Spencer's Philosophy of Science Part 2

[7] _Memories and Studies_, p. 139.

[8] _Ibid._, p. 140.

[9] _Autobiography_, vol. i, p. 212.

[10] James, _op. cit._, p. 124.

[11] _Autobiography_, vol. i, p. 211.

[12] _First Principles_, Sixth (Popular) Edition, p. 446 (hereafter F.

P.).

[13] _Principles of Psychology_, Third Edition, vol. i, p. 508 (hereafter Ps.).

[14] Ps., vol. i, p. 627.

[15] _Ibid._, p. 158.

[16] F. P., p. 155.

[17] Ps., vol. ii, p. 484.

[18] There is '_intrinsic_ force by which a body manifests itself as occupying s.p.a.ce, and that _extrinsic_ force distinguished as energy'. F.

P., p. 150.

[19] 'Divest the conceived unit of matter of the objective correlate to our subjective sense of effort and the entire fabric of physical conceptions disappears.' F. P., p. 151 note. Cf. Ps., vol. ii, pp. 237, 239.

[20] F. P., p. 171.

[21] e.g. 'Social changes take directions that are due to the joint actions of citizens determined as are those of all other changes wrought by the composition of forces.' 'The flow of capital into business yielding the largest returns, the buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest, the introduction of more economical modes of manufacture, the development of better agencies for distribution, exhibit movements taking place in directions where they are met by the smallest totals of opposing forces.' F. P., pp. 193-6.

[22] _Creative Evolution_, English translation, p. 53.

[23] _Op. cit._, pp. 385, 6.

[24] According to Dr. Carr's interpretation of M. Bergson, 'The whole world, as it is presented to us and thought of by us, is an illusion.

Our science is not unreal, but it is a transformed reality. The illusions may be useful, may, indeed, be necessary and indispensable, but nevertheless it is illusion.' _Problem of Truth_, p. 66.

[25] _Creative Evolution_, p. 389.

[26] 'But, when I posit the facts with the shape they have for me to-day, I suppose my faculties of perception and intellection such as they are in me to-day; for it is they that portion the real into lots, they that cut the facts out of the whole of reality.' C. E., p. 389.

[27] _Creative Evolution_, p. 389.

[28] _Op. cit._, p. 387.

[29] _Introduction to Metaphysics_, English translation, p. 8 and _pa.s.sim_.

[30] e.g. 'Organisation can only be studied scientifically if the organised body has first been likened to a machine.' C. E., p. 98.

Science is, I think, generally used by M. Bergson for _intellectual_ knowledge in contradistinction to intuitional knowledge.

[31] F. P., p. 184.

[32] _Essays_, vol. iii, p. 14.

[33] _Essays_, vol. iii, p. 366.

[34] F. P., p. 156.

[35] 'There remained to a.s.sign a reason for that increasingly-distinct demarkation of parts, &c.... This reason we discovered to be the segregation, &c.... This cause of the definiteness of local integrations, &c.' F. P., p. 440.

[36] F. P., p. 43.

[37] _Essays_, vol. iii, p. 47.

[38] F. P., p. 176.

[39] F. P., p. 154.

[40] _Proceedings Aristotelian Society_, 1912-13, p. 1.

[41] _Popular Scientific Lectures_, English translation, p. 254.

[42] _Lectures and Essays_, vol. i, p. 111.

[43] 'But when we ask what this energy is, there is no answer save that it is the noumenal cause implied by the phenomenal effect.' F. P., p.

154. It is towards this and like statements that my criticism is directed. There can be no objection to the treatment, by physicists, of energy as an ent.i.ty in the sense given below in note 82. Those phenomena to which 1/2 _mv_^{2} has reference are fundamental realities for physical science.

[44] In a statement of the law of gravitation we may subst.i.tute the words 'in a degree' for 'with a force'; we may speak of 'the measure of attraction' instead of 'the force of attraction'.

[45] _System of Logic_, Bk. III, ch. v, -- 3, Eighth Edition, vol. i, p.

383.

[46] _Ibid._, -- 3 and -- 5, pp. 379 and 389.

[47] Ps., vol. ii, p. 93; cf. p. 97. One has now, however, to add the realm of subsistence.

[48] As a more technical example the following may be given:--The difference in properties of isomers is caused by difference of internal molecular structure notwithstanding ident.i.ty of chemical composition.

[49] If we take spark as cause and explosion as effect there is obviously no proportionality between the cause and its effect. Thus M.

Bergson speaks of the spark as 'a cause that acts by releasing'; and he adds that 'neither quality nor quant.i.ty of effect varies with quality or quant.i.ty of the cause: the effect is invariable'. _Creative Evolution_, p. 77. Compare what Spencer introduced into the Sixth edition of F. P.

(pp. 172-3), concerning 'trigger action which does not produce the power but liberates it'. According to the treatment in the text there can be no 'proportionality' unless both ground and conditions are taken into account.

[50] Spencer says (F. P., pp. 169-70) that 'the transformation of the unorganised contents of an egg into the organised chick is a question of heat' ['altogether a question of heat', in the Third Edition], and tells us that 'the germination of plants presents like relations of cause and effect as every season shows'. But he also says that 'the proclivities of the molecules determine the typical structure a.s.sumed'. Obviously here the 'heat supplied' falls under (3) of the text, and 'the proclivities of the molecules' is his notion of what should fall under (2).

[51] See Index to F. P., _sub verbo_ 'integration'.

[52] e. g. 'Diminish the velocities of the planets and their orbits will lessen--the solar system will contract, or become more integrated.'

_Essays_, vol. iii, p. 28. Mere condensation is often spoken of as integration. But then the term is used with bewildering laxity. Cf.