Evolution; Knowledge, Theory of; Philosophy and religion
this correlation too, is, so far as we can trace it, quantitative.
Provided the conditions to nervous action are not infringed on, and the
concomitants are the same, there is a tolerably constant ratio between
the amounts of the antecedents and consequents. Within the implied
limits, nervous stimulants and anæsthetics produce effects on the
thoughts and feelings, proportionate to the quantities administered. And
conversely, where the thoughts and feelings form the initial term of the
relation, the degree of reaction on the bodily energies is great, in
proportion as they are great: reaching in extreme cases a total
prostration of physique.
Various classes of facts thus unite to prove that the law of
metamorphosis, which holds among the physical forces, holds equally
between them and the mental forces. Those modes of the Unknowable which
we call motion, heat, light, chemical affinity, &c., are alike
transformable into each other, and into those modes of the Unknowable
which we distinguish as sensation, emotion, thought: these, in their
turns, being directly or indirectly re-transformable into the original
shapes. That no idea or feeling arises, save as a result of some
physical force expended in producing it, is fast becoming a common place
of science; and whoever duly weighs the evidence will see, that nothing
but an overwhelming bias in favour of a pre-conceived theory, can
explain its non-acceptance. How this metamorphosis takes place—how
a force existing as motion, heat, or light, can become a mode of
consciousness—how it is possible for aerial vibrations to generate the
sensation we call sound, or for the forces liberated by chemical changes
in the brain to give rise to emotion—these are mysteries which it is
impossible to fathom. But they are not profounder mysteries than the
transformations of the physical forces into each other. They are not
more completely beyond our comprehension than the natures of Mind and
Matter. They have simply the same insolubility as all other ultimate
questions. We can learn nothing more than that here is one of the
uniformities in the order of phenomena.
* * * * *
§ 83. Of course if the law of correlation and equivalence holds of the
forces we class as vital and mental, it must hold also of those which we
class as social. Whatever takes place in a society is due to organic or
inorganic agencies, or to a combination of the two—results either from
the undirected physical forces around, from these physical forces as
directed by men, or from the forces of the men themselves. No change can
occur in its organization, its modes of activity, or the effects it
produces on the face of the Earth, but what proceeds, mediately or
immediately, from these. Let us consider first the correlation between
the phenomena which societies display, and the vital phenomena.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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