First Principles

§ 130. And now towards what do these changes tend? Will they go on for ever? or will there be an end to them? Can things increase in heterogeneity through all future time? or mu...

§ 53. But now, does this generalization express the whole truth? Does it include all the phenomena of Evolution? and does it exclude all other phenomena? A careful consideration...

§ 22. The same conclusion is thus arrived at, from whichever point we set out. If, respecting the origin and nature of things, we make some assumption, we find that through an i...

§ 109. Thus far our steps towards the interpretation of Evolution have been preparatory. We have dealt with the factors of the process, rather than the process itself. After the...

§ 42. The class of phenomena to be considered under the title of Evolution, is in a great measure co-extensive with the class commonly indicated by the word Progress. But the wo...

§ 116. To the cause of increasing complexity set forth in the last chapter, we have in this chapter to add another. Though secondary in order of time, it is scarcely secondary i...

§ 85. The Absolute Cause of changes, inclusive of those constituting Evolution, is not less incomprehensible in respect of the unity or duality of its action, than in all other...

§ 77. When, to the unaided senses, Science began to add supplementary senses in the shape of measuring instruments, men began to perceive various phenomena which eyes and finger...

§ 27. Thus do all lines of argument converge to the same conclusion. The inference reached _à priori_. in the last chapter, confirms the inferences which, in the two preceding c...

§ 123. The general interpretation of Evolution is far from being completed in the preceding chapters. We must contemplate its changes under yet another aspect, before we can for...

§ 9. When, on the sea-shore, we note how the hulls of distant vessels are hidden below the horizon, and how, of still remoter vessels, only the uppermost sails are visible, we r...

§ 1. We too often forget that not only is there “a soul of goodness in things evil,” but very generally also, a soul of truth in things erroneous. While many admit the abstract...

§ 93. When the pennant of a vessel lying becalmed first shows the coming breeze, it does so by gentle undulations that travel from its fixed to its free end. Presently the sails...

The process to be interpreted is, as already said, a certain change in the arrangement of parts. That increase of heterogeneity commonly displayed throughout Evolution, is not a...

§ 15. What are Space and Time? Two hypotheses are current respecting them: the one that they are objective, and the other that they are subjective—the one that they are external...

§ 35. We have seen that intellectual advance has been dual—has been towards the establishment of both a positively unknown and a positively known. In making ever more certain th...

§ 138. In the chapter on “Laws in general,” after delineating the progress of mankind in recognizing uniformities of relation among surrounding phenomena—after showing how the a...

§ 61. That sceptical state of mind which the criticisms of Philosophy usually produce, is, in great measure, caused by the misinterpretation of words. A sense of universal illus...

§ 72. Before taking a first step in the rational interpretation of Evolution, it is needful to recognize, not only the facts that Matter is indestructible and Motion continuous,...

§ 66. Not because the truth is unfamiliar, is it needful here to say something concerning the indestructibility of Matter; but partly because the symmetry of our argument demand...

§ 69. Another general truth of the same order with the foregoing, must here be specified—one which, though not so generally recognized, has yet long been familiar among men of s...

§ 58. Is this law ultimate or derivative? Must we rest satisfied with the conclusion that throughout all classes of concrete phenomena such is the mode of evolution? Or is it po...

Biology, Psychology and Sociology, which underlie a true theory of right living: in other words, the elements of that equilibrium between constitution and conditions of existenc...

factors entering into social phenomena—human ideas and feelings considered in their necessary order of evolution; surrounding natural conditions; and those ever complicating con...

IV. MORPHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT.—Pointing out the relations that are everywhere traceable between organic forms and the average of the various forces to which they are subject; an...

V. PHYSICAL SYNTHESIS.—An attempt to show the manner in which the succession of states of consciousness conforms to a certain fundamental law of nervous action that follows from...

principles discernible throughout all manifestations of the Absolute—those highest generalizations now being disclosed by Science which are severally true not of one class of ph...

into shape by Hamilton and Mansel; pointing out the various directions in which Science leads to the same conclusions; and showing that in this united belief in an Absolute that...