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"Upon musing on the progress of science since Newton I come to the conclusion that Newton would most have desired to see the things which we see and to hear the things which we hear: Would, indeed, that he could live again and witness the completion of the work which he so nobly began. As I awake from my musing, and, abjuring any scepticism which I may have cherished, I confess my faith in modern science. Though hard-hearted as any metaphysician ought to be, I prostrate myself before her shrine--nay, so ardent is my neophytic zeal, that I am tempted to glorify the photographic spectrum which a fellow displayed as a revered relic on his wall. Indeed, had I nothing else to reverence, I could easily worship this. Is it not now an exploded idea that man, or what concerns him, is better worth regarding, than what was called nature by the sophists in the time of Socrates? Is not man himself now in danger of being eliminated out of the kosmos? And as to holding that man has any great significance in the universe, has not the doctrine become fixed that science has to do only with phenomena, i.e., with material phenomena and their relations? Has not man been satisfactorily resolved into nerve-substance and vibrating force, and thus brought under the laws of mechanism? And has it not come to unconscious speech without even the suggestion of unconscious irony, that this is the only way in which man can be scientifically studied, even though by this process he is scientifically disposed of? Is it not now near being demonstrated, that man as body and spirit, as conscience and speech, has been evolved from lower forms of being, with all his furnishings of aspirations, categories and principles; and is it not also a matter of grave question, whether he can long remain in his present transition state--whether, having been evolved from some very indeterminate germ, he may not be evolved into something altogether impalpable? In short, is not man ranked very low in the present estimates of comparative science, and is he not in danger of being very soon left out of them altogether? As there can be no science of nature which does not recognize the science of man, and as the study of nature cannot be prosecuted to the neglect of man, so the study of man will be always furthered by a generous study of nature; that as on the broader field of investigation and culture, so on the narrower field of education and discipline, the scientific study of nature and the scientific study of man are mutually dependent and mutually helpful. We enforce our argument first of all by an analysis of the conception of science. An inductive science of nature presupposes a science of induction, and a science of induction presupposes a science of man. Our position is still further confirmed by the defects in this regard of some of the recent philosophies which are now attracting general attention: positive philosophy, the cerebralists, and finally the thinking of Herbert Spencer."

Philosophy.

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Philosophy

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Political philosophy. Social philosophy

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Political philosophy. Social philosophy

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Philosophy --- Philosophie