Seven essays, selected from the works of H. Spencer |
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Common terms and phrases
abstract actions advance alike alleged argument asserted astronomy become belief cause changes classification cohesions colours common complex Comte conceive conception concrete concrete mathematics connexions consciousness consider degree differentiation discovery division doctrine earliest Earth effects Empiricism ERNST HAECKEL evolution existing experiences fact feeling force forms further geneous genesis geometry greater habits Hegel HERBERT SPENCER hetero heterogeneous Hipparchus homogeneous human hypothesis illustrated implies inference J. M. ROBERTSON kind knowledge less manifest mathematics means mechanics ment mental mind mode modifications moral nature ness nonconformity notion objects observed once organic origin phenomena pleasures position present principle Principles of Psychology produced progress proposition quantitative prevision races rational mechanics RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION reasoning relations religious respect savage sciousness Sir William Hamilton social Solar System special creations species supposed things thought tion tive trace tribe true truth ultimate words
Popular passages
Page 107 - But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.
Page 75 - ... and I conceive it to be the business of Moral Science to deduce from the laws of life and the conditions of existence what kinds of action necessarily tend to produce happiness and what kinds to produce unhappiness. Having done this, its deductions are to be recognized as laws of conduct; and are to be conformed to irrespective of a direct estimation of happiness or misery.
Page 34 - ... it the more he is baffled. Similarly, though analysis of mental actions may finally bring him down to sensations as the original materials out of which all thought is woven, he is none the forwarder; for he cannot in the least comprehend sensation. Inward and outward things he thus discovers to be alike inscrutable in their ultimate genesis and nature.
Page 35 - Those who cavalierly reject the Theory of Evolution, as not adequately supported by facts, seem quite to forget that their own theory is supported by no facts at all. Like the majority of men who are born to a given belief, they demand the most rigorous proof of any adverse belief, but assume that their own needs none. Here we find, scattered over the globe, vegetable and animal organisms numbering, of the one kind...
Page 50 - Does it not indeed follow from the familiarly admitted fact, that mental advance is from the concrete to the abstract, from the particular to the general...
Page 14 - ... more or less distinguished from the rest by the leading occupation carried on in it. Nay, more, this subdivision of functions shows itself not only among the different parts of the same nation, but among different nations. That exchange of commodities which free-trade promises so greatly to increase, will ultimately have the effect of specializing, in a greater or less degree, the industry of each people.
Page 8 - ... produced that complex combination of tissues and organs constituting the adult animal or plant. This is the history of all organisms whatever. It is settled beyond dispute that organic progress consists in a change from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous.
Page 8 - Whether it be in the development of the Earth, in the development of Life upon its surface, in the development of Society, of Government, of Manufactures, of Commerce, of Language, Literature, Science, Art, this same evolution of the simple into the complex, through successive differentiations, holds throughout. From the earliest traceable cosmical changes down to the latest results of civilization, we shall find that the transformation of the homogeneous into the heterogeneous, is that in which...
Page 106 - Old forms of government finally grow so oppressive, that they must be thrown off even at the risk of reigns of terror. Old creeds end in being dead formulas, which no longer aid but distort and arrest the general mind; while the State-churches administering them, come to be instruments for subsidizmg conservatism and repressing progress.
Page 90 - The Society for the Liberation of Religion from State Patronage and Control " — we shall presently have a separate organization here also.