Essays On Education And Kindred Subjects (Fiscle Part- 11) by Herbert Spencer (best fiction novels to read TXT) 📕

Axis And For Precession Of    The   Equinoxes, But For Aberration And For

Refraction; And The   Formation Of    The   Tables By Which Refraction Is

Calculated, Presupposes Knowledge Of    The   Law Of    Decreasing Density In

The Upper Atmospheric Strata; Of    The   Law Of    Decreasing Temperature, And

The Influence Of    This On The   Density; And Of    Hygrometric Laws As Also

Affecting Density. So That, To Get Materials For Further Advance,

Astronomy Requires Not Only The   Indirect Aid Of    The   Sciences Which Have

Presided Over The   Making Of    Its Improved Instruments, But The   Direct Aid

Of An Advanced Optics, Of    Barology, Of    Thermology, Of    Hygrometry; And If

We Remember That These Delicate Observations Are In Some Cases

Registered Electrically, And That They Are Further Corrected For The

"Personal Equation"--The Time Elapsing Between Seeing And Registering,

Which Varies With Different Observers--We May Even Add Electricity And

Psychology. If, Then, So Apparently Simple A Thing As Ascertaining The

Position Of    A Star Is Complicated With So Many Phenomena, It Is Clear

That This Notion Of    The   Independence Of    The   Sciences, Or Certain Of

Them, Will Not Hold.

Whether Objectively Independent Or Not, They Cannot Be Subjectively

So--They Cannot Have Independence As Presented To Our Consciousness; And

This Is The   Only Kind Of    Independence With Which We Are Concerned. And

Here, Before Leaving These Illustrations, And Especially This Last One,

Let Us Not Omit To Notice How Clearly They Exhibit That Increasingly

Active _Consensus_ Of    The   Sciences Which Characterises Their Advancing

Development. Besides Finding That In These Later Times A Discovery In

One Science Commonly Causes Progress In Others; Besides Finding That A

Great Part Of    The   Questions With Which Modern Science Deals Are So Mixed

As To Require The   Co-Operation Of    Many Sciences For Their Solution; We

Find In This Last Case That, To Make A Single Good Observation In The

Purest Of    The   Natural Sciences, Requires The   Combined Assistance Of    Half

A Dozen Other Sciences.

Perhaps The   Clearest Comprehension Of    The   Interconnected Growth Of    The

Sciences May Be Obtained By Contemplating That Of    The   Arts, To Which It

Is Strictly Analogous, And With Which It Is Inseparably Bound Up. Most

Intelligent Persons Must Have Been, At One Time Or Other, Struck With

The Vast Array Of    Antecedents Pre-Supposed By One Of    Our Processes Of

Manufacture. Let Him Trace The   Production Of    A Printed Cotton, And

Consider All That Is Implied By It. There Are The   Many Successive

Improvements Through Which The   Power-Looms Reached Their Present

Perfection; There Is The   Steam-Engine That Drives Them, Having Its Long

History From Papin Downwards; There Are The   Lathes In Which Its Cylinder

Was Bored, And The   String Of    Ancestral Lathes From Which Those Lathes

Proceeded; There Is The   Steam-Hammer Under Which Its Crank Shaft Was

Welded; There Are The   Puddling-Furnaces, The   Blast-Furnaces, The

Coal-Mines And The   Iron-Mines Needful For Producing The   Raw Material;

There Are The   Slowly Improved Appliances By Which The   Factory Was Built,

And Lighted, And Ventilated; There Are The   Printing Engine, And The   Die

House, And The   Colour Laboratory With Its Stock Of    Materials From All

Parts Of    The   World, Implying Cochineal-Culture, Logwood-Cutting,

Indigo-Growing; There Are The   Implements Used By The   Producers Of

Cotton, The   Gins By Which It Is Cleaned, The   Elaborate Machines By Which

It Is Spun: There Are The   Vessels In Which Cotton Is Imported, With The

Building-Slips, The   Rope-Yards, The   Sail-Cloth Factories, The

Anchor-Forges, Needful For Making Them; And Besides All These Directly

Necessary Antecedents, Each Of    Them Involving Many Others, There Are The

Institutions Which Have Developed The   Requisite Intelligence, The

Printing And Publishing Arrangements Which Have Spread The   Necessary

Information, The   Social Organisation Which Has Rendered Possible Such A

Complex Co-Operation Of    Agencies.

Further Analysis Would Show That The   Many Arts Thus Concerned In The

Economical Production Of    A Child's Frock, Have Each Of    Them Been Brought

To Its Present Efficiency By Slow Steps Which The   Other Arts Have Aided;

And That From The   Beginning This Reciprocity Has Been Ever On The

Increase. It Needs But On The   One Hand To Consider How Utterly

Impossible It Is For The   Savage, Even With Ore And Coal Ready, To

Produce So Simple A Thing As An Iron Hatchet; And Then To Consider, On

The Other Hand, That It Would Have Been Impracticable Among Ourselves,

Even A Century Ago, To Raise The   Tubes Of    The   Britannia Bridge From Lack

Of The   Hydraulic Press; To At Once See How Mutually Dependent Are The

Arts, And How All Must Advance That Each May Advance. Well, The   Sciences

Are Involved With Each Other In Just The   Same Manner. They Are, In Fact,

Inextricably Woven Into The   Same Complex Web Of    The   Arts; And Are Only

Conventionally Independent Of    It. Originally The   Two Were One. How To

Fix The   Religious Festivals; When To Sow: How To Weigh Commodities; And

In What Manner To Measure Ground; Were The   Purely Practical Questions

Out Of    Which Arose Astronomy, Mechanics, Geometry. Since Then There Has

Been A Perpetual Inosculation Of    The   Sciences And The   Arts. Science Has

Been Supplying Art With Truer Generalisations And More Completely

Quantitative Previsions. Art Has Been Supplying Science With Better

Materials And More Perfect Instruments. And All Along The

Interdependence Has Been Growing Closer, Not Only Between Art And

Science, But Among The   Arts Themselves, And Among The   Sciences

Themselves.

How Completely The   Analogy Holds Throughout, Becomes Yet Clearer When We

Recognise The   Fact That _The Sciences Are Arts To Each Other_. If, As

Occurs In Almost Every Case, The   Fact To Be Analysed By Any Science, Has

First To Be Prepared--To Be Disentangled From Disturbing Facts By The

Afore Discovered Methods Of    Other Sciences; The   Other Sciences So Used,

Stand In The   Position Of    Arts. If, In Solving A Dynamical Problem, A

Parallelogram Is Drawn, Of    Which The   Sides And Diagonal Represent

Forces, And By Putting Magnitudes Of    Extension For Magnitudes Of    Force A

Measurable Relation Is Established Between Quantities Not Else To Be

Dealt With; It May Be Fairly Said That Geometry Plays Towards Mechanics

Much The   Same Part That The   Fire Of    The   Founder Plays Towards The   Metal

He Is Going To Cast. If, In Analysing The   Phenomena Of    The   Coloured

Rings Surrounding The   Point Of    Contact Between Two Lenses, A Newton

Ascertains By Calculation The   Amount Of    Certain Interposed Spaces, Far

Too Minute For Actual Measurement; He Employs The   Science Of    Number For

Essentially The   Same Purpose As That For Which The   Watchmaker Employs

Tools. If, Before Writing Down His Observation On A Star, The   Astronomer

Has To Separate From It All The   Errors Resulting From Atmospheric And

Optical Laws, It Is Manifest That The   Refraction-Tables, And

Logarithm-Books, And Formulæ, Which He Successively Uses, Serve Him Much

As Retorts, And Filters, And Cupels Serve The   Assayer Who Wishes To

Separate The   Pure Gold From All Accompanying Ingredients.

So Close, Indeed, Is The   Relationship, That It Is Impossible To Say

Where Science Begins And Art Ends. All The   Instruments Of    The   Natural

Philosopher Are The   Products Of    Art; The   Adjusting One Of    Them For Use

Is An Art; There Is Art In Making An Observation With One Of    Them; It

Requires Art Properly To Treat The   Facts Ascertained; Nay, Even The

Employing Established Generalisations To Open The   Way To New

Generalisations, May Be Considered As Art. In Each Of    These Cases

Previously Organised Knowledge Becomes The   Implement By Which New

Knowledge Is Got At: And Whether That Previously Organised Knowledge Is

Embodied In A Tangible Apparatus Or In A Formula, Matters Not In So Far

As Its Essential Relation To The   New Knowledge Is Concerned. If, As No

One Will Deny, Art Is Applied Knowledge, Then Such Portion Of    A

Scientific Investigation As Consists Of    Applied Knowledge Is Art. So

That We May Even Say That As Soon As Any Prevision In Science Passes Out

Of Its Originally Passive State, And Is Employed For Reaching Other

Previsions, It Passes From Theory Into Practice--Becomes Science In

Action--Becomes Art. And When We Thus See How Purely Conventional Is The

Ordinary Distinction, How Impossible It Is To Make Any Real

Separation--When We See Not Only That Science And Art Were Originally

One; That The   Arts Have Perpetually Assisted Each Other; That There Has

Been A Constant Reciprocation Of    Aid Between The   Sciences And Arts; But

That The   Sciences Act As Arts To Each Other, And That The   Established

Part Of    Each Science Becomes An Art To The   Growing Part--When We

Recognise The   Closeness Of    These Associations, We Shall The   More Clearly

Perceive That As The   Connection Of    The   Arts With Each Other Has Been

Ever Becoming More Intimate; As The   Help Given By Sciences To Arts And

By Arts To Sciences, Has Been Age By Age Increasing; So The

Interdependence Of    The   Sciences Themselves Has Been Ever Growing

Greater, Their Mutual Relations More Involved, Their _Consensus_ More

Active.

In Here Ending Our Sketch Of    The   Genesis Of    Science, We Are Conscious Of

Having Done The   Subject But Scant Justice. Two Difficulties Have Stood

In Our Way: One, The   Having To Touch On So Many Points In Such Small

Space; The   Other, The   Necessity Of    Treating In Serial Arrangement A

Process Which Is Not Serial--A Difficulty Which Must Ever Attend All

Attempts To Delineate Processes Of    Development, Whatever Their Special

Nature. Add To Which, That To Present In Anything Like Completeness And

Proportion, Even The   Outlines Of    So Vast And Complex A History, Demands

Years Of    Study. Nevertheless, We Believe That The   Evidence Which Has

Been Assigned Suffices To Substantiate The   Leading Propositions With

Which We Set Out. Inquiry Into The   First Stages Of    Science Confirms The

Conclusion Which We Drew From The   Analysis Of    Science As Now Existing,

That It Is Not Distinct From Common Knowledge, But An Outgrowth From

It--An Extension Of    The   Perception By Means Of    The   Reason.

That Which We Further Found By Analysis To Form The   More Specific

Characteristic Of    Scientific Previsions, As Contrasted With The

Previsions Of    Uncultured Intelligence--Their Quantitativeness--We Also

See To Have Been The   Characteristic Alike In The   Initial Steps In

Science, And Of    All The   Steps Succeeding Them. The   Facts And Admissions

Cited In Disproof Of    The   Assertion That The   Sciences Follow One Another,

Both Logically And Historically, In The   Order Of    Their Decreasing

Generality, Have Been Enforced By The   Sundry Instances We Have Met With,

In Which The   More General Or Abstract Sciences Have Been Advanced Only

At The   Instigation Of    The   More Special Or Concrete--Instances Serving To

Show That A More General Science As Much Owes Its Progress To The

Presentation Of    New Problems By A More Special Science, As The   More

Special Science Owes Its Progress To The   Solutions Which The   More

General Science Is Thus Led To Attempt--Instances Therefore Illustrating

The Position That Scientific Advance Is As Much From The   Special To The

General As From The   General To The   Special.

Quite In Harmony With This Position We Find To Be The   Admissions That

The Sciences Are As Branches Of    One Trunk, And That They Were At First

Cultivated Simultaneously; And This Harmony Becomes The   More Marked On

Finding, As We Have Done, Not Only That The   Sciences Have A Common Root,

But That Science In General Has A Common Root With Language,

Classification, Reasoning, Art; That Throughout Civilisation These Have

Advanced Together, Acting And Reacting Upon Each Other Just As The

Separate Sciences Have Done; And That Thus The   Development Of

Intelligence In All Its Divisions And Subdivisions Has Conformed To This

Same Law Which We Have Shown That The   Sciences Conform To. From All

Which We May Perceive That The   Sciences Can With No Greater Propriety Be

Arranged In A Succession, Than Language, Classification, Reasoning, Art,

And Science, Can Be Arranged In A Succession; That, However Needful A

Succession May Be For The   Convenience Of    Books And Catalogues, It Must

Be Recognised Merely As A Convention; And That So Far From Its Being The

Function Of    A Philosophy Of    The   Sciences To Establish A Hierarchy, It Is

Its Function To Show That The   Linear Arrangements Required For Literary

Purposes, Have None Of    Them Any Basis Either In Nature Or History.

There Is One Further Remark We Must Not Omit--A Remark Touching The

Importance Of    The   Question That Has Been Discussed. Unfortunately It

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