Illustrations of Universal Progress: A Series of DiscussionsSpencer, Herbert
Philosophy
Illustrations of Universal Progress: A Series of Discussions
Spencer, Herbert
Philosophy; Political science; Science
In here ending our sketch of the Genesis of Science, we are conscious of
having done the subject but scant justice. Two difficulties have stood in
our way: one, the having to touch on so many points in such small space;
the other, the necessity of treating in serial arrangement a process which
is not serial--a difficulty which must ever attend all attempts to
delineate processes of development, whatever their special nature. Add to
which, that to present in anything like completeness and proportion, even
the outlines of so vast and complex a history, demands years of study.
Nevertheless, we believe that the evidence which has been assigned suffices
to substantiate the leading propositions with which we set out. Inquiry
into the first stages of science confirms the conclusion which we drew from
the analysis of science as now existing, that it is not distinct from
common knowledge, but an outgrowth from it--an extension of the perception
by means of the reason.
That which we further found by analysis to form the more specific
characteristic of scientific previsions, as contrasted with the previsions
of uncultured intelligence--their quantitativeness--we also see to have
been the characteristic alike in the initial steps in science, and of all
the steps succeeding them. The facts and admissions cited in disproof of
the assertion that the sciences follow one another, both logically and
historically, in the order of their decreasing generality, have been
enforced by the sundry instances we have met with, in which the more
general or abstract sciences have been advanced only at the instigation of
the more special or concrete--instances serving to show that a more general
science as much owes its progress to the presentation of new problems by a
more special science, as the more special science owes its progress to the
solutions which the more general science is thus led to attempt--instances
therefore illustrating the position that scientific advance is as much from
the special to the general as from the general to the special.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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