The Sleepwalkers (261 page)

A
second
example
of
the
hubris
of
contemporary
science
is
the
rigorous
banishment
of
the
word
"purpose"
from
its
vocabulary.
This
is
probably
an
aftermath
of
the
reaction
against
the
animism
of
Aristotelian
physics,
where
stones
accelerated
their
fall
because
of
their
impatience
to
get
home,
and
against
a
teleological
world-view
in
which
the
purpose
of
the
stars
was
to
serve
as
chronometers
for
man's
profit.
From
Galileo
onward,
"final
causes"
(or
"finality"
for
short)
were
relegated
into
the
realm
of
superstition,
and
mechanical
causality
reigned
supreme.
In
the
mechanical
universe
of
indivisible
hard
little
atoms,
causality
worked
by
impact,
as
on
a
billiard
table;
events
were
caused
by
the
mechanical
push
of
the
past,
not
by
any
"pull"
of
the
future.
That
is
the
reason
why
gravity
and
other
forms
of
action-at-a-distance
did
not
fit
into
the
picture
and
were
regarded
with
suspicion;
why
ethers
and
vortices
had
to
be
invented
to
replace
that
occult
pull
by
a
mechanical
push.
The
mechanistic
universe
gradually
disintegrated,
but
the
mechanistic
notion
of
causality
survived
until
Heisenberg's
indeterminacy
principle
proved
its
untenability.
Today
we
know
that
on
the
sub-atomic
level
the
fate
of
an
electron
or
a
whole
atom
is
not
determined
by
its
past.
But
this
discovery
has
not
led
to
any
basically
new
departure
in
the
philosophy
of
nature,
only
to
a
state
of
bewildered
embarrassment,
a
further
retreat
of
physics
into
a
language
of
even
more
abstract
symbolism.
Yet
if
causality
has
broken
down
and
events
are
not
rigidly
governed
by
the
pushes
and
pressures
of
the
past,
may
they
not
be
influenced
in
some
manner
by
the
"pull"
of
the
future
–
which
is
a
manner
of
saying
that
"purpose"
may
be
a
concrete
physical
factor
in
the
evolution
of
the
universe,
both
on
the
organic
and
unorganic
levels.
In
the
relativistic
cosmos,
gravitation
is
a
result
of
the
curvatures
and
creases
in
space
which
continually
tend
to
straighten
themselves
out
–
which,
as
Whittaker
remarked,
²⁷
"is
a
statement
so
completely
teleological
that
it
would
certainly
have
delighted
the
hearts
of
the
schoolmen."
If
time
is
treated
in
modern
physics
as
a
dimension
almost
on
a
par
with
the
dimensions
of
space,
why
should
we
a
priori
exclude
the
possibility
that
we
are
pulled
as
well
as
pushed
along
its
axis?
The
future
has,
after
all,
as
much
or
as
little
reality
as
the
past,
and
there
is
nothing
logically
inconceivable
in
introducing,
as
a
working
hypothesis,
an
element
of
finality,
supplementary
to
the
element
of
causality,
into
our
equations.
It
betrays
a
great
lack
of
imagination
to
believe
that
the
concept
of
"purpose"
must
necessarily
be
associated
with
some
anthropomorphic
deity.

These
are
matters
of
speculation
and
possibly
quite
beside
the
point;
but
we
have
learnt
from
the
past
that
impasses
in
evolution
can
only
be
overcome
by
some
new
departure
in
an
unexpected
direction.
Whenever
a
branch
of
knowledge
became
isolated
from
the
mainstream,
its
frozen
surface
had
to
crack
up
and
thaw
before
it
could
be
reunited
with
living
reality.

8.
From Hierarchy to Continuum

As
a result of their divorce, neither faith nor science is able to
satisfy man's intellectual cravings. In the divided house, both
inhabitants lead a thwarted existence.

Post-Galilean
science
claimed
to
be
a
substitute
for,
or
the
legitimate
successor
of,
religion;
thus
its
failure
to
provide
the
basic
answers
produced
not
only
intellectual
frustration
but
spiritual
starvation.
A
summary
recapitulation
of
European
men's
view
of
the
world
before
and
after
the
scientific
revolution
may
help
to
put
the
situation
into
sharper
relief.
Taking
the
year
1600
as
our
dividing
line
or
watershed,
we
find
indeed
virtually
all
rivers
of
thought
and
currents
of
feeling
flow
into
opposite
directions.
The
"pre-scientific"
European
lived
in
a
closed
universe
with
firm
boundaries
in
space
and
time
a
few
million
miles
in
diameter
and
a
few
thousand
years
of
duration.
Space
as
such
did
not
exist
as
an
abstract
concept,
merely
as
an
attribute
of
material
bodies
–
their
length,
width
and
depth;
hence
empty
space
was
unthinkable,
a
contradiction
in
terms,
and
infinite
space
even
more
so.
Time,
similarly,
was
simply
the
duration
of
an
event.
Nobody
in
his
senses
would
have
said
that
things
move
through
or
in
space
or
time
–
how
can
a
thing
move
in
or
through
an
attribute
of
itself,
how
can
the
concrete
move
through
the
abstract?