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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_Pneumatogeny_ Being The Doctrine Of Immaterial Totalities, And
_Hylogeny_ That Of Material Totalities.)
Part Ii. Ontology.--_Cosmogeny_: Rest, Centre, Motion, Line,
Planets, Form, Planetary System, Comets.--_Stöchiogeny_:
Condensation, Simple Matter, Elements, Air, Water,
Earth--_Stöchiology_: Functions Of The Elements, Etc.,
Etc.--_Kingdoms Of Nature_: Individuals.
(He Says In Explanation That "Ontology Teaches Us The Phenomena
Of Matter. The First Of These Are The Heavenly Bodies
Comprehended By _Cosmogeny_. These Divide Into
Elements--_Stöchiogeny_. The Earth Element Divides Into
Minerals--_Mineralogy_. These Unite Into One Collective
Body--_Geogeny_. The Whole In Singulars Is The Living, Or
_Organic_, Which Again Divides Into Plants And Animals.
_Biology_, Therefore, Divides Into _Organogeny_, _Phytosophy_,
_Zoosophy_.")
First Kingdom.--Minerals. _Mineralogy_, _Geology_.
Part Iii. Biology.--_Organosophy_, _Phytogeny_, _Phyto-Physiology_,
_Phytology_, _Zoogeny_, _Physiology_, _Zoology_,
_Psychology_.
A Glance Over This Confused Scheme Shows That It Is An Attempt To
Classify Knowledge, Not After The Order In Which It Has Been, Or May Be,
Built Up In The Human Consciousness; But After An Assumed Order Of
Creation. It Is A Pseudo-Scientific Cosmogony, Akin To Those Which Men
Have Enunciated From The Earliest Times Downwards; And Only A Little
More Respectable. As Such It Will Not Be Thought Worthy Of Much
Consideration By Those Who, Like Ourselves, Hold That Experience Is The
Sole Origin Of Knowledge. Otherwise, It Might Have Been Needful To Dwell
On The Incongruities Of The Arrangements--To Ask How Motion Can Be
Treated Of Before Space? How There Can Be Rotation Without Matter To
Rotate? How Polarity Can Be Dealt With Without Involving Points And
Lines? But It Will Serve Our Present Purpose Just To Point Out A Few Of
The Extreme Absurdities Resulting From The Doctrine Which Oken Seems To
Hold In Common With Hegel, That "To Philosophise On Nature Is To
Re-Think The Great Thought Of Creation." Here Is A Sample:--
"Mathematics Is The Universal Science; So Also Is Physio-Philosophy,
Although It Is Only A Part, Or Rather But A Condition Of The Universe;
Both Are One, Or Mutually Congruent.
"Mathematics Is, However, A Science Of Mere Forms Without Substance.
Physio-Philosophy Is, Therefore, _Mathematics Endowed With Substance_."
From The English Point Of View It Is Sufficiently Amusing To Find Such A
Dogma Not Only Gravely Stated, But Stated As An Unquestionable Truth.
Here We See The Experiences Of Quantitative Relations Which Men Have
Gathered From Surrounding Bodies And Generalised (Experiences Which Had
Been Scarcely At All Generalised At The Beginning Of The Historic
Period)--We Find These Generalised Experiences, These Intellectual
Abstractions, Elevated Into Concrete Actualities, Projected Back Into
Nature, And Considered As The Internal Framework Of Things--The Skeleton
By Which Matter Is Sustained. But This New Form Of The Old Realism Is By
No Means The Most Startling Of The Physio-Philosophic Principles. We
Presently Read That,
"The Highest Mathematical Idea, Or The Fundamental Principle Of All
Mathematics Is The Zero = 0."....
"Zero Is In Itself Nothing. Mathematics Is Based Upon Nothing, And,
_Consequently_, Arises Out Of Nothing.
"Out Of Nothing, _Therefore_, It Is Possible For Something To Arise; For
Mathematics, Consisting Of Propositions, Is Something, In Relation To
0."
By Such "Consequentlys" And "Therefores" It Is, That Men Philosophise
When They "Re-Think The Great Thought Of Creation." By Dogmas That
Pretend To Be Reasons, Nothing Is Made To Generate Mathematics; And By
Clothing Mathematics With Matter, We Have The Universe! If Now We Deny,
As We _Do_ Deny, That The Highest Mathematical Idea Is The Zero;--If, On
The Other Hand, We Assert, As We _Do_ Assert, That The Fundamental Idea
Underlying All Mathematics, Is That Of Equality; The Whole Of Oken's
Cosmogony Disappears. And Here, Indeed, We May See Illustrated, The
Distinctive Peculiarity Of The German Method Of Procedure In These
Matters--The Bastard _À Priori_ Method, As It May Be Termed. The
Legitimate _À Priori_ Method Sets Out With Propositions Of Which The
Negation Is Inconceivable; The _À Priori_ Method As Illegitimately
Applied, Sets Out Either With Propositions Of Which The Negation Is
_Not_ Inconceivable, Or With Propositions Like Oken's, Of Which The
_Affirmation_ Is Inconceivable.
It Is Needless To Proceed Further With The Analysis; Else Might We
Detail The Steps By Which Oken Arrives At The Conclusions That "The
Planets Are Coagulated Colours, For They Are Coagulated Light; That The
Sphere Is The Expanded Nothing;" That Gravity Is "A Weighty Nothing, A
Heavy Essence, Striving Towards A Centre;" That "The Earth Is The
Identical, Water The Indifferent, Air The Different; Or The First The
Centre, The Second The Radius, The Last The Periphery Of The General
Globe Or Of Fire." To Comment On Them Would Be Nearly As Absurd As Are
The Propositions Themselves. Let Us Pass On To Another Of The German
Systems Of Knowledge--That Of Hegel.
Part 2 Chapter 3 (On The Genesis Of Science) Pg 101
The Simple Fact That Hegel Puts Jacob Boehme On A Par With Bacon,
Suffices Alone To Show That His Standpoint Is Far Remote From The One
Usually Regarded As Scientific: So Far Remote, Indeed, That It Is Not
Easy To Find Any Common Basis On Which To Found A Criticism. Those Who
Hold That The Mind Is Moulded Into Conformity With Surrounding Things By
The Agency Of Surrounding Things, Are Necessarily At A Loss How To Deal
With Those, Who, Like Schelling And Hegel, Assert That Surrounding
Things Are Solidified Mind--That Nature Is "Petrified Intelligence."
However, Let Us Briefly Glance At Hegel's Classification. He Divides
Philosophy Into Three Parts:--
1. _Logic_, Or The Science Of The Idea In Itself, The Pure Idea.
2. _The Philosophy Of Nature_, Or The Science Of The Idea Considered
Under Its Other Form--Of The Idea As Nature.
3. _The Philosophy Of The Mind_, Or The Science Of The Idea In Its
Return To Itself.
Of These, The Second Is Divided Into The Natural Sciences, Commonly So
Called; So That In Its More Detailed Form The Series Runs Thus:--Logic,
Mechanics, Physics, Organic Physics, Psychology.
Now, If We Believe With Hegel, First, That Thought Is The True Essence
Of Man; Second, That Thought Is The Essence Of The World; And That,
Therefore, There Is Nothing But Thought; His Classification, Beginning
With The Science Of Pure Thought, May Be Acceptable. But Otherwise, It
Is An Obvious Objection To His Arrangement, That Thought Implies Things
Thought Of--That There Can Be No Logical Forms Without The Substance Of
Experience--That The Science Of Ideas And The Science Of Things Must
Have A Simultaneous Origin. Hegel, However, Anticipates This Objection,
And, In His Obstinate Idealism, Replies, That The Contrary Is True; That
All Contained In The Forms, To Become Something, Requires To Be Thought:
And That Logical Forms Are The Foundations Of All Things.
It Is Not Surprising That, Starting From Such Premises, And Reasoning
After This Fashion, Hegel Finds His Way To Strange Conclusions. Out Of
_Space_ And _Time_ He Proceeds To Build Up _Motion_, _Matter_,
_Repulsion_, _Attraction_, _Weight_, And _Inertia_. He Then Goes On To
Logically Evolve The Solar System. In Doing This He Widely Diverges
From The Newtonian Theory; Reaches By Syllogism The Conviction That The
Planets Are The Most Perfect Celestial Bodies; And, Not Being Able To
Bring The Stars Within His Theory, Says That They Are Mere Formal
Existences And Not Living Matter, And That As Compared With The Solar
System They Are As Little Admirable As A Cutaneous Eruption Or A Swarm
Of Flies.[2]
Results So Outrageous Might Be Left As Self-Disproved, Were It Not That
Speculators Of This Class Are Not Alarmed By Any Amount Of Incongruity
With Established Beliefs. The Only Efficient Mode Of Treating Systems
Like This Of Hegel, Is To Show That They Are Self-Destructive--That By
Their First Steps They Ignore That Authority On Which All Their
Subsequent Steps Depend. If Hegel Professes, As He Manifestly Does, To
Develop His Scheme By Reasoning--If He Presents Successive Inferences As
_Necessarily Following_ From Certain Premises; He Implies The Postulate
That A Belief Which Necessarily Follows After Certain Antecedents Is A
True Belief: And, Did An Opponent Reply To One Of His Inferences, That,
Though It Was Impossible To Think The Opposite, Yet The Opposite Was
True, He Would Consider The Reply Irrational. The Procedure, However,
Which He Would Thus Condemn As Destructive Of All Thinking Whatever, Is
Just The Procedure Exhibited In The Enunciation Of His Own First
Principles.
Mankind Find Themselves Unable To Conceive That There Can Be Thought
Without Things Thought Of. Hegel, However, Asserts That There _Can_ Be
Thought Without Things Thought Of. That Ultimate Test Of A True
Proposition--The Inability Of The Human Mind To Conceive The Negation Of
It--Which In All Other Cases He Considers Valid, He Considers Invalid
Where It Suits His Convenience To Do So; And Yet At The Same Time Denies
The Right Of An Opponent To Follow His Example. If It Is Competent For
Him To Posit Dogmas, Which Are The Direct Negations Of What Human
Consciousness Recognises; Then Is It Also Competent For His Antagonists
To Stop Him At Every Step In His Argument By Saying, That Though The
Particular Inference He Is Drawing Seems To His Mind, And To All Minds,
Necessarily To Follow From The Premises, Yet It Is Not True, But The
Contrary Inference Is True. Or, To State The Dilemma In Another
Form:--If He Sets Out With Inconceivable Propositions, Then May He With
Equal Propriety Make All His Succeeding Propositions Inconceivable
Ones--May At Every Step Throughout His Reasoning Draw Exactly The
Opposite Conclusion To That Which Seems Involved.
Hegel's Mode Of Procedure Being Thus Essentially Suicidal, The Hegelian
Classification Which Depends Upon It Falls To The Ground. Let Us
Consider Next That Of M. Comte.
As All His Readers Must Admit, M. Comte Presents Us With A Scheme Of The
Sciences Which, Unlike The Foregoing Ones, Demands Respectful
Consideration. Widely As We Differ From Him, We Cheerfully Bear Witness
To The Largeness Of His Views, The Clearness Of His Reasoning, And The
Value Of His Speculations As Contributing To Intellectual Progress. Did
We Believe A Serial Arrangement Of The Sciences To Be Possible, That Of
M. Comte Would Certainly Be The One We Should Adopt. His Fundamental
Propositions Are Thoroughly Intelligible; And If Not True, Have A Great
Semblance Of Truth. His Successive Steps Are Logically Co-Ordinated; And
He Supports His Conclusions By A Considerable Amount Of
Evidence--Evidence Which, So Long As It Is Not Critically Examined, Or
Not Met By Counter Evidence, Seems To Substantiate His Positions. But It
Only Needs To Assume That Antagonistic Attitude Which _Ought_ To Be
Assumed Towards New Doctrines, In The Belief That, If True, They Will
Prosper By Conquering Objectors--It Needs But To Test His Leading
Doctrines Either By Other Facts Than Those He Cites, Or By His Own Facts
Part 2 Chapter 3 (On The Genesis Of Science) Pg 102Differently Applied, To At Once Show That They Will Not Stand. We Will
Proceed Thus To Deal With The General Principle On Which He Bases His
Hierarchy Of The Sciences.
In The Second Chapter Of His _Cours De Philosophic Positive_, M. Comte
Says:--"Our Problem Is,
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