Modes of Thought

PROF. A. N. WHITEHEAD'S latest book consists of eight lectures and a short address as epilogue. Two of the lectures have been published before under the title “Nature and Life”. Any reader who is unfamiliar with the author's philosophy would be well advised to begin with the first of these (Lecture VII). Prof. Whitehead points out there that according to the traditional doctrine of science, which has been taken over by common sense, Nature consists of permanent things, bits of matter, moving about in a space which is otherwise empty. The connexions between such bits of matter are purely spatial, and therefore motion is the only mode of change. Modern physical theory contradicts everything this doctrine asserts, nevertheless it remains as a general presupposition.Modes of ThoughtBy Prof. Alfred North Whitehead. Pp. x + 241. (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1938.) 7s. 6d. net.