Illustrations of Universal Progress: A Series of DiscussionsSpencer, Herbert
Philosophy
Illustrations of Universal Progress: A Series of Discussions
Spencer, Herbert
Philosophy; Political science; Science
And all the innumerable changes here briefly indicated are consequent on
the invention of the locomotive engine. The social organism has been
rendered more heterogeneous in virtue of the many new occupations
introduced, and the many old ones further specialized; prices in every
place have been altered; each trader has, more or less, modified his way of
doing business; and almost every person has been affected in his actions,
thoughts, emotions.
Illustrations to the same effect might be indefinitely accumulated. That
every influence brought to bear upon society works multiplied effects; and
that increase of heterogeneity is due to this multiplication of effects;
may be seen in the history of every trade, every custom, every belief. But
it is needless to give additional evidence of this. The only further fact
demanding notice, is, that we here see still more clearly than ever, the
truth before pointed out, that in proportion as the area on which any force
expends itself becomes heterogeneous, the results are in a yet higher
degree multiplied in number and kind. While among the primitive tribes to
whom it was first known, caoutchouc caused but a few changes, among
ourselves the changes have been so many and varied that the history of them
occupies a volume.[D] Upon the small, homogeneous community inhabiting one
of the Hebrides, the electric telegraph would produce, were it used,
scarcely any results; but in England the results it produces are
multitudinous. The comparatively simple organization under which our
ancestors lived five centuries ago, could have undergone but few
modifications from an event like the recent one at Canton; but now the
legislative decision respecting it sets up many hundreds of complex
modifications, each of which will be the parent of numerous future ones.
[D] "Personal Narrative of the Origin of the Caoutchouc, or
India-Rubber Manufacture in England." By Thomas Hancock.
Space permitting, we could willingly have pursued the argument in relation
to all the subtler results of civilization. As before, we showed that the
law of Progress to which the organic and inorganic worlds conform, is also
conformed to by Language, Sculpture, Music, &c.; so might we here show that
the cause which we have hitherto found to determine Progress holds in these
cases also. We might demonstrate in detail how, in Science, an advance of
one division presently advances other divisions--how Astronomy has been
immensely forwarded by discoveries in Optics, while other optical
discoveries have initiated Microscopic Anatomy, and greatly aided the
growth of Physiology--how Chemistry has indirectly increased our knowledge
of Electricity, Magnetism, Biology, Geology--how Electricity has reacted on
Chemistry and Magnetism, developed our views of Light and Heat, and
disclosed sundry laws of nervous action.
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