Herbert Spencer - First principles (1860)

17 Sourced Quotes

View all Herbert Spencer Quotes
As, to the religious, it will seem absurd to set forth any justification for Religion; so, to the scientific, will it seem absurd to defend Science.

Herbert Spencer
The presumption that any current opinion is not wholly false, gains in strength according to the number of its adherents.

Herbert Spencer
Positive knowledge does not, and never can, fill the whole region of possible thought. At the uttermost reach of discovery there arises, and must ever arise, the question - What lies beyond?

Herbert Spencer
Even the absurdest report may in nearly every instance be traced to an actual occurrence; and had there been no such actual occurrence, this preposterous misrepresentation of it would never have existed. Though the distorted or magnified image transmitted to us through the refracting medium of rumour, is utterly unlike the reality; yet in the absence of the reality there would have been no distorted or magnified image.

Herbert Spencer
He who contemplates the Universe from the religious point of view, must learn to see that this which we call Science is one constituent of the great whole; and as such ought to be regarded with a sentiment like that which the remainder excites.

Herbert Spencer
What is Science? To see the absurdity of the prejudice against it, we need only remark that Science is simply a higher development of common knowledge; and that if Science is repudiated, all knowledge must be repudiated along with it.

Herbert Spencer
Evolution is a change from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity, to a definite, coherent heterogeneity; through continuous differentiations and integrations.

Herbert Spencer
Be there be or be there not any other revelation, we have a veritable revelation in Science - a continuous disclosure, through the intelligence with which we are endowed, of the established order of the Universe.

Herbert Spencer
Of all antagonisms of belief, the oldest, the widest, the most profound and the most important, is that between Religion and Science. It commenced when the recognition of the simplest uniformities in surrounding things, set a limit to the once universal superstition.

Herbert Spencer
Evolution is definable as a change from an incoherent homogeneity to a coherent heterogeneity, accompanying the dissipation of motion and integration of matter.

Herbert Spencer
The fact disclosed by a survey of the past that majorities have usually been wrong, must not blind us to the complementary fact that majorities have usually not been entirely wrong.

Herbert Spencer
We have repeatedly observed that while any whole is evolving, there is always going on an evolution of the parts into which it divides itself; but we have not observed that this equally holds of the totality of things, which is made up of parts within parts from the greatest down to the smallest.

Herbert Spencer
We too often forget that not only is there "a soul of goodness in things evil," but very generally also, a soul of truth in things erroneous.

Herbert Spencer
Religion has been compelled by science to give up one after another of its dogmas....

Herbert Spencer
Evolution…is—a change from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity, to a definite coherent heterogeneity.

Herbert Spencer
Each new ontological theory, propounded in lieu of previous ones shown to be untenable, has been followed by a new criticism leading to a new scepticism. All possible conceptions have been one by one tried and found wanting; and so the entire field of speculation has been gradually exhausted without positive result: the only result reached being the negative one above stated, that the reality existing behind all appearances is, and must ever be, unknown.

Herbert Spencer
Volumes might be written upon the impiety of the pious.

Herbert Spencer