Atherden | From the Cardinal Difficulty of Naturalism....

If Naturalism is true, every finite thing or event must be (in principle) explicable in terms of the Total System. I say 'explicable in principle' because of course we are not going to demand that naturalists at any given moment, should have found the detailed explanation of every phenomenom. Obviously many things will only be explained when the sciences have made further progress. But if Naturalism is to be accepted we have a right to demand that every single thing should be such that we see, in geberal, how it could be explained in terms of the Total System. If any one thing exists which is of such a kind that we see in advance the impossibility of ever giving that kind of explanation, then Naturalism would be in ruins. If necessities of thought force us to allow to any one thing any degree of independence from the Total System---if any one thing makes good a claim to be on its own, to be something more than expression of the character of Nature as a while---then we have abandoned Naturalism.


	From C.S. Lewis' chapter entitled The Cardinal Difficulty
	of Naturalism.



	We cannot have it both ways, and no sneers at the limitation of logic... amend the dilemma.

	I. A. Richards, Principles of Literary Criticism, chap. XXV.

	If Naturalism is true, every finite thing or event must be (in principle) explicable in terms of the Total System. I say 'explicable in principle' because of course we are not going to demand that naturalists at any given moment, should have found the detailed explanation of every phenomenom. Obviously many things will only be explained when the sciences have made further progress. But if Naturalism is to be accepted we have a right to demand that every single thing should be such that we see, in geberal, how it could be explained in terms of the Total System. If any one thing exists which is of such a kind that we see in advance the impossibility of ever giving that kind of explanation, then Naturalism would be in ruins. If necessities of thought force us to allow to any one thing any degree of independence from the Total System---if any one thing makes good a claim to be on its own, to be something more than expression of the character of Nature as a while---then we have abandoned Naturalism.