Illustrations of Universal Progress: A Series of DiscussionsSpencer, Herbert
Philosophy
Illustrations of Universal Progress: A Series of Discussions
Spencer, Herbert
Philosophy; Political science; Science
Here, within our own limited knowledge of its history, we have named ten
additional cases in which the single science of astronomy has owed its
advance to sciences coming _after_ it in M. Comte's series. Not only its
secondary steps, but its greatest revolutions have been thus determined.
Kepler could not have discovered his celebrated laws had it not been for
Tycho Brahe's accurate observations; and it was only after some progress in
physical and chemical science that the improved instruments with which
those observations were made, became possible. The heliocentric theory of
the solar system had to wait until the invention of the telescope before it
could be finally established. Nay, even the grand discovery of all--the law
of gravitation--depended for its proof upon an operation of physical
science, the measurement of a degree on the Earth's surface. So completely
indeed did it thus depend, that Newton _had actually abandoned his
hypothesis_ because the length of a degree, as then stated, brought out
wrong results; and it was only after Picard's more exact measurement was
published, that he returned to his calculations and proved his great
generalization. Now this constant intercommunion, which, for brevity's
sake, we have illustrated in the case of one science only, has been taking
place with all the sciences. Throughout the whole course of their evolution
there has been a continuous _consensus_ of the sciences--a _consensus_
exhibiting a general correspondence with the _consensus_ of faculties in
each phase of mental development; the one being an objective registry of
the subjective state of the other.
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