Note 147 — Chapter VII · The Machine Industry

An eminently illustrative instance of the mechanistic bias in the moral sciences is afforded by the hedonistic conceptions of the early nineteenth century; and the deistic theology of that period and earlier is no less characteristic a symptom of the same animus.

Cf. also, for a view running to a conclusion opposed to that spoken for above, H. Bergson, Creative Evolution (translation by Arthur Mitchell, New York, 1911), ch. i, especially pp. 16–23; where the mechanistic conception is construed as an instinctive metaphysical norm and contrasted with the deliverances of reason and experience, which are then held to inculcate an anthropomorphic interpretation of the same facts.