PREFACE. In this work our principal aim is to comprehend under the fundamental principle of mechanism—conservation of energy-all the laws and theories concerning nature. To reach to this positive point we unite and rectify many contradictory ideas at present scattered throughout the current treatises on Metaphysics, Philosophy, and Cosmology, and on Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. This comprehensive theory we call "physiologic," applying this qualification in its original and etymological meaning "discourse of nature," and with the same signification we have employed the name Universal Physiology, in order to denote the study of positive science in the abstract sense. We divide Universal Physiology into General and Special, subdividing each into Analytical and Synthetical. Therefore this General Physiology comprehends two parts; the first, Analytical, rectifies the concept of matter, and of all general terms referring to it, such as substance, force, mass, movement, etc.; and the second, Synthetical, rectifies the general ideas of the different aggregates of matter-bodies-in their three degrees of complexity: inorganic, organic, and planetary. The work on "Theory of Physics' (already published), and that on Biology (in preparation) are the complements of this "General Physiology," the three composing the whole "Universal Physiology;' our "Theory of Physics" corresponding to the Special Analytical part, and "Biology" to the Special Synthetical part of our "Universal Physiology." We maintain that the before-mentioned principle of mechanism is not the generating cause of the System, that the sole true agent is the Creator, whose primordial effects are produced solely upon living matter, and that thus the potence of vitality becomes the proximate cause of all phenomena, which, consequently, are only changes of matter uniformly derived by simple propagation of movement. This affirmation, which is justified in this work, resolves the highest problem of mental speculation by discovering the unity of all objective knowledge, for as the universe is a system, a theory of its activity must be universal, not partial; and if a mutual connection does indeed exist among all material changes, our reason, logically theorizing, must arrive at unity. The inquiry into the Physiological Theory of Cosmos must carefully follow the laws of thought, and the rules of a severe logic, in order to avoid mistakes to which the mind is so predisposed, that all writers on Physics have fallen into them by setting forth contradictory ideas, and by denying the reality of some existing things and forms of activity without any other reason than that they cannot be weighed or touched, when all we know as real existences are necessarily acquired, not by the irreflexive observation of the senses, but under the guide of reason-rational experience. For such a purpose this book opens with an "Introduction," giving the psychological and logical data necessary to develop and understand correctly the Physiological Theory. In addition, the work closes with a recapitulation of our principal conclusions, and a summary of definitions, in order to show at a glance the new ideas here given. LONDON, 1890. C. C. |