The Philosophy of Evolution

"The Philosophy of Evolution Together With a Preliminary Essay on The Metaphysical Basis of Science" are scientific papers read before The Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Art and Letters by Stephen Haskins Carpenter. In this work, Stephen Haskins notes that «all knowledge is essentially one. The object-matter upon which intellect exerts itself does not affect the subjective act of knowing. Physics, when stripped of that which is merely contingent, becomes metaphysics. Physical science deals with object-matter, and discusses the signs by which nature communicates her message—that is, phenomena. Metaphysical science has to do with the subject-mind, and discusses the meaning of the message. One converts God's hieroglyphics into easily-intelligible language; the other translates this language into Ideas. If this is true, there must be a unity of method in all science, however great the diversity of the object-matter investigated. This method is subjectively determined, that is, by the constitution of the mind, and not by the particular form of matter upon which intellectual energy may be exerted. If there is an essential unity in all knowledge, it is because there is a corresponding unity of method in all mental activity.»