Essays On Education And Kindred Subjects (Fiscle Part- 11) - Herbert Spencer (if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud txt) 📗
- Author: Herbert Spencer
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Gases Generated; There Are Currents Established In The Surrounding Air.
Moreover The Decomposition Of One Force Into Many Forces Does Not End
Here: Each Of The Several Changes Produced Becomes The Parent Of Further
Changes. The Carbonic Acid Given Off Will By And By Combine With Some
Base; Or Under The Influence Of Sunshine Give Up Its Carbon To The Leaf
Of A Plant. The Water Will Modify The Hygrometric State Of The Air
Around; Or, If The Current Of Hot Gases Containing It Come Against A
Cold Body, Will Be Condensed: Altering The Temperature, And Perhaps The
Chemical State, Of The Surface It Covers. The Heat Given Out Melts The
Subjacent Tallow, And Expands Whatever It Warms. The Light, Falling On
Various Substances, Calls Forth From Them Reactions By Which It Is
Modified; And So Divers Colours Are Produced. Similarly Even With These
Secondary Actions, Which May Be Traced Out Into Ever-Multiplying
Ramifications, Until They Become Too Minute To Be Appreciated. And Thus
It Is With All Changes Whatever. No Case Can Be Named In Which An Active
Force Does Not Evolve Forces Of Several Kinds, And Each Of These, Other
Groups Of Forces. Universally The Effect Is More Complex Than The Cause.
Doubtless The Reader Already Foresees The Course Of Our Argument. This
Multiplication Of Results, Which Is Displayed In Every Event Of To-Day,
Has Been Going On From The Beginning; And Is True Of The Grandest
Phenomena Of The Universe As Of The Most Insignificant. From The Law
That Every Active Force Produces More Than One Change, It Is An
Inevitable Corollary That Through All Time There Has Been An
Ever-Growing Complication Of Things. Starting With The Ultimate Fact
That Every Cause Produces More Than One Effect, We May Readily See That
Throughout Creation There Must Have Gone On, And Must Still Go On, A
Never-Ceasing Transformation Of The Homogeneous Into The Heterogeneous.
But Let Us Trace Out This Truth In Detail.
Without Committing Ourselves To It As More Than A Speculation, Though A
Highly Probable One, Let Us Again Commence With The Evolution Of The
Solar System Out Of A Nebulous Medium.[3] From The Mutual Attraction Of
The Atoms Of A Diffused Mass Whose Form Is Unsymmetrical, There Results
Not Only Condensation But Rotation: Gravitation Simultaneously Generates
Both The Centripetal And The Centrifugal Forces. While The Condensation
And The Rate Of Rotation Are Progressively Increasing, The Approach Of
The Atoms Necessarily Generates A Progressively Increasing Temperature.
As This Temperature Rises, Light Begins To Be Evolved; And Ultimately
There Results A Revolving Sphere Of Fluid Matter Radiating Intense Heat
And Light--A Sun.
There Are Good Reasons For Believing That, In Consequence Of The High
Tangential Velocity, And Consequent Centrifugal Force, Acquired By The
Outer Parts Of The Condensing Nebulous Mass, There Must Be A Periodical
Detachment Of Rotating Rings; And That, From The Breaking Up Of These
Nebulous Rings, There Must Arise Masses Which In The Course Of Their
Condensation Repeat The Actions Of The Parent Mass, And So Produce
Planets And Their Satellites--An Inference Strongly Supported By The
Still Extant Rings Of Saturn.
Part 2 Chapter 1 (Progress Its Law And Cause) Pg 73
Should It Hereafter Be Satisfactorily Shown That Planets And Satellites
Were Thus Generated, A Striking Illustration Will Be Afforded Of The
Highly Heterogeneous Effects Produced By The Primary Homogeneous Cause;
But It Will Serve Our Present Purpose To Point To The Fact That From The
Mutual Attraction Of The Particles Of An Irregular Nebulous Mass There
Result Condensation, Rotation, Heat, And Light.
It Follows As A Corollary From The Nebular Hypothesis, That The Earth
Must At First Have Been Incandescent; And Whether The Nebular Hypothesis
Be True Or Not, This Original Incandescence Of The Earth Is Now
Inductively Established--Or, If Not Established, At Least Rendered So
Highly Probable That It Is A Generally Admitted Geological Doctrine. Let
Us Look First At The Astronomical Attributes Of This Once Molten Globe.
From Its Rotation There Result The Oblateness Of Its Form, The
Alternations Of Day And Night, And (Under The Influence Of The Moon) The
Tides, Aqueous And Atmospheric. From The Inclination Of Its Axis, There
Result The Precession Of The Equinoxes And The Many Differences Of The
Seasons, Both Simultaneous And Successive, That Pervade Its Surface.
Thus The Multiplication Of Effects Is Obvious. Several Of The
Differentiations Due To The Gradual Cooling Of The Earth Have Been
Already Noticed--As The Formation Of A Crust, The Solidification Of
Sublimed Elements, The Precipitation Of Water, Etc.,--And We Here Again
Refer To Them Merely To Point Out That They Are Simultaneous Effects Of
The One Cause, Diminishing Heat.
Let Us Now, However, Observe The Multiplied Changes Afterwards Arising
From The Continuance Of This One Cause. The Cooling Of The Earth
Involves Its Contraction. Hence The Solid Crust First Formed Is
Presently Too Large For The Shrinking Nucleus; And As It Cannot Support
Itself, Inevitably Follows The Nucleus. But A Spheroidal Envelope Cannot
Sink Down Into Contact With A Smaller Internal Spheroid, Without
Disruption; It Must Run Into Wrinkles As The Rind Of An Apple Does When
The Bulk Of Its Interior Decreases From Evaporation. As The Cooling
Progresses And The Envelope Thickens, The Ridges Consequent On These
Contractions Must Become Greater, Rising Ultimately Into Hills And
Mountains; And The Later Systems Of Mountains Thus Produced Must Not
Only Be Higher, As We Find Them To Be, But They Must Be Longer, As We
Also Find Them To Be. Thus, Leaving Out Of View Other Modifying Forces,
We See What Immense Heterogeneity Of Surface Has Arisen From The One
Cause, Loss Of Heat--A Heterogeneity Which The Telescope Shows Us To Be
Paralleled On The Face Of The Moon, Where Aqueous And Atmospheric
Agencies Have Been Absent.
But We Have Yet To Notice Another Kind Of Heterogeneity Of Surface
Similarly And Simultaneously Caused. While The Earth's Crust Was Still
Thin, The Ridges Produced By Its Contraction Must Not Only Have Been
Small, But The Spaces Between These Ridges Must Have Rested With Great
Evenness Upon The Subjacent Liquid Spheroid; And The Water In Those
Arctic And Antarctic Regions In Which It First Condensed, Must Have Been
Evenly Distributed. But As Fast As The Crust Grew Thicker And Gained
Corresponding Strength, The Lines Of Fracture From Time To Time Caused
In It, Must Have Occurred At Greater Distances Apart; The Intermediate
Surfaces Must Have Followed The Contracting Nucleus With Less
Uniformity; And There Must Have Resulted Larger Areas Of Land And Water.
If Any One, After Wrapping Up An Orange In Wet Tissue Paper, And
Observing Not Only How Small Are The Wrinkles, But How Evenly The
Intervening Spaces Lie Upon The Surface Of The Orange, Will Then Wrap It
Up In Thick Cartridge-Paper, And Note Both The Greater Height Of The
Ridges And The Much Larger Spaces Throughout Which The Paper Does Not
Touch The Orange, He Will Realise The Fact, That As The Earth's Solid
Envelope Grew Thicker, The Areas Of Elevation And Depression Must Have
Become Greater. In Place Of Islands More Or Less Homogeneously Scattered
Over An All-Embracing Sea, There Must Have Gradually Arisen
Heterogeneous Arrangements Of Continent And Ocean, Such As We Now Know.
Once More, This Double Change In The Extent And In The Elevation Of The
Lands, Involved Yet Another Species Of Heterogeneity, That Of
Coast-Line. A Tolerably Even Surface Raised Out Of The Ocean, Must Have
A Simple, Regular Sea-Margin; But A Surface Varied By Table-Lands And
Intersected By Mountain-Chains Must, When Raised Out Of The Ocean, Have
An Outline Extremely Irregular Both In Its Leading Features And In Its
Details. Thus Endless Is The Accumulation Of Geological And Geographical
Results Slowly Brought About By This One Cause--The Contraction Of The
Earth.
When We Pass From The Agency Which Geologists Term Igneous, To Aqueous
And Atmospheric Agencies, We See The Like Ever Growing Complications Of
Effects. The Denuding Actions Of Air And Water Have, From The Beginning,
Been Modifying Every Exposed Surface; Everywhere Causing Many Different
Changes. Oxidation, Heat, Wind, Frost, Rain, Glaciers, Rivers, Tides,
Waves, Have Been Unceasingly Producing Disintegration; Varying In Kind
And Amount According To Local Circumstances. Acting Upon A Tract Of
Granite, They Here Work Scarcely An Appreciable Effect; There Cause
Exfoliations Of The Surface, And A Resulting Heap Of _Débris_ And
Boulders; And Elsewhere, After Decomposing The Feldspar Into A White
Clay, Carry Away This And The Accompanying Quartz And Mica, And Deposit
Them In Separate Beds, Fluviatile And Marine. When The Exposed Land
Consists Of Several Unlike Formations, Sedimentary And Igneous, The
Denudation Produces Changes Proportionably More Heterogeneous. The
Formations Being Disintegrable In Different Degrees, There Follows An
Increased Irregularity Of Surface. The Areas Drained By Different Rivers
Being Differently Constituted, These Rivers Carry Down To The Sea
Different Combinations Of Ingredients; And So Sundry New Strata Of
Distinct Composition Are Formed.
And Here Indeed We May See Very Simply Illustrated, The Truth, Which We
Shall Presently Have To Trace Out In More Involved Cases, That In
Proportion To The Heterogeneity Of The Object Or Objects On Which Any
Force Expends Itself, Is The Heterogeneity Of The Results. A Continent
Of Complex Structure, Exposing Many Strata Irregularly Distributed,
Raised To Various Levels, Tilted Up At All Angles, Must, Under The Same
Denuding Agencies, Give Origin To Immensely Multiplied Results; Each
District Must Be Differently Modified; Each River Must Carry Down A
Different Kind Of Detritus; Each Deposit Must Be Differently Distributed
By The Entangled Currents, Tidal And Other, Which Wash The Contorted
Shores; And This Multiplication Of Results Must Manifestly Be Greatest
Where The Complexity Of The Surface Is Greatest.
Part 2 Chapter 1 (Progress Its Law And Cause) Pg 74
It Is Out Of The Question Here To Trace In Detail The Genesis Of Those
Endless Complications Described By Geology And Physical Geography: Else
We Might Show How The General Truth, That Every Active Force Produces
More Than One Change, Is Exemplified In The Highly Involved Flow Of The
Tides, In The Ocean Currents, In The Winds, In The Distribution Of Rain,
In The Distribution Of Heat, And So Forth. But Not To Dwell Upon These,
Let Us, For The Fuller Elucidation Of This Truth In Relation To The
Inorganic World, Consider What Would Be The Consequences Of Some
Extensive Cosmical Revolution--Say The Subsidence Of Central America.
The Immediate Results Of The Disturbance Would Themselves Be
Sufficiently Complex. Besides The Numberless Dislocations Of Strata, The
Ejections Of Igneous Matter, The Propagation Of Earthquake Vibrations
Thousands Of Miles Around, The Loud Explosions, And The Escape Of Gases;
There Would Be The Rush Of The Atlantic And Pacific Oceans To Supply The
Vacant Space, The Subsequent Recoil Of Enormous Waves, Which Would
Traverse Both These Oceans And Produce Myriads Of Changes Along Their
Shores, The Corresponding Atmospheric Waves Complicated By The Currents
Surrounding Each Volcanic Vent, And The Electrical Discharges With Which
Such Disturbances Are Accompanied. But These Temporary Effects Would Be
Insignificant Compared With The Permanent Ones. The Complex Currents Of
The Atlantic And Pacific Would Be Altered In Direction And Amount. The
Distribution Of Heat Achieved By These Ocean Currents Would Be Different
From What It Is. The Arrangement Of The Isothermal Lines, Not Even On
The Neighbouring Continents, But Even Throughout Europe, Would Be
Changed. The Tides Would Flow Differently From What They Do Now. There
Would Be More Or Less Modification Of The Winds In Their Periods,
Strengths, Directions, Qualities. Rain Would Fall Scarcely Anywhere At
The Same Times And In
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