. The whole change has arisen from the new scientific information. Science, conceived not so much in its principles as in its results, is an obvious storehouse of ideas for utilisation. But, if we are to understand what happened during the century, the analogy of a mine is better than that of a storehouse. Also, it is a great mistake to think that the bare scientific idea is the required invention, so that it has only to be picked up and used. An intense period of imaginative design lies between. One element in the new method is just the discovery of how to set about bridging the gap between the scientific ideas, and the ultimate product. It is a process of disciplined attack upon one difficulty after another.
The possibilities of modern technology were first in practice realised in England, by the energy of a prosperous middle class. Accordingly, the industrial revolution started there. But the Germans explicitly realised the methods by which the deeper veins in the mine of science could be reached. They abolished haphazard methods of scholarship. In their technological schools and universities progress did not have to wait for the occasional genius, or the occasional lucky thought. Their feats of scholarship during the nineteenth century were the admiration of the world. This discipline of knowledge applies beyond technology to pure science, and beyond science to general scholarship. It represents the change from amateurs to professionals. There have always been people who devoted their lives to definite regions of thought. In particular, lawyers and the clergy of the Christian churches form obvious examples of such specialism. But the full self-conscious realisation of the power of professionalism in knowledge in all its departments, and of the way to produce the professionals, and of the importance of knowledge to the advance of technology, and of the methods by which abstract knowledge can be connected with technology, and of the boundless possibilities of technological advance,—the realisation of all these things was first completely attained in the nineteenth century; and among the various countries, chiefly in Germany. In the past human life was lived in a bullock cart; in the future it will be lived in an aeroplane; and the change of speed amounts to a difference in quality.
The transformation of the field of knowledge, which has been thus effected, has not been wholly a gain. At least, there are dangers implicit in it, although the increase of efficiency is undeniable. The discussion of various effects on social life arising from the new situation is reserved for my last lecture. For the present it is sufficient to note that this novel situation of disciplined progress is the setting within which the thought of the century developed. In the period considered four great novel ideas were introduced into theoretical science. Of course, it is possible to show good cause for increasing my list far beyond the number _four_. But I am keeping to ideas which, if taken in their broadest signification, are vital to modern attempts at reconstructing the foundations of physical science.
Two of these ideas are antithetical, and I will consider them together. We are not concerned with details, but with ultimate influences on thought. One of the ideas is that of a field of physical activity pervading all space, even where there is an apparent vacuum. This notion had occurred to many people, under many forms. We remember the medieval axiom, nature abhors a vacuum. Also, Descartes’ vortices at one time, in the seventeenth century, seemed as if established among scientific assumptions. Newton believed that gravitation was caused by something happening in a medium. But, on the whole, in the eighteenth century nothing was made of any of these ideas. The passage of light was explained in Newton’s fashion by the flight of minute corpuscles, which of course left room for a vacuum. Mathematical physicists were far too busy deducing the consequences of the theory of gravitation to bother much about the causes; nor did they know where to look, if they had troubled themselves over the question. There were speculations, but their importance was not great. Accordingly, when the nineteenth century opened, the notion of physical occurrences pervading all space held no effective place in science. It was revived from two sources. The undulatory theory of light triumphed, thanks to Thomas Young and Fresnel.
This demands that there shall be something throughout space which can undulate. Accordingly, the ether was produced, as a sort of all pervading subtle material. Again the theory of electromagnetism finally, in Clerk Maxwell’s hands, assumed a shape in which it demanded that there should be electromagnetic occurrences throughout all space. Maxwell’s complete theory was not shaped until the eighteen-seventies. But it had been prepared for by many great men, Ampère, Oersted, Faraday. In accordance with the current materialistic outlook, these electromagnetic occurrences also required a material in which to happen. So again the ether was requisitioned. Then Maxwell, as the immediate first-fruits of his theory, demonstrated that the waves of light were merely waves of his electromagnetic occurrences. Accordingly, the theory of electromagnetism swallowed up the theory of light. It was a great simplification, and no one doubts its truth. But it had one unfortunate effect so far as materialism was concerned. For, whereas quite a simple sort of elastic ether sufficed for light when taken by itself, the electromagnetic ether has to be endowed with just those properties necessary for the production of the electromagnetic occurrences. In fact, it becomes a mere name for the material which is postulated to underlie these occurrences. If you do not happen to hold the metaphysical theory which makes you postulate such an ether, you can discard it. For it has no independent vitality.
Thus in the seventies of the last century, some main physical sciences were established on a basis which presupposed the idea of _continuity_. On the other hand, the idea of _atomicity_ had been introduced by John Dalton, to complete Lavoisier’s work on the foundation of chemistry. This is the second great notion. Ordinary matter was conceived as atomic: electromagnetic effects were conceived as arising from a continuous field. There was no contradiction. In the first place, the notions are antithetical; but, apart from special embodiments, are not logically contradictory. Secondly, they were applied to different regions of science, one to chemistry, and the other to electromagnetism. And, as yet, there were but faint signs of coalescence between the two. The notion of matter as atomic has a long history. Democritus and Lucretius will at once occur to your minds. In speaking of these ideas as novel, I merely mean _relatively novel_, having regard to the settlement of ideas which formed the efficient basis of science throughout the eighteenth century. In considering the history of thought, it is necessary to distinguish the real stream, determining a period, from ineffectual thoughts casually entertained. In the eighteenth century every well-educated man read Lucretius, and entertained ideas about atoms. But John Dalton made them efficient in the stream of science; and in this function of efficiency atomicity was a new idea.
The influence of atomicity was not limited to chemistry. The living cell is to biology what the electron and the proton are to physics. Apart from cells and from aggregates of cells there are no biological phenomena. The cell theory was introduced into biology contemporaneously with, and independently of, Dalton’s atomic theory. The two theories are independent exemplifications of the same idea of ‘atomism.’ The biological cell theory was a gradual growth, and a mere list of dates and names illustrates the fact that the biological sciences, as effective schemes of thought, are barely one hundred years old. Bichât in 1801 elaborated a tissue theory: Johannes Müller in 1835 described ‘cells’ and demonstrated facts concerning their nature and relations: Schleiden in 1838 and Schwann in 1839 finally established their fundamental character. Thus by 1840 both biology and chemistry were established on an atomic basis. The final triumph of atomism had to wait for the arrival of electrons at the end of the century. The importance of the imaginative background is illustrated by the fact that nearly half a century after Dalton had done his work, another chemist, Louis Pasteur, carried over these same ideas of atomicity still further into the region of biology. The cell theory and Pasteur’s work were in some respects more revolutionary than that of Dalton.
For they introduced the notion of _organism_ into the world of minute beings. There had been a tendency to treat the atom as an ultimate entity, capable only of external relations. This attitude of mind was breaking down under the influence of Mendeleef’s periodic law. But Pasteur showed the decisive importance of the idea of organism at the stage of infinitesimal magnitude. The astronomers had shown us how big is the universe. The chemists and biologists teach us how small it is. There is in modern scientific practice a famous standard of length. It is rather small: to obtain it, you must divide a centimetre into one hundred million parts, and take one of them. Pasteur’s organisms are a good deal bigger than this length. In connection with atoms, we now know that there are organisms for which such distances are uncomfortably great. The remaining pair of new ideas to be ascribed to this epoch are both of them connected with the notion of transition or change. They are the doctrine of the conservation of energy, and the doctrine of evolution. The doctrine of energy has to do with the notion of quantitative permanence underlying change. The doctrine of evolution has to do with the emergence of novel organisms as the outcome of change. The theory of energy lies in the province of physics. The theory of evolution lies mainly in the province of biology, although it had previously been touched upon by Kant and Laplace in connection with the formation of suns and planets.
The convergent effect of the new power for scientific advance, which resulted from these four ideas, transformed the middle period of the century into an orgy of scientific triumph. Clear-sighted men, of the sort who are so clearly wrong, now proclaimed that the secrets of the physical universe were finally disclosed. If only you ignored everything which refused to come into line, your powers of explanation were unlimited. On the other side, muddle-headed men muddled themselves into the most indefensible positions. Learned dogmatism, conjoined with ignorance of the crucial facts, suffered a heavy defeat from the scientific advocates of new ways. Thus to the excitement derived from technological revolution, there was now added the excitement arising from the vistas disclosed by scientific theory. Both the material and the spiritual bases of social life were in process of transformation. When the century entered upon its last quarter, its three sources of inspiration, the romantic, the technological, and the scientific had done their work. Then, almost suddenly, a pause occurred; and in its last twenty years the century closed with one of the dullest stages of thought since the time of the First Crusade. It was an echo of the eighteenth century, lacking Voltaire and the reckless grace of the French aristocrats. The period was efficient, dull, and half-hearted. It celebrated the triumph of the professional man.
But looking backwards upon this time of pause, we can now discern signs of change. In the first place, the modern conditions of systematic research prevent absolute stagnation. In every branch of science, there was effective progress, indeed rapid progress, although it was confined somewhat strictly within the accepted ideas of each branch. It was an age of successful scientific orthodoxy, undisturbed by much thought beyond the conventions. In the second place, we can now see that the adequacy of scientific materialism as a scheme of thought for the use of science was endangered. The conservation of energy provided a new type of quantitative permanence. It is true that energy could be construed as something subsidiary to matter. But, anyhow, the notion of _mass_ was losing its unique preeminence as being the one final permanent quantity. Later on, we find the relations of mass and energy inverted; so that mass now becomes the name for a quantity of energy considered in relation to some of its dynamical effects. This train of thought leads to the notion of energy being fundamental, thus displacing matter from that position. But energy is merely the name for the quantitative aspect of a structure of happenings; in short, it depends on the notion of the functioning of an organism. The question is, can we define an organism without recurrence to the concept of matter in simple location? We must, later on, consider this point in more detail.
The same relegation of matter to the background occurs in connection with the electromagnetic fields. The modern theory presupposes happenings in that field which are divorced from immediate dependence upon matter. It is usual to provide an ether as a substratum. But the ether does not really enter into the theory. Thus again the notion of material loses its fundamental position. Also, the atom is transforming itself into an organism; and finally the evolution theory is nothing else than the analysis of the conditions for the formation and survival of various types of organisms. In truth, one most significant fact of this later period is the advance in biological sciences. These sciences are essentially sciences concerning organisms. During the epoch in question, and indeed also at the present moment, the prestige of the more perfect scientific form belongs to the physical sciences. Accordingly, biology apes the manners of physics. It is orthodox to hold, that there is nothing in biology but what is physical mechanism under somewhat complex circumstances. One difficulty in this position is the present confusion as to the foundational concepts of physical science. This same difficulty also attaches to the opposed doctrine of vitalism. For, in this later theory, the fact of mechanism is accepted—I mean, mechanism based upon materialism—and an additional vital control is introduced to explain the actions of living bodies. It cannot be too clearly understood that the various physical laws which appear to apply to the behaviour of atoms are not mutually consistent as at present formulated. The appeal to mechanism on behalf of biology was in its origin an appeal to the well-attested self-consistent physical concepts as expressing the basis of all natural phenomena. But at present there is no such system of concepts.
Science is taking on a new aspect which is neither purely physical, nor purely biological. It is becoming the study of organisms. Biology is the study of the larger organisms; whereas physics is the study of the smaller organisms. There is another difference between the two divisions of science. The organisms of biology include as ingredients the smaller organisms of physics; but there is at present no evidence that the smaller of the physical organisms can be analysed into component organisms. It may be so. But anyhow we are faced with the question as to whether there are not primary organisms which are incapable of further analysis. It seems very unlikely that there should be any infinite regress in nature. Accordingly, a theory of science which discards materialism must answer the question as to the character of these primary entities. There can be only one answer on this basis. We must start with the event as the ultimate unit of natural occurrence. An event has to do with all that there is, and in particular with all other events. This interfusion of events is effected by the aspects of those eternal objects, such as colours, sounds, scents, geometrical characters, which are required for nature and are not emergent from it.
Such an eternal object will be an ingredient of one event under the guise, or aspect, of qualifying another event. There is a reciprocity of aspects, and there are patterns of aspects. Each event corresponds to two such patterns; namely, the pattern of aspects of other events which it grasps into its own unity, and the pattern of its aspects which other events severally grasp into their unities. Accordingly, a non-materialistic philosophy of nature will identify a primary organism as being the emergence of some particular pattern as grasped in the unity of a real event. Such a pattern will also include the aspects of the event in question as grasped in other events, whereby those other events receive a modification, or partial determination. There is thus an intrinsic and an extrinsic reality of an event, namely, the event as in its own prehension, and the event as in the prehension of other events. The concept of an organism includes, therefore, the concept of the interaction of organisms. The ordinary scientific ideas of transmission and continuity are, relatively speaking, details concerning the empirically observed characters of these patterns throughout space and time. The position here maintained is that the relationships of an event are internal, so far as concerns the event itself; that is to say, that they are constitutive of what the event is in itself.
Also in the previous lecture, we arrived at the notion that an actual event is an achievement for its own sake, a grasping of diverse entities into a value by reason of their real togetherness in that pattern, to the exclusion of other entities. It is not the mere logical togetherness of merely diverse things. For in that case, to modify Bacon’s words, “all eternal objects would be alike one to another.” This reality means that each intrinsic essence, that is to say, what each eternal object is in itself, becomes relevant to the one limited value emergent in the guise of the event. But values differ in importance. Thus though each event is necessary for the community of events, the weight of its contribution is determined by something intrinsic in itself. We have now to discuss what that property is. Empirical observation shows that it is the property which we may call indifferently _retention_, _endurance_ or _reiteration_. This property amounts to the recovery, on behalf of value amid the transitoriness of reality, of the self-identity which is also enjoyed by the primary eternal objects. The reiteration of a particular shape (or formation) of value within an event occurs when the event as a whole repeats some shape which is also exhibited by each one of a succession of its parts. Thus however you analyse the event according to the flux of its parts through time, there is the same thing-for-its-own-sake standing before you. Thus the event, in its own intrinsic reality, mirrors in itself, as derived from its own parts, aspects of the same patterned value as it realises in its complete self. It thus realises itself under the guise of an enduring individual entity, with a life history contained within itself. Furthermore, the extrinsic reality of such an event, as mirrored in other events, takes this same form of an enduring individuality; only in this case, the individuality is implanted as a reiteration of aspects of itself in the alien events composing the environment.
The total temporal duration of such an event bearing an enduring pattern, constitutes its specious present. Within this specious present the event realises itself as a totality, and also in so doing realises itself as grouping together a number of aspects of its own temporal parts. One and the same pattern is realised in the total event, and is exhibited by each of these various parts through an aspect of each part grasped into the togetherness of the total event. Also, the earlier life-history of the same pattern is exhibited by its aspects in this total event. There is, thus, in this event a memory of the antecedent life-history of its own dominant pattern, as having formed an element of value in its own antecedent environment. This concrete prehension, from within, of the life-history of an enduring fact is analysable into two abstractions, of which one is the enduring entity which has emerged as a real matter of fact to be taken account of by other things, and the other is the individualised embodiment of the underlying energy of realisation.
The consideration of the general flux of events leads to this analysis into an underlying eternal energy in whose nature there stands an envisagement of the realm of all eternal objects. Such an envisagement is the ground of the individualised thoughts which emerge as thought-aspects grasped within the life-history of the subtler and more complex enduring patterns. Also in the nature of the eternal activity there must stand an envisagement of all values to be obtained by a real togetherness of eternal objects, as envisaged in ideal situations. Such ideal situations, apart from any reality, are devoid of intrinsic value, but are valuable as elements in purpose. The individualised prehension into individual events of aspects of these ideal situations takes the form of individualised thoughts, and as such has intrinsic value. Thus value arises because there is now a real togetherness of the ideal aspects, as in thought, with the actual aspects, as in process of occurrence. Accordingly no value is to be ascribed to the underlying activity as divorced from the matter-of-fact events of the real world.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.