[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
It would be folly in us to expect to be ever able to discover, with the assistance
only of our external senses, in animate nature that something which we are unable
to find in the inanimate.
And forthwith the lecturer adds that man being endowed "in addition to his physical senses with
an inner sense," a perception which gives him the possibility of observing the states and
phenomena of his own consciousness, "he has to use that in dealing with animate nature" -- a
profession of faith verging suspiciously on the borders of Occultism. He denies, moreover, the
assumption, that the states and phenomena of consciousness represent in substance the same
manifestations of motion as in the external world, and bases his denial by the reminder that not
all of such states and manifestations have necessarily a spatial extension. According to him that
only is connected with our conception of space which has reached our consciousness through
sight, touch, and the muscular sense, while all the other senses, all the effects, tendencies, as all
the interminable series of representations, have no extension in space but only in time.
Thus he asks: --
Where then is there room in this for a mechanical theory? Objectors might argue
that this is so only in appearance, while in reality all these have a spatial
extension. But such an argument would be entirely erroneous. Our sole reason for
believing that objects perceived by the senses have such extension in the external
world, rests on the idea that they seem to do so, as far as they can be watched and
observed through the senses of sight and touch. With regard, however, to the
realm of our inner senses even that supposed foundation loses its force and there
is no ground for admitting it.
The winding up argument of the lecturer is most interesting to Theosophists. Says this
physiologist of the modern school of Materialism --
Thus, a deeper and more direct acquaintance with our inner nature unveils to us a
world entirely unlike the world represented to us by our external senses, and
reveals the most heterogeneous faculties, shows objects having nought to do with
spatial extension, and phenomena absolutely disconnected with those that fall
under mechanical laws.
Hitherto the opponents of vitalism and "life-principle," as well as the followers of the mechanical
theory of life, based their views on the supposed fact, that, as physiology was progressing
forward, its students succeeded more and more in connecting its functions with the laws of blind
matter. All those manifestations that used to be attributed to a "mystical life-force," they said,
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STUDIES IN OCCULTISM
59
may be brought now under physical and chemical laws. And they were, and still are loudly
clamoring for the recognition of the fact that it is only a question of time when it will be
triumphantly demonstrated that the whole vital process, in its grand totality, represents nothing
more mysterious than a very complicated phenomenon of motion, exclusively governed by the
forces of inanimate nature.
But here we have a professor of physiology who asserts that the history of physiology proves,
unfortunately for them, quite the contrary; and he pronounces these ominous words:
I maintain that the more our experiments and observations are exact and many-
sided, the deeper we penetrate into facts, the more we try to fathom and speculate
on the phenomena of life, the more we acquire the conviction, that even those
phenomena that we had hoped to be already able to explain by physical and
chemical laws, are in reality unfathomable. They are vastly more complicated, in
fact; and as we stand at present, they will not yield to any mechanical explanation.
This is a terrible blow at the puffed-up bladder known as Materialism, which is as empty as it is
dilated. A Judas in the camp of the apostles of negation -- the "animalists"! But the Basle
professor is no solitary exception, as we have just shown; and there are several physiologists who
are of his way of thinking; indeed some of them going so far as to almost accept free-will and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl wyciskamy.pev.pl
It would be folly in us to expect to be ever able to discover, with the assistance
only of our external senses, in animate nature that something which we are unable
to find in the inanimate.
And forthwith the lecturer adds that man being endowed "in addition to his physical senses with
an inner sense," a perception which gives him the possibility of observing the states and
phenomena of his own consciousness, "he has to use that in dealing with animate nature" -- a
profession of faith verging suspiciously on the borders of Occultism. He denies, moreover, the
assumption, that the states and phenomena of consciousness represent in substance the same
manifestations of motion as in the external world, and bases his denial by the reminder that not
all of such states and manifestations have necessarily a spatial extension. According to him that
only is connected with our conception of space which has reached our consciousness through
sight, touch, and the muscular sense, while all the other senses, all the effects, tendencies, as all
the interminable series of representations, have no extension in space but only in time.
Thus he asks: --
Where then is there room in this for a mechanical theory? Objectors might argue
that this is so only in appearance, while in reality all these have a spatial
extension. But such an argument would be entirely erroneous. Our sole reason for
believing that objects perceived by the senses have such extension in the external
world, rests on the idea that they seem to do so, as far as they can be watched and
observed through the senses of sight and touch. With regard, however, to the
realm of our inner senses even that supposed foundation loses its force and there
is no ground for admitting it.
The winding up argument of the lecturer is most interesting to Theosophists. Says this
physiologist of the modern school of Materialism --
Thus, a deeper and more direct acquaintance with our inner nature unveils to us a
world entirely unlike the world represented to us by our external senses, and
reveals the most heterogeneous faculties, shows objects having nought to do with
spatial extension, and phenomena absolutely disconnected with those that fall
under mechanical laws.
Hitherto the opponents of vitalism and "life-principle," as well as the followers of the mechanical
theory of life, based their views on the supposed fact, that, as physiology was progressing
forward, its students succeeded more and more in connecting its functions with the laws of blind
matter. All those manifestations that used to be attributed to a "mystical life-force," they said,
Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com
STUDIES IN OCCULTISM
59
may be brought now under physical and chemical laws. And they were, and still are loudly
clamoring for the recognition of the fact that it is only a question of time when it will be
triumphantly demonstrated that the whole vital process, in its grand totality, represents nothing
more mysterious than a very complicated phenomenon of motion, exclusively governed by the
forces of inanimate nature.
But here we have a professor of physiology who asserts that the history of physiology proves,
unfortunately for them, quite the contrary; and he pronounces these ominous words:
I maintain that the more our experiments and observations are exact and many-
sided, the deeper we penetrate into facts, the more we try to fathom and speculate
on the phenomena of life, the more we acquire the conviction, that even those
phenomena that we had hoped to be already able to explain by physical and
chemical laws, are in reality unfathomable. They are vastly more complicated, in
fact; and as we stand at present, they will not yield to any mechanical explanation.
This is a terrible blow at the puffed-up bladder known as Materialism, which is as empty as it is
dilated. A Judas in the camp of the apostles of negation -- the "animalists"! But the Basle
professor is no solitary exception, as we have just shown; and there are several physiologists who
are of his way of thinking; indeed some of them going so far as to almost accept free-will and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]