The Science of Universology/Article II
From Libertarian Labyrinth
The Science of Universology
II.
I took pains in a preliminary article (Index, Oct. 26;) to show that sciento-philosophy is neither Metaphysics properly so called, or as heretofore understood, nor Physics in that broadest sense in which it contrasts with Metaphysics,—what Elsberg calls Physology; but that it concerns specially that intermediate region in which the domain of matter is coterminous with the domain of mind, and where, as it will appear, the laws of matter and the laws of mind are translatable into each other, by means of this betweenity: if, indeed, they be not rather identified as one and the same. More strictly speaking, it is analogic as a direct derivation from mathematics, which, as before shown, is the centring domain of universology. Analogie is so to say, the metaphysies of physies symbolized inmathematies, and its particulars consist of laws and principles, recurring like an echo in every domain.
All laws and principles whatsoerer are derived from, and relate themselves back to, the primal discriminations or first elements of the mathematics, and all classification is derived from those laws and principles.
This identity of the laws and principles of all domains institutes recurring samenesses of distribution everywhere, no matter how diverse the nature of the substances, or things, or domains so distributed—an infinite variety in unity,—all traceable back to definite underlying mathematical origins. To make this matter simple, let me say, referring to the previous article, that, if the total universe is constructed upon the plan there exhibited of having a Without. a Within, and a Between, so each of these universicula, or sub-universes, is in turn constituted upon the same plan and has its Without, Within, and Between, down to the least possible instance of universological subdivision. Two observations are here called for; first, that the universe, or sub-universe, not merely is so constituted, as if by the fiat of a god, but that it must be so constituted by an inherent necessity; it being inconceivable that it, or anything, should be constituted in any other way since everything, to be anything must have its Without, its Within, and its Between and secondly, that from this mode of the constitution of universal things it results that there not merely is but that there must be Universal Analogy, from a repetition of the same mode of distribution within the whole; and within each part and part-icular, or little part, down to the least Part, within the totality of things. It is this which Swedenborg means when he says that "all things are contained in the least thing"—not all things, strictly, but all laws and principles. In other words, the constitution of a pea embodies all the principles which are embodied in the constitution of the universe. While this statement may not be apprehended or acceded to at once by the reader, in its total largeness, he will at least admit that Outerness, Innerness, and Betweenity of those two are conditions which necessarily effect equally the smallest and the largest things; and that it is, therefore, at least conceivable that whole, part, and least part should be subject, in some sense, to one and the same law of distribution, and also he may be able to perceive that, if such analogy exists, it must be possible by means of it to reason from the minor to the major, reversing the syllogistic which reasons only from major to minor.
Analogic is the science of this identity of law in diversity of spheres. It goes back, for its origin, at least in the direction of largeness, to the primal distribution of the universe into matter, mind, and their intermediation; and of this intermediation into catalogic, (logic, grammar, etc.), mathematics, and analogic, as shown in the preceding article—back therefore to mathematics as the middle of the betweenity of universal things
Each whole and each part being thus distributed in a like manner, the sameness of distribution between any two parts, or between any parts and the whole, is called analogy. And as everything is characterized by it, this analogy or sameness of law is called Universal Analogy, and the particular parts or members of any two such domaing which answer to each other, or fill the similar place, are called analogues of each other. The right understanding of the meaning of these two terms, analogy and analogue, is the key to the science of analogic.
The members in the distribution of any domain whatsoever may be taken as the pattern, and the corresponding members of the other domains be referred to them as analogues; but the mathematical domain is the most simple, determinate and certain, and within it the geometrical or morphological, which furnishes diagrams or pictures to aid the imagination; whence the fact arises that the mathematical analogies serve best for the secure basis of the new science. It is for this reason that in the previous article I promised to give some idea, specifically, in this, of the nature of this mathematical basis of scientific analogy.
We will dismiss for the moment our former beginning point, in the difference between the Without, the Within, and the Between, returning to it after a little, and take now another beginning point in the difference, in a sense even more primitive than the other (logically speaking), between nothing and something, or what Kant calls negation and reality. Named in this manner, they are metaphysical terms, and neither Kant nor any of his commentators, not even Hegel, who has begun his philosophy at this point, has related them to anything mathematical or realistic.
It will not be difficult to perceive, however, the moment it is mentioned that the zero of mathematics is the mathematical nothing or negation, or the negative factor department, or member of the mathematical domain, and that one—repeated it may be as many ones or units—is the mathematical something or reality, or the affirmative factor, department, or member of the general field of mathematics, or of number. And so soon as this objective and obvious alliance is formed between the speculative thought of the great metaphysician and this most common and quasi-objective sphere, the arithmetical sphere, what was before half mystical, and at all events obscure, becomes patent and comprehensible for every grade of intellect.
We have now established analogy between a metaphysical discrimination (negation and reality) and a mathematical discrimination (zero and affirmative numeration),—the metaphysical discrimination being universal, or belonging to no particular sphere (philosophoid), and the mathematical discrimination being special, or belonging to the particular domain of number (scientoid), the metaphysical discrimination being, on account of its broad generality, vague, indeterminate, unsatisfactory; and the mathematical discrimination being, by virtue of its specialty definite, determinate, and satisfactory. It is this kind of terminal conversion into opposites, or beginning at the other end for the sake of clearness and certainty, this commencement in the analytical details of something which is manageable and familiar instead of the far-off and universal,—this adoption of the scientific in place of the speculative method, which converts philosophy into sciento-philosophy proper, and founds the science of universology by means of analogic.
Those two great universal principles, permeating all spheres, called negative and positive, take their origin from and revert for elucidation to the commencement of count in the difference between zero and one, and might have been called zero-ish and unit-ish; and all other universal principles whatsoever, I again emphatically aver, take their origin from the simplest of mathematical discriminations.
Kant calls that aspect of universal being which so divides into negative and positive the domain of quality. He then proceeds to the proper domain of quantity, and divides it into one, many, and all. How many persons have ever recognized in these formidable metaphysical aspections our simple and familiar grammatical distribution of nouns into singular, plural, and collective, or the still more familiar mathematical idea of single, manifold, and compound, as in the one, the manyness, and the sum composed of the one and the many, on the school-boy's slate? But of what practical use is a universal which has no particulars, a broad speculative discrimination which is never brought down into special applications? Who has distinctly perceived that the integration and differentiation of Spencer are no other than the one and many of Kant, in a more specialized form? Here again we are establishing analogies between different spheres and are recurring, for that purpose, to a simple and primary mathematical distribution. This line of thought is do new and for some so difficult, merely from its newness, that it is better to risk being obscure from brevity than cumbersome from prolixity. Hence I shall make my occasional articles on the subject purposely short.
