Johnston Estep Walter
Published: 2013-09
Total Pages: 132
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1879 edition. Excerpt: ... IV. MR. HERBERT SPENCER'S THEORY OF THE NATURE AND PERCEPTION OF SPACE. The theory of Space-perception advocated by Mr. Herbert Spencer is the same, in its fundamental principles, as that of Prof. Bain. There exist, however, with this fundamental agreement, some important differences between the views of these two philosophers regarding both the cognition of space and the nature of space, the chief of which we shall first briefly consider. The first leading difference pertains to the nature of space. Prof. Bain, as we have seen, is an absolute idealist. Space, in his view, is a compound of muscular and tactual sensations (the muscular being by far the principal element), and has no existence separate from, and independent of, these sensations. Mr. Spencer, on the other hand, holds to a form of realism, which he names "transfigured realism." According to this, space is an entity external to, and independent of, the mind. Our knowledge of space, however, is only relative. As cognized by us, space is a "relative reality," having no resemblance to absolute space or to space as it exists in itself. The chief problem with Mr. Spencer, therefore, is not, so much as with Prof. Bain, to show how we construct space, but to show how we cognize it considered as an objective entity or a mode of objective existence. The second chief difference has reference to the mode or means of cognizing space. Prof. Bain holds that the experience of the individual, from birth to maturity, is sufficient to account for all the knowledge of space acquired by any one. Mr. Spencer, on the contrary, contends that this is not sufficient, and that our knowledge of space is the result of both our own experience and the experience of our ancestry organized and transmitted...