COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



verse, but only concerning a portion of it. It 

 is only when the deepest truths respecting phy- 

 sical, chemical, vital, psychical, and social phe- 

 nomena come to be regarded as corollaries of 

 some universal truth — some truth common 

 to all these orders of phenomena — that such a 

 body of doctrine becomes possible. 



Such a body of doctrine is what we call 

 philosophy in distinction from science. While 

 science studies the parts, philosophy studies the 

 whole. While science, in its highest develop- 

 ment, is an aggregate of general doctrines, phi- 

 losophy, in its highest development, must be 

 a Synthesis of all general doctrines into a uni- 

 versal doctrine. When Lagrange, by his mag- 

 nificent application of the principle of virtual 

 velocities to all orders of mechanical phenomena, 

 fused into an organic whole the various branches 

 of mechanics which had hitherto been studied 

 separately, this was a scientific achievement of 

 the highest order. When Grove and Helm- 

 holtz, by showing that the various modes of 

 molar and molecular motion can be transformed 

 into each other, furnished a common basis for 

 the study of heat, light, electricity, and sensible 

 motion, the result, though on the very verge of 

 philosophy, still remained, on the whole, within 

 the limits of science. But when the principle of 

 virtual velocities and the principle of the cor- 

 relation of forces were both shown to be corol- 



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