Herbert Spencer

Pre-reading

Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) was an English philosopher, biologist, anthropologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist of the Victorian era.

Spencer developed an all-embracing conception of evolution as the progressive development of the physical world, biological organisms, the human mind, and human culture and societies. He was “an enthusiastic exponent of evolution” and even “wrote about evolution before Darwin did”. During his lifetime he achieved tremendous authority, mainly in Englishspeaking academia. Spencer was “the single most famous European intellectual in the closing decades of the nineteenth century”, but his influence declined sharply after 1900.

Spencer is best known for the expression “survival of the fittest”, which he coined in Principles of Biology (1864), after reading Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.

The following essay is an excerpt from Spencer’s longer essay “On the Genesis of Science”.

Prompts for Your Reading

1.What are the similarities and differences between scientific knowledge and ordinary knowledge according to Spencer?

2.What is the relationship that exists between scientific knowledge and ordinary knowledge?

3.Are there cases where science disproves our common knowledge? What are they?

4.What are the characteristics of scientific knowledge?

5.What do the words “certainty” and “completeness” mean in Paragraph 7?

6.How does scientific knowledge develop in stages?

7.What is the difference between inductive and deductive science? Can you give some examples?

8.How would you describe the general tone of this passage?

9.What is the general logic behind the organization of ideas in this passage? Work out an idea flow chart to illustrate the chain of thoughts in this passage.

[1] There has ever prevailed among men a vague notion that scientific knowledge differs in nature from ordinary knowledge. By the Greeks, with whom Mathematics—literally things learnt — was alone considered as knowledge proper1, the distinction must have been strongly felt; and it has ever since maintained itself in the general mind. Though, considering the contrast between the achievements of science and those of daily unmethodical thinking, it is not surprising that such a distinction has been assumed; yet it needs but to rise a little above the common point of view, to see that no such distinction can really exist: or that at best, it is but a superficial distinction. The same faculties are employed in both cases; and in both cases their mode of operation is fundamentally the same.

[2] If we say that science is organized knowledge, we are met by the truth that all knowledge is organized in a greater or less degree — that the commonest actions of the household and the field presuppose facts colligated2, inferences drawn, results expected; and that the general success of these actions proves the data by which they were guided to have been correctly put together. If, again, we say that science is prevision — is a seeing beforehand — is a knowing in what times, places, combinations, or sequences, specified phenomena will be found; we are yet obliged to confess that the definition includes much that is utterly foreign to science in its ordinary acceptation. For example, a child’s knowledge of an apple. This, as far as it goes, consists in previsions. When a child sees a certain form and colors, it knows that if it puts out its hand it will have certain impressions of resistance, and roundness, and smoothness; and if it bites, a certain taste. And manifestly its general acquaintance with surrounding objects is of like nature — is made up of facts concerning them, so grouped as that any part of a group being perceived, the existence of the other facts included in it is foreseen.

[3] If, once more, we say that science is exact prevision, we still fail to establish the supposed difference. Not only do we find that much of what we call science is not exact, and that some of it, as physiology, can never become exact; but we find further, that many of the previsions constituting the common stock alike of wise and ignorant, are exact. That an unsupported body will fall; that a lighted candle will go out when immersed in water; that ice will melt when thrown on the fire — these, and many like predictions relating to the familiar properties of things have as high a degree of accuracy as predictions are capable of. It is true that the results predicated are of a very general character; but it is none the less true that they are rigorously correct as far as they go: and this is all that is requisite to fulfill the definition. There is perfect accordance between the anticipated phenomena and the actual ones; and no more than this can be said of the highest achievements of the sciences specially characterized as exact.

[4] Seeing thus that the assumed distinction between scientific knowledge and common knowledge is not logically justifiable; and yet feeling, as we must, that however impossible it may be to draw a line between them, the two are not practically identical; there arises the question — What is the relationship that exists between them? A partial answer to this question may be drawn from the illustrations just given. On reconsidering them, it will be observed that those portions of ordinary knowledge which are identical in character with scientific knowledge, comprehend only such combinations of phenomena as are directly cognizable3 by the senses, and are of simple, invariable nature. That the smoke from a fire which she is lighting will ascend, and that the fire will presently boil water, are previsions which the servant-girl makes equally well with the most learned physicist; they are equally certain, equally exact with his; but they are previsions concerning phenomena in constant and direct relation — phenomena that follow visibly and immediately after their antecedents —phenomena of which the causation is neither remote nor obscure — phenomena which may be predicted by the simplest possible act of reasoning.

[5] If, now, we pass to the previsions constituting what is commonly known as science —that an eclipse of the moon will happen at a specified time; and when a barometer is taken to the top of a mountain of known height, the mercurial column will descend a stated number of inches; that the poles of a galvanic battery immersed in water will give off, the one an inflammable and the other an inflaming gas, in definite ratio — we perceive that the relations involved are not of a kind habitually presented to our senses; that they depend, some of them, upon special combinations of causes; and that in some of them the connection between antecedents and consequents is established only by an elaborate series of inferences. The broad distinction, therefore, between the two orders of knowledge, is not in their nature, but in their remoteness from perception.

[6] If we regard the cases in their most general aspect, we see that the laborer, who, on hearing certain notes in the adjacent hedge, can describe the particular form and colors of the bird making them; and the astronomer, who, having calculated a transit of Venus, can delineate4 the black spot entering on the sun’s disc, as it will appear through the telescope, at a specified hour; do essentially the same thing. Each knows that on fulfilling the requisite conditions, he shall have a preconceived impression — that after a definite series of actions will come a group of sensations of a foreknown kind. The difference, then, is not in the fundamental character of the mental acts; or in the correctness of the previsions accomplished by them; but in the complexity of the processes required to achieve the previsions. Much of our commonest knowledge is, as far as it goes, rigorously precise. Science does not increase this precision; cannot transcend it. What then does it do? It reduces other knowledge to the same degree of precision. That certainty which direct perception gives us respecting coexistences and sequences of the simplest and most accessible kind, science gives us respecting coexistences and sequences, complex in their dependencies or inaccessible to immediate observation. In brief, regarded from this point of view, science may be called an extension of the perceptions by means of reasoning.

[7] On further considering the matter, however, it will perhaps be felt that this definition does not express the whole fact — that inseparable as science may be from common knowledge, and completely as we may fill up the gap between the simplest previsions of the child and the most recondite ones of the natural philosopher by interposing a series of previsions in which the complexity of reasoning involved is greater and greater, there is yet a difference between the two beyond that which is here described. And this is true. But the difference is still not such as enables us to draw the assumed line of demarcation5. It is a difference not between common knowledge and scientific knowledge; but between the successive phases of science itself, or knowledge itself — whichever we choose to call it. In its earlier phases science attains only to certainty of foreknowledge; in its later phases it further attains to completeness. We begin by discovering a relation: we end by discovering the relation. Our first achievement is to foretell the kind of phenomenon which will occur under specific conditions: our last achievement is to foretell not only the kind but the amount. Or, to reduce the proposition to its most definite form — undeveloped science is qualitative prevision; developed science is quantitative prevision.

[8] This will at once be perceived to express the remaining distinction between the lower and the higher stages of positive knowledge. The prediction that a piece of lead will take more force to lift than a piece of wood of equal size, exhibits certainty, but not completeness, of foresight. The kind of effect in which the one body will exceed the other is foreseen; but not the amount by which it will exceed. There is qualitative prevision only. On the other hand, the prediction that at a stated time two particular planets will be in conjunction; that by means of a lever having arms in a given ratio, a known force will raise just so many pounds; that to decompose a specified quantity of sulphate of iron6 by carbonate of soda7 will require so many grains — these predictions exhibit foreknowledge, not only of the nature of the effects to be produced, but of the magnitude, either of the effects themselves, of the agencies producing them, or of the distance in time or space at which they will be produced. There is not only qualitative but quantitative prevision.

[9] And this is the unexpressed difference which leads us to consider certain orders of knowledge as especially scientific when contrasted with knowledge in general. “Are the phenomena measurable?” is the test which we unconsciously employ. Space is measurable: hence Geometry. Force and space are measureable: hence Statics8. Time, force, and space are measureable: hence Dynamics9. The invention of the barometer enabled men to extend the principles of mechanics to the atmosphere; and Aerostatics existed. When a thermometer was devised, there arose a science of heat, which was before impossible. Such of our sensations as we have not yet found modes of measuring do not originate sciences. We have no science of smells; nor have we one of tastes. We have a science of the relations of sounds differing in pitch, because we have discovered a way to measure them; but we have no science of sounds in respect to their loudness or their timbre, because we have got no measures of loudness and timbre.

[10] Obviously it is this reduction of the sensible phenomena it represents, to relations of magnitude, which gives to any division of knowledge its especially scientific character. Originally men’s knowledge of weights and forces was in the same condition as their knowledge of smells and tastes is now — a knowledge not extending beyond that given by the unaided sensations; and it remained so until weighing instruments and dynamometers10 were invented. Before there were hour-glasses11 and clepsydras12, most phenomena could be estimated as to their durations and intervals, with no greater precision than degrees of hardness can be estimated by the fingers. Until a thermometric scale was contrived13, men’s judgments respecting relative amounts of heat stood on the same footing with their present judgments respecting relative amounts of sound. And as in these initial stages, with no aids to observation, only the roughest comparisons of cases could be made, and only the most marked differences perceived; it is obvious that only the most simple laws of dependence could be ascertained — only those laws which, being uncomplicated with others, and not disturbed in their manifestations, required no niceties of observation to disentangle them. Whence it appears not only that in proportion as knowledge becomes quantitative do its previsions become complete as well as certain, but that until its assumption of a quantitative character it is necessarily confined to the most elementary relations.

[11] Moreover it is to be remarked that while, on the one hand, we can discover the laws of the greater proportion of phenomena only by investigating them quantitatively; on the other hand we can extend the range of our quantitative previsions only as fast as we detect the laws of the results we predict. For clearly the ability to specify the magnitude of a result inaccessible to direct measurement implies knowledge of its mode of dependence on something which can be measured, implies that we know the particular fact dealt with to be an instance of some more general fact. Thus the extent to which our quantitative previsions have been carried in any direction indicates the depth to which our knowledge reaches in that direction. And here, as another aspect of the same fact, we may further observe that as we pass from qualitative to quantitative prevision, we pass from inductive science to deductive science. Science while purely inductive is purely qualitative; when inaccurately quantitative it usually consists of part induction, part deduction; and it becomes accurately quantitative only when wholly deductive. We do not mean that the deductive and the quantitative are coextensive, for there is manifestly much deduction that is qualitative only. We mean that all quantitative prevision is reached deductively; and that induction can achieve only qualitative prevision.

[12] Still, however, it must not be supposed that these distinctions enable us to separate ordinary knowledge from science, much as they seem to do so. While they show in what consists the broad contrast between the extreme forms of the two, they yet lead us to recognize their essential identity; and once more prove the difference to be one of degree only. For, on the one hand, the commonest positive knowledge is to some extent quantitative; seeing that the amount of the foreseen result is known within certain wide limits. And, on the other hand, the highest quantitative prevision does not reach the exact truth, but only a very near approximation to it. Without clocks the savage knows that the day is longer in the summer than in the winter; without scales he knows that stone is heavier than flesh: that is, he can foresee respecting certain results that their amounts will exceed these, and be less than those － he knows about what they will be. And, with his most delicate instruments and most elaborate calculations, all that the man of science can do, is to reduce the difference between the foreseen and the actual results to an unimportant quantity.

[13] Moreover, it must be borne in mind not only that all the sciences are qualitative in their first stages, — not only that some of them, as Chemistry, have but recently reached the quantitative stage — but that the most advanced sciences have attained to their present power of determining quantities not present to the senses, or not directly measurable, by a slow process of improvement extending through thousands of years. So that science and the knowledge of the uncultured are alike in the nature of their previsions, widely as they differ in range; they possess a common imperfection, though this is immensely greater in the last than in the first; and the transition from the one to the other has been through a series of steps by which the imperfection has been rendered continually less, and the range continually wider.

Notes

1.proper: (of an object, quality, etc.) referred to or named specifically so as to exclude anything not directly connected with it

2.colligate: connect or link together

3.cognizable: capable of being known; perceptible

4.delineate: describe in detail

5.demarcation: separation or distinction

6.sulphate of iron: 硫酸铁

7.carbonate of soda: 碳酸钠

8.statics: 静力学

9.dynamics: 动力学

10.dynamometer: 测力计

11.hour-glasses: 沙漏

12.clepsydra: 漏壶

13.contrive: design, devise

Questions for Further Thinking

1.The value of the sciences lies not in their promise but in their performance (adapted from Edward Albee, author of “Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?”). Do you agree or disagree? Where do you think the value of the sciences lies?

2.Albert Einstein said: “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Frank Wilczek, physicist and Nobel Prize recipient, acknowledged that “They’re both important, but knowledge without imagination is barren.” What do you think of the relationship between scientific development and human imagination?

3.Do you believe quantitative study is always more advanced and valuable than qualitative study? Why or why not?

4.What do you think differentiates the great scientist from the ordinary scientist?

5.What do you think is the relationship between science and humanity?

6.Jacob Bronowski, a British mathematician and inventor, says “dissent is the native activity of the scientist, and it has got him into a good deal of trouble. But if that is cut off, what is left will not be a scientist. ”What are the basic qualities of a scientist?

After-reading Assignment

Oral Work

1.The definition or nature of “science” has been debated in history for many decades. Work with your classmates and find out different versions of these definitions. Make a list of parallel sentences following the structure as “Science is _______ knowledge”. Report your results to your class.

2.Choose one notable and respected Chinese scientist and find out his/her achievements. What new knowledge has he/she discovered? Introduce this scientist to your classmates and explain how his/her work and knowledge has made a difference to human civilization.

3.Marie Curie unsurprisingly dominates the conversation when people talk about female scientists. However, there have been many other brilliant women who have pursued science over the years. Find their names as well as their stories and share with your classmates.

4.David Cronenberg, a Canadian author and filmmaker, says “Everybody is a mad scientist, and life is their lab. We’re all trying to experiment to find a way to live, to solve problems, to fend off madness and chaos.” What is the most successful experiment you have ever done in your “lab”? Share your stories with your classmates.

5.Some people hold the idea that it’s amazing that we can study black holes thousands of light years away and that Einstein really was as much of a genius as we thought, but that won’t change the way most people live or work. What can purely theoretical studies do in our society and how our life can be influenced or improved by those studies? Discuss with your classmates and report your views to the class.

Written Work

1.Since its birth in the 17th century, modern science has changed the world beyond recognition. Write an essay of about 500 words on how science has changed the world at both individual and collective levels.

2.In tough economic times, exploratory science programs are usually the first to suffer budget cuts. Can you find some evidence to prove the point that exploratory science programs can be economically effective? Organize your evidence and points in an essay of about 500 words.

3.Learn how science subjects are arranged in primary and secondary education in different countries and write a report to summarize your findings.

4.Write an essay of about 400 words on the following quote by Georges Braque: Art is meant to disturb. Science reassures.