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NATURALISM

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Originally appearing in Volume V19, Page 275 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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NATURALISM . " Nature " is a See also:

term of very uncertain extent, and the " natural " has accordingly several antitheses, often more or less conflicting, and only to be learnt from the context in which they occur. Thus, though See also:Man and the See also:World are often opposed as respectively subject and See also:object, yet the word nature is applied to both: hence Naturalism is used in both a subjective and an See also:objective sense. In the subjective sense the natural, as the See also:original or essential, is opposed to what is acquired, artificial, conventional or accidental. On this opposition the See also:casuistry and paradoxes of the See also:Sophists largely turned; it determined also, at least negatively, the conduct of the See also:Cynics in their contempt for the customary duties and decencies; and it led the See also:Stoics to seek See also:positive rules of See also:life in " conformity to nature." This deference for the " natural " generally, and distrust of traditional systems of thought and even of traditional institutions, has played a large See also:part in See also:modern See also:philosophy, especially See also:British philosophy. It was perhaps the inevitable outcome of the reaction, which began with the See also:Renaissance, against the See also:medieval domination of See also:mere authority. " L'homme qui medite est un See also:animal deprave," said See also:Rousseau; and again, " Tout est mien sortant See also:des mains de l'auteur des choses, tout degenere entre See also:les mains de 1'homme." I In See also:psychology and See also:epistemology, " no one," as See also:Green has said, " is more emphatic than See also:Locke in opposing what is real to what we ` make for ourselves '—the See also:work of nature to the work of the mind. See also:Simple ideas or sensations we certainly do not ` make for ourselves.' They therefore, and See also:matter supposed to cause them, are, according to Locke, real. But relations are neither simple ideas nor their material archetypes. They therefore, as Locke explicitly holds, fall under the See also:head of the work of the mind, which is opposed to the real."2 This opposition again led See also:Hume, in the first See also:place, to distinguish between natural and philosophical relations—the former determined simply by association, the latter by an abitrary See also:union of two ideas, which we may think proper to compare—and then, in the next, to reduce identity and causality, the two See also:chief philosophical relations," to See also:fictions resulting from " natural relations," that is to say, from associations of similarity and contiguity. Subjective naturalism thus tended to become, and in the end became, what is more commonly called See also:Sensationalism or Associatianism, thereby approximating towards that objective naturalism which reduces the See also:external world to a mechanism describable in terms of matter and See also:motion—a result already foreshadowed when See also:Hartley connected ideas and their association with See also:brain vibrations and vibratiuncles. In See also:ethics, also, the striving to get back to the natural entailed a similar downward trend.

From the See also:

Cambridge Platonists, from Locke and See also:Clarke, we hear much of rational 1 Quoted by Eisler, Worterbuch der philosophischen Begriffe (1899), s.o. " Naturalismus." 2 T. H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics (1883), § 20.principles of conduct, comparable in respect of intelligibility with the truths of See also:mathematics; but already we find that in See also:Shaftesbury the centre of ethical See also:interest is transferred from the See also:Reason, conceived as apprehending either abstract moral distinctions or See also:laws of divine legislation, to the " natural affections " that prompt to social See also:duty;3 and when we reach See also:Bentham, with See also:pleasure and See also:pain as " See also:sovereign masters," and the See also:Mills, with love of virtue explained by the laws of association, all seems to be non-rational.' There is much resemblance, as well as some See also:historical connexion, between the naturalism of moralists such as Shaftesbury and See also:Hutcheson and the See also:Common-Sense See also:metaphysics of See also:Reid and his school.5 Hence See also:Kant, distinguishing between a " naturalistic " and " scientific " or See also:critical method in metaphysics, styles Reid and his followers " naturalists of pure reason," satirically comparing them to See also:people who think they can See also:settle the See also:size and distance of the See also:moon by See also:direct eyesight better than by the roundabout calculations of mathematics. So far we have seen the natural approximating to the non-rational. But when used in a subjective sense in opposition to the supernatural, it means the rational as opposed to what is above reason, or even contrary to reason. It is in this sense that the term Naturalism most frequently occurs; and it was so applied specially to the doctrines of the See also:English Deists and the See also:German See also:Illuminati of the 17th and 18th centuries: those of them who held that human reason alone was capable of attaining to the knowledge of See also:God were called theological naturalists or rationalists, while those who denied the possibility of See also:revelation altogether were called philosophical naturalists or naturalists simply s In these controversies the term Naturalist was also sometimes used in an objective sense for those who identified God and Nature, but they were more frequently styled Spinozists, Pantheists or even Atheists. But it is at once obvious that dispute as to what is natural and what supernatural is vain and hopeless till the meanings of reason and nature are clearly defined. " The only distinct meaning of the word " [natural], said See also:Butler, " is stated, fixed or settled; since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent See also:agent to render it so, i.e. to effect it continually, or at stated times, as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once. And from hence it must follow that persons' notion of what is natural will be enlarged in proportion to tl}eir greater knowledge. . . . Nor is there any absurdity in supposing that there may be beings in the universe, whose capacities .

. . may be so extensive, as that the whole See also:

Christian See also:dispensation may to them appear natural, i.e. analogous or conformable to God's dealings with other parts of His creation; as natural as the visible known course of things appears to us." 7 The See also:antithesis of natural to spiritual (or ideal) has mainly determined the use of the term Naturalism in the See also:present See also:day.$ But current naturalism is not to be called See also:materialism, though these terms are often used synonymously, as by See also:Hegel, See also:Ueberweg and other historians of philosophy; nor yet See also:pan-See also:theism, if by that is meant the See also:immanence of all things in one God. We know only material phenomena, it is said; matter is an abstract conception simply, not a substantial reality. It is therefore meaningless to describe mind as its effect. Moreover, mind also is but an abstract conception; and here again all our knowledge is confined to the phenomenal. To identify the two classes of phenomena is, however, impossible, and indeed absurd; nevertheless we find a See also:constant concomitance of psychosis and neurosis; and the more sensationalist and associationist our psychology, the easier it becomes to correlate the 3 Cf. See also:Sidgwick, See also:History of Ethics (1886), p. 181. ' Cf. W. R. Sorley, The Ethics of Naturalism (1885), pp. 16 sqq.

'Cf. W. R. See also:

Scott, See also:Francis Hutcheson; his Life, Teaching and Position in Philosophy (1900), pp. 121, 265 seq. 2 See See also:RATIONALISM; Kant, See also:Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, Hartenstein's edition, vi. 253; and See also:Lechler, Geschichte des Englischen Deismus (1841), pp. 454 sqq. ' See also:Analogy, part i. See also:chap. i. end. Cf. also J. S. See also:Mill, See also:Logic, See also:book iii. chap. See also:xxv.

§ 2, and Essays on Religion. 2In See also:

aesthetics we find Naturalism used in a cognate sense: the Flemish painters, such writers as See also:Flaubert or See also:Zola, for example, being called naturalistic or realistic, in contrast to the See also:Italian painters or writers like See also:George See also:Sand or the Brontes. psychical and the See also:physical as but " two aspects " of one and the same fact. It is therefore simplest and sufficient to assume an underlying, albeit unknown, unity connecting the two. A See also:monism—so far neutral, neither materialistic nor spiritualistic—is thus a characteristic of the prevailing naturalism. But when the question arises, how best to systematize experience as a whole, it is contended that we must begin from the physical See also:side. Here we have precise conceptions, quantitative exactness and thoroughgoing continuity; every thought that has ever stirred the See also:hearts of men, not less than every See also:breeze that has ever rippled the See also:face of the deep, has meant a perfectly definite re-See also:distribution of matter and motion. To the See also:mechanical principles of this redistribution an ultimate See also:analysis brings us down; and—beginning from these—the nebular See also:hypothesis and the theory of natural selection will enable us to explain all subsequent See also:synthesis.' Life and mind now clearly take a secondary place; the cosmical mechanism determines them, while they are powerless to modify it. The spiritual becomes the " epiphenomenal," a merely incidental See also:phosphorescence, so to say, that regularly accompanies physical processes of a certain type and complexity. (See also PSYCHOLOGY.) This See also:absolute naturalism, as we may See also:call it, the union, that is, of psychological and cosmological. naturalism, is in fact a See also:species of See also:Fatalism, as Kant indeed entitled it? It is the logical outcome of a sensationalist psychology, and of the epistemology which this entails. As See also:long as association of ideas (or sensory residua) is held to explain See also:judgment and See also:conscience, so long may naturalism stand.

The naturalistic work of chief See also:

account at the present day is E. See also:Haeckel's See also:Die Weltratsel, gemeinverstdndliche Studien fiber monistische Philosophie (5th ed., 1900), of which an English See also:translation has appeared. Effective refutations will be found in the See also:works of two of Haeckel's colleagues, O. Liebmann, Zur Analysis der Wirklichkeil (3rd ed., 1900) ; R. See also:Eucken, Die Einheit des Geisteslebens in Bewusstsein and That der Menschheit (1888, Eng. trans.); Der Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt (1898). See also A. J. See also:Balfour, See also:Foundations of Belief (8th ed., 19or); J. See also:Ward, Naturalism and See also:Agnosticism (1899). (J.

End of Article: NATURALISM

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