“Matter and energy have an original property, assuredly not by chance, which organizes the universe in space and time.”— Lawrence Henderson (1913), The Fitness of the Environment [19]
“Goethe, who stands far above any of Kant's successors in wisdom and an almost instinctive recognition of the truth. In judgment he surpassed his scientific contemporaries like Humboldt almost as much as in philosophical intuition he surpassed Schelling.”While admirable, Henderson, amid his history of the development of teleology theory, Aristotle, to Bacon, to Kant, to Leibniz, etc., up into the late 19th century mechanistic philosophy rise, prior to jumping into Gibbs, states the following incorrect discernment:
“On the whole neither Goethe nor Lotze, nor indeed Mill, Spencer, or Comte, seriously modified the development of scientific thought, which now becomes our principal concern.”
Left: Henderson's 1935 isolated five component liquid and gas phase physico-chemical system example model, wherein he shows how equilibrium of the system, according to Le Chatelier's principle (and Gibbs methods), shifts when carbon dioxide CO2 is added, and goes on to assert that these reactive shifting equilibrium models apply universally to the social sciences, namely to connective semi-permeable boundaried (migrative) social systems. [2] Right: a Romany nomadic family immigrating into England, photo from Our waifs and Strays (1902) (Ѻ), who, according to Henderson, are akin to the CO2 molecules, pushed into England from the over pressurized Romania when the concentration increases. Note: similar chemical-to-social equilibrium adjusting examples are found in the works of: Julius Davidson (1916), Frederick Rossini (1971), Christopher Hirata (2000), and Thomas Wallace (2009). |
“This simple example illustrates logical principles that find almost universal application in the physical, biological, and social sciences.”
“Isolation may be regarded as the case where exchanges between the system and the environment have the value zero. If these exchanges have some other known value, the requirements for logical analysis are likewise fulfilled, and the analysis ay not present any serious inconvenience. Thus a metal bar one end of which is being heated at a constant rate, or a country with constant immigration rate, may for certain purposes be treated as a system, without regard to the properties of the source of heat, or of the countries from which the immigrants come.”
“Another characteristic of many ideal systems that is, in general, indispensable in order that conditions shall be determinate is the establishment and use of some definition of equilibrium or some criterion of equilibrium, whether in the case of statical equilibrium or in the case of dynamical equilibrium. This criterion is often of such a character that some function like entropy or energy assumes a maximum or a minimum value or, as in the case of the derivatives or variations of such functions, vanishes. In the case of Pareto’s social system the definition of equilibrium takes a form that closely resembles the theorem of Le Chatelier in physical chemistry, which expresses a property of physico-chemical equilibrium, and which may be deduced from the work of Gibbs.”
“Where did Gibbs state that ‘a society is one such material system’? He didn't - that is your particular (incorrect) reading of the application of thermodynamics.”
“As my familiarity with the work [of Pareto] has increased, I have become convinced that my acquaintance with Pareto’s analysis of facts, with his synthesis of results, with his methods, and with some of his theorems is at present indispensable for the interpretation of a wide range of phenomena, whenever and whatever men act and react upon one another.”
The key players in Henderson's so-called Harvard Pareto circle, a group which held from 1932 to the early 1940s, or till the start of WWI, where after focus switched to Marxism-based sociology. |
“Nature is an order ... which together constitute an unalterable power in its essence, subject in all its acts, and constantly acting on all parts of the universe." . . . "an order ... able to give successively the existence of so many different things." . . "that power which did so much, and yet is constantly confined to only do those.”
“What are the physical and chemical origins of diversity among inorganic and organic things, and how shall the adaptability of matter and energy be described? He may then see his way through all the difficulties which philosophical and biological thought have accumulated around a problem that in the final analysis belongs only to physical science, and at the end he will find a provisional answer to the question.”
A power point synopsis of Henderson's Gibbs-Pareto envisaged chemical economic equilibrium theory, from American electrochemical engineer Libb Thims's UPESW 2013 talk: “Econoengineering and Economic Behavior.” [10] |
See also: Socio-physical chemistryIn a footnote, at the end of his book, in commentary on his view of the physical chemistry origin of Pareto’s sociological theories, in respect to the chemical thermodynamics work of American engineer Willard Gibbs, Henderson concludes:
“It is very unlikely that the general characteristics of Gibbs’ system had anything to do with Pareto’s construction of his social system. In other words it is very probable, I think nearly certain, that Pareto did not keep Gibbs’ work in mind and a fortiori that he did not imitated it, when he worked out his social system; so that Pareto’s system is not the result of the application of the theories of physical chemistry to sociology.”
“Henderson may have given greater impetus to the diffusion of equilibrium concepts among American social scientists than any other single individual.”— Cynthia Russett (1966), The Concept of Equilibrium in American Social Thought (Ѻ)
“Henderson’s role in this transmission of concepts was essentially prismatic. His was a clear instance of what might be called the refractive phase of concept transmission—the point at which several different sources of an idea meet, are synthesized briefly into a new form, and are then scattered over a wider area than before.”— Cynthia Russett (1966), The Concept of Equilibrium in American Social Thought [21]“Gibbs’ work is so foreign to most sociologists that it is doubtful that they would ever have adopted his interest in the equilibrium concept had it not been through Henderson’s teaching.”— Kenneth Bailey (1990), Social Entropy Theory [8]
References
“Pavlov's researches on the glands of digestion, the study of internal secretions and hormones, Sherrington's investigation of the integrative action of the nervous system, Cannon's study of the emotions, and many other independent lines of investigation have cleared the ground, and at the present moment the physico-chemical treatment of the problem of organization is widely if somewhat vaguely recognized as the ultimate goal of physiological research.”— Lawrence Henderson (1917), The Order of Nature (pg. 80)
“Science owes more to the steam engine than the steam engine owes to science.”— Lawrence Henderson (1917), The Order of Nature [9]“No one, not even the vitalist, doubts that the organism is a Gibbs system.”— Lawrence Henderson (1917), The Order of Nature [22]“The theory of the organism is more than a philosophical generalization; it is a part of the working equipment of the physiologist, fulfilling a purpose not unlike that of the second law of thermodynamics.”— Lawrence Henderson (1927), “The Process of Scientific Discovery” [25]“All knowledge can be divided into two classes: subjects that study the interrelations of two or more persons (history, literature, economics, sociology, law, politics, theology, education, etc.) and those that do not (logic, mathematics, physics, biology, and other natural sciences, grammar, harmony, etc.); [the former are slower] in setting in motion activity that becomes the most important and influential in the world.”— Lawrence Henderson (1935), on Machiavelli's studies vs. Galileo's studies [2]“The social system thus defined and characterized is clearly an instrument that may be employed, within limits, similar to those explained [by Gibbs] for the physico-chemical system, in studying all the subjects of the first class (history, literature, economics, sociology, law, politics, theology, education, etc.). For like history, literature, law, and theology, all these subjects are conversant with the interactions of individuals in their manifold relations, with their sentiments and interests, with their sayings and doings, while none can dispense with considerations of the mutual dependence of many factors.”— Lawrence Henderson (1935), Pareto’s General Sociology: a Physiologist’s Interpretation (pg. 18)
“The actions, thoughts, and feelings of individuals depend upon the present condition, the past condition, the rate of change, etc., of society and of its parts. They also depend upon other factors, e.g. age, sex, concentration of alcohol in the blood, body temperature, external temperature, weather, mental complexes, and, notably, conditioning that has been received in early years.”— Lawrence Henderson (1935), “Note 2: Durkheim’s Study of the Sentiments” [2]“When societies are too unstable, individuals suffer.”— Lawrence Henderson (1941), “What is Social Progress?” [26]