



Produced by David Edwards, Martin Pettit and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
book was produced from scanned images of public domain
material from the Google Print project.)






THE PHILOSOPHY OF EVOLUTION

TOGETHER WITH A PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON

THE METAPHYSICAL BASIS OF SCIENCE.


TWO PAPERS

Read before THE WISCONSIN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, ARTS, AND LETTERS
at the Annual Meetings of February, 1873 and February, 1874.

BY

STEPHEN H. CARPENTER, LL. D.,

_Professor of Logic, etc., in the University of Wisconsin,
and President of the Department of Speculative Philosophy
in the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters._


[REPRINTED FROM THE ACADEMY'S TRANSACTIONS.]


MADISON, WIS.:
ATWOOD & CULVER, PRINTERS AND STEREOTYPERS.
1874.




THE METAPHYSICAL BASIS OF SCIENCE.


All knowledge is essentially one. The object-matter upon which intellect
exerts itself, does not affect the subjective act of knowing. Physics,
when stripped of that which is merely contingent, becomes metaphysics.
Physical science deals with object-matter, and discusses the signs by
which nature communicates her message--that is, phenomena. Metaphysical
science has to do with the subject-mind, and discusses the meaning of
the message. The one converts God's hieroglyphics into
easily-intelligible language; the other translates this language into
Idea. If this be true, there must be a unity of method in all science,
however great the diversity of the object-matter investigated. This
method is subjectively determined, that is, by the constitution of the
mind, and not by the particular form of matter upon which intellectual
energy may be exerted. If there is an essential unity in all knowledge,
it is because there is a corresponding unity of method in all mental
activity. It is only when we look upon what is to be known, that truth
separates into sciences; but particular truths become particular
sciences only under assumed relations to the whole of which they form a
part.

Objectively considered, science is classified knowledge; subjectively
viewed, it is the laws or principles according to which knowledge is
classified. Every actor implies an act--every thinker a thought. We may
therefore universally make this dual classification, according as we
view the mental operation involved, or the attributes of objects which
form the subject of thought. The possibility of science is conditioned
upon the possibility of classification. Mere knowledge is not science,
as the world ought to have learned by costly experience. Even classified
knowledge may not be science; it becomes science not through previous
classification, but in the act of being classified, and therefore only
as the principle of classification is apprehended--that is, only as the
particular application of the law of generalization is distinctly
recognized. A man may know a book and know nothing more; he knows the
science only when he is capable of making the book for himself. Mere
knowledge thus differs from science in that the one is held only by the
apprehensive powers of the mind, while the other passes beyond these
into the reflective or ratiocinative. Pure science, then, must be wholly
abstract. The forms and substances of Nature with which the scientific
student deals, are only the discrete figures of the young mathematician,
to be thrown aside with advancing knowledge. Matter is only the staff on
which the mind leans, while too feeble to go alone. It is not the finely
chiseled statue that renders a man a sculptor; it is the conception
which is therein embodied. A day-laborer may have cut the stone, but
only the artist could conceive the idea. So in science, we care but
little for the particular results at which we arrive, compared with the
laws, according to which the results have been attained.

But conceptions cannot be communicated without being rendered objective.
The ideal of the artist is locked up in his own mind, until on canvas,
in marble, or by means of some other physical symbol, he communicates
his high imaginings. Matter, then, according to the present constitution
of things is the condition of intellectual communication. Law cannot be
studied as abstract law; it can be studied only while acting, and that
which exhibits this activity must be matter--something which will
always and uniformly obey. There can be no conception of force except as
acting, and the sole medium of such activity is matter. Thus again,
matter is the condition of all communication from nature to man. Science
is thus, in a measure, determined by the conditions of its discovery and
communication. But we must distinguish between an invariable condition
and that which is thus conditioned. Matter is not science; it is only
the condition of its discovery and communication. Air is not hearing; it
is the condition of hearing. We do not study matter for the sake of the
matter when we study science, but for the sake of the law communicated
to us in these changes of matter, and Law is a metaphysical, not a
physical idea. Reason, not sense, apprehends it. Law is, so to speak,
formulated in the physical, but it is not material. Matter is only the
vehicle of science, as language is the vehicle of thought.

It is plain, then, that just as in mathematics we have a division into
pure and mixed, according as we deal with matter in the abstract or in
the concrete, so we may in any science make a corresponding division,
according as we confine our attention to the laws revealed by matter or
to the matter revealing the laws: in other words; just as we give
attention to the ideas of the message, or to the language in which it is
communicated. The language must first be learned, but the words used to
communicate the message may be separately understood, and yet the
meaning of the message wholly missed. Knowing only the one makes a
charlatan; knowing the other makes a savan. The sciences based upon this
objective study of Nature are denominated Natural Sciences; and because
they lisp the first syllables of Nature's message to man, they should be
his primary teachers. It is by their aid that the universal message of
God to man must be read. They form, as it were, a public highway leading
from Nature to God. But the difficulty is that observing men become so
absorbed in admiring some splendid piece of Divine engineering that
they stop to gaze and wonder, until losing sight of everything above and
beyond, they refuse to advance, fondly imagining that they have reached
the end of the journey.

The science based upon this subjective study of Nature is called
metaphysics. Logic has been defined as "The Science of Thought;" it
should be termed "The Science of Thinking." It is not a dead body which
we are studying by dissection, but a living, vital Force, which we study
by observing its activities. We find here the same error which we find
elsewhere--a stopping with the material symbol, and an ignoring of the
intellectual force which clothed itself with the symbol. Astronomy is
not the science of circles and spheres, ellipses and ellipsoids, but of
the Force whose sensible utterances are given in these curves. We might
as well call Painting the science of pictures, or Sculpture the science
of statues. So Language, the medium of thought, is only a symbol, less
material indeed than pictures and statues, but still physical. What we
want in "The Science of Thinking" is not the knowledge of symbols, but
the knowledge of that which is symbolized. The chemist does not care for
the compounds he finds in his retort; he seeks after the truth which
these compounds formulate. Metaphysics and Physics evidently agree in
this; that both are seeking to frame an articulate utterance of the Idea
given in the diverse manifestations of Force--the Idea which includes
all Potencies, the summing up of all phenomena into that final
generalization which includes the intellectual as well as the material,
until at last we reach the essential unity of all Truth.

Science, then, is classification, or the discovery of the principles of
classification, rather than an arbitrary acquaintance with things
classified. Every science, however, must have an objective
expression--that is, must be formulated. In this, both metaphysical and
physical science agree; the only difference in this respect is, that in
Physics, Nature gives us in the first place the material interpretation
of the idea--that is, the basis of classification--which we have only
to translate into idea: while in metaphysics, we first have the idea to
which we must furnish the objective utterance. We see here the precise
difference between what is called the logical and the natural
method--the one being usually called the reverse of the other. The
difference is not so much a difference in intellectual procedure as in
objective expression. For instance: The botanist has before him the
whole range of vegetable forms. He notes resemblances and differences,
and groups plants into species and genera, but his work is not ended
when these are named and known, and their qualities discovered. He is
seeking amidst these multifarious forms for the law of vegetable growth
and reproduction. Every organ of the plant is the symbol of an idea, and
these ideas form the science of Botany. These Ideas are
metaphysical--that is intellectual, and only their sensible
manifestation is physical. The symbols of these Ideas, being given in
Nature, must be learned from observation before they can be used
intelligently, just as words must be learned before one can speak a
language. Mastery of the means of expression is as essential to the
communication of ideas an is the possession of the ideas themselves. The
botanist observes an individual plant, and notes its characteristics. He
observes others which possess some of these characteristics whilst
others are wanting. He forms a class-type from these agreeing
attributes, and gives this new collocation of characteristics a name.
Nature never presents this class-type absolutely; it is found nowhere
but in intellect. What has the botanist done but to retranslate the
communication of Nature into Idea, and then to express this idea by less
complicated and less physical symbols? Man's province in this case is
simply to interpret the hieroglyphics of Nature into a more readily
comprehended language--to express that simply which nature has expressed
confusedly. The scientist restricts himself to the interpretation of a
single class of symbols, as the Botanist to plants, the Zoologist to
animals, but the end sought in each case is the same--that is, to
change all these physical utterances of Nature into Idea, and to secure
for this Idea a method of expression involving the least possible
materiality of symbol--that is, to change individual facts and phenomena
into general principles, which, because abstract, are unchangeable. When
this has been done, the work of the Naturalist ceases, but the work of
Man, the Thinker is not done; it is only just begun. By assuming the
ultimate expressions of the various natural sciences as individual and
not as typical, we can treat the truths reached by them precisely as the
Botanist treated plants, and, rejecting points of of difference, may
find in them all some central idea. This is the province of the
metaphysician. He seeks the law of Idea, he determines the law of
Thinking, just as all other laws are determined, from a study of the
symbols formulating its expression in Nature. When this law has been
distinctly enunciated, and freed from all intermixture with the
contingent, then the work of the metaphysician ceases, the _summum
genus_ has been reached. The truths communicated in the symbols of
Nature, have been correlated and enunciated, and finally translated from
the dialect of man the physical into the language of man the
intellectual. Physical science determines the separate words of this
message of God, the letters of which are scattered throughout Nature.
Metaphysics combines these words into propositions which enunciate a
distinct truth. There is therefore neither conflict nor variation
between the method of Logic and the method of Nature. The movement of
both is in the same direction; the only difference is in the point of
starting. And another truth no less important, which follows from the
foregoing discussion, is that the method of Nature is fundamental to the
method of Logic. Physics should precede metaphysics, but not exclude it;
both are essential to every true science, and physics, which stops with
physics, leads man by dazzling promises into some Utopian desert only to
leave him there to die of hunger. And it is no less true that
metaphysics, without this basis in experimental science, is illusory
and untrustworthy, wherever the original data are necessarily empirical.

Two conditions are thus necessary to all science: a body of knowable
truth capable of being systematized; and an intelligence capable of
apprehending and systematizing it. One of these conditions is physical
and one is metaphysical; and all true science must be the resultant of
Law and Idea, the Objective and the Subjective, the twin forces of
Nature and Man. If either of these conditions be wanting, there can be
no true science, for science can neither be "evolved from the depths of
the personal consciousness," nor can the scattered letters of scientific
truth, as given in nature, arrange themselves into the words of a
significant message. Knowledge must be classified before it is science,
and that which classifies can only be intellect--discovering and
enunciating this classification according to the laws of mental action.
As prominence is given to one or other of these two conditions we have
the division into Logical and Natural, but the fundamental principle of
classification is the same in both--it being simply the law of
intellectual action--just as the law which governs the action of the
levers of a loom will determine the pattern of the woven fabric. There
can, therefore, be no conflict between the methods of Logic and those of
Nature. The determining element in all classification, whether of the
phenomena of Mind or of the grosser phenomena of Matter is uniformly and
always the same--the law of intellectual action.

Science then resolves itself into a determination of this Law of mental
activity, so that in an ultimate analysis, all science is metaphysical,
just as all science primarily is physical. Here, as elsewhere, Law can
be studied only in its objective manifestations. The Law of Thinking can
be educed only from expressed Thought, but the Law is not objective
thought, any more than the idea of the sculptor is marble, or the
conception of the painter is paint. The simplest expression of thought
is not the syllogism but the logical proposition. Now, it is plain that
if the proposition is the formulation--the material representative of
thought--if we study it as we study other natural symbols, we will find
in it the fundamental Law of Thinking, and ultimately the fundamental
Law of all Science: just as, if it were possible to reduce all
elementary substances to one, the chemist would be able to find in that
one a condensed expression of chemical science.

What then is a proposition? Simply stated, it is the assertion of
relation between two terms; or more abstractly, it is the reference of
an individual to its species--the assertion of a classification. We find
here the same duality which we noticed above. If we give prominence to
the individual notion, we consider the proposition in extension; if we
turn our attention to the specific notion we consider the proposition in
intention: in the one case referring to the individuals composing the
class, in the other to the attributes composing the class-type. The
first corresponds to induction, the second to deduction. When we study
individuals we study physics; when we study the attributes composing the
class-type, we study metaphysics. The Law of Thinking as educed from a
study of the proposition is the law of classification. The proposition,
considered affirmatively, asserts explicitly agreement between certain
attributes of two terms; that is, it asserts a classification. The aim
of science is to reach this proposition, to discover and assert the
principle of classification--in other words, to formulate metaphysically
what nature has presented physically. We must find, then, the first or
fundamental law of thinking in this _integration_ or classification.
This fundamental law may be subdivided into two species, according to
the two terms of the proposition; of which the first may be stated thus:
"Every possible object of thought is to a certain extent identical with
every other"; and as the proposition implicitly states disagreement, the
second may be stated thus: "Every possible object of thought is to a
certain extent diverse from every other." The first gives the positive
(subjective) condition of the proposition, the second the negative
(objective) condition: both together constitute the conditions of
thinking. The proposition is thus the assertion of the same in the
different. The proposition also asserts, implicitly, the _tertium quid_,
or the basis of classification--the class-type, to which both terms are
referred--that is, the proposition secondarily asserts an analysis.
According to the first condition we have the inductive process;
according to the second we have the deductive process. A complete
movement of idea from its purely physical symbolization to its
metaphysical interpretation, must involve both these processes.

The mind possesses the power of analysis; it can watch its own
operations and retrace its steps, until it arrives at the original data
of consciousness; but analysis cannot comprise the whole of the logical
process. Before there can be analysis there must be something to be
analyzed; before steps can be retraced, they must be taken. We must not
confound a condition with a Law--the one is a conception antecedent to
all action, a genus to which the particular activity may be referred;
the other is coincident with action. The one is the medium of the other.
We may illustrate this idea by science itself, which is reached only by
an analysis of Art. Matter is the condition of the expression of an
idea; hence to all but the artist, Art must precede Science, but this
cannot be in the case of the artist; in his mind the Idea is first
conceived, and there it is given expression in the forms of Art. Here,
as uniformly in Nature, the whole absolutely precedes the part--the
universal exists before the particular--God before man. Truth absolute
thus exists before truth conditioned. Science before Art. Remove
conditions and the conditioned becomes the absolute; art and science
coincide. But truth which is assumed to be out of all relations, cannot
be comprehended by man, and practically is not. Even the universal
propositions of deduction express universality under conditions--that
is universality of relation; just as infinity in mathematics means that
which passes measurement, while in fact between infinity and measurement
there is no relation, and the infinite is thus incomprehensible as an
object of thought, although by no means unrecognizable as a necessary
condition antecedent to all intellectual action. It is of vital
importance that we note this distinction, because reasoning, i. e.
classification, is possible only so long as we deal with what is
admitted to be under relation: if we assume a term to be out of all
relation, it ceases to be an object of thought--it can neither be
classified nor unclassified; it is beyond reason. Mathematics can
proceed with its investigations only so long as it treats all quantities
as measurable; it must wholly cease its calculations if an infinite term
be introduced. To claim that analysis represents the complete normal
action of the intellect in reasoning, is ultimately to claim that the
initial point of thinking is the _summum genus_ of thought--God. Now God
is undoubtedly the initial point of absolute thought, but he is not the
beginning of human thought. Intellectually speaking, God is the final
generalization; every movement possible to him must be one of
analysis--a differentiation of Himself, so to speak, by negatives. Thus
the course of absolute Thought, beginning with God, must be first
towards a complete differentiation into ultimate individualization; and
lastly a complete integration again of individuals into an infinite
whole. This dual action completes the circle of intellectual activity.
We have dropped attribute after attribute until we have reached the last
possible analysis; but we do not stop here, but by the assumption of
attributes we again reach the highest possible synthesis. This must be
the method of the divine activity, successive differentiation and
integration, the closing in of a mighty circle of infinity, embracing
all the finite, but never losing the essential characteristic of the
infinite.

Now, if this also represent the exact movement of the finite mind in
action--that is, in reasoning, man must be God. Man is finite. Even his
infinite is only the immeasurable--not that which is without the
category of measure. He cannot begin where the Infinite begins, at the
highest possible generalization,--but he must begin with the finite. If
what we have shown above be true, man must begin with the individual,
and the first mental act of the positive character of thinking, is the
reference of this individual notion to a class. Now the _class-notion_
is the same as the individual notion, less certain attributes as
_individual_ attributes, but gathered into a larger whole. This process
is plainly integration; we are rejecting from the new conception
whatever prevents enlarging the class. Each higher generalization
involves all the attributes of the lower, not individually, but
specifically or generically. In the final generalization, extension and
intension coalesce. Just as we reach the individual by differentiating a
universal through successive negations, we reach the universal again, by
integration, by successively denying the negations through which we just
now differentiated. The movement of the finite mind in reasoning is thus
from the individual through the universal to the individual again.

Science thus parts into two great branches--one seeking to establish
principles by what we have called integration, and the other the
elucidation of facts by _a priori_ reasoning instead of observation.
That is, the aim of true science is to free man from the restrictions of
the finite, and to place him in possession of the infinite--the closing
in of a lesser circle of infinite truth, yet never losing hold upon the
finite. In accordance with this view we see science pursuing its
integrations until it has identified as composing an essential unity all
the various manifestations of force. This is the finite becoming the
infinite, for unity is, in so far, infinity--God is one, a unity, not a
unit. But we also see science going beyond this point, and by a new
series of differentiations reaching truths new to experience, if indeed
not impossible to experience.

Between these two limits all knowledge is forever moving. It can never
rest. The tide of thought sweeps onward towards the infinite--God
following it to its final absorption into the _I Am_, simple
being,--while finite man, because of his finiteness, can only reach
those universals which are infinite only to human thought. Like men on a
journey we leave the train when we have reached our journey's end, but
the train passes on out of sight in the distance, sending back, now and
then, tokens of its progress, as it thunders over a bridge, or whistles
shrill as it nears some further stopping place, until at last all is
still, not because the train has stopped, but because we can follow it
no further with our senses. Even after science has reached the utmost
limit possible to it, it is not satisfied to rest there, but starts at
once upon its return trip, to bring to notice undiscovered facts hidden
in these mighty generalizations. Thus the pendulum of intellectual
activity unceasingly vibrates between the infinite and the finite, never
resting, because Idea and Matter, the force of Man and the force of
Nature can never be completely identified.




THE PHILOSOPHY OF EVOLUTION.


The intellectual processes of a rational being must proceed according to
some law. They cannot succeed each other at hap-hazard. The notion of
rationality is conditioned upon this regular procedure; if this be
wanting, the essential character of rational action is wanting. But to
say that rational processes are determined by law, and conditioned upon
a regular procedure, is simply to assert that the steps in ratiocination
are so related to each other that the relation of each to every other
may be determined by the application of the law--the difference between
any two steps being analogous to the difference between any other two.
The astronomer determines the orbit of a planet from three observations,
because he thereby determines the law of variation between these points;
from which he assumes that this law will be constant, presenting a
series of terms each differentiated according the series of differences
already determined.

Applying the same principle to mental phenomena, we may determine the
law of intellectual action. Thoughts are discriminated by the presence
or absence of certain attributes. At one extreme we find the _summum
genus_, comprising the fewest possible attributes distinguishing an
idea; at the other extreme we find the individual, comprising any number
of attributes. Between these two extremes we find a regular series of
intermediate terms. The movement of an idea from the general to the
individual is like the motion of a planet through one-half of its orbit;
while the return movement from the individual to the general,
corresponds to the motion of the planet over the remaining half of its
orbit. The same law governs both movements and unites the two halves of
the orbit into a single whole; and a series of observations taken at
equal distances, will, by the uniformity of differences presented,
reveal the operation of the same law in this dual manifestation. Upon
examining the processes of deduction and induction, we find in each the
same series of terms, differing only in the fact that they are in
inverse order, and this correspondence reveals the operation of one and
the same law. An inductive series is only a deductive series read
backward. Any two terms in a series whether inductive or deductive,
differ only in the degree of generality, and differ similarly from a
third term, so that two being known the third can be therefrom
determined. In a deductive series the terms differ by a constant
increase in the number of individualizing attributes--a concept being
expanded into a deductive series by such regular additions. Having two
terms we can proceed to the third--that is, from two propositions
expressing this relation, we can proceed to a conclusion. In an
inductive series the terms differ by a constant diminution in the number
of individualizing attributes--an individual term being expanded into an
inductive series, by successively dropping the attributes which compose
the individual term, until we reach the required degree of
generalization.

Thought must proceed in one of these two directions. The object-matter
of thought being composed wholly of attributes can differ only in the
presence or absence of certain attributes. A combination, then, of these
two movements must complete the intellectual orbit. The direction of the
movement of the mind will be determined by the end proposed. When we
possess the knowledge of phenomena and wish to discover law--that is,
when we seek information--we proceed by induction, from the individual
to the general. When possessed of knowledge, we wish to discover its
applications, when knowing the law, we wish to determine the phenomena
necessarily resulting therefrom, we proceed by deduction--from the
general to the individual. Complete knowledge, then, consists in the
highest possible generalization, and the expansion of this term into a
series, ending only with the last possible individualization. The aim of
physical science is to determine that half of the intellectual orbit
which lies between the individual and the general--the aim of
metaphysical science is to trace the other half which lies between the
general and the individual. When we seek to know what is, we proceed by
induction--the method of the phenomenal. When, knowing what is, we
proceed to determine what hence must be, we proceed by deduction--the
method of the Necessary. Thus Science, at first seeking principles,
proceeds by induction to establish them; but after these fundamental
principles have been established, it proceeds deductively to determine
what must result from them, without waiting to discover these truths by
observation.

Knowledge is thus complete just in proportion to the extension of its
scope through generalization. The higher the generalization, the more
inclusive will it be, and the _summum genus_, or the final
generalization, will be the highest attainable reach of knowledge. When
man can make no further generalization, his knowledge will be, in so
far, absolute and complete, and all that remains possible to him will be
the practical application of what he already knows. Perfect knowledge is
nothing but perfect generalization. The Supreme Intelligence being
hypothetically possessed of all knowledge, that is, having discriminated
the absolute _summum genus_, can proceed no further in this direction;
his intellectual activity must be exerted in a descending series, or
from the general towards the individual, and this process must be, as we
have seen above, by a determinate series of steps, fixed by the
operation of a definite law, which law proceeds by the successive
addition of attributes to the general.

Complete knowledge, being complete generalization, the lines of all
science will necessarily converge, as they approach this generalization,
until all sciences coalesce in one science, and all truth is reduced to
a single expression in the utterance of the final conception. In
accordance with the laws of thinking, this general term is reached by
successive omissions of particularizing attributes, until at last we
reach Being--the absolute _summum genus_, wholly free from individual
attributes, and thereby embracing everything possible to thought,
whether material or immaterial. But this _summum genus_ must be
predicable of this whole. Matter and mind may thus be reduced to a
single category, and the physical and the intellectual finally coalesce
in this last generalization. Materialism and idealism thus differ merely
in the degree of generalization reached--or rather they both agree in
avoiding the final generalization which identifies both matter and mind.
Materialism must always deal with the individual, for matter can appear
under no other form. Idealism must always rest upon the general, for
thought, to be thought, must state a generalization. Each, however,
finds its explanation in the other, and both are harmonized by the
application of the law of intellectual action above given. Matter and
Mind are complementary, not incompatible. They differ with each other,
but they agree in being similarly related to a third term. Matter is
objective; it is thought taking form, becoming individual, manifesting
itself in space. Mind is subjective. The one appeals to the senses; the
other is known only to the consciousness.

Science reaches its full development only when it includes both physical
and intellectual phenomena within its scope. Every step which it takes
carries it further from the purely physical, and brings it nearer the
purely intellectual--that is the development of physical science is from
the individual towards the general, and it reaches its end, its
completion, only when the last distinction, that of subjective and
objective, has disappeared in the last possible generalization. When the
objective has been identified with the subjective, the distinction
between Mind and Matter has been obliterated, and we have reached the
Supreme Intelligence--the "I Am" of Scripture--simple Being.

Matter is the formal expression of thought, or the necessary condition
of such expression, and in this condition is found the link that
connects the subjective and objective manifestations of _being_.
Subjectivity is ideality, as objectivity is materiality. The
consciousness can take cognizance only of what is within itself, and
therefore without every other. Consciousness is therefore wholly
personal. To communicate an idea it must be placed within the
consciousness of another. To reach this result it must cease to be
personal, must pass out of the subjective consciousness into objective
form, so as to be placed in the same relation to the speaker and the
hearer. Thought, out of the consciousness of the thinker, is objective
to him, and to render thought objective is to give it material form.
Thought to be communicated, must pass out of the consciousness of the
thinker into a material representation. The assumption of material form
individualizes the idea. The artist's mind may be filled with splendid
conceptions, but no one but he can look within his consciousness and see
them. Before others can have any knowledge of his thoughts, he must give
them form, or embody them in statues or paintings. The soul of the
musician may be thrilled by the harmonies that his imagination creates,
but no other soul can join him in this ecstasy until he has given form
to his conceptions. So the thinker must embody his thoughts in language
before he can communicate them to another. Matter, then, is the vehicle
by which thought is communicated, and, so far as we are concerned, the
necessary condition of such communication, so that the conception of
thought apart from the thinker involves the intervention of material
forms, and it is by the interpretation of these symbolical forms that we
discover the idea.

Now, let us suppose a Supreme Intelligence. The intellectual processes
of such a Being, to be conceived as rational by us, must be identical
with ours, or at least analogous to ours. The possession of infinite
attributes may in fact free him from the control of any law, but it is
impossible for us to conceive an intelligence acting otherwise than in
accordance with law. So that if the Supreme Intelligence is to
communicate with man, it must be in obedience to the laws which control
our mental activities. The Divine thought must, then, like human
conceptions, be communicated by means of physical symbols.

The Supreme Intelligence, being the final generalization, must possess
all knowledge, and the only intelligent action possible to him from our
point of view, is from this absolute generalization towards the concrete
and individual. The absolute general is purely subjective, which, to
become cognizable, must be rendered objective. This can be secured to us
only through the intervention of material forms. From this point of
view, matter is only the symbol of thought--thought apart from the
thinker. The first result of the divine activity in self-manifestation
would be the analysis of _being_ into subjective and objective--that is
the discrimination of mind and matter, which terms are severally the
final generalizations of the two fundamental divisions of science.
Matter, then, mere formless, chaotic matter, would be the first result
of creative activity. Following the development of this idea in its
continually increasing individuality, as new attributes are severally
added, matter assumes determinate form and becomes related in systems,
as the various so-called elementary substances are discriminated, until
finally all truth, capable of being revealed by inorganic matter, is
presented to us.

Add the idea of organism and we have the two great divisions of
phenomena--material and vital. The higher the generalization, the fewer
will be the attributes composing the concept, and thus the simpler will
be the form symbolizing its expression. As in the case of matter, the
first result of the divine activity was more matter, undiscriminated by
any further attribute; so here, we have, as the first organic creation,
a concrete expression of the highest possible generalization comprising
the fewest possible attributes--that is, forms of life involving the
fewest individual characteristics. To matter add the simplest organic
attribute--that is, the one lying nearest the genus--and we have mere
organized matter, the simple cell, the foundation of all life, no matter
how great its future complexity, equally the origin of animal and
vegetable growth, which are as yet entirely undiscriminated. This would
be the first appearance of life.[1] Differentiating again by the
addition of a new attribute, and organic being is subdivided into the
two species, vegetable and animal. Beginning with these typical forms,
adding single attributes in a continuous series, we at last reach the
highest types of animals and plants. Finally, add rationality to the
animal, and we reach man, the highest and therefore the most complex
type of life, and who, so far as we are concerned, must be the end of
creation. We cannot conceive of any higher creation, because we cannot
add an attribute to those we already possess, any more than we can
conceive of an additional sense by which to cognize such new attribute.

This process has been determined from the very outset by those
intellectual laws which we cannot disobey, and which we cannot conceive
disobeyed by an intelligent creator. If the law of intellectual action
require this process from the simple to the complex, the concrete
representation of the steps of this process must indicate the operation
of this law, and must also proceed from the simple and rudimentary to
the complex and highly developed. An intelligent Creator in revealing
his thought must follow the method which our minds must follow in
interpreting this revelation. When we know and seek to communicate our
knowledge, we proceed from the general to the specific.[2] The Creator
assumed to be infinite in knowledge would therefore follow this process
instead of the method peculiar to investigation. The law of intellectual
action determines this method, and the conditions of intellectual
communication determine the representation of this method in the
material expression of the ideas communicated. Considering the operation
of this law under these conditions, we find that the thought
communicating only, as nearly as may be, the generic idea, will be
distinguished from it by the addition of but a single attribute as the
generic by itself is incapable of being represented in concrete form,
the expression of this thought in form will present us matter
distinguished from matter in general by but a single attribute. The
least possible individualizing attribute added to the highest possible
generalization gives us the simplest expression of an idea, and the form
or the organism symbolizing this thought will be the simplest form and
the simplest organism possible. For instance: in organic life the
highest generalization barely individualized will give us the simple
cell; and no matter what degree of complexity we subsequently reach by
the addition of an almost infinite number of attributes, we nevertheless
begin in every case with the same starting point.

Each higher type is reached by adding to a lower. The higher thus
embraces all that can be found in the lower, and something besides. This
method is invariable, and can never be departed from. The genus must
always be predicable of every individual component of every species
contained under it. Translating this law into the forms of material
expression, and it requires each higher species to physically include
all lower species, and to differ from them only by addition. Man, the
highest type, must thus include all the attributes of the cell as
physically expressed, and without them he would not be man. The
differences between no two terms in a series can be total. If the
successive steps in a train of thought must be related, so that no two
notions will be wholly distinct from each other, these notions will
constitute a series, each term of which will, in a measure, determine
the next, so soon as the law of the series is discovered; and if this
train of thought be objectively presented, it will afford a
corresponding series of physical terms, each one of which will in like
manner determine the next. But thought is impossible unless by a train
of ideas so related. Its physical expression will therefore be equally
impossible except by a series of physical terms similarly related, each
one of which in some manner determines the next. There must then be a
perfect continuity in the line that reaches from the simplest form of
matter through all grades of organic life up to man, the highest
expression of the divine idea. There can be no break in the chain of
thought, because the law of the logical process forbids it: there can be
no break in the series of material symbols for the conditions of
concrete expression equally forbid it. A symbol is nothing except as it
represents that which is to be symbolized. So the symbols form a
physical series, because the thoughts symbolized form a logical series.

If the creator has fully revealed his thought, it must be by a series of
physical terms arranged in such a manner as to indicate the logical
series of ideas symbolized. Every form of matter is a symbol of thought,
and challenges interpretation. Every change in form corresponds to an
antecedent change in idea, and must be intended to reveal it. As
thought, then, begins its evolution with the general and proceeds to the
individual by a series of terms each of which is similarly related to
both extremes, we must find the material enunciation of this process
assuming the form of a series of terms, beginning with mere nebulous
matter, grading into organic life, and organic life presenting us with a
similar series beginning with the mere cell and ending with man. So
rigid and invariable must this serial arrangement be that if a term in
either series be wanting, we are authorized to hypothetically
interpolate it.

"Nature never makes a leap," says the scientific investigator, as he
studies the material symbols of thought. "Thought never makes a leap,"
says the metaphysician, as he studies the necessary laws of rational
action: and both have uttered the same truth. We prove a proposition by
determining the steps by which it was educed from a more generic
statement. Science must proceed in the same manner, for science only
discovers the track of mind--it does not make the track, it only follows
it. If then we find the chain of evolution broken at any point, science
must either stop there, or assume the wanting term in the series. We
have the right to interpolate these missing terms, for we must assume
that the thoughts of God communicated to us in material forms constitute
a continuous revelation, beginning with Himself, the final
generalization, and ending with man the highest individualization. These
limits are fixed--the one by the nature of God, and the other by the
nature of man. Between these two extremes we must find a series of
intermediate terms. Any other conception of their relation than that of
a determinate series is impossible and irrational; and a series, so far
as it means anything, means evolution of some sort. Finding the relation
between these terms--distinguishing the _same_ which reproduces itself,
and the _different_ which introduces a new term--that is, determining
the law of apparent evolution--is the problem presented to science.

The astronomer found Bode's law to all appearance violated by the
omission of a planet between Mars and Jupiter. He could see no reason
for the law, but if the planets had been placed by an intelligent
Creator, some order of arrangement must be discoverable according to
which their position was determined. The Creator being intelligent, it
is impossible to conceive them placed fortuitously. There must then be a
link between Mars and Jupiter, because the law once established cannot
be broken. The same law may be observed in the arrangement of leaves
around the axis of a plant. If intelligence arranged them they must be
arranged in some order, for intelligence never performs the least act
without a purpose. Each leaf or pair of leaves is not a mere duplication
of the previous leaf or pair of leaves. The relation which subsists
between any two sets in the series expresses the idea of the Creator,
and this must be constant. Completing the series as indicated by
different plants, we may assume that if any term is apparently wanting,
it is only because it has not been discovered. In neither of these cases
would it be asserted that any physical evolution had taken place--the
terms form a series of which each term is equally determined by the
operation of a fixed law; and yet it is an operation precisely analogous
to that which in the case of animals presents every appearance of a real
evolution. Take, for instance, a series of animals, presenting at one
period of time the simplest and most rudimentary forms, and at another
the most complex and highly organized; we cannot do otherwise than
conceive these two extremes as related by intermediate terms, through
the operation of some law which holds good throughout the series. The
relation subsisting between any two, must be the same as that subsisting
between any other two similarly situated, or a departure from that
relation which is itself governed by a definite law discoverable from a
comparison of two sets of terms. The application of this law is so
universal and so rigid that we need not hesitate to interpolate a
missing term, and confidently assert that it either does exist or has
existed. To deny this principle is to deny the necessity of continuity
in reasoning. This continuity of thought is represented in matter by the
persistence of generic forms under specific differences. But just as the
specific is the generic with certain additions, so the individual is
this same generic with still further additions; and these additions,
whether considered solely in space, as given in the symbols of physical
science, or in time as in the conceptions of intellectual science, must
be determined by the same unvarying law. The persistence of the same
form furnishes us the means of identifying this relation, while the
differences reveal to us the successive steps by which the generic was
differentiated into the individual.

If the creative thought has been expressed by the forms of matter, the
laws of thought must be thus expressed in the relative forms of matter.
Anything less than this, while it might interpret isolated ideas, would
not communicate the method of the creative process, and science is
nothing but the discovery of this method. If the terms of the logical
process must be arranged in a series, the physical symbols rendering
this logical process cognizable, must be arranged in a similar series,
for science becomes impossible when the logical process becomes
undiscoverable.

The differences between the terms in this series must be cognizable. Two
terms which are indistinguishable are practically identical; and two
terms which are not identical vary by a difference which is cognizable
by itself apart from either term. The steps in the logical evolution of
the final term. _Being_ must be separable to be cognizable, and the
material forms interpreting these steps to the senses must also be
distinguishable. A species differs from the genus by the addition of at
least one attribute. Now, if the species is distinguishable from the
genus, the attribute which differentiates it, must be separately
cognizable--so also the individual differs from the species by the
addition of attributes, which must in like manner be separately
cognizable, or the species will never be conceived independently of the
individuals. A thought cannot proceed by insensible steps, nor can its
material expression vary otherwise than by determinate and
distinguishable differences. The distinction of species is thus a
logical necessity. The addition of distinct attributes to the genus
gives origin to distinct species; variation in attributes not affecting
their substantial identity gives rise to varieties. One species, then,
cannot become another, except by the assumption of a new specific
attribute, so that one species passes into another precisely as the
genus passes into the species, and that is just as, and not otherwise,
than one thought passes into another.

The fundamental law of the logical process is that we pass from the
generic towards the individual; from the simple to the complex.
Induction can proceed only by assuming a genus at the outset--that is,
by assuming certain attributes in the individual to be generic.
Translate this law into material forms, and we have each higher--that is
more complex--species evolved from the lower by the addition of some new
characteristic. This new attribute cannot be added by the functional
activity of the lower organism; that can only reproduce itself. A
thought does not change merely through repeated expression. We pass to
the conclusion of a syllogism, not from each term, but from a comparison
of the premises--and this requires an intellectual operation entirely
distinct from a mere apprehension of the terms. It is one thing to
comprehend the premises; it is quite another to deduce a conclusion from
them. It may necessarily follow, but it requires a separate act of the
mind to reach it. Premises will not of themselves reach a conclusion.

Reading this same truth in the forms of matter, we may say that species
will not pass into higher species without the intervention of a force
distinct from either. The impulse which adds a new attribute must be
intellectually separable from all those pre-existing, and its material
representation must be physically distinct from pre-existing forms. This
complete separability precludes the possibility of mere physical
genesis. The added attribute is presented by a new form of matter,
revealing the presence of a new thought--a new effect, requiring the
agency of a new cause. In accordance with the usual economy of nature,
who never duplicates her forces, change will be made only so far as may
be necessary to communicate the additional idea. Organisms representing
previous thoughts will be added to, in order to express the expansion of
the thought, instead of a creation _de novo_ in each instance. Thus an
identical cellular structure will be found in all organic beings, from
the lowest to the highest, each higher type carrying forward the idea
and its physical expression found in the lower. The differences between
no two terms in the series can be total, nor can any two terms be
identical, as each higher species will embrace all the attributes of the
lower, differing only by the addition of others. This is simply the
physical expression of the logical truth that whatever can be predicated
of the genus can be predicated of every individual contained under it.
As the individual is only the expansion of the genus, so higher physical
types must also be similar expansions of lower.

Here, then, is evolution, or development: primarily an evolution of the
generic into the individual, the continued differentiation of a generic
idea through successive individualizations, each adding to the previous
group of attributes, thus rendering the idea increasingly complex; and,
secondly, an apparent physical evolution or development, interpreting
this logical process by a series of physical forms so related as to
reveal the relation existing between the thoughts thus interpreted. In
the physical representation of the ideas so related, there must be an
apparent physical evolution--that is, the process of evolution logically
must, like the ideas thus evolved, have a physical expression, and the
successive steps in this logical evolution must be revealed by material
forms bearing an analogous relation, and thereby expressing the logical
process. Matter is nothing, so far as we are now concerned, but the
condition necessary to the objective expression of thought. Every phase
of matter is simply an objective formulation of a corresponding phase of
thought. Every addition to form implies an antecedent increase of
thought, as there can be no formal expression until there is something
to be expressed. There can, then, be no such thing as mere material
evolution, for whatever is material is only symbolical.

Matter being thus wholly inert, the origin of the impulse towards
greater complexity must be sought for outside of that which undergoes
the change. The movement by which one species becomes a higher is not an
elaboration, an extension or a differentiation of existing attributes,
but involves the positive addition of a new attribute, different and
distinct from any or all previously existing. One species cannot pass
into another by an innate impulse, for a species is an entity composed
of a determinate number of attributes, and all attributes potentially
present must be considered as actually present. We cannot say that the
child is a different species from the man, and that one passes into the
other by a process of evolution, because all the essential attributes of
the man are potentially present in the child. If the polyp, by the
action of innate forces, operating through a series of ages, however
extended, can, without any impulse from without, develop itself into a
man, then the polyp is as much a man as a boy is, differing only in the
time required for development: and the data for the final deduction of
the highest types of creation must be furnished in the most elementary
forms of life.

The force manifesting itself in organic life is readily distinguishable
from the organism by which it is manifested. Life and organization are
not synonyms; one is the condition of the other, but a condition is not
a cause. We can consider force apart from organism, and this possible
separation in thought proves that the same form may not represent both,
but that life can absolutely exist apart from organs which serve to give
it a physical manifestation.[3] Physical life being conditioned upon
organization, whenever the organism varies, the vital force thus
manifested must also vary, such variation being necessarily antecedent
to its manifestation. The organism varies, because it must, in order to
express the added thought. Change in organism, therefore, is not induced
by simple organic action, because the organs and the force acting
through them can be distinguished. Assuming that matter is the objective
or formal representation of thought, there can be no change in the
material expression without a corresponding change in the antecedent
conception. There can, then, be physical evolution, only as there is
antecedent logical evolution, and then only because of this logical
evolution and not because of the operation of an innate organic force.
Force, whatever may be its genesis, is only the exertion of power, not
the increase of it. Exertion limits the view to the force immediately in
operation. We may replace one manifestation by another, but the quantity
is neither increased nor diminished by this change. Change in form
implies the operation of force: and apart from such manifestation in
matter, it escapes the tests of science, and passes into the purely
metaphysical notion of cause. And unless the operation of force be
constant, or, if different forces are blended, variable according to
some determinate law, the action of which is constant and discoverable,
so that the different units of force are separately measurable, the
force thus irregular in its action can never be placed in any scientific
category. Evolution, then, cannot proceed from any innate organic
impulse, unless the force that tends to exact reproduction, and the
force that induces a change be equally and separately cognizable. Change
must proceed according to some law which accounts for the change, and
distinguishes between the normal exertion of power and that exertion
which causes a deviation. Science, to be science, must explain apparent
exceptions as fully as the regular operation of forces, and that which
causes the irregularity must be as distinctly cognizably by itself as
the force which acts regularly. Anything less than this is not science.
The discovery of Neptune was the result of the application of this
principle; it was a successful attempt to discriminate the force which
caused variation from the force which operated regularly.

Each species represents the operation of certain vital forces, and one
cannot physically pass into another except by the increase of this
force, or at least by a change in the manner of its manifestation; and
this increase in amount or this change in direction must separately be
accounted for. Nor does it matter, for the purposes of this discussion,
as to the genesis of this added increment, further than to show that its
origin must be exterior to the organism by which its presence is
manifested; for vital energy acting through an organism is a unit, and
cannot, even in thought, be separated into distinguishable portions.
Change in the direction of vital energy indicates that the original
impulse has been modified in its action by encountering another force,
for nothing but force can change the direction of force. It does not
fall within the range of this paper to determine the nature of this
exterior force which is thus distinguishable from that acting through
the vital organization, and therefore capable of separate objective
representation. Metaphysically we may say that force is resolvable into
will, but will being purely personal is incapable of material
representation, and thus cannot enter into the determinations of
physical science, which does not seek to discover the origin of force,
but deals solely with its presence.

As the logician must assume his premises, and, as a logician, cannot
question their truth, so the physicist must assume a force in operation,
and, as a physicist, cannot examine its genesis. The physical or the
metaphysical method of inquiry is valid only so long as restricted to
physical or metaphysical processes: a mixture of the two methods will
give results satisfactory neither to science nor to philosophy. As logic
furnishes no criterion by which to test the absolute truth of
propositions, but deals wholly with conclusions drawn from given
premises, so science furnishes no data by which to determine the
absolute genesis of force, but restricts its enquiries to the phenomena
resulting from a force given. For the student of physical science cause
and effect is only the transference of a given and determined force from
one material form to another. If this idea is to be traced further, it
must be studied outside the limits of physics. This study belongs to
metaphysics.

Now, if physical science does not deal with the origin of the initial
force, but assumes at the outset its presence, no more does it fall
within its province to examine into the origin of the increments which
give to physical forms that variety which renders science possible.
Science deals with results, not antecedents; and after having determined
results, it is not authorized to affirm that one species has produced
another by evolution, or has produced it at all. If there are agreements
between different organisms by which they are brought into relation,
there are also differences by which they are discriminated, and these
differences imply increments of force; and to assert that one organism
has evolved another is to determine not merely the presence of this new
increment, but also to determine its origin. Scientific investigation
deals with phenomena which give evidence to the senses of a
_transference_ of force from one form or from one manifestation to
another. Transference is not increase--an effect can be no more than the
evolution of what was potentially present in the cause; it cannot add to
it. The origin of the force must be investigated according to
intellectual laws.


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.

If, then, in the intellectual process from the abstract and universal
towards the concrete and individual, we find a constant evolution of
idea, each advance being an addition to the previous conception, each
new term in the series embracing all the attributes of the preceding,
and differing only by addition; and if thought is possible only on this
condition; it necessarily follows that the material representation of
this thought must present physical forms similarly related, so that,
leaving out of view the intellectual genesis of this relation, the
observer might conclude that these forms compose a series evolved from a
primordial cell in accordance with an organic law. But such we find to
be the universal law of intellectual procedure: this apparent
development or evolution must, therefore, be the condition of the
communication of such intellectual process, and the physical terms are
brought into this relation by the fact that they symbolize the logical
process. If the material symbols of thought were unrelated physically,
the thoughts thus expressed would also be unrelated and independent. But
such a supposition readers Science impossible, for its one aim is to
find the _same_ in the _different_. If there be no _same_, there can be
no science: if there be no _different_, there can be no science. Thought
proceeds by adding the _different_ to the _same_ in an endless series,
and this addition of the _different_ to the _same_ expressed in concrete
forms is what is called evolution. If no evolution were apparent in
Nature, there could be no Science; for those steps which to the
naturalist indicate evolution, being only the physical expression--the
formulation--of the logical process, afford the means by which the
student reaches the highest generalization. If these steps be wanting,
he cannot proceed.

Admitting then to its fullest extent the fact that, judged from a purely
physical point of view, all organic forms seem to have been derived each
from its immediate predecessor, by a mere functional impulse; and
admitting that science is possible upon no other condition; we claim
that these material forms are brought into such relation by intellectual
evolution, and not by physical genesis; they represent an evolution of
Thought and not an evolution of Matter. We know from consciousness that
this process of evolution is the method of our thinking. We know also
that the divine thought can be rendered intelligible to us upon no other
hypothesis than that which supposes it to be governed by the laws which
control human thought. Translating the physical symbols which we see
about us, and which present this appearance of evolution, we infer that
this is the method according to which the divine mind proceeded. Science
will not materially err in its physical results, if it adopt the
hypothesis of physical evolution, but it must confine its attention to
physics; it is only as we attempt higher generalizations that the
insufficiency of the hypothesis becomes manifest in its failure to
satisfy the conditions of the problem as presented to philosophy.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] This, of course, does not absolutely determine the order of organic
creation; as in the case of the syllogism the conclusion or either
premise may be the proposition first enunciated, the order of expression
being determined by circumstances.

[2] Compare the demonstrations of Geometry.

[3] As in the case of man after the death of the body.





End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Philosophy of Evolution, by 
Stephen H. Carpenter

*** 