Essays On Education And Kindred Subjects (Fiscle Part- 11), Herbert Spencer [historical books to read .txt] 📗
- Author: Herbert Spencer
Book online «Essays On Education And Kindred Subjects (Fiscle Part- 11), Herbert Spencer [historical books to read .txt] 📗». Author Herbert Spencer
Weapon-Maker Will Take From Each One The Thing Which That One Excels In
Making: He Will Exchange For Mats With Him Whose Mats Are Superior, And
Will Bargain For The Fishing Gear Of Whoever Has The Best. But He Who
Has Bartered Away His Mats Or His Fishing Gear, Must Make Other Mats Or
Fishing Gear For Himself; And In So Doing Must, In Some Degree, Further
Develop His Aptitude. Thus It Results That The Small Specialities Of
Faculty Possessed By Various Members Of The Tribe, Will Tend To Grow
More Decided. If Such Transactions Are From Time To Time Repeated, These
Specialisations May Become Appreciable. And Whether Or Not There Ensue
Distinct Differentiations Of Other Individuals Into Makers Of Particular
Articles, It Is Clear That Incipient Differentiations Take Place
Throughout The Tribe: The One Original Cause Produces Not Only The First
Dual Effect, But A Number Of Secondary Dual Effects, Like In Kind, But
Minor In Degree. This Process, Of Which Traces May Be Seen Among Groups
Of Schoolboys, Cannot Well Produce Any Lasting Effects In An Unsettled
Tribe; But Where There Grows Up A Fixed And Multiplying Community, These
Differentiations Become Permanent, And Increase With Each Generation. A
Larger Population, Involving A Greater Demand For Every Commodity,
Intensifies The Functional Activity Of Each Specialised Person Or Class;
And This Renders The Specialisation More Definite Where It Already
Exists, And Establishes It Where It Is Nascent. By Increasing The
Pressure On The Means Of Subsistence, A Larger Population Again Augments
These Results; Seeing That Each Person Is Forced More And More To
Confine Himself To That Which He Can Do Best, And By Which He Can Gain
Most. This Industrial Progress, By Aiding Future Production, Opens The
Way For A Further Growth Of Population, Which Reacts As Before: In All
Which The Multiplication Of Effects Is Manifest. Presently, Under These
Same Stimuli, New Occupations Arise. Competing Workers, Ever Aiming To
Produce Improved Articles, Occasionally Discover Better Processes Or Raw
Materials. In Weapons And Cutting Tools, The Substitution Of Bronze For
Stone Entails Upon Him Who First Makes It A Great Increase Of Demand--So
Great An Increase That He Presently Finds All His Time Occupied In
Making The Bronze For The Articles He Sells, And Is Obliged To Depute
The Fashioning Of These To Others: And, Eventually, The Making Of
Bronze, Thus Gradually Differentiated From A Pre-Existing Occupation,
Becomes An Occupation By Itself.
Part 2 Chapter 1 (Progress Its Law And Cause) Pg 78
But Now Mark The Ramified Changes Which Follow This Change. Bronze Soon
Replaces Stone, Not Only In The Articles It Was First Used For, But In
Many Others--In Arms, Tools, And Utensils Of Various Kinds; And So
Affects The Manufacture Of These Things. Further, It Affects The
Processes Which These Utensils Subserve, And The Resulting
Products--Modifies Buildings, Carvings, Dress, Personal Decorations. Yet
Again, It Sets Going Sundry Manufactures Which Were Before Impossible,
From Lack Of A Material Fit For The Requisite Tools. And All These
Changes React On The People--Increase Their Manipulative Skill, Their
Intelligence, Their Comfort,--Refine Their Habits And Tastes. Thus The
Evolution Of A Homogeneous Society Into A Heterogeneous One, Is Clearly
Consequent On The General Principle, That Many Effects Are Produced By
One Cause.
Our Limits Will Not Allow Us To Follow Out This Process In Its Higher
Complications: Else Might We Show How The Localisation Of Special
Industries In Special Parts Of A Kingdom, As Well As The Minute
Subdivision Of Labour In The Making Of Each Commodity, Are Similarly
Determined. Or, Turning To A Somewhat Different Order Of Illustrations,
We Might Dwell On The Multitudinous Changes--Material, Intellectual,
Moral--Caused By Printing; Or The Further Extensive Series Of Changes
Wrought By Gunpowder. But Leaving The Intermediate Phases Of Social
Development, Let Us Take A Few Illustrations From Its Most Recent And
Its Passing Phases. To Trace The Effects Of Steam-Power, In Its Manifold
Applications To Mining, Navigation, And Manufactures Of All Kinds, Would
Carry Us Into Unmanageable Detail. Let Us Confine Ourselves To The
Latest Embodiment Of Steam-Power--The Locomotive Engine.
This, As The Proximate Cause Of Our Railway System, Has Changed The Face
Of The Country, The Course Of Trade, And The Habits Of The People.
Consider, First, The Complicated Sets Of Changes That Precede The Making
Of Every Railway--The Provisional Arrangements, The Meetings, The
Registration, The Trial Section, The Parliamentary Survey, The
Lithographed Plans, The Books Of Reference, The Local Deposits And
Notices, The Application To Parliament, The Passing Standing-Orders
Committee, The First, Second, And Third Readings: Each Of Which Brief
Heads Indicates A Multiplicity Of Transactions, And The Development Of
Sundry Occupations--As Those Of Engineers, Surveyors, Lithographers,
Parliamentary Agents, Share-Brokers; And The Creation Of Sundry
Others--As Those Of Traffic-Takers, Reference-Takers. Consider, Next,
The Yet More Marked Changes Implied In Railway Construction--The
Cuttings, Embankings, Tunnellings, Diversions Of Roads; The Building Of
Bridges, And Stations; The Laying Down Of Ballast, Sleepers, And Rails;
The Making Of Engines, Tenders, Carriages, And Waggons: Which Processes,
Acting Upon Numerous Trades, Increase The Importation Of Timber, The
Quarrying Of Stone, The Manufacture Of Iron, The Mining Of Coal, The
Burning Of Bricks: Institute A Variety Of Special Manufactures Weekly
Advertised In The _Railway Times_; And, Finally, Open The Way To Sundry
New Occupations, As Those Of Drivers, Stokers, Cleaners, Plate-Layers,
Etc., Etc. And Then Consider The Changes, More Numerous And Involved
Still, Which Railways In Action Produce On The Community At Large. The
Organisation Of Every Business Is More Or Less Modified: Ease Of
Communication Makes It Better To Do Directly What Was Before Done By
Proxy; Agencies Are Established Where Previously They Would Not Have
Paid; Goods Are Obtained From Remote Wholesale Houses Instead Of Near
Retail Ones; And Commodities Are Used Which Distance Once Rendered
Inaccessible. Again, The Rapidity And Small Cost Of Carriage Tend To
Specialise More Than Ever The Industries Of Different Districts--To
Confine Each Manufacture To The Parts In Which, From Local Advantages,
It Can Be Best Carried On. Further, The Diminished Cost Of Carriage,
Facilitating Distribution, Equalises Prices, And Also, On The Average,
Lowers Prices: Thus Bringing Divers Articles Within The Means Of Those
Before Unable To Buy Them, And So Increasing Their Comforts And
Improving Their Habits. At The Same Time The Practice Of Travelling Is
Immensely Extended. Classes Who Never Before Thought Of It, Take Annual
Trips To The Sea; Visit Their Distant Relations; Make Tours; And So We
Are Benefited In Body, Feelings, And Intellect. Moreover, The More
Prompt Transmission Of Letters And Of News Produces Further
Changes--Makes The Pulse Of The Nation Faster. Yet More, There Arises A
Wide Dissemination Of Cheap Literature Through Railway Book-Stalls, And
Of Advertisements In Railway Carriages: Both Of Them Aiding Ulterior
Progress.
And All The Innumerable Changes Here Briefly Indicated Are Consequent On
The Invention Of The Locomotive Engine. The Social Organism Has Been
Rendered More Heterogeneous In Virtue Of The Many New Occupations
Introduced, And The Many Old Ones Further Specialised; Prices In Every
Place Have Been Altered; Each Trader Has, More Or Less, Modified His Way
Of Doing Business; And Almost Every Person Has Been Affected In His
Actions, Thoughts, Emotions.
Illustrations To The Same Effect Might Be Indefinitely Accumulated. That
Every Influence Brought To Bear Upon Society Works Multiplied Effects;
And That Increase Of Heterogeneity Is Due To This Multiplication Of
Effects; May Be Seen In The History Of Every Trade, Every Custom, Every
Belief. But It Is Needless To Give Additional Evidence Of This. The Only
Further Fact Demanding Notice, Is, That We Here See Still More Clearly
Than Ever, The Truth Before Pointed Out, That In Proportion As The Area
On Which Any Force Expends Itself Becomes Heterogeneous, The Results Are
In A Yet Higher Degree Multiplied In Number And Kind. While Among The
Primitive Tribes To Whom It Was First Known, Caoutchouc Caused But A Few
Changes, Among Ourselves The Changes Have Been So Many And Varied That
The History Of Them Occupies A Volume.[4] Upon The Small, Homogeneous
Community Inhabiting One Of The Hebrides, The Electric Telegraph Would
Produce, Were It Used, Scarcely Any Results; But In England The Results
It Produces Are Multitudinous. The Comparatively Simple Organisation
Under Which Our Ancestors Lived Five Centuries Ago, Could Have Undergone
But Few Modifications From An Event Like The Recent One At Canton; But
Now The Legislative Decision Respecting It Sets Up Many Hundreds Of
Complex Modifications, Each Of Which Will Be The Parent Of Numerous
Future Ones.
Space Permitting, We Could Willingly Have Pursued The Argument In
Relation To All The Subtler Results Of Civilisation. As Before, We
Showed That The Law Of Progress To Which The Organic And Inorganic
Worlds Conform, Is Also Conformed To By Language, Sculpture, Music,
Etc.; So Might We Here Show That The Cause Which We Have Hitherto Found
To Determine Progress Holds In These Cases Also. We Might Demonstrate In
Detail How, In Science, An Advance Of One Division Presently Advances
Other Divisions--How Astronomy Has Been Immensely Forwarded By
Discoveries In Optics, While Other Optical Discoveries Have Initiated
Part 2 Chapter 1 (Progress Its Law And Cause) Pg 79Microscopic Anatomy, And Greatly Aided The Growth Of Physiology--How
Chemistry Has Indirectly Increased Our Knowledge Of Electricity,
Magnetism, Biology, Geology--How Electricity Has Reacted On Chemistry
And Magnetism, Developed Our Views Of Light And Heat, And Disclosed
Sundry Laws Of Nervous Action.
In Literature The Same Truth Might Be Exhibited In The Manifold Effects
Of The Primitive Mystery-Play, Not Only As Originating The Modern Drama,
But As Affecting Through It Other Kinds Of Poetry And Fiction; Or In The
Still Multiplying Forms Of Periodical Literature That Have Descended
From The First Newspaper, And Which Have Severally Acted And Reacted On
Other Forms Of Literature And On Each Other. The Influence Which A New
School Of Painting--As That Of The Pre-Raffaelites--Exercises Upon Other
Schools; The Hints Which All Kinds Of Pictorial Art Are Deriving From
Photography; The Complex Results Of New Critical Doctrines, As Those Of
Mr. Ruskin, Might Severally Be Dwelt Upon As Displaying The Like
Multiplication Of Effects. But It Would Needlessly Tax The Reader's
Patience To Pursue, In Their Many Ramifications, These Various Changes:
Here Become So Involved And Subtle As To Be Followed With Some
Difficulty.
Without Further Evidence, We Venture To Think Our Case Is Made Out. The
Imperfections Of Statement Which Brevity Has Necessitated, Do Not, We
Believe, Militate Against The Propositions Laid Down. The Qualifications
Here And There Demanded Would Not, If Made, Affect The Inferences.
Though In One Instance, Where Sufficient Evidence Is Not Attainable, We
Have Been Unable To Show That The Law Of Progress Applies; Yet There Is
High Probability That The Same Generalisation Holds Which Holds
Throughout The Rest Of Creation. Though, In Tracing The Genesis Of
Progress, We Have Frequently Spoken Of Complex Causes As If They Were
Simple Ones; It Still Remains True That Such Causes Are Far Less Complex
Than Their Results. Detailed Criticisms Cannot Affect Our Main Position.
Endless Facts Go To Show That Every Kind Of Progress Is From The
Homogeneous To The Heterogeneous; And That It Is So Because Each Change
Is Followed By Many Changes. And It Is Significant That Where The Facts
Are Most Accessible And Abundant, There Are These Truths Most Manifest.
However, To Avoid Committing Ourselves To More Than Is Yet Proved, We
Must Be Content With Saying That Such Are The Law And The Cause Of All
Progress That Is Known To Us. Should The Nebular Hypothesis Ever Be
Established, Then
Comments (0)