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First Principles
First Principles
PREFACE
This volume is the first of a series described in a prospectus originally distributed in March, 1860. Of that prospectus, the annexed is a reprint.
A SYSTEM OF PHILOSOPHY
Mr. Herbert Spencer proposes to issue in periodical parts a connected series of works which he has for several years been preparing. Some conception of the general aim and scope of this series may be gathered from the following Programme.
FIRST PRINCIPLES
Part I. The Unknowable. – Carrying a step further the doctrine put into shape by Hamilton and Mansel; pointing out the various directions in which Science leads to the same conclusions; and showing that in this united belief in an Absolute that transcends not only human knowledge but human conception, lies the only possible reconciliation of Science and Religion.
Part II. Laws of the Knowable. – A statement of the ultimate principles discernible throughout all manifestations of the Absolute – those highest generalizations now being disclosed by Science which are severally true not of one class of phenomena but of all classes of phenomena; and which are thus the keys to all classes of phenomena.1
[In logical order should here come the application of these First Principles to Inorganic Nature. But this great division it is proposed to pass over: partly because, even without it, the scheme is too extensive; and partly because the interpretation of Organic Nature after the proposed method, is of more immediate importance. The second work of the series will therefore be– ]
THE PRINCIPLES OF BIOLOGY
Vol. I
Part I. The Data of Biology. – Including those general truths of Physics and Chemistry with which rational Biology must set out.
II. The Inductions of Biology. – A statement of the leading generalizations which Naturalists, Physiologists, and Comparative Anatomists, have established.
III. The Evolution of Life. – Concerning the speculation commonly known as “The Development Hypothesis” – its à priori and à posteriori evidences.