Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative; Vol. 3 of 3: Library Edition (1891), Containing Seven Essays not before Republished, and Various other Additions.Spencer, Herbert
Philosophy
Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative; Vol. 3 of 3: Library Edition (1891), Containing Seven Essays not before Republished, and Various other Additions.
Spencer, Herbert
Philosophy; Political science; Science
[25] I find that in the above three paragraphs I have done Kant
less than justice and more than justice—less, in assuming that
his evolutionary view was limited to the genesis of our sidereal
system, and more, in assuming that he had not contradicted himself.
My knowledge of Kant’s writings is extremely limited. In 1844 a
translation of his _Critique of Pure Reason_ (then I think lately
published) fell into my hands, and I read the first few pages
enunciating his doctrine of Time and Space: my peremptory rejection
of which caused me to lay the book down. Twice since then the same
thing has happened; for, being an impatient reader, when I disagree
with the cardinal propositions of a work I can go no further. One
other thing I knew. By indirect references I was made aware that Kant
had propounded the idea that celestial bodies have been formed by
the aggregation of diffused matter. Beyond this my knowledge of his
conceptions did not extend; and my supposition that his evolutionary
conception had stopped short with the genesis of sun, stars, and
planets, was due to the fact that his doctrine of Time and Space, as
forms of thought anteceding experience, implied a supernatural origin
inconsistent with the hypothesis of natural genesis. Dr. Paul Carus,
who, shortly after the publication of this article in the _Fortnightly
Review_ for July, 1888, undertook to defend the Kantian ethics in the
American journal which he edits, _The Open Court_, has now (Sept. 4,
1890), in another defensive article, translated sundry passages from
Kant’s _Critique of Judgment_, his _Presumable Origin of Humanity_,
and his work _Upon the different Races of Mankind_, showing that Kant
was, if not fully, yet partially, an evolutionist in his speculations
about living beings. There is, perhaps, some reason for doubting the
correctness of Dr. Carus’s rendering of these passages into English.
When, as in the first of the articles just named, he failed to
distinguish between consciousness and conscientiousness, and when,
as in this last article, he blames the English for mistranslating
Kant, since they have said “Kant maintained that Space and Time are
intuitions,” which is quite untrue, for they have everywhere described
him as maintaining that Space and Time are _forms_ of intuition, one
may be excused for thinking that possibly Dr. Carus has read into some
of Kant’s expressions, meanings which they do not rightly bear. Still,
the general drift of the passages quoted makes it tolerably clear
that Kant must have believed in the operation of natural causes as
largely, though not entirely, instrumental in producing organic forms:
extending this belief (which he says “can be named a daring venture of
reason”) in some measure to the origin of Man himself. He does not,
however, extend the theory of natural genesis to the exclusion of the
theory of supernatural genesis. When he speaks of an organic habit
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