Volume 1

First principles / by Herbert Spencer.

  • Spencer, Herbert, 1820-1903.
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: First principles / by Herbert Spencer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    formed to alike by each planet in its orbit, and by the moving matters, aerial, liquid, and solid, on its surface—conformed to no less by every organic movement and process than by every inorganic movement and process. And so, likewise, it has been shown that rhythm is exhibited universally, from the slow gyrations of double stars down to the inconceivably rapid oscillations of molecules— from such terrestrial changes as those of recurrent glacial epochs down to those of the winds and tides and waves; and is no less conspicuous in the functions of living organisms, from pulsations of the heart up to paroxysms of the emotions. These truths have the character which constitutes them parts of Philosophy. They are truths which unify concrete phenomena belonging to all divisions of Nature; and so must be components of that all-embracing conception of things which Philosophy seeks. § 90. But now what parts do these truths play in forming such a conception ? Does any one of them singly convey an idea of the Cosmos: meaning by that word the totality of the manifestations of the Unknowable ? Do all of them taken in succession yield us an adequate idea of this kind ? Do they even when thought of in combination compose anything like such an idea.? To each of these questions the answer must be—No. Neither these truths nor any other such truths, separately or jointly, constitute that integrated knowledge in which Philosophy finds its goal. It has been supposed by one thinker that when Science has reduced all more complex laws to some most simple law, as of molecular action, knowledge will have reached its limit. Another authority holds that all minor facts are so merged in the major fact that the force everywhere in action is nowhere lost, that to express this is to express “ the constitution of the universe.” But either conclusion implies a misapprehension of the problem. For these are all analytical truths, and no analytical truth, nor any number of analytical truths, will make up that synthesis of thought which alone can be an interpretation of the synthesis of things. The decomposition of phenomena into their elements is but a preparation for understanding phenomena in their state of composition, as actually manifested. To have ascertained the laws