The Doctrine of Evolution: Its Basis and Its ScopeCrampton, Henry Edward
Science
The Doctrine of Evolution: Its Basis and Its Scope
Crampton, Henry Edward
Evolution
Let us look back over the history of mathematics. The primitive human
individual did not need to count. He dealt with things as he met them, and
he disposed of them singly and individually. A squirrel does not count the
nuts it gathers; it simply accumulates a store, and it perishes or
survives according to its instinctive ability to do this. Just so was
primitive man. The savage, when he organized the first formed tribes,
learned to count the days of a journey and the numbers engaged on opposite
sides in battle. He employed the "score" of his fingers and toes, and our
use of this very word is a survival of such a primitive method of
counting. The abacus of the Roman and Chinese extended the scope of simple
mathematical operations as it employed more symbolic elements. With the
development of Arabic notation capable of indefinite expansion, the
science progressed rapidly, and in the course of long time it has become
the higher calculus of to-day. The conceptions of geometry have likewise
evolved until to-day mathematicians speak of configurated bodies in fourth
and higher dimensions of space, which are beyond the powers of perception,
even though in a sense they exist conceptually. The behavior of
geometrical examples in one dimension leads to the characteristics of
bodies in two dimensions. Upon these facts are constructed the laws of
three-dimensional space which serve to carry mathematical thought to the
remoter conceptual spaces of which we have spoken. It may seem that we are
recording only one phase of mental evolution, but in fact we are dealing
with a larger matter, namely, with the progressive evolution of knowledge
in the Kantian category of number.
Natural science began with the savage's rough classification of the things
with which he dealt in everyday life. As facts accumulated, lifeless
objects were grouped apart from living organisms, and in time two great
divisions of natural science took form. Physics, chemistry, astronomy,
geology, and the like describe the concrete world of matter and energy,
while the biological sciences deal with the structure, development,
interrelationships, and vital activities of animals and plants. Surely
knowledge has evolved with the advance in all of these subjects from
decade to decade and from year to year. And just as surely must evolution
continue, for the world has not stopped developing, and therefore the
great principles of science must undergo further changes, even though they
are the best summaries that can be formulated at the present time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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