On Mr. Spencer's Data of EthicsGuthrie, Malcolm (Writer on Herbert Spencer)
Philosophy
On Mr. Spencer's Data of Ethics
Guthrie, Malcolm (Writer on Herbert Spencer)
Ethics, Evolutionary; Spencer, Herbert, 1820-1903. Data of ethics
This is a difficulty which has not been overlooked by Mr. Spencer. He
would escape it in two ways. Firstly by a mysticism, through which after
the definite meaning he has given to his terms has been found to fail in
actual work he changes all his fundamental terms into "symbolic
conceptions." Why? Because they have no meaning; and if you give them a
meaning the conclusions from them land the student in irreconcilable
contradictions. Out of this mysticism no progress is possible. Secondly
by means of the "double aspect" theory. According to this theory
everything is both material and subjective, as you choose to regard it,
and may be explained and accounted for in laws of the relations of
either set of factors. It is true that phenomena may be so described,
but it is not true that they can be so explained. There is an undoubted
concomitance between the bodily act and the conscious feeling, but the
real question is this,--Does the conscious feeling wholly depend upon
the physical series of events and has itself no effects on the physical
series? Is it produced without producing? Is it something occurring in
connexion with certain motions in the nerves of the organism and
therefore dependent upon and wholly produced by the physical factors in
their interrelation, according to the known chemical and physical laws
of the factors? If it is so determined, and does not determine as part
in a chain of causation it cannot be said to interfere with the
materialistic explanation. That is complete in itself. The only question
left is this:--How comes it about that some portions of the physical
series of phenomena have this strange accompaniment of consciousness? A
very interesting but comparatively unimportant question. The theory that
phenomena have two sides is of no use whatever in the endeavour towards
the statement of a cosmical formula of explanation. The result of our
studies is to the effect that there are physical factors and subjective
factors alike produced and producing. We aim at the statement of their
law of correlation, and in this we would seek the cosmical formula. We
however seek it in vain, and we do not think it possible to attain it.
In the meantime we look to the development of the subjective factor in
life, and more especially in human life, as a fact of the greatest
interest, the more so that we discern in that development an orderly
progress in a well marked manner; and it is our task to understand the
laws of that orderly development. This study has to be undertaken along
with the study of material Evolution; and although we may not fully
understand our problem, there is much that we can understand and much to
make our views large and sympathetic and our minds expansive in working
out the great questions that are set before us.
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