Lanterna Rally

Author: John Arthur Thomson

Publisher:

Published: 1920

Total Pages: 687

ISBN-13:

"The aim of this study of Animate Nature is to state the general results of biological inquiry which must be taken account of if we are to think of organic Nature as a whole and in relation to the rest of our experience. Both among careful thinkers and careless passers-by views of organic Nature are held, in regard, for instance, to the organism as mechanism, the determinism of heredity, the struggle for existence, which seem to the author to be lacking in accuracy or in adequacy, which therefore tend to involve unnecessary difficulties in systematisation and perhaps gratuitous confusion in conduct. It has been declared by some that the world of life is "a dismal cockpit", that in the behaviour of living creatures mind is a negligible quantity, that the study of heredity must leave us fatalistic, and that evolution is largely "a chapter of accidents". Such views engender what may be called natural irreligion, and it is the object of this course to show that such views are scientifically untenable. Nature doubtless presents many puzzling features, but care must be taken to make sure that what seem to be unconformabilities are not due to the inadequacy of our knowledge. While trying to keep wishes from fathering thoughts, we have been led in our study to see that the general results of Biology, when stated with accuracy, are not out of line with transcendental conclusions reached along other paths--conclusions which different minds express in different forms. It looks as if Nature were much more conformable than is often supposed to religious interpretation, but we have not seen it to be our duty to justify the ways of God to man. We have tried to keep as close as possible to the facts of the case, leaving philosophical and religious inferences for those who are better qualified to draw them. Our endeavour to present the scientific view of Animate Nature has often led only to a disappointing balancing of alternative formulations, for science abounds in open questions; it has also involved considerable noise of facts throughout the lectures, for there is no other way of getting beyond mere opinions. But it will be understood that the appeal to facts is not exactly for their own sake, as in a course of lectures on descriptive Biology, but as a basis for those distinctive biological and psycho-biological concepts of organism, behaviour, development, heredity, evolution, and so on, which must be included in a philosophical view of Nature"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).