Paul Janet

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Professor Paul Janet
http://www.amazon.com/Materialism-Present-Critique-B%C3%BCchners-System/dp/1152057863

The Materialism of the Present Day, a Critique of Dr. Büchner's System [Paperback]

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http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19192/19192-h/19192-h.htm Paul Janet, a professor of philosophy, is the author of a book on the Materialism of Büchner.[34] The greater part of the last chapter of his work is devoted to Darwinism. He says, "Dr. Büchner invoked (Darwin's book) as a striking confirmation of his doctrine." (p. 154) What Büchner's doctrine is has been shown on a previous page. The points of coincidence between Darwin's system and his are, that both regard mind as a mere function of living matter; and both refer all the organs and organisms of living things to the unconscious, unintelligent operation of physical causes. Büchner's way of accounting for complicated organs was, "that the energy of the elements and forces of matter, which in their fated and accidental occurrence must have produced innumerable forms, which must needs limit each other mutually, and correspond, apparently, the one with the other, as if they were made for that purpose. Out of all those forms, they[Pg 106] only have survived which were adapted, in some manner, to the conditions of the medium in which they were placed." (p. 30) This is very clumsy. No wonder Büchner preferred Darwin's method. The two systems are, indeed, exactly the same, but Mr. Darwin has a much more winning way of presenting it.

Professor Janet does not seem to have much objection to the doctrine of evolution in itself; it is the denial of teleology that he regards as the fatal element of Mr. Darwin's theory. "According to us," he says, "the true stumbling-block of Mr. Darwin's theory, the perilous and slippery point, is the passage from artificial to natural selection; it is when he wants to establish that a blind and designless nature has been able to obtain, by the occurrence of circumstances, the same results which man obtains by thoughtful and well calculated industry." (p. 174)

Towards the end of his volume he says: "We shall conclude by a general observation. Notwithstanding the numerous objections we have raised against Mr. Darwin's theory, we do not declare ourselves hostile to a system of which zoölogists are the only competent judges. We are neither for nor against the transmu[Pg 107]tation of species, neither for nor against the principle of natural selection. The only positive conclusion of our debate is this: no principle hitherto known, neither the action of media, nor habit, nor natural selection, can account for organic adaptations without the intervention of the principle of finality. Natural selection, unguided, submitted to the laws of a pure mechanism, and exclusively determined by accidents, seems to me, under another name, the chance proclaimed by Epicurus, equally barren, equally incomprehensible; on the other hand, natural selection guided beforehand by a provident will, directed towards a precise end by intentional laws, might be the means which nature has selected to pass from one stage of being to another, from one form to another, to bring to perfection life throughout the universe, and to rise by a continuous process from the monad to man. Now, I ask Mr. Darwin himself, what interest has he in maintaining that natural selection is not guided—not directed? What interest has he in substituting accidental causes for every final cause? I cannot see. Let him admit that in natural, as well as in artificial selection, there may be a choice and direction; his principle immediately becomes[Pg 108] much more fruitful than it was before. His hypothesis, then, whilst having the advantage of exempting science from the necessity of introducing the personal and miraculous intervention of God in the creation of each species, yet would be free from the banishing out of the universe an all-provident thought, and of submitting everything to blind and brute chance." (pp. 198, 199) Professor Janet asks far too much of Mr. Darwin. To ask him to give up his denial of final causes is like asking the Romanists to give up the Pope. That principle is the life and soul of his system.