Book

First Principles

by Herbert Spencer (1820–1903)

27 chapters, about 138,000 words. The text is in the public domain in the United States and comes from Project Gutenberg.

Chapters

1. Chapter 1 100 words
2. FIRST PRINCIPLES. 600 words
3. VOL. II. 100 words
4. VOL. III. 300 words
5. VOL. II. 700 words
6. CHAPTER I. RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 6,100 words
7. CHAPTER II. ULTIMATE RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 6,300 words
8. CHAPTER III. ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 6,300 words
9. CHAPTER IV. THE RELATIVITY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE. 8,800 words
10. CHAPTER V. THE RECONCILIATION. 7,400 words
11. CHAPTER I. LAWS IN GENERAL. 4,400 words
12. CHAPTER II. THE LAW OF EVOLUTION.[8] 6,700 words
13. CHAPTER III. THE LAW OF EVOLUTION, CONTINUED. 13,400 words
14. CHAPTER IV. THE CAUSES OF EVOLUTION. 1,100 words
15. CHAPTER V. SPACE, TIME, MATTER, MOTION, AND FORCE. 3,300 words
16. CHAPTER VI. THE INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF MATTER. 2,300 words
17. CHAPTER VII. THE CONTINUITY OF MOTION. 1,200 words
18. CHAPTER VIII. THE PERSISTENCE OF FORCE.[12] 1,700 words
19. CHAPTER IX. THE CORRELATION AND EQUIVALENCE OF FORCES. 8,000 words
20. CHAPTER X. THE DIRECTION OF MOTION. 7,600 words
21. CHAPTER XI. THE RHYTHM OF MOTION. 5,800 words
22. CHAPTER XII. THE CONDITIONS ESSENTIAL TO EVOLUTION. 5,900 words
23. CHAPTER XIII. THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS.[16] 8,500 words
24. CHAPTER XIV. THE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS. 7,000 words
25. CHAPTER XV. DIFFERENTIATION AND INTEGRATION. 6,900 words
26. CHAPTER XVI. EQUILIBRATION. 13,500 words
27. CHAPTER XVII. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 4,000 words

Ideas discussed in this book

• Cloud
• Cognition
• Correlation
• Dance
• Electricity
• Embryo
• Evaporation
• Evolution
• Force (law)
• Fragment (logic)
• Government
• Heat
• Li (neo-Confucianism)
• Materialism
• Matter
• Mental state
• Momentum
• Motion
• Neologism
• Philology
• Planet
• Proportionality (mathematics)
• Science
• Species
• Supply and demand

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