in terms of motion. In this way all the problems tend to become problems of mechanics; change of position, change of form, change of motion—these are the principles to which our physicists and our chemists have recourse whenever they can.
It is therefore wrong to say that the Cartesian line of thought has completely failed and that modern science has been moving away from it more and more. On the contrary we are witnessing the daily extension of mechanicalism in the science of our time. The question takes on a different phase when it is asked whether mechanicalism is the final word of nature, whether it is self-sufficient, in fact whether the principles of mechanicalism are themselves mechanical. This is a wholly metaphysical question and does not at all affect positive science; for the phenomena will be explained in the same way whether matter is thought of as inert, composed of little particles which are moved and combined by invisible hands, or whether an interior activity and a sort of spontaneity is attributed to them. For the physicist and for the chemist, forces are only words representing unknown causes. For the metaphysician they are real activities. It is metaphysics, therefore, and not physics which is rising above mechanicalism. It is in metaphysics that mechanicalism has found, not its contradiction, but its completion through the doctrine of dynamism. It is this latter direction that philosophy has mainly taken since Descartes and in this the prime mover was Leibniz.[1]
- ↑ We give here in a note the résumé of Leibniz's life and the names of his principal works. Leibniz (Gottfried Wilhelm) was born at Leipzig in 1646. He lost his father at the age of six years. From his very infancy he gave evidence of remarkable ability. At fifteen years of age he was admitted to the higher branches of study (philosophy and mathematics) which he pursued first at Leipzig and then at Jena. An intrigue not very well understood prevented his obtaining his doctor's degree at Leipzig and he obtained it from the small university of Altdorf near Nuremberg, where he made the acquaintance of Baron von Boineburg, who became one of his most intimate friends and who took him to Frankfort. Here he was named as a councillor of the supreme court in the electorate of Mainz, and wrote his first two works on jurisprudence, The Study of Law and The Reform of the Corpus Juris. At Frankfort also were written his first literary and philosophical works and notably his two treatises on motion: Abstract Motion, addressed to the Academy of Sciences at Paris, and Concrete Motion, addressed to the Royal Society at London. He remained with the Elector till the year 1672, when he began his journeys. He first went to Paris and then to London, where he was made a member of the Royal Society. Returning to Paris he remained till 1677, when he made a trip through Holland, and finally took up his residence at Hanover, where he was appointed director of the library. At Hanover he lived for ten years, leading a very
