Aim and Method of Naturalism.

The aim and method of the strict type of naturalism may be easily defined.
In its details it will become more distinct as we proceed with our
analysis. Taking it as a whole, we may say that it is an endeavour on a
large scale after consistent simplification and gradual reduction to lower
and lower terms. Since it aims at explaining and understanding everything
according to the axiom _principia non temere esse multiplicanda_
[principles are not to be heedlessly multiplied], explaining, that is,
with the fewest, simplest, and most obvious principles possible, it is
incumbent upon it to attempt to refer all phenomena to a single, uniform
mode of occurrence, which admits of nothing outside of or beyond itself,
and which regulates itself according to its own system of fundamentally
similar causal sequences. It is further incumbent upon it to trace back
this universal mode of occurrence to the simplest and clearest form
possible, and its uniformities to the fewest and most intelligible laws,
that is, ultimately, to laws which can be determined by calculation and
summed up in formulae. This tracing back is equivalent to an elimination of
all incommensurable causes, of all "final causes," that is, of ultimate
causes and "purposes" which, in an unaccountable manner, work into the
network of proximate causes and control them, and by thus interrupting
their connectedness, make it difficult to come to a clear understanding of
the "Why?" of things. And this elimination is again a "reduction to
simpler terms," for it replaces the "teleological" consideration of
purposes, by a purely scientific consideration of causes, which inquires
only into the actual conditions antecedent to certain sequences.

But Being and Becoming include two great realms: that of "Nature" and that
of "Mind," _i.e._ consciousness and the processes of consciousness. And
two apparently fundamentally different branches of knowledge relate to
these: the natural sciences, and the mental sciences. If a unified and
"natural" explanation is really possible, the beginning and end of all
this "reducing to simpler terms" must be to bridge over the gulf between
these; but this, in the sense of naturalism, necessarily means that the
mental sciences must in some way be reduced to terms of natural science,
and that the phenomena, processes, sequences, and laws of consciousness
must likewise be made "commensurable" with and be linked on to th