An Essay on Nature by Frederick J. E. Woodbridge (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 669 An Essay on Nature. By FREDERICK J. E. WooDBRIDGE. New York: Columbia University Press, 1940. Pp. xii + 351, with index. $3.00. Not often does the student of philosophy come across a work whose main thought may be summarized in one short formula. It needs a wise mind and a clear one to coin a word which condenses and, at the same time, illuminates the thought of a lifetime with one single sentence. Professor Woodbridge is one of these rare minds. His last book is an impressive defense of metaphysics and of the supernatural by one who is essentially and thoroughly a naturalist. The supernatural is nature transubstantiated. Theology is science transubstantiated. Such is the eminent author~s own formula and the briefest statement of his main idea. The supernatural is therefore not the goal of the quest for knowledge, but it is the justification and the foundation of the quest for happiness. Because transubstantiated, the terms of knowledge, ~!though they remain extrinsically and inevitably the same, refer to a different substance when used in the theological universe of discourse. This discourse is, however, not of the "ideal" but of the supernatural, that is, of being, no less than when we speak of nature. One feels tempted to apply to Professor Woodbridge's philosophy, although in a much modified way, the famous Kantian saying, that he had to destroy knowledge to make faith possible. With this author it is rather that knowledge had to be preserved for the sake of ensuring faith. Nature is what we perceive. There is no convincing reason for turning the percept into a symbol of something else. Our perceiving capacities are limited, but we become aware of these limitations only in perception. The dependence of knowledge on the organization of our bodies does not dethrone mind, nor do we lose our souls when we discover the use of words. Words and formulae do not represent a second world, truer than the one of percepts, and Sir Arthur Eddington's famous two tables are no argument at all, since Sir Arthur never in his life wrote upon a " scientific table." Scientific objects are, Professor Woodbridge contends, the most amusing fictions ever invented. Natural philosophy, being the reflections suggested to the mind by the perceived world, engenders mathematics and science. Natural science gives birth to scientific language; it is the source not the offspring of the latter. Without being a " naive realist," the author insists on the right of the visible world and the space which is its order. Light and space are the two great fundamental principles. All our knowledge ultimately rests on light and on space. Our language talks of them. They are laws of nature, as is time, and we are parts of the same nature. Again, our language pictures nature in its temporality. There are things that move; but there is no event "moving." Nor does the inability of man destroy nature's working. At a given moment the events of nature are synchronized, whether we can 670 BOOK; REVIEWS ascertain this or not. Causal explanation does not do away with teleology; they are not opposed but correlated. All our knowledge is bound up with time and thus with history. Neither mathematics nor language is" applied" to nature; they stem from 'her. We can never escape reality because we are reality too and because reality ia. Justifying nature's ways and knowing them are two different things. The only true problem is how to enlarge our knowledge of nature's ways. Morality pertains to nature not less than anything else, although nature'" does not intend moral order, but rather subtends it." Nature is the only object of knowledge, but there are things as necessary as knowledge 'to which not knowledge but faith is the adequate answer. Ceremonial cult is the expression of the acknowledgment of the supernatural, and religion is the personal acceptance of this acknowledgment. It is the pursuit of happiness which reveals the supernatural. The dualism of knowledgment and happiness is fundamental in human existence. Knowledge discovers nature, but does not justify it. This justification the mind demands, faith supplies. The supernatural is the justification of nature. Catholic...