The Philosophy of Evolution: Together With a Preliminary Essay on The Metaphysical Basis of ScienceCarpenter, Stephen H. (Stephen Haskins)
Religion
The Philosophy of Evolution: Together With a Preliminary Essay on The Metaphysical Basis of Science
Carpenter, Stephen H. (Stephen Haskins)
Evolution; Science
Each higher type is reached by adding to a lower. The higher thus
embraces all that can be found in the lower, and something besides. This
method is invariable, and can never be departed from. The genus must
always be predicable of every individual component of every species
contained under it. Translating this law into the forms of material
expression, and it requires each higher species to physically include
all lower species, and to differ from them only by addition. Man, the
highest type, must thus include all the attributes of the cell as
physically expressed, and without them he would not be man. The
differences between no two terms in a series can be total. If the
successive steps in a train of thought must be related, so that no two
notions will be wholly distinct from each other, these notions will
constitute a series, each term of which will, in a measure, determine
the next, so soon as the law of the series is discovered; and if this
train of thought be objectively presented, it will afford a
corresponding series of physical terms, each one of which will in like
manner determine the next. But thought is impossible unless by a train
of ideas so related. Its physical expression will therefore be equally
impossible except by a series of physical terms similarly related, each
one of which in some manner determines the next. There must then be a
perfect continuity in the line that reaches from the simplest form of
matter through all grades of organic life up to man, the highest
expression of the divine idea. There can be no break in the chain of
thought, because the law of the logical process forbids it: there can be
no break in the series of material symbols for the conditions of
concrete expression equally forbid it. A symbol is nothing except as it
represents that which is to be symbolized. So the symbols form a
physical series, because the thoughts symbolized form a logical series.
If the creator has fully revealed his thought, it must be by a series of
physical terms arranged in such a manner as to indicate the logical
series of ideas symbolized. Every form of matter is a symbol of thought,
and challenges interpretation. Every change in form corresponds to an
antecedent change in idea, and must be intended to reveal it. As
thought, then, begins its evolution with the general and proceeds to the
individual by a series of terms each of which is similarly related to
both extremes, we must find the material enunciation of this process
assuming the form of a series of terms, beginning with mere nebulous
matter, grading into organic life, and organic life presenting us with a
similar series beginning with the mere cell and ending with man. So
rigid and invariable must this serial arrangement be that if a term in
either series be wanting, we are authorized to hypothetically
interpolate it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account