Preliminary statement : a synthesis of modern science / by Marshall Bruce Williams.

  • Bruce-Williams, Marshall.
Date:
[1905]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Preliminary statement : a synthesis of modern science / by Marshall Bruce Williams. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    38/76 (page 38)
    Taking a liiindred as the expression of the full ])ower of any function, faculty, or organ, or of the ideal in any practice or j)nrsnit of men in society, T mark it off' roughly into the Natnral AristO('r((cp, or those who may he called the ten per cent. Fit, the ^0 ]>er cent, average, and the ten prr cent. Unfit. 'fhe idea of the decimal system is a very old one, and it is prohahle that we owe its origin to the savage counting on his ten lingers. The golden mean ot‘ Aristotle, and similar writers, is only a I'ecommendation to men to keep away from the extreme ends of this practical duality of life, to preserve the balance and proportion of the [)rinciples that in every department of life control onr activities. Prince Kropotkin’s treatment of the principle of co-o])eration in nature and history is the scientific contribution of one side of this dunlitif placed over against the principle of unrestricted conipetition, which we were persuaded at one time to think v'as the (mlp principle at work in nature. The boundaries of these extremes have been removed in certain fields to an immense distance, as compared with those onr ancestors perceived, through sense and faculty alone The instruments and methods of science have extended, that is. the field whei’ein these o])})osing but reconcilable ])rinciples are at work.