Author: Society for Experimental Biology

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2018-10-11

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 9781396732669

Excerpt from The International Review, Vol. 11: July, 1881 The amount of facts with which science is encumbered is an actual impediment to her progress. The scientific mind seems affected with a mania for experiment and investigation. Too many are searching after facts, and too few are trying to think these facts into system. The earth has been dug up, the heavens studied, all Nature lavished in the incessant search after something new; and the result is an immense accumulation of facts which no mind has yet been able to grasp in their entirety. Specialists have indeed mastered their respec tive branches, and by their contributions to knowledge have placed mankind under a debt of gratitude to themselves; but no intellect has yet arisen capable of generalizing this immense mass of hetero geneous knowledge into one complete and harmonious system of truth. To make such a generalization would indeed be the peculiar preroga tive of the highest type of mind and it may well be doubted if at pres ent there exists a mind capable of such a work. If such a mind does exist, it belongs to Herbert Spencer. But Mr. Spencer has labored under the disadvantage of living at the time when these discoveries were being made, and these facts in process of accumulation; and it may well be questioned whether it is within the power of the human mind not to be confused by this infinite variety of evidence, and the rapidity with which it has multiplied. When the fever of experiment and investigation is ended, then those earnest and laborious seekers after truth, who after all are the only real benefactors of mankind, will sit down to the task of systematizing these facts, and culling out and rejecting whatever is false in this evidence; and when this is done, we do not doubt that there will appear a mind that will weld this knowledge together into a system of philosophy which will ap proach infinitely nearer the truth than philosophy has ever done before. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.