human
The task before us is that of exhibiting the phenomena of Evolution in synthetic order. Setting out from an established ultimate principle [the Persistence of Force] it has to be shown that the course of transformation among all kinds of existences cannot but be that which we have seen it to be. [This refers to the formula: Evolution is an integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion during which the matter passes from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity; and during which the retained motion undergoes a parallel transformation.]
gpt
It has to be shown that the redistribution of matter and motion must everywhere take place in those ways and produce those traits, which celestial bodies, organisms, societies alike display. And it has to be shown that this universality of process results from the same necessity which determines each simplest movement around us, down to the accelerated fall of a stone or the recurrent beat of a harp string. In other words, the phenomena of Evolution have to be deduced from the Persistence of Force. As before said, 'to this an ultimate analysis brings us down; and on this a rational synthesis must build up.' And again he wrote:
human
The interpretation of all phenomena in terms of Matter, Motion, and Force, is nothing more than the reduction of our complex symbols of thought to the simplest symbols.
gpt
The properties of substances, though destroyed to sense by combination, are not destroyed in reality. It follows from the persistence of force, that the properties of a compound are _resultants_ of the properties of its components--_resultants_ in which the properties of the components are severally in full action, though mutually obscured. But on p. 122 it is written:
human
We find it impossible to conceive Life as emerging from the co-operation of the components.
gpt
Life in its essence cannot be conceived in physico-chemical terms. But if so, it can only be by great faith or great credulity that we can believe that an Evolution-formula in terms of
human
Matter, Motion, and Force
gpt
One can picture, Prof. C. Lloyd Morgan writes,[6]
human
between two modes of interpretation, between scientific description and philosophical explanation, a confusion incident on the fact that his _Principles of Biology_ was also part of his _Synthetic Philosophy_. Biology as such has of course nothing to do with
gpt
or with the
human
And when Spencer says
gpt
or when he illustrates his difficulty by pointing out how impossible it is to give a physico-chemical interpretation of the way a plant cell makes its wall, or a coccolith its imbricated covering, or a sponge its spicules, or a hen eats broken egg-shells, we do not believe he was thinking of anything but
human
When he says
gpt
The processes which go on in living things are incomprehensible as results of any physical actions known to us,
human
;
gpt
;
human
This seems to us to sound a more modest note than is heard in the sentence:
gpt
The interpretation of all phenomena in terms of Matter, Motion and Force, is nothing more than the reduction of our complex symbols of thought to the simplest symbols.
human
As Dr J. S. Haldane puts it:
gpt
If we look at the phenomena which are capable of being stated, or explained in physico-chemical terms, we see at once that there is nothing in them characteristic of life.... The action of each bodily mechanism, the composition and structure of each organ, are all mutually determined and connected with one another in such a way as at once to distinguish a living organism from anything else. As this mutual determination is the characteristic mark of what is living, it cannot be ignored in the framing of fundamental working hypotheses.