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
It has been argued that a Supreme Intelligence in manifesting his
thought will, according to the necessary laws of rational activity, pass
from the universal and general to the particular and individual, or from
concepts involving few attributes to those involving these and others;
and that these steps in the rational process must be represented in a
corresponding physical series; and that the communication of thought is
conditioned upon this physical representation. If the logical series
comprises one thousand terms, each related to the preceding according to
logical law the physical series must comprise one thousand terms, each
physically related in such a manner as to reveal this law. As the
highest generalization comprises the fewest attributes, the concrete
expression of this idea will present the simplest possible physical form
and the least complexity of organization, and thus will present the
lowest types of life; and as the individual comprises the greatest
number of attributes, its concrete expression will present the greatest
complexity, and consequently the highest type of life. We have seen
that the logical process begins with the general and ends with the
individual; its material expression must therefore begin with the lowest
orders and end with the highest. But the individual cannot be
immediately derived from the general without the intervention of
intermediate generalizations. No more in the concrete expression of this
deduction can we pass from the lowest types to the highest without the
intervention of an intermediate series. These intermediate terms are not
capable of independent interpretation; they find their full explanation
only in the extremes of the series--God and Man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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