APPENDIX A.
Some fourteen or more years ago, an American friend requested me, with a view to a certain use which he named, to furnish him with a succinct statement of the cardinal principles developed in the successive works I had published and in those I was intending to publish. This statement I here reproduce. Having been written solely for an expository purpose, and without thought of M. Comte and his system, it will serve better than a statement now drawn up since it is not open to the suspicion of being adapted to the occasion.[22]
“1. Throughout the universe in general and in detail, there is an unceasing redistribution of matter and motion.
“2. This redistribution constitutes evolution where there is a {141} predominant integration of matter and dissipation of motion, and constitutes dissolution where there is a predominant absorption of motion and disintegration of matter.
“3. Evolution is simple when the process of integration, or the formation of a coherent aggregate, proceeds uncomplicated by other processes.
“4. Evolution is compound when, along with this primary change from an incoherent to a coherent state, there go on secondary changes due to differences in the circumstances of the different parts of the aggregate.
“5. These secondary changes constitute a transformation of the homogeneous into the heterogeneous—a transformation which, like the first, is exhibited in the universe as a whole and in all (or nearly all) its details: in the aggregate of stars and nebulae; in the planetary system; in the earth as an inorganic mass; in each organism, vegetal or animal (Von Baer’s law); in the aggregate of organisms throughout geologic time; in the mind; in society; in all products of social activity.
“6. The process of integration, acting locally as well as generally, combines with the process of differentiation to render this change not simply from homogeneity to heterogeneity, but from an indefinite homogeneity to a definite heterogeneity; and this trait of increasing definiteness, which accompanies the trait of increasing heterogeneity, is, like it, exhibited in the totality of things and in all its divisions and sub-divisions down to the minutest.
“7. Along with this redistribution of the matter composing any evolving aggregate, there goes on a redistribution of the retained motion of its components in relation to one another: this also becomes, step by step, more definitely heterogeneous.
“8. In the absence of a homogeneity that is infinite and absolute, that redistribution of which evolution is one phase, is inevitable. The causes which necessitate it are these:—
“9. The instability of the homogeneous, which is consequent upon the different exposures of the different parts of any limited aggregate to incident forces. The transformations hence resulting are complicated by—
“10. The multiplication of effects. Every mass and part of a mass on which a force falls, sub-divides and differentiates that force, which thereupon proceeds to work a variety of changes; and each of these becomes the parent of similarly-multiplying changes: the multiplication of them becoming greater in proportion as the aggregate becomes more heterogeneous. And these two causes of increasing differentiations are furthered by—
“11. Segregation, which is a process tending ever to separate unlike units and to bring together like units—so serving continually to sharpen, or make definite, differentiations otherwise caused.
“12. Equilibration is the final result of these transformations which an evolving aggregate undergoes. The changes go on until there is reached an equilibrium between the forces which all parts of the aggregate are exposed to and the forces these parts oppose to them. Equilibration may pass through a transition stage of balanced motions (as in a planetary system) or of {142} balanced functions (as in a living body) on the way to ultimate equilibrium; but the state of rest in inorganic bodies, or death in organic bodies, is the necessary limit of the changes constituting evolution.
“13. Dissolution is the counter-change which sooner or later every evolved aggregate undergoes. Remaining exposed to surrounding forces that are unequilibrated, each aggregate is ever liable to be dissipated by the increase, gradual or sudden, of its contained motion; and its dissipation, quickly undergone by bodies lately animate and slowly undergone by inanimate masses, remains to be undergone at an indefinitely remote period by each planetary and stellar mass, which, since an indefinitely distant period in the past, has been slowly evolving: the cycle of its transformations being thus completed.
“14. This rhythm of evolution and dissolution, completing itself during short periods in small aggregates, and in the vast aggregates distributed through space completing itself in periods which are immeasurable by human thought, is, so far as we can see, universal and eternal—each alternating phase of the process predominating now in this region of space and now in that, as local conditions determine.
“15. All these phenomena, from their great features down to their minutest details, are necessary results of the persistence of force, under its forms of matter and motion. Given these as distributed through space, and their quantities being unchangeable, either by increase or decrease, there inevitably result the continuous redistributions distinguishable as evolution and dissolution, as well as all those special traits above enumerated.
“16. That which persists unchanging in quantity but ever changing in form, under these sensible appearances which the universe presents to us, transcends human knowledge and conception—is an unknown and unknowable power, which we are obliged to recognize as without limit in space and without beginning or end in time.”
These successive paragraphs set forth in the most abstract way, that process of transformation going on throughout the Cosmos as a whole, and in each larger or smaller portion of it. In First Principles the statements contained in these paragraphs are elaborated, explained, and illustrated; and in subsequent volumes of the series, the purpose has been to interpret the several great groups of phenomena, Astronomical, Geological (both postponed), Biological, Psychological, Sociological, and Ethical, in conformity with these general laws of Evolution which First Principles enunciates.
If it can be shown that any one of the above propositions has been adopted from, or has been suggested by, the {143} Positive Philosophy, there will be evidence that the Synthetic Philosophy is to that extent indebted to it. Or if there can be quoted any expressed conviction of M. Comte, that the factors producing changes of all kinds, inorganic and organic, co-operate everywhere throughout the Cosmos in the same general way, and everywhere work metamorphoses having the same essential traits, a much more decided indebtedness may reasonably be supposed.
So far as I know it, however, the Positive Philosophy contains none of the special ideas above enumerated, nor any of the more general ideas they involve.
APPENDIX B.
On pp. [119] and [120], I have pointed out that the followers of M. Comte, swayed by the spirit of discipleship, habitually ascribe to him a great deal which was the common inheritance of the scientific world before he wrote, and to which he himself laid no claim. Kindred remarks have since been made by others, both in England and in France—the one by Mr. Mill, and the other by M. Fouillée. Mr. Mill says:—
“The foundation of M. Comte’s philosophy is thus in no way peculiar to him, but the general property of the age, however far as yet from being universally accepted even by thoughtful minds. The philosophy called Positive is not a recent invention of M. Comte, but a simple adherence to the traditions of all the great scientific minds whose discoveries have made the human race what it is. M. Comte has never presented it in any other light. But he has made the doctrine his own by his manner of treating it.”—Auguste Comte and Positivism, pp. 8, 9.
In his Histoire de la Philosophie, 1875, M. Alfred Fouillée writes:—