In existographies, Hugh Elliot (1881-1930) was a British philosopher, characterized "scientific materialist", noted for []
Overview
In 1919, Hugh, in his Modern Science and Materialism, attempted to go beyond the destruction of Henri Bergson like ideas, but instead to build a foundation for materialistic beliefs; his gist abstract (pg. 8) aim is as follows:
“It is not the purpose of the present work to furnish a defense of the agnostic position. That task was sufficiently carried out by the writers of last century, and in my work Modern Science and the Illusions of Professor Bergson [1912] I said all that seemed necessary in destruction of metaphysical pseudo-knowledge. The purpose of the present book is not destructive but constructive. If we take our start from agnosticism, it means no more than that we embark on our inquiries with minds free from the encumbrance of - superstition. We start then, as every scientific investigation ought to be started, from an agnostic position; and the first question that arises is, what kind of philosophy we can construct within the limits drawn for us by agnosticism. In other words, what sort of philosophy can be founded on the present knowledge attained by man? Naturally such a philosophy must be far less ambitious than the metaphysics of those who are not bound to the solid earth, but are free to soar wherever their imagination can penetrate. Our philosophy, on the other hand, must be strictly based on facts, and capable of verification by direct observation or experiment. Its progress is wholly dependent on the knowledge of the times.
As that knowledge increases, true philosophy can likewise expand; and in times of ignorance no true philosophy is possible. We have expressly abandoned all attempts to understand the ultimate nature of things; nevertheless, the present state of human knowledge is sufficient to permit the emergence of certain fundamental principles of profound philosophic import. It is the purpose of the present book to collect together and present these all-embracing principles, and to show that they constitute on the one hand a materialistic system, and on the other hand an idealistic system, according to which way we look at them, and to whether we employ the objective or the subjective method.
Since our philosophy is to be built upon facts—upon the knowledge possessed by men at the present time—the first task of this book must be to review that knowledge, not, of course, with any thought of exhaustiveness, but in order to indicate the general scope and nature of the facts known to mankind, upon which philosophy must necessarily be based. A philosophic principle is one that embraces a vast multitude of facts; moreover, such a principle is immediately upset by the discovery of any single fact which conflicts with it. It is true, no doubt, that most of the great generalizations of science, such, for instance, as the law of gravitation – without prejudice to the principle of relativity. As to how far Newton's Laws may be an absolute and final expression of the facts, is a question I do not raise – and the first two laws of thermodynamics, are so solidly established that the discovery of any contradictory fact is scarcely conceivable. Any such alleged discovery would suggest only error or illusion on the part of the discoverer. Thus, it happens that these great principles, which may rightly be called philosophic, are based upon a stronger foundation of certainty than any single fact can claim. They are based on long and universal experience, which confers upon them as high a degree of certainty as can be attained by humanity.”