First Principles · Herbert Spencer
CHAPTER I. LAWS IN GENERAL.
Thus far we have spoken of laws that are more or less special; and from the still-continuing disclosure of special laws, each formulating some new class of phenomena, have inferred that eventually all classes of phenomena will be formulated. If, now, we find that there are laws of far higher generality, to which those constituting the body of Science are subordinate; the fact must greatly strengthen the proof that Law is universal. If, underneath different groups of concrete phenomena, Mechanical, Chemical, Thermal, Electric, &c., we discern certain uniformities of action common to them all; we have a new and weighty reason for believing that uniformity of action pervades the whole of nature. And if we also see that these most general laws hold not only of the inorganic but of the organic worlds—if we see that the phenomena of Life, of Mind, of Society, whose special laws are yet unestablished, nevertheless conform to these most general laws; the proof of the universality of Law amounts to demonstration. That there are laws of this transcendant generality, has now to be shown. To specify and illustrate them, will be the purpose of the succeeding chapters. And while, in contemplating them, we shall perceive how irresistible is the conclusion that the workings of the Unknowable are distinguished from those of finite agents by their absolute uniformity; we shall at the same time familiarize ourselves with those primary facts through which all other facts are to be interpreted.
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