Modifier

“ Here the complete subject (young Charles) consists of a noun (Charles) and an adjective (young) , which describes Charles. The complete predicate consists of a verb (swims) and an adverb (slowly) , which modifies swim by indicating how the action is performed. The subject noun (Charles) and the predicate verb (swims) are the chief words in the sentence, for neither could be omitted without destroying it. They form, so to speak, the frame or skeleton of the whole. Either of the two modifiers, the adjective or the adverb, or both, might be omitted, without destroying the sentence ”

“ Induction infers a rule. Now, the belief of a rule is a habit. That a habit is a rule active in us, is evident. That every belief is of the nature of a habit, in so far as it is of a general character, has been shown in the earlier papers of this series. Induction, therefore, is the logical formula which expresses the physiological process of formation of a habit. Hypothesis substitutes, for a complicated tangle of predicates attached to one subject, a single conception. ”

“ The edge of all contrasts, so to speak, should be as soft as is consistent with decisive effect. We mean, that a gradual change is better than instantaneous transfiguration; for, though always less effective, it is more agreeable. ”

“ But the thorough adaptation of the scheme to man's nature is greatly more appreciable, and lies fully within the reach of observation and experience. And how thorough that adaptation is, all who have really looked at the matter ought to be competent to say. ”

“ Adaptation of means to an end may be produced in two ways that we at present know of; by processes of natural selection, and by the agency of an intelligence in which an image or idea of the end preceded the use of the means. In both cases the existence of the adaptation is accounted for by the necessity or utility of the end. ”

“ It was found, in fact, that the idea of a reasonable adaptation of means to ends, useful as it had been in its proper sphere, could yet not be called universal, or applied to the order of Nature as a whole. ”

“ True, he states the method or law of that change. But the method is discovered by induction. Induction is in turn annihilated by evolution. The fabric as it rises loses its foundation, and floats in the air, a baseless vision. ”

“ Now we have surmised that at this stage our subject has been modified, both physically and mentally, to a certain extent in approach to the human type, and there is precisely one special modification which would have been of paramount importance in view of the problem of advance in progress. ”

“ The change is everywhere, but inward; we localize it here and there, but outwardly; and thus we constitute bodies which are both stable as to their qualities and mobile as to their positions, a mere change of place summing up in itself, to our eyes, the universal transformation. ”

“ In some cases a decided preponderance of the action, whether seen as a whole or looked at in detail, is recognised at once as due to design, purpose, forethought, skill, and effort, and then we properly disregard the undesigned element ”

“ Throughout nature we observe innumerable instances in which various forces have thus combined to produce a definite result. This we usually designate by the word “adaptation.” Adaptation implies intelligence and purpose. We are quite as much justified in ascribing this purpose to the power manifested in nature, as any other quality whatever, even the possession of mind. ”

“ Here we are introduced to the truth next to be dealt with: that not only do conditions determine the various forms which compound heads assume, but that conditions determine the various changes they undergo. There are two leading kinds of such changes—those through which the compound head passes toward a less popular form, and those through which it passes toward a more popular form. ”

“ The definite combination of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and successive, is a formula which fails to call up an adequate conception. And it fails from omitting the most distinctive peculiarity—the peculiarity of which we have the most familiar experience, and with which our notion of Life is, more than with any other, associated. ”

“ A being that is active or operative in the production of a change is said to be the efficient cause of the change, the latter being termed the effect. Now the greater the change, i.e. the higher and more perfect be the grade of reality that is actualized in the change, the higher too in the scale of being must be the efficient cause of that change. There must be a proportion in degree of perfection or reality between effect and cause. ”

“ The only obvious respect in which all kinds of Progress are alike, is, that they are modes of change; and hence, in some characteristic of changes in general, the desired solution will probably be found. We may suspect à priori that in some law of change lies the explanation of this universal transformation of the homogeneous into the heterogeneous. 32 Thus much premised, we pass at once to the statement of the law, which is this:—Every active force produces more than one change—every cause produces more than one effect. ”

“ This will appear plain if we consider that, whatever is immutable cannot be acted upon by any higher power; for the action of such a superior cause supposes a corresponding effect and that effect supposes a change in the object acted upon, in one way or another; and, consequently, any object upon which an effect can be produced, must be a mutable or changeable object. ”

“ Darwin’s title-page amount to when written out plainly, but to an assertion that the main means of modification has been the preservation of races whose variations have been unintentional, that is to say, not connected with effort or intention, devoid of mind or meaning, fortuitous, spontaneous, accidental, or whatever kindred word is least disagreeable to the reader? ”

“ Acts that produce external changes imply adjustment of means to ends. The creation of external things is such an act. Unless an actor is identical with the product itself, he must therefore be subject to the external conditions of adjustment, i.e., he must be finite. ”

“ When the familiarity of the change-process varies, then we get the statements which depend upon varied, i.e., diminished, familiarity: “less real or not real,” “unknown,” “uncertain,” etc.
(3) When the totality of the connexion of the inner change-processes varies, these latter become more active, more differentiated, more articulated. ”

“ Such tendencies as these, if allowed to develop slowly and naturally, are certain to evolve new forms—a process of modification which it should be fully as instructive and entertaining to observe as any of the historical changes that have already become incorporated into our present letter shapes. ”

“ If the substance, the subject of extension is simple, the result will be a simple substance determined or modified by extension, a simple extended substance, which is a contradiction. A thing cannot be conceived as a modification of another unless it is modified by it ”

“ But where a special adaptation in some one variety of the same class of constructions is needful to accomplish an object peculiar to a new variety, the necessary amount of power never fails to be exerted. ”

“ And it may well be that there is something to be said in favour of modifying them—in fact it must be so, for all human things need at times to be revised and readapted to special and local conditions. ”

“ No: it is impossible to think of Matter being modified by, for instance, colour- for, of course we must not talk of modification when there is no more than a presence, or at most a presenting of shape. ”

“ I knew that there is a manifest, marked distinction, which ill men with ill designs, or weak men incapable of any design, will constantly be confounding, that is, a marked distinction between change and reformation. ”

“ To insist upon change and the new is to insist upon alteration of the old. In denying that the meaning of any genuine case of deliberation can be exhausted by treating it as a mere case of an established classification the value of classification is not denied. ”

“ And granting this power of selection and modification, is it not possible that the sieve through which we are endeavouring to force ourselves may be ill-shapen, and calculated therefore to occasion needless destruction and deformity? ”

“ And do you think that, if you cannot change the quantities of these simple elements, whose processes are patent to the eye, you can change the qualities of the most complex thing in the whole world, which works behind an impenetrable veil? ”

“ The concepts, formulated by scientific thought, are conditioned by the necessity of an adaptation to the given. Thought—both in its syntheses as well as in its analyses—is a case of biological adaptation. ”

“ I say these things after all with the sense, so founded on past experience, that, in closer quarters and the intimacy of composition, pre-noted arrangements, proportions and relations, do most uncommonly insist on making themselves different by shifts and variations, always improving, which impose themselves as one goes and keep the door open always to something more right and more related. ”

“ But the power of adaptation is mainly dependent on the power of thinking certain new things sufficiently like certain others to which we have been accustomed for us not to be too much incommoded by the change—upon the power, in fact, of mistaking the new for the old. ”

“ We approach the subject of true adaptations, that is, of adapting processes, as soon as any kind of variation in functioning occurs which corresponds to a variation of any factor of the medium in the widest sense. ”

“ For 'adapted' we had better read 'adaptable,' because a variation which does not answer, which cannot be made use of, or, still more notably, is a hindrance or disadvantage, does not become an adapted feature. There is often a confusion between adaptation as an accomplished fact, a feature, [Pg 85] or resultant condition, and adaptation as the mode of fitting the organism to, or making the best of, the prevailing surroundings or circumstances. ”

“ Thus, each life-habit has its advantages and its disadvantages; and we may conclude from this that a change from a long-lived to a short lived form, or the reverse, may take place in consequence of adaptation to changes in outer circumstances. ”

“ Destroy the volitional nature, the definite subjective purposes, preferences, fondnesses for certain effects, forms, orders, and not the slightest motive would remain for the brute order of our experience to be remodelled at all. But, as we have the elaborate volitional constitution we do have, the remodelling must be effected; there is no escape. ”

“ If such modifications of structure produced by modifications of function as we see take place in each individual, are in any measure transmissible to descendants, then all these co-adaptations, from the simplest up to the most complex, are accounted for. ”

“ We have given the history of the different forms which they successively assume, and we have shown, that in all these changes they remain the same, and of the same authority, whether they enter spontaneously and involuntarily into exercise, and apply themselves to particular and determinate objects, or reflection turns them back upon themselves in order to interrogate them in regard to their nature, or abstraction makes them appear under the form in which their universality and their necessity are manifest. ”

“ But adaptation is not undergone for the benefit of the form, but more truly for the informing principle. It is the progression of the life-element which constitutes the adaptation of form to form and to their peculiar environs. The form is a tool or instrument of life which it discards the moment it fails to respond to its requirements. ”

“ If "to substitute" means that philosophy is a complete exchange of the modes of feeling, perception, desire, and will for a world of categories or notions, then, saying nothing of the range of values in such a world, the problem of the meaning 94 of "adequate" is on our hands. What is the notion to be adequate to? But if "to substitute" means that the modes of feeling, perception, desire, and will, when in a specific situation of ambiguity and inhibition, go over into, take on, the modes of data and hypothesis in the effort to get rid of inhibiting conflict that is quite another matter. ”

“ A like transformation occurs, of course, in every subject of study. Just at this point lies the danger, alluded to above, of simply overlaying common meanings with new and isolated meanings instead of effecting a genuine working-over of popular and practical meanings into adequate logical tools. ”

“ The artifice of inversion, by which the established order of words is changed, or of innovation, by which new words or new meanings of words are introduced, is practised, not by those who talk to be understood, but by those who write to be admired.
What is fit for every thing can fit nothing well. ”

“ It is, however, at times subjected to certain conditions, where the principles on which it is based are not sufficiently defined, and, therefore, becomes susceptible to a change, either of form or of nature. ”

“ Now, Induction is mainly a process for finding the causes of effects: and in attempting to fathom the mode of tracing causes and effects in physical science, I soon saw that in the more perfect of the sciences, we ascend, by generalization from particulars, to the tendencies of causes considered singly, and then reason downward from those separate tendencies, to the effect of the same causes when combined. I then asked myself, what is the ultimate analysis of this deductive process; the common theory of the syllogism evidently throwing no light upon it. ”