Beacon Lights of History, Volume 14: The New Era: A Supplementary Volume, by Recent Writers, as Set Forth in the Preface and Table of ContentsLord, John
Philosophy
Beacon Lights of History, Volume 14: The New Era: A Supplementary Volume, by Recent Writers, as Set Forth in the Preface and Table of Contents
Lord, John
History
The conclusions reached in "First Principles" may be thus summed up:
over and over again in the five hundred pages devoted to their
formulation, it is shown in various ways that the deepest truths we can
reach are simply statements of the widest uniformities in our
experiences of the relations of Matter, Motion, and Force; and that
Matter, Motion, and Force are but symbols of the Unknown reality. A
Power of which the nature remains forever inconceivable, and to which no
limits in Time and Space can be imagined, works in us certain effects.
These effects have certain likenesses of kind, the most general of which
we class together under the names of Matter, Motion, and Force; and
between these effects there are likenesses of connection, the most
constant of which we class as laws of the highest certainty. Analysis
reduces these several kinds of effects to one kind of effect; and these
several kinds of uniformity to one kind of uniformity. The highest
achievement of Science is the interpretation of all orders of phenomena
as differently conditioned manifestations of this one kind of effect,
under differently conditioned modes of this one kind of uniformity. When
science has done this, however, it has done nothing more than
systematize our experiences, and has in no degree extended the limits of
our experiences. We can say no more than before whether the
uniformities are as absolutely necessary as they have become to our
thought relatively necessary. The utmost possibility for us is an
interpretation of the process of things, as it presents itself to our
limited consciousness; but how this process is related to the actual
process we are unable to conceive, much less to know.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account