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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Correctness Of The Previsions Accomplished By Them; But In The
Complexity Of The Processes Required To Achieve The Previsions. Much Of
Our Commonest Knowledge Is, As Far As It Goes, Rigorously Precise.
Science Does Not Increase This Precision; Cannot Transcend It. What Then
Does It Do? It Reduces Other Knowledge To The Same Degree Of Precision.
That Certainty Which Direct Perception Gives Us Respecting Coexistences
And Sequences Of The Simplest And Most Accessible Kind, Science Gives Us
Respecting Coexistences And Sequences, Complex In Their Dependencies Or
Inaccessible To Immediate Observation. In Brief, Regarded From This
Point Of View, Science May Be Called _An Extension Of The Perceptions By
Means Of Reasoning_.
On Further Considering The Matter, However, It Will Perhaps Be Felt That
This Definition Does Not Express The Whole Fact--That Inseparable As
Science May Be From Common Knowledge, And Completely As We May Fill Up
The Gap Between The Simplest Previsions Of The Child And The Most
Recondite Ones Of The Natural Philosopher, By Interposing A Series Of
Previsions In Which The Complexity Of Reasoning Involved Is Greater And
Greater, There Is Yet A Difference Between The Two Beyond That Which Is
Here Described. And This Is True. But The Difference Is Still Not Such
As Enables Us To Draw The Assumed Line Of Demarcation. It Is A
Difference Not Between Common Knowledge And Scientific Knowledge; But
Between The Successive Phases Of Science Itself, Or Knowledge
Itself--Whichever We Choose To Call It. In Its Earlier Phases Science
Attains Only To _Certainty_ Of Foreknowledge; In Its Later Phases It
Further Attains To _Completeness_. We Begin By Discovering _A_
Relation: We End By Discovering _The_ Relation. Our First Achievement Is
To Foretell The _Kind_ Of Phenomenon Which Will Occur Under Specific
Conditions: Our Last Achievement Is To Foretell Not Only The Kind But
The _Amount_. Or, To Reduce The Proposition To Its Most Definite
Form--Undeveloped Science Is _Qualitative_ Prevision: Developed Science
Is _Quantitative_ Prevision.
This Will At Once Be Perceived To Express The Remaining Distinction
Between The Lower And The Higher Stages Of Positive Knowledge. The
Prediction That A Piece Of Lead Will Take More Force To Lift It Than A
Piece Of Wood Of Equal Size, Exhibits Certainty, But Not Completeness,
Of Foresight. The Kind Of Effect In Which The One Body Will Exceed The
Other Is Foreseen; But Not The Amount By Which It Will Exceed. There Is
Qualitative Prevision Only. On The Other Hand, The Prediction That At A
Stated Time Two Particular Planets Will Be In Conjunction; That By Means
Of A Lever Having Arms In A Given Ratio, A Known Force Will Raise Just
So Many Pounds; That To Decompose A Specified Quantity Of Sulphate Of
Iron By Carbonate Of Soda Will Require So Many Grains--These Predictions
Exhibit Foreknowledge, Not Only Of The Nature Of The Effects To Be
Produced, But Of The Magnitude, Either Of The Effects Themselves, Of The
Agencies Producing Them, Or Of The Distance In Time Or Space At Which
They Will Be Produced. There Is Not Only Qualitative But Quantitative
Prevision.
And This Is The Unexpressed Difference Which Leads Us To Consider
Certain Orders Of Knowledge As Especially Scientific When Contrasted
With Knowledge In General. Are The Phenomena _Measurable_? Is The Test
Which We Unconsciously Employ. Space Is Measurable: Hence Geometry.
Force And Space Are Measureable: Hence Statics. Time, Force, And Space
Are Measureable: Hence Dynamics. The Invention Of The Barometer Enabled
Men To Extend The Principles Of Mechanics To The Atmosphere; And
Aerostatics Existed. When A Thermometer Was Devised There Arose A
Science Of Heat, Which Was Before Impossible. Such Of Our Sensations As
We Have Not Yet Found Modes Of Measuring Do Not Originate Sciences. We
Have No Science Of Smells; Nor Have We One Of Tastes. We Have A Science
Of The Relations Of Sounds Differing In Pitch, Because We Have
Discovered A Way To Measure Them; But We Have No Science Of Sounds In
Respect To Their Loudness Or Their _Timbre_, Because We Have Got No
Measures Of Loudness And _Timbre_.
Obviously It Is This Reduction Of The Sensible Phenomena It Represents,
To Relations Of Magnitude, Which Gives To Any Division Of Knowledge Its
Especially Scientific Character. Originally Men's Knowledge Of Weights
And Forces Was In The Same Condition As Their Knowledge Of Smells And
Tastes Is Now--A Knowledge Not Extending Beyond That Given By The
Unaided Sensations; And It Remained So Until Weighing Instruments And
Dynamometers Were Invented. Before There Were Hour-Glasses And
Clepsydras, Most Phenomena Could Be Estimated As To Their Durations And
Intervals, With No Greater Precision Than Degrees Of Hardness Can Be
Estimated By The Fingers. Until A Thermometric Scale Was Contrived,
Men's Judgments Respecting Relative Amounts Of Heat Stood On The Same
Footing With Their Present Judgments Respecting Relative Amounts Of
Sound. And As In These Initial Stages, With No Aids To Observation, Only
The Roughest Comparisons Of Cases Could Be Made, And Only The Most
Marked Differences Perceived; It Is Obvious That Only The Most Simple
Laws Of Dependence Could Be Ascertained--Only Those Laws Which, Being
Uncomplicated With Others, And Not Disturbed In Their Manifestations,
Required No Niceties Of Observation To Disentangle Them. Whence It
Appears Not Only That In Proportion As Knowledge Becomes Quantitative Do
Its Previsions Become Complete As Well As Certain, But That Until Its
Assumption Of A Quantitative Character It Is Necessarily Confined To The
Most Elementary Relations.
Moreover It Is To Be Remarked That While, On The One Hand, We Can
Discover The Laws Of The Greater Proportion Of Phenomena Only By
Investigating Them Quantitatively; On The Other Hand We Can Extend The
Range Of Our Quantitative Previsions Only As Fast As We Detect The Laws
Of The Results We Predict. For Clearly The Ability To Specify The
Part 2 Chapter 3 (On The Genesis Of Science) Pg 99Magnitude Of A Result Inaccessible To Direct Measurement, Implies
Knowledge Of Its Mode Of Dependence On Something Which Can Be
Measured--Implies That We Know The Particular Fact Dealt With To Be An
Instance Of Some More General Fact. Thus The Extent To Which Our
Quantitative Previsions Have Been Carried In Any Direction, Indicates
The Depth To Which Our Knowledge Reaches In That Direction. And Here, As
Another Aspect Of The Same Fact, We May Further Observe That As We Pass
From Qualitative To Quantitative Prevision, We Pass From Inductive
Science To Deductive Science. Science While Purely Inductive Is Purely
Qualitative: When Inaccurately Quantitative It Usually Consists Of Part
Induction, Part Deduction: And It Becomes Accurately Quantitative Only
When Wholly Deductive. We Do Not Mean That The Deductive And The
Quantitative Are Coextensive; For There Is Manifestly Much Deduction
That Is Qualitative Only. We Mean That All Quantitative Prevision Is
Reached Deductively; And That Induction Can Achieve Only Qualitative
Prevision.
Still, However, It Must Not Be Supposed That These Distinctions Enable
Us To Separate Ordinary Knowledge From Science, Much As They Seem To Do
So. While They Show In What Consists The Broad Contrast Between The
Extreme Forms Of The Two, They Yet Lead Us To Recognise Their Essential
Identity; And Once More Prove The Difference To Be One Of Degree Only.
For, On The One Hand, The Commonest Positive Knowledge Is To Some Extent
Quantitative; Seeing That The Amount Of The Foreseen Result Is Known
Within Certain Wide Limits. And, On The Other Hand, The Highest
Quantitative Prevision Does Not Reach The Exact Truth, But Only A Very
Near Approximation To It. Without Clocks The Savage Knows That The Day
Is Longer In The Summer Than In The Winter; Without Scales He Knows That
Stone Is Heavier Than Flesh: That Is, He Can Foresee Respecting Certain
Results That Their Amounts Will Exceed These, And Be Less Than Those--He
Knows _About_ What They Will Be. And, With His Most Delicate Instruments
And Most Elaborate Calculations, All That The Man Of Science Can Do, Is
To Reduce The Difference Between The Foreseen And The Actual Results To
An Unimportant Quantity.
Moreover, It Must Be Borne In Mind Not Only That All The Sciences Are
Qualitative In Their First Stages,--Not Only That Some Of Them, As
Chemistry, Have But Recently Reached The Quantitative Stage--But That
The Most Advanced Sciences Have Attained To Their Present Power Of
Determining Quantities Not Present To The Senses, Or Not Directly
Measurable, By A Slow Process Of Improvement Extending Through Thousands
Of Years. So That Science And The Knowledge Of The Uncultured Are Alike
In The Nature Of Their Previsions, Widely As They Differ In Range; They
Possess A Common Imperfection, Though This Is Immensely Greater In The
Last Than In The First; And The Transition From The One To The Other Has
Been Through A Series Of Steps By Which The Imperfection Has Been
Rendered Continually Less, And The Range Continually Wider.
These Facts, That Science And The Positive Knowledge Of The Uncultured
Cannot Be Separated In Nature, And That The One Is But A Perfected And
Extended Form Of The Other, Must Necessarily Underlie The Whole Theory
Of Science, Its Progress, And The Relations Of Its Parts To Each Other.
There Must Be Serious Incompleteness In Any History Of The Sciences,
Which, Leaving Out Of View The First Steps Of Their Genesis, Commences
With Them Only When They Assume Definite Forms. There Must Be Grave
Defects, If Not A General Untruth, In A Philosophy Of The Sciences
Considered In Their Interdependence And Development, Which Neglects The
Inquiry How They Came To Be Distinct Sciences, And How They Were
Severally Evolved Out Of The Chaos Of Primitive Ideas.
Not Only A Direct Consideration Of The Matter, But All Analogy, Goes To
Show That In The Earlier And Simpler Stages Must Be Sought The Key To
All Subsequent Intricacies. The Time Was When The Anatomy And Physiology
Of The Human Being Were Studied By Themselves--When The Adult Man Was
Analysed And The Relations Of Parts And Of Functions Investigated,
Without Reference Either To The Relations Exhibited In The Embryo Or To
The Homologous Relations Existing In Other Creatures. Now, However, It
Has Become Manifest That No True Conceptions, No True Generalisations,
Are Possible Under Such Conditions. Anatomists And Physiologists Now
Find That The Real Natures Of Organs And Tissues Can Be Ascertained Only
By Tracing Their Early Evolution; And That The Affinities Between
Existing Genera Can Be Satisfactorily Made Out Only By Examining The
Fossil Genera To Which They Are Allied. Well, Is It Not Clear That The
Like Must Be True Concerning All Things That Undergo Development? Is Not
Science A Growth? Has Not Science, Too, Its Embryology? And Must Not The
Neglect Of Its Embryology Lead To A Misunderstanding Of The Principles
Of Its Evolution And Of Its Existing Organisation?
There Are _À Priori_ Reasons, Therefore, For Doubting The Truth Of All
Philosophies Of The Sciences Which Tacitly Proceed Upon The Common
Notion That Scientific Knowledge And Ordinary Knowledge Are Separate;
Instead Of Commencing, As They Should, By Affiliating The One Upon The
Other, And Showing How It Gradually Came To Be Distinguishable From The
Other. We May Expect To Find Their Generalisations Essentially
Artificial; And We Shall Not Be Deceived. Some Illustrations Of This May
Here Be Fitly Introduced, By Way Of Preliminary To A Brief Sketch Of The
Genesis Of Science From The Point Of View Indicated. And We Cannot More
Readily Find Such Illustrations Than By Glancing At A Few Of The Various
_Classifications_ Of The Sciences That Have From Time To Time Been
Proposed. To Consider All Of Them Would Take Too Much Space: We Must
Content Ourselves With Some Of The Latest.
Commencing With Those Which May Be Soonest Disposed Of, Let Us Notice
First The Arrangement Propounded By Oken. An Abstract Of It Runs
Thus:--
Part I. Mathesis.--_Pneumatogeny_: Primary Art, Primary
Consciousness, God, Primary Rest, Time, Polarity, Motion,
Man, Space, Point. Line, Surface, Globe,
Rotation.--_Hylogeny_: Gravity, Matter, Ether, Heavenly
Bodies, Light, Heat, Fire.
(He Explains That Mathesis Is The Doctrine Of The Whole;
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