Abstract
ACCORDING to Prof. Crile, the proper term for describing man is mechanism. “Man is essentially an energy-transforming mechanism, obeying the laws of physics, as do other mechanisms.” This obedience to the laws of physics is generally admitted by biologists; the question is whether the mechanistic (or chemico-physical) description, which is true so far as it can go, is exhaustive and adequate. Prof. Crile insists that it is, but when we find him including in his conception of mechanism “the fabrication of thought” (by which the mechanical formulae were themselves fabricated), we wonder if he has sufficiently considered his position. He seems to us to have passed insidiously from a scientific materialism which is admittedly a progressive working hypothesis in physiological research to I a philosophical materialism which holds that a true and full description of the world can be given in terms of matter and motion.
Manâ An Adaptive Mechanism.
By Prof. G. W. Crile. Pp. xvi + 387. (New York: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1916.) Price 10s. 6d. net.
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Man—An Adaptive Mechanism . Nature 98, 288–289 (1916). https://doi.org/10.1038/098288a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/098288a0
