# 060 - Modern Philosophy Chapter 69 English Philosophy

An episode of [History of Philosophy](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1877164155), 9 Mar 2026, 48 min.

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Dive into the captivating journey of philosophical thought through the ages with History of Philosophy. This podcast unravels the rich tapestry of philosophical opinions, systems, and schools of thought, exploring the lives of influential philosophers and the intricate connections between different schools of philosophy. Discover the origins of Ancient Philosophy across cultures like Babylon, China, India, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, as well as the profound insights of the Christian Era, featuring thinkers such as St. Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, and William of Ockham. Journey into Modern Philosophy with giants like Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, and Hegel, all guided by the insightful narration of Beth Thomas. This episode includes AI-generated content.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Chapter sixty nine of History of Philosophy. This is a
[0:03] Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
[0:08] Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
[0:15] Speaker 1: Recording by David Brent. History of Philosophy by William Turner,
[0:21] Speaker 1: chapter sixty nine. English philosophy contemporaneously with the deistic and
[0:29] Speaker 1: the general empirical movement of the eighteenth century. They arose
[0:33] Speaker 1: in England the school of associational psychology and the utilitarian ethics,
[0:39] Speaker 1: which dominated English throughout the greater part of the nineteenth century.
[0:44] Speaker 1: Associational Psychology footnote consult Bauer, Hartley and James Mill London,
[0:52] Speaker 1: eighteen eighty one. Compare Porter's appendix to Uberwick's History of
[0:58] Speaker 1: Philosophy of volume two, page four twenty one end footnote.
[1:05] Speaker 1: The physician David Hardley seventeen o five to seventeen fifty
[1:09] Speaker 1: seven is regarded as the founder of the association's School
[1:13] Speaker 1: of psychology. He reduces all mental phenomena to the sensation
[1:18] Speaker 1: and association of vibrations of the white medullary substance of
[1:22] Speaker 1: the brain and spinal cord. He does not, however, identify
[1:27] Speaker 1: the brain with the thinking, substance or soul, For vibrations
[1:32] Speaker 1: merely affect the body, the sensation of vibrations affecting the soul.
[1:38] Speaker 1: Sensations on being repeated leaf traces, which are simple ideas.
[1:44] Speaker 1: Simple ideas are by association amalgamated into complex ideas. Similarly,
[1:51] Speaker 1: assent and belief are to be explained by association. Hardly
[1:56] Speaker 1: protests against the materialistic identification of the soul with body.
[2:01] Speaker 1: He maintains that there is a correspondence between the cerebral
[2:05] Speaker 1: and physical processes, but contends that the latter cannot be
[2:10] Speaker 1: reduced to the former. John Priestley seventeen thirty three to
[2:16] Speaker 1: eighteen o four, theologian, philosopher, chemist, and physicist, brought out
[2:24] Speaker 1: the materialism which was latent in Hartley psychology. He teaches
[2:29] Speaker 1: that the soul is material, that thought is a function
[2:32] Speaker 1: of the brain, and that psychology is merely the physics
[2:36] Speaker 1: of the nerves. He maintains, however, that psychological materialism does
[2:41] Speaker 1: not imply the denial of the immortality of the soul
[2:45] Speaker 1: or of the existence of God. Priestley is best known
[2:50] Speaker 1: by his great contribution to chemical science, the discovery of
[2:54] Speaker 1: oxygen seventeen seventy four. Erasmus darwineighteen thirty one to eighteen
[3:01] Speaker 1: o two, who was a botanist, philosopher and poet, is
[3:06] Speaker 1: reckoned among the associationists of this period. In his Zounomia
[3:12] Speaker 1: or the Laws of Organic Life London, seventeen ninety four
[3:16] Speaker 1: to seventeen ninety six, he teaches that nature is made
[3:21] Speaker 1: up of two substances, matter, which produces motion, and spirit,
[3:26] Speaker 1: which receives and communicates motion. He teaches further that motion
[3:32] Speaker 1: is of three kinds, gravitation, chemistry, and life. To the
[3:38] Speaker 1: last named kind of motion belong ideas, which are defined
[3:43] Speaker 1: as contractions, motions, or configurations of the fibers which constitute
[3:49] Speaker 1: the immediate organs of sense. All the complex phenomena of
[3:53] Speaker 1: mental life, namely sensation, comparison, judgment, reasoning, milici, are explained
[4:01] Speaker 1: by the association of ideas, which come to us not singularly,
[4:05] Speaker 1: but in companies or tribes. This associational psychology necessitates the
[4:11] Speaker 1: utilitarian view of human conduct, the view, namely that certain
[4:17] Speaker 1: actions are to be performed mainly or primarily because they
[4:22] Speaker 1: are means to our enjoyment. This principle was developed into
[4:26] Speaker 1: a system of ethics by Jeremy Bentham utilitarian ethics footnote.
[4:34] Speaker 1: Compare Leslie Stephen English Utilitarians, three Volumes, London, nineteen hundred,
[4:41] Speaker 1: All the History of English Utilitarianism, New York, nineteen o
[4:46] Speaker 1: two end footnote. The founder of modern English utilitarianism is
[4:52] Speaker 1: Jeremy Bentham seventeen forty eight to eighteen thirty two. In
[4:58] Speaker 1: his Introduction to the Prince Siples of Morals and Legislation
[5:02] Speaker 1: in seventeen eighty nine, and in his Deontology eighteen thirty four,
[5:07] Speaker 1: he formulates the principle that the end of morality is
[5:11] Speaker 1: the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Utility means the
[5:16] Speaker 1: power of an action to produce happiness. Bentham system has
[5:20] Speaker 1: consequently been described by J. S. Mill agutilitarianism footnote. Mill
[5:27] Speaker 1: was the first to bring this word into common use. Bentham, however,
[5:31] Speaker 1: had employed it end a footnote. In ultimate analysis, it
[5:36] Speaker 1: is hedonism, for it teaches that every virtuous action results
[5:41] Speaker 1: in a balance of pleasure. It is, however, a hedonism
[5:45] Speaker 1: which unites altruism with egoism, for it maintains that while
[5:50] Speaker 1: each one's primary care should be for his own welfare,
[5:54] Speaker 1: the interest of the individual is inseparable from that of
[5:58] Speaker 1: the community. The determinants of utility are, according to Bentham,
[6:04] Speaker 1: the act, the circumstances, the intention, and the consciousness, all
[6:09] Speaker 1: of which should be taken into account in the estimation
[6:12] Speaker 1: of the moral value of an action. All virtue he
[6:16] Speaker 1: reduces to two kinds, prudence and benevolence. Footnote. Compare Falkenberg Opposite,
[6:24] Speaker 1: page four fifty seven, English translation, page five sixty five
[6:30] Speaker 1: end footnote Revive associationalism and utilitarianism. The most important of
[6:37] Speaker 1: Bentham's co workers was James Mill seventeen seventy three to
[6:42] Speaker 1: eighteen thirty six, author of the Analysis of the Phenomena
[6:47] Speaker 1: of the Human Mind in eighteen twenty nine. In psychology,
[6:52] Speaker 1: James Mill combines the doctrines of Hartley with those of Hume,
[6:56] Speaker 1: teaching that sensations are kinds of feeling and that ideas
[7:00] Speaker 1: on what remains after the sensations have disappeared. He was
[7:05] Speaker 1: the first to formulate the doctrine of inseparable association, by
[7:10] Speaker 1: which he explains belief of every kind, belief in events,
[7:14] Speaker 1: believe in testimony, and belief in assent to the truth
[7:19] Speaker 1: of propositions. Similarly, by means of association. He explains the
[7:25] Speaker 1: phenomena of volitional and emotional life. In ethics, James Mill
[7:31] Speaker 1: reasserts Bentham's doctrine that moral value is identical with utility,
[7:37] Speaker 1: and proceeds to give a more definite method of estimating
[7:40] Speaker 1: moral worth. He distinguishes three successive stages in the evolution
[7:46] Speaker 1: or education of the moral sentiments, namely the association with
[7:52] Speaker 1: certain actions of pleasure or pain, the association with certain
[7:56] Speaker 1: actions of pleasure or pain arising from the praise or
[8:00] Speaker 1: blame of others, and finally, the association with certain actions
[8:06] Speaker 1: of the idea of future praise or blame. John Stuart
[8:11] Speaker 1: Mill life John Stuart Mill, son of James Mill, was
[8:16] Speaker 1: born in London eighteen o six. From eighteen twenty three
[8:21] Speaker 1: to eighteen fifty eight he was Clerk and Chief Examiner
[8:24] Speaker 1: of Correspondence at the India House. The remainder of his life,
[8:28] Speaker 1: with the exception of two years eighteen sixty five to
[8:32] Speaker 1: eighteen sixty eight, during which he was a member of Parliament,
[8:36] Speaker 1: was spent at Avignon, where he died in eighteen seventy three.
[8:41] Speaker 1: Sources Mill's most important philosophical works are the System of
[8:48] Speaker 1: Logic eighteen forty three, Utilitarianism eighteen sixty three, and an
[8:53] Speaker 1: Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophies eighteen sixty five. He
[8:59] Speaker 1: contributed to valuable essays and treatises to the literature of
[9:03] Speaker 1: social and political philosophy and to the history of positivism.
[9:07] Speaker 1: Consult Baine, John Stuart Mill, A Criticism, eighteen eighty two.
[9:13] Speaker 1: Douglas John Stuart Mill, Edinburgh, eighteen ninety five. Doctrines Logic.
[9:22] Speaker 1: Mill defines logic as the science of the operations of
[9:25] Speaker 1: the understanding which are concerned in or subservient to, the
[9:29] Speaker 1: estimation of evidence. And evidence he defines as that which
[9:35] Speaker 1: the mind ought to yield to, not that which it
[9:38] Speaker 1: does or must yield to. Footnote Logic, Book three, Chapter
[9:45] Speaker 1: twenty one, end footnote. His logical inquiry includes, therefore, an
[9:51] Speaker 1: investigation of the nature of mental assent and an empirical
[9:55] Speaker 1: analysis of intuition and belief, as well as of judgment
[9:58] Speaker 1: and reasoning, so that, in spite of Mill's frequent repudiation
[10:02] Speaker 1: of the title of metaphysician, he is obliged in his
[10:06] Speaker 1: system of logic to take up the study of many
[10:09] Speaker 1: of the fundamental problems of metaphysics. Thus, in the chapter
[10:15] Speaker 1: entitled are the things denoted by names? Footnote opposite book one,
[10:21] Speaker 1: chapter three end footnote, he draws up the following scheme
[10:26] Speaker 1: of categories. One feelings or states of consciousness, two minds
[10:34] Speaker 1: which experience these feelings, Three bodies which cause certain of
[10:39] Speaker 1: these feelings, and four the successions coexistences, likenesses and unlikenesses
[10:47] Speaker 1: between feelings or states of consciousness. Having, however, resolved to
[10:53] Speaker 1: make experience the sole source of knowledge, and to reject
[10:57] Speaker 1: all a priori or intuitive knowledge, Mill is obliged to
[11:02] Speaker 1: reduce body to the permanent possibility of sensations and mind
[11:07] Speaker 1: to the series of actual possible states. He is aware
[11:12] Speaker 1: of the difficulty incident to any phenomenalistic concept of mind.
[11:17] Speaker 1: He cannot see how a series can be aware of
[11:20] Speaker 1: itself as a series, and admits that there is a
[11:23] Speaker 1: bond of some sort among all the parts of the
[11:26] Speaker 1: series which makes me say that they were feelings of
[11:29] Speaker 1: a person who was the same person throughout, and this bond,
[11:33] Speaker 1: to me constitutes my ego. Footnote. Compare notes to the Analysis,
[11:40] Speaker 1: Volume two, one hundred and seventy five. Mill's notes to
[11:45] Speaker 1: his addition of his father's works are important sources of
[11:48] Speaker 1: inflammation with reference to his own psychological doctrines. End footnote.
[11:54] Speaker 1: Here Mill definitely abandons the association's view of matter and mind,
[12:00] Speaker 1: and practically admits a numeral cause of sensations and a
[12:04] Speaker 1: nouminal mind, thus opening, as one has said, a trapdoor
[12:09] Speaker 1: in the middle of his own philosophy. Insisting on the
[12:13] Speaker 1: principle that we must make experience the test of experience,
[12:17] Speaker 1: Mill maintains that the fundamental actions of logic and mathematics
[12:21] Speaker 1: are merely generalizations from experience, that the law of contradiction
[12:27] Speaker 1: is simply a summing up of the experience, which tells
[12:30] Speaker 1: us of the incompatibility of belief and non belief, and
[12:34] Speaker 1: that the peculiar accuracy supposed to be characteristic of the
[12:38] Speaker 1: first principles of geometry is hypothetical, that is to say, fictitious.
[12:44] Speaker 1: Footnote Logic, Book two, chapter five, end footnote. The law
[12:51] Speaker 1: of causation is likewise a generalization from experience, for causation
[12:57] Speaker 1: is nothing but invariable an unconditional sequence. Footnote opposite, book three,
[13:06] Speaker 1: chapter five, end footnote. Mill recognizes one kind of inference,
[13:12] Speaker 1: namely inference from particulars to particulars. The syllogism he teaches
[13:19] Speaker 1: is not a proof, for it involves a petitio pranchitbi.
[13:24] Speaker 1: Its function is to decipher or interpret the major premise,
[13:28] Speaker 1: which is a record of particular experiences, these experiences being
[13:33] Speaker 1: the only evidence on which the conclusion rests. Footnote Compare opposite,
[13:40] Speaker 1: Book two, Chapter three, end footnote. Mil's most important contribution
[13:46] Speaker 1: to the Logic is the formulation of the rules and
[13:50] Speaker 1: methods of experimental inquiry. This is the most successful portion
[13:54] Speaker 1: of his work, and it is this which has earned
[13:57] Speaker 1: him the title of the Aristotle of inductive Logic. His
[14:02] Speaker 1: success is, however, marred by his inability to give a
[14:06] Speaker 1: satisfactory account of the basis of induction. The uniformity of nature,
[14:11] Speaker 1: which he sets down as the ground of all induction, depends,
[14:15] Speaker 1: according to him, on induction and is not unconditionally certain ethics.
[14:22] Speaker 1: In the opening chapters of the sixth Book of the Logic,
[14:25] Speaker 1: mill endeavors to show that the doctrine of philosophical necessity
[14:30] Speaker 1: does not imply that our actions are performed under compulsion,
[14:34] Speaker 1: but merely that they follow the motive causes by a
[14:37] Speaker 1: certain unconditional sequence, which renders the scientific study of human
[14:42] Speaker 1: nature possible footnote. Compare doctor Ward's refutation of Mill in
[14:48] Speaker 1: Dublin Review end footnote. Mill adopts the utilitarian doctrine that
[14:54] Speaker 1: in the effects of an action, that is to say,
[14:57] Speaker 1: in its power of promoting happiness, we possess a clear
[15:01] Speaker 1: and natural standard by which to judge its moral worth.
[15:05] Speaker 1: With Bentham, he holds that the aim of human action
[15:09] Speaker 1: should be the promotion of the greatest happiness for all
[15:13] Speaker 1: sentient beings. He differs, however, from Bentham in his analysis
[15:18] Speaker 1: of the moral feeling, in his addition of quantitative and
[15:22] Speaker 1: quantitative distinction of pleasures, and in general in his attempt
[15:27] Speaker 1: to bring utilitarianism into closer harmony with the requirements of
[15:31] Speaker 1: subjective esthics. He is an altruist, whereas Bentham was, in
[15:38] Speaker 1: ultimate analysis an egoist. Alexander Baine eighteen eighteen to nineteen
[15:45] Speaker 1: o three, author of Senses and Intellect third edition, eighteen
[15:50] Speaker 1: sixty eight, The Emotions on the Will third edition, eighteen
[15:55] Speaker 1: seventy five, Mental and Moral Science third edition eighteen seventy two,
[16:02] Speaker 1: and Mind and Body third edition eighteen seventy four, et cetera.
[16:09] Speaker 1: Is one of the most distinguished recent representatives of the
[16:13] Speaker 1: English School of psychology. He avails himself of the aid
[16:17] Speaker 1: which contemporary physiological science affords in the study of mental phenomena,
[16:23] Speaker 1: and while he is commonly reckoned among the associationists, he
[16:27] Speaker 1: seems to abandon the fundamental tenet of associationism when he
[16:31] Speaker 1: acknowledges similarity as the basis of all association of ideas.
[16:37] Speaker 1: Doctrine of evolution. Evolution in the sense of a transition
[16:42] Speaker 1: from the simpler to the more complex, from the lower
[16:45] Speaker 1: to the higher forms of existence, is a concept almost
[16:48] Speaker 1: as old as philosophy itself. The evolution of the physical
[16:53] Speaker 1: universe from a primitive mass by a process of purely
[16:56] Speaker 1: mechanical changes was implicitly contained in many of the ancient
[17:01] Speaker 1: and in some modern systems of philosophy, notably des Cars
[17:05] Speaker 1: and Cars. The idea of development was applied to history
[17:10] Speaker 1: by Herder seventeen forty four to eighteen oh three, to
[17:14] Speaker 1: astronomy by Laplace seventeen forty nine to eighteen twenty seven,
[17:20] Speaker 1: and to the zoological sciences by Bouphon seventeen oh seven
[17:25] Speaker 1: to seventeen eighty eight. La Marque seventeen forty four to
[17:29] Speaker 1: eighteen twenty nine and Cuvier seventeen sixty nine to eighteen
[17:34] Speaker 1: thirty two, to anatomy and embryology by Wolfe seventeen thirty
[17:40] Speaker 1: three to seventeen ninety four and von Bare seventeen ninety
[17:45] Speaker 1: two to eighteen seventy six, and to geology by Lyell
[17:50] Speaker 1: seventeen ninety seven to eighteen seventy five. The history of
[17:55] Speaker 1: evolution in the modern meaning of the word, namely that
[17:59] Speaker 1: of the divis development of the sum of living beings
[18:02] Speaker 1: from less perfect forms of existence by means of natural causes,
[18:06] Speaker 1: begins with the name of Charles Darwin eighteen o nine
[18:10] Speaker 1: to eighteen eighty two, who was the first to establish
[18:14] Speaker 1: the doctrine of development as a scientific theory in biology.
[18:18] Speaker 1: Footnote consult Truth and Error in Darwinism by Hartmann, translated
[18:24] Speaker 1: in Journal Speculative Philosophy, Volumes eleven through thirteen. Wallas Darwinism, London,
[18:31] Speaker 1: eighteen eighty nine. Romaines Darwin and After Darwin three Volumes, London,
[18:39] Speaker 1: eighteen ninety two to eighteen ninety five. Compare Weber opposite,
[18:45] Speaker 1: page five sixty and following pages. Also T. H. Green Works,
[18:51] Speaker 1: Volume one, page three seventy three and following pages end footnote.
[18:57] Speaker 1: As in the case of Newton, Galileo, and Copernicus, Darwin's
[19:02] Speaker 1: scientific discoveries, while belonging to the history of natural science,
[19:07] Speaker 1: are of interest in the history of philosophy because of
[19:10] Speaker 1: the new point of view which they established. For For
[19:14] Speaker 1: just as Newton had unified the whole physical universe by
[19:18] Speaker 1: means of a single law, so Darwin unified the phenomena
[19:22] Speaker 1: of the biological world under a single concept and revealed
[19:27] Speaker 1: the existence of the continuity in a region where up
[19:30] Speaker 1: to that time continuity had not been scientifically demonstrated. And
[19:35] Speaker 1: just as Lyell had shown that the present state of
[19:38] Speaker 1: the Earth's surface is to be explained by the agency
[19:42] Speaker 1: of natural causes, which were even now at work, so
[19:46] Speaker 1: Darwin undertook to show that the flora and fauna of
[19:49] Speaker 1: the Earth originated by development, and that the agencies in
[19:54] Speaker 1: the process of development were the same as those which
[19:58] Speaker 1: are in operation at the present time. Darwin's method affords
[20:02] Speaker 1: an interesting example of the use of inductive and a
[20:06] Speaker 1: cumulative argument. During his voyage on the Beagle in eighteen
[20:11] Speaker 1: thirty one to eighteen thirty six, he began his observations
[20:15] Speaker 1: on the fauna of South America, noting especially the geographical
[20:20] Speaker 1: distribution of species and the similarity and difference existing between
[20:25] Speaker 1: the present and pre existing forms. On his return to England,
[20:30] Speaker 1: malthus seventeen sixty six to eighteen thirty four essay on
[20:35] Speaker 1: Population suggested to him the idea of the struggle for existence.
[20:41] Speaker 1: This may be regarded as his provisional hypothesis to the
[20:45] Speaker 1: verification of which he devoted twenty one years preliminary to
[20:49] Speaker 1: publishing his celebrated work The Origin of Species eighteen fifty nine.
[20:55] Speaker 1: The observations on which the process of verification is based
[20:59] Speaker 1: may be reduced to u observations of the effect of
[21:03] Speaker 1: artificial selection, two observations of the kinship existing between extinct
[21:10] Speaker 1: species and species which are extant, three observations of the
[21:16] Speaker 1: geographical distributions of animals, and four observations of the embryological
[21:22] Speaker 1: development of animals. In the work entitled The Descent of
[21:27] Speaker 1: Man eighteen seventy one, Darwin applied the evolution theory to
[21:32] Speaker 1: the origin of the human species. He was, however, willing
[21:36] Speaker 1: to concede that they are what have since been called
[21:39] Speaker 1: gaps in evolution. He confessed his inability to account for
[21:44] Speaker 1: the origin of life, and always regarded the first beginning
[21:48] Speaker 1: of variation as something sterious. Darwin laid the foundation of
[21:53] Speaker 1: modern evolutionistic ethics by referring the moral feeling to natural
[21:58] Speaker 1: selection or ruggle for existence, which fosters such qualities and
[22:03] Speaker 1: faculties in the individual as confer the greatest benefit not
[22:08] Speaker 1: on the individual but on the group or species. A. R.
[22:12] Speaker 1: Wallace born eighteen twenty two, who shares with Darwin the
[22:16] Speaker 1: honor of establishing the doctrine of natural selection, was more
[22:20] Speaker 1: careful than Darwin to exclude from the general process of
[22:23] Speaker 1: development the higher powers of the human mind, and to
[22:26] Speaker 1: give a large scope of the operation of the theological
[22:29] Speaker 1: principle in the evolutionary process. W. K. Clifford eighteen forty
[22:35] Speaker 1: five to eighteen seventy nine. John Tyndall eighteen twenty to
[22:40] Speaker 1: eighteen ninety three, George J. Romains eighteen forty nine to
[22:44] Speaker 1: eighteen ninety four, and Thomas Huxley eighteen twenty five to
[22:49] Speaker 1: eighteen ninety five are the most distinguished amongst those who
[22:53] Speaker 1: apply the Darwinian doctrine to the different departments of natural science.
[22:58] Speaker 1: It was the last mentioned who, in eighteen fifty nine,
[23:01] Speaker 1: first used the word agnostic to designate one who is
[23:05] Speaker 1: conscious of the inadequacy of our knowledge to solve the
[23:08] Speaker 1: problem what is the reality corresponding to our ultimate scientific, philosophical,
[23:15] Speaker 1: and religious ideas? Footnote Compare Flint agnosticism, New York, nineteen
[23:22] Speaker 1: o three end footnote. None of these men, however, with
[23:27] Speaker 1: the exception of Clifford, attempted to construct a system of
[23:30] Speaker 1: metaphysics or to evolve a theory of reality from the
[23:34] Speaker 1: principles of evolutionistic philosophy. This task was reserved for Spencer.
[23:41] Speaker 1: Herbert Spencer Life Herbert Spencer footnote. Compare Hudson's Introduction to
[23:49] Speaker 1: the Philosophy of Herbert Spencer, New York, eighteen ninety four
[23:54] Speaker 1: end footnote. Was born in eighteen twenty at Derby. Was
[24:00] Speaker 1: was first intended that he should adopt the profession of teacher,
[24:04] Speaker 1: to which his father belonged, but he decided to take
[24:07] Speaker 1: up civil engineering. At the age of twenty five, he
[24:11] Speaker 1: abandoned his profession to devote himself to literary work. In
[24:15] Speaker 1: eighteen fifty appeared his first important publication, entitled Social Statics.
[24:21] Speaker 1: This was followed by the Principles of Psychology eighteen fifty
[24:25] Speaker 1: five and Progress, Its Law and Cause eighteen fifty seven,
[24:31] Speaker 1: in which, two years before the publication of Darwin's Origin
[24:34] Speaker 1: of Species, the view was expounded that all development is
[24:39] Speaker 1: a transition from homogeneity to heterogeneity, and the principle of
[24:44] Speaker 1: evolution was enunciated as a universal law. The First Principles
[24:50] Speaker 1: eighteen sixty two, Principles of Biology eighteen sixty three to
[24:55] Speaker 1: eighteen sixty seven, Principles of Sociology eighteen seven seven and forward,
[25:01] Speaker 1: and Principles of Ethics eighteen seventy nine to eighteen ninety
[25:06] Speaker 1: three formed parts of a scheme of synthetic philosophy. Footnote
[25:11] Speaker 1: for outlines of the scheme compares Spencer's prospectus prefixed in
[25:16] Speaker 1: the First Principles. Compare also Collins's Epitome of Synthetic Philosophy,
[25:23] Speaker 1: New York, eighteen eighty nine, Consult Brown The Philosophy of
[25:28] Speaker 1: Herbert Spencer, New York, eighteen seventy four. End footnote. Spencer
[25:34] Speaker 1: died December the eighth, nineteen o Three doctrines the historical
[25:40] Speaker 1: antecedents of the synthetic philosophy may be reduced to three,
[25:45] Speaker 1: one from Hamilton and Mansell, and thus ultimately from Kant
[25:49] Speaker 1: Spencer drew his metaphysical principles, namely relativity of knowledge and agnosticism. Two.
[25:57] Speaker 1: From Comte and the Contests he derived positivism, which appears
[26:01] Speaker 1: in his definition of the scope of science and in
[26:04] Speaker 1: a general way in his plan of the co ordination
[26:07] Speaker 1: of sciences. And three from Wolf the anatomist, from Vonbert
[26:12] Speaker 1: the embryologist, and from Lyell the geologist. He borrowed the
[26:17] Speaker 1: principle of development, which the publication of Darwin's work elevated
[26:22] Speaker 1: to the rank of a scientific law in the biological world.
[26:26] Speaker 1: Footnote Compare Macosh Realistic Philosophy, Volume two, page two fifty
[26:32] Speaker 1: five and following pages end. Footnote one Agnosticism. Neither scientific
[26:40] Speaker 1: ideas nor religious beliefs can express the ultimate nature of reality.
[26:46] Speaker 1: The higher scientific ideas, such as space, time, matter, involve
[26:51] Speaker 1: contradictions antimonies, and theologians themselves admit the inadequacy of our
[26:57] Speaker 1: idea of the infinite. Four. To think that God is
[27:01] Speaker 1: as we think him to be would be blasphemy. Moreover,
[27:05] Speaker 1: the nature of consciousness itself shows that all knowledge is relative.
[27:10] Speaker 1: The conclusion therefore is inevitable that the ultimate religious ideas
[27:16] Speaker 1: and ultimate scientific ideas are merely symbols of the actual,
[27:20] Speaker 1: not cognitions of it, And that if religion and science
[27:25] Speaker 1: are to be reconciled, the basis of reconciliation must be
[27:30] Speaker 1: this deepest, widest, and most certain of facts, that the
[27:34] Speaker 1: power which the universe manifests to us is utterly inscrutable.
[27:39] Speaker 1: The ultimate philosophical, as well as the ultimate religious, is
[27:43] Speaker 1: unknown and unknowable. Footnote first Principles p. I and the footnote. Therefore,
[27:52] Speaker 1: when Spencer teaches that the ultimate or absolute reveals itself
[27:56] Speaker 1: in the forms and laws under which phenomena occur, the
[28:00] Speaker 1: persistent impressions, being persistent results of a persistent cause, are
[28:05] Speaker 1: for practical purposes, the same as the cause itself, and
[28:09] Speaker 1: may be habitually dealt with as its equivalents. Footnote opposite,
[28:15] Speaker 1: paragraph forty seven, end footnote, he practically abandons the position
[28:20] Speaker 1: of the agnostic and confesses that the absolute is not
[28:24] Speaker 1: utterly unknowable. Two. Definition and data of philosophy. All knowledge
[28:32] Speaker 1: is confined to the relation of things. Common knowledge is
[28:36] Speaker 1: unified knowledge. Science is partially unified knowledge. Philosophy is completely
[28:42] Speaker 1: unified knowledge. The data of philosophy are one the existence
[28:48] Speaker 1: of likenesses and differences, as is proved by the permanence
[28:52] Speaker 1: of our consciousness. Of congruity and incongruity. Two, the distinction
[28:58] Speaker 1: of self and not self, the former being constituted by
[29:02] Speaker 1: the current of faint manifestations, and the latter by the
[29:06] Speaker 1: current of vivid manifestations of the unknowable power. Three Space, time, matter, motion,
[29:15] Speaker 1: and force, these being certain most general forms into which
[29:21] Speaker 1: the manifestations of the unknowable are separated, and the reality
[29:25] Speaker 1: of which science at every moment assumes for by reality,
[29:31] Speaker 1: we are to understand persistence in consciousness, and the persistence
[29:35] Speaker 1: of space and time consists in this that they are
[29:39] Speaker 1: the universal relations of coexistence and sequence by which, as postulates,
[29:44] Speaker 1: we think, while the persistence of matter, motion, and force
[29:48] Speaker 1: consist in the indestructibility, continuity, and persistence, respectively, of those
[29:54] Speaker 1: ultimate scientific ideas. Passing now from these analytic truths, we
[30:00] Speaker 1: come to inquire, what is the law of universal synthesis?
[30:05] Speaker 1: What is the universal formula which shall combine all the
[30:08] Speaker 1: particular formulas of science and philosophy. The answer is the
[30:13] Speaker 1: continuous redistribution of matter and motion, which involves the double
[30:18] Speaker 1: process of evolution, an integration of matter and a dissipation
[30:23] Speaker 1: of motion, and a dissolution, a disintegration of matter and
[30:28] Speaker 1: an absorption of matter. If now the word evolution is
[30:34] Speaker 1: taken to designate the process of development in all its complexity,
[30:38] Speaker 1: evolution is an integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion,
[30:44] Speaker 1: during which the matter passes from an indefinite incoherent homogeneity
[30:49] Speaker 1: to a definite coherent heterogeneity, and during which the retained
[30:54] Speaker 1: motion undergoes a parallel transformation. Footnote opposite paragraph one forty four.
[31:03] Speaker 1: In the sixth edition nineteen o one of the first principles,
[31:07] Speaker 1: the word relatively is inserted before the words definite and
[31:11] Speaker 1: indefinite end footnote. This is proved by induction to be
[31:16] Speaker 1: the law of the physical universe and of psychic and
[31:20] Speaker 1: social life. And just as in Hegel's philosophy, development implies
[31:25] Speaker 1: three stages, so in Spencer's theory, evolution starts with the
[31:30] Speaker 1: instability of the homogeneous and proceeds through the multiplication of
[31:34] Speaker 1: effects and segregation to the equilibrium of forces, which constitutes
[31:39] Speaker 1: the impassible limit of evolution, the point where dissolution begins.
[31:45] Speaker 1: Three special philosophy of the sciences. The other portions of
[31:51] Speaker 1: the synthetic philosophy, namely the special philosophy of biology, psychology, sociology,
[31:57] Speaker 1: and ethics, are merely the application of the evolution formula
[32:01] Speaker 1: to the different branches of philosophic inquiry. Biology, Spencer defines
[32:08] Speaker 1: life as the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations.
[32:14] Speaker 1: Footnote Principles of Biology, paragraph thirty end footnote. He then
[32:21] Speaker 1: proceeds to the study of growth, function, adaptation, genesis, heredity, variation,
[32:29] Speaker 1: et cetera, taking up footnote opposite chapter five end footnote
[32:36] Speaker 1: the problem of the origin of life. He contrasts a
[32:39] Speaker 1: special creation hypothesis with the evolution hypothesis and adduces in
[32:45] Speaker 1: favor of the latter arguments from classification, embryology, morphology, and distribution.
[32:52] Speaker 1: The factors in organic evolution are. He teaches both internal
[32:57] Speaker 1: and external footnote paragraphs one forty eight through one fifty
[33:03] Speaker 1: eight end footnote. He excludes all consideration of the question
[33:08] Speaker 1: how life verse arose, though it is clear that he
[33:12] Speaker 1: regards the lowest forms of life as continuous in their
[33:15] Speaker 1: essential nature with subvital processes. Footnote Sully in Encyclopedia Britannica
[33:24] Speaker 1: ninth edition, article evolution end footnote For Darwins phrase natural selection,
[33:32] Speaker 1: Spencer substitutes the survival of the fittest psychology. Applying to
[33:38] Speaker 1: the study of mental phenomena, the method found to be
[33:41] Speaker 1: so fruitful of results in the study of vital phenomena
[33:44] Speaker 1: in general, Spencer arrives at the conclusion that among mental
[33:49] Speaker 1: phenomena there are no organic differences, reflex, action, feelings, instinct, intelligence,
[33:56] Speaker 1: being merely different stages of the process of development, from
[34:00] Speaker 1: the simple to the complex, from the indefinite to the definite,
[34:04] Speaker 1: from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous. With regard to the
[34:08] Speaker 1: substance of mind, Spencer holds that all mental action whatsoever,
[34:13] Speaker 1: is explained by the continuous differentiation and integration of states
[34:17] Speaker 1: of consciousness. He is not, however, a phenomenalist. Existence, he says,
[34:23] Speaker 1: means nothing more than persistence. And hence in mind with
[34:27] Speaker 1: that which persists in spite of all changes, and maintains
[34:31] Speaker 1: the unity of the aggregate in defiance of all attempts
[34:34] Speaker 1: to divide. It is that which we must postulate as
[34:39] Speaker 1: the substance of mind, in contradistinction to the varying forms
[34:43] Speaker 1: it assumes. Footnote Principles of Psychology, paragraph fifty nine end footnote.
[34:52] Speaker 1: This substance of mind is unknowable. With regard to the
[34:57] Speaker 1: origin of ideas. Spencer reject, on the one hand, the
[35:01] Speaker 1: empiricism of Locke and Hume, and on the other hand,
[35:04] Speaker 1: the absolute a priorism of Leibniz and Kant. Teaches that
[35:09] Speaker 1: while the universal and necessary elements of intellectual knowledge are
[35:14] Speaker 1: a priori with reference to the individual, they are not
[35:18] Speaker 1: a priori with reference to the race between the theory
[35:22] Speaker 1: of the empiricist, who refers all the elements of knowledge
[35:25] Speaker 1: to the experience of the individual, and that of the transcendentalist,
[35:30] Speaker 1: who regards the universal and necessary elements of thought as
[35:34] Speaker 1: forms of intuition. Spencer finds a via media in accordance
[35:39] Speaker 1: with the general principle of evolution. He refers the elements
[35:43] Speaker 1: characterizing intellectual thought to organized and semi organized arrangements, which,
[35:50] Speaker 1: existing in the cerebral nerves of the child, sum up
[35:53] Speaker 1: the experience of all his ancestors. Here as elsewhere, Spencer
[35:58] Speaker 1: seems to forget that the vival of the organized and
[36:01] Speaker 1: semi organized arrangements merely proves their practical utility in the
[36:05] Speaker 1: struggle for existence, and can in no way guarantee their
[36:10] Speaker 1: validity as tests of absolute truth. Footnote Compare Hofting opposite,
[36:17] Speaker 1: Volume two, four hundred and seventy four end footnote. From
[36:22] Speaker 1: such inherited dispositions arises our inability to conceive the contradictory
[36:28] Speaker 1: of certain principles and truths of fact. This inability to
[36:33] Speaker 1: conceive the contradictory is the ultimate test of all beliefs,
[36:37] Speaker 1: the criterion of truth. The universal postulate may therefore be
[36:42] Speaker 1: formulated as follows, a cognition which we are obliged to
[36:47] Speaker 1: accept because we cannot conceive its contradictory, is to be
[36:51] Speaker 1: classed as having the highest possible certainty. Footnote. Compare Principles
[36:57] Speaker 1: of Psychology, paragraph four hundred and twenty five end footnote. Epistemology,
[37:05] Speaker 1: Spencer's epistemology is comprised in his doctrine of transfigured realism.
[37:10] Speaker 1: He rejects idealism on the ground of priority, immediateness, and
[37:15] Speaker 1: superior distinctness of the realistic conception of mental processes. Footnote
[37:22] Speaker 1: opposide paragraph Forandred and six to fourandred eight end footnote.
[37:28] Speaker 1: He next proceeds to show that while some objective existence
[37:33] Speaker 1: manifested under some conditions remains as the final necessity of thought.
[37:38] Speaker 1: There does not remain the implication that this existence and
[37:41] Speaker 1: these conditions are more to us than the unknown correlatives
[37:46] Speaker 1: of our feelings and the relations among our feelings. Footnote opposide,
[37:53] Speaker 1: paragraph four hundred seventy three end footnote. This realism stands
[37:58] Speaker 1: widely distinguished from crude realism, and to mark the distinction,
[38:03] Speaker 1: it may properly be called transfigured realism. Footnote ibid end
[38:09] Speaker 1: footnote sociology. In his various treatises on sociology, Spencer conceives
[38:17] Speaker 1: society after the manner of the individual organism, as possessing
[38:22] Speaker 1: a variety of organs and functions, and as tending to
[38:27] Speaker 1: evolve itself by a series of adjustments to the social
[38:30] Speaker 1: and physical environment. He insists on the innerness of the
[38:34] Speaker 1: principle of social development, and emphasizes the truth that societies
[38:39] Speaker 1: and constitutions are not made, but grow. He is, however,
[38:44] Speaker 1: careful to point out one very important distinction between the
[38:48] Speaker 1: individual organism and the social organism. In the individual, the
[38:53] Speaker 1: parts exist for the sake of the whole, while in
[38:56] Speaker 1: the society, the whole exists for the sake of the part.
[39:01] Speaker 1: This distinction is overlooked in those forms of society in
[39:04] Speaker 1: which militarism and officialism predominate. Industrialism is the basis of
[39:11] Speaker 1: modern social reconstruction. The highest type of social organization will, however,
[39:17] Speaker 1: be reached when freer scope shall be given to the
[39:19] Speaker 1: play of those activities which are exercised for the sake
[39:23] Speaker 1: of the satisfaction they afford, and not for the sake
[39:26] Speaker 1: of obtaining the means of subsistence. Ethics, Spencer's system of
[39:31] Speaker 1: ethics may be briefly described as the substitution of rational
[39:36] Speaker 1: utilitarianism for the empirical utilitarianism of the school of Bentham.
[39:41] Speaker 1: The goal of the process of ethical development is the
[39:44] Speaker 1: ideal man in the ideal state, a view which combines
[39:49] Speaker 1: as the earlier form of utilitarianism had combined altruism with egoism.
[39:56] Speaker 1: But instead of insisting on the hedonistic calculus of the
[40:00] Speaker 1: the earlier utilitarians, Spencer emphasizes the rational deduction of the
[40:06] Speaker 1: moral ideal from the necessary laws physical, biological, psychological, and sociological,
[40:14] Speaker 1: the recognition of which, rather than the calculation of the
[40:17] Speaker 1: happiness to which the human action leads, furnishes the cognitive
[40:22] Speaker 1: basis for moral action. Moral phenomena must be considered as
[40:26] Speaker 1: part of the aggregate of phenomena which evolution has wrought out.
[40:31] Speaker 1: The moral sense itself is a product of evolution. I
[40:35] Speaker 1: believe that the experiences of utility, organized and consolidated throughout
[40:40] Speaker 1: all the past generations of the human race, have been
[40:43] Speaker 1: producing corresponding modifications, which, by continued transmission and accumulation, have
[40:50] Speaker 1: become in us certain faculties of moral intuition, certain emotions
[40:56] Speaker 1: responding to right and wrong, which have no apparent basis
[40:59] Speaker 1: in the individual experiences of utility. Footnote letter to mister Mill,
[41:06] Speaker 1: quoted by Bain Mental and Moral Sciences, page seven, twenty two,
[41:12] Speaker 1: end footnote. The most distinguished of the opponents of utilitarian
[41:16] Speaker 1: ethics in England was Dr Martineau eighteen o five to
[41:20] Speaker 1: nineteen hundred, author of Types of ethical theory. In eighteen
[41:25] Speaker 1: eighty five he defended what is known as the preferential
[41:29] Speaker 1: theory of ethics, according to which the morality of an
[41:32] Speaker 1: action is not to be judged by its pleasure producing effect,
[41:36] Speaker 1: but rather by the perfection of the motives inspiring it,
[41:40] Speaker 1: virtue being defined as the rejection of the lower and
[41:43] Speaker 1: the adoption of the higher. Motives. Saint George Mivart eighteen
[41:49] Speaker 1: twenty seven to nineteen hundred occupied a unique position amongst
[41:53] Speaker 1: the English representatives of philosophy of evolution during the latter
[41:57] Speaker 1: half of the nineteenth century. In The Genesis of Species
[42:02] Speaker 1: eighteen seventy one on Truth eighteen eighty nine, et cetera,
[42:07] Speaker 1: he appeared as the defender of the theistic evolution and
[42:11] Speaker 1: sought to reconcile the evolutionistic hypothesis with the essential doctrines
[42:16] Speaker 1: of scholastic philosophy idealism. German idealism was first introduced into
[42:23] Speaker 1: England by Samuel Taylor Coleridge seventeen seventy two to eighteen
[42:27] Speaker 1: thirty four and Thomas Carlyle seventeen ninety five to eighteen
[42:32] Speaker 1: eighty one. During the latter half of the nineteenth century,
[42:36] Speaker 1: the Hegelian philosophy found many able exponents in Great Britain,
[42:40] Speaker 1: of whom the most prominent R. J. H. Sterling born
[42:44] Speaker 1: eighteen twenty, John Caird Eighteen twenty to eighteen ninety eight,
[42:49] Speaker 1: Edward Kerred born eighteen thirty five, and Thomas Hill Greene
[42:53] Speaker 1: eighteen thirty six to eighteen eighty two. Footnote compare Fairbrotherilosophy
[43:00] Speaker 1: of Thomas Hill Green, London, eighteen ninety six. Green's works
[43:05] Speaker 1: were edited by Nettleship, three volumes, London, eighteen eighty five
[43:10] Speaker 1: to eighteen eighty eight, end footnote. Green's Prolegomona to Ethics,
[43:17] Speaker 1: fourth edition, eighteen ninety nine represents the first important contribution
[43:22] Speaker 1: to English Hegelianism. Green considers that metaphysics is the foundation
[43:27] Speaker 1: of ethics, and that without a metaphysical theory, a theory
[43:31] Speaker 1: of ethics is wasted labour. The primary questions of metaphysics
[43:35] Speaker 1: are what are the facts of my own individual consciousness?
[43:40] Speaker 1: And what is the simplest explanation I can give of
[43:43] Speaker 1: the origin of these facts that is necessarily true, which
[43:47] Speaker 1: is required to explain my experience. Applying this test to
[43:51] Speaker 1: the evolution doctrine, Green, while admitting the fact of the
[43:55] Speaker 1: biological evolution of man, protests against any biological explanation which
[44:00] Speaker 1: cannot account for the facts of individual consciousness. If there
[44:04] Speaker 1: are reasons, he writes for holding that man, in respect
[44:08] Speaker 1: to his animal nature, is descended from mere animals. This
[44:12] Speaker 1: does not affect our conclusion in regard to the consciousness
[44:16] Speaker 1: of which, as he now is, Man is the subject,
[44:20] Speaker 1: a conclusion founded on analysis of what he now is
[44:23] Speaker 1: and does. Footnote Prolegomena to Ethics, paragraph eighty three, end footnote.
[44:31] Speaker 1: The whole is not material but spiritual. A world of
[44:36] Speaker 1: thought relations consisting of three main facts, self, cosmos, and
[44:42] Speaker 1: God self is first in the order of knowledge God,
[44:46] Speaker 1: the eternal consciousness, which manifests itself in the spiritual cosmos,
[44:51] Speaker 1: is the first in the order of being. The unification
[44:55] Speaker 1: of the manifold in the world implies the presence of
[44:58] Speaker 1: the manifold to a mind for which, and through the
[45:01] Speaker 1: actions of which it is related whole.
[45:04] Speaker 2: The unification of the manifold of sense in our consciousness
[45:08] Speaker 2: of a world implies a certain self realization of this
[45:12] Speaker 2: mind in us through certain processes life and feeling of
[45:17] Speaker 2: the world which only exist through it. Footnote Prolegomia, paragraph
[45:23] Speaker 2: eighty two, end footnote. In his Ethical Doctrines, Greed insists
[45:29] Speaker 2: on self reflection as the only possible method of learning
[45:32] Speaker 2: what is the inner man or mind that our action expresses,
[45:37] Speaker 2: and he emphasizes the importance of man's looking forward to
[45:41] Speaker 2: a moral ideal to be attained by conscious effort, rather
[45:45] Speaker 2: than backward to a series of natural changes.
[45:48] Speaker 1: Through which man came to be what he is. Our
[45:52] Speaker 1: ultimate standard of worth is an ideal personal worth, not
[45:56] Speaker 1: the well being of the race, but the perfection of
[45:59] Speaker 1: human character according to the Divine plan. Footnote opposite paragraph
[46:05] Speaker 1: one hundred eighty through one hundred and ninety one end
[46:09] Speaker 1: footnote historical position. It is impossible to judge with anything
[46:15] Speaker 1: like in definiteness systems of thought, some of which are
[46:19] Speaker 1: still in the process of formation, while others are in
[46:22] Speaker 1: the process of the solution. When, however, we look back
[46:26] Speaker 1: over the course of English philosophy during the nineteenth century,
[46:30] Speaker 1: two conclusions appear to be indisputable, namely that the associationist
[46:35] Speaker 1: account of mind and of mental processes has been definitely abandoned,
[46:40] Speaker 1: and that whatever changes the evolution doctrine may have wrought
[46:44] Speaker 1: in the method and standpoint of philosophy, its importance as
[46:48] Speaker 1: a contribution to ultimate philosophic truth must depend largely on
[46:53] Speaker 1: whether it will materially affect the great gnostic idealistic movement,
[46:58] Speaker 1: which during the last quarter of a century has apparently
[47:01] Speaker 1: superseded the agnostic empirical movement. It is not to the
[47:06] Speaker 1: evolutionistic synthesis of Spencer, but rather to the idealistic constructions
[47:11] Speaker 1: of such men as Green, that we must look for
[47:14] Speaker 1: a solution to the question what is the present tendency
[47:18] Speaker 1: and what is likely to be the future trend of
[47:20] Speaker 1: philosophical speculation in England. End of Chapter sixty nine,

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