Science and the Modern World

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SCIENCE AND THE MODERN WORLD

LOWELL LECTURES, 1925

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SCIENCE AND THE MODERN WORLD

LOWELL LECTURES, 1925

BY ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD F.R.S., Sc.D. (Cambridge), Hon. D.Sc. (Manchester), Hon. LL.D. (St. Andrews)

FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE AND PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY

=New York= THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1925 All rights reserved

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COPYRIGHT, 1925. BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

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Set up and printed. Published October, 1925.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY THE FERRIS PRINTING COMPANY

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TO MY COLLEAGUES, PAST AND PRESENT, WHOSE FRIENDSHIP IS INSPIRATION.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE ORIGINS OF MODERN SCIENCE 1

II. MATHEMATICS AS AN ELEMENT IN THE HISTORY OF 28 THOUGHT

III. THE CENTURY OF GENIUS 55

IV. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 80

V. THE ROMANTIC REACTION 105

VI. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 134

VII. RELATIVITY 160

VIII. THE QUANTUM THEORY 181

IX. SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 193

X. ABSTRACTION 219

XI. GOD 242

XII. RELIGION AND SCIENCE 252

XIII. REQUISITES FOR SOCIAL PROGRESS 270

PREFACE

The present book embodies a study of some aspects of Western culture during the past three centuries, in so far as it has been influenced by the development of science. This study has been guided by the conviction that the mentality of an epoch springs from the view of the world which is, in fact, dominant in the educated sections of the communities in question. There may be more than one such scheme, corresponding to cultural divisions. The various human interests which suggest cosmologies, and also are influenced by them, are science, aesthetics, ethics, religion. In every age each of these topics suggests a view of the world. In so far as the same set of people are swayed by all, or more than one, of these interests, their effective outlook will be the joint production from these sources. But each age has it dominant preoccupation; and, during the three centuries in question, the cosmology derived from science has been asserting itself at the expense of older points of view with their origins elsewhere. Men can be provincial in time, as well as in place. We may ask ourselves whether the scientific mentality of the modern world in the immediate past is not a successful example of such provincial limitation.