B. C. Burt

“ Science — and in this partly lies its abstract character seeks a unity which is realized only by neglecting differences. Science, for example, so interprets the law of the conservation of energy as to represent that all "forces" are merely co-ordinate forms of a single ultimate force. For philosophy there is an order among forces, a perfect distinguishedness as well as unity, a regulated difference of relation to pure self-consciousness depending upon the ratio of ideality to reality in forces. ”

“ For philosophy, eternity and absoluteness in the atom are inadmissible because utterly irreconcilable with the dependence of all things upon the synthetic activity of thought: the atom can be at most only an ideal centre of force in an otherwise perfect continuum of being; instead of being merely inert and individual, it is essentially active and in organic relation with all other atoms. ”

“ The philosophical law of "evolution" in nature is that of an ascent in forms from indifferent or neutral indetermination through mere determination by others to self-determination, from mere abstract individuality to concrete individuality of being, in which latter the notion of the genus is all but realized in every individual, the whole is in every part. ”

“ And as regards the law of evolution, philosophy again insists upon a difference neglected by science, namely, a difference in that the successive forms in the evolutional series are, as it were, separate manifestations of one and the same concrete energy, instead of being merely altered reproductions, one of another. ”

“ The terms of the scientific law of evolution are expressive of categories quite abstract, and of a comparatively low order even when taken in other than a purely mechanical significance. "Definite," "coherent," "heterogeneous," when applied merely to modes of the "redistribution of matter and motion," of which alone science is cognizant, can denote only the most external relations, and have no reference to the inner essence of nature. ”

“ But natural science, since it knows only the given phenomena, does not, when it understands itself, pretend to have any conception of cause in any other sense than that of regular antecedent; all that it can mean by the assertion that the more definite, coherent, and heterogeneous forms are evolved from the more indefinite, incoherent, and homogeneous forms, is that they regularly follow them in the order of time. ”

“ As "given," facts and notions have, of course, in themselves no meaning and have no conceived inner relation to one another as classes, but are brought together only in consequence of a certain instinct, which is not an object of natural science as such, towards unity of apprehension. Consequently the relations apprehended by natural science are relations between rather than in things, external rather than internal, formal rather than constitutive relations ”