In science, Alexander Bain (1818-1903) was a Scottish philosopher noted for his 1870 Logic: Deductive and Inductive, wherein he gives the following material-physical-chemical stylized outline definition of a human: [1]
“The enumeration of the attributes of oxygen, of gold, of man, should be an enumeration of the final (so far as can be made out), the underivable, powers or functions of each”
Bain’s Logic: Deductive and Inductive was based on English philosopher John Mill’s earlier 1843 A System of Logic, but differed from him in many particulars, and was distinctive for its treatment of the doctrine of the conservation of energy in connection with causation and the detailed application of the principles of logic to the various sciences with a section on the classification of the all sciences. Mill, in turn, in his latter editions, would cite Bain’s gold/man comparison definition. [2]
In 1874, Bain wrote an appendix entitled “Correlation of Nervous and Mental Forces” for Scottish physicist Balfour Stewart’s The Conservation of Energy. [3]
References
1. Bain, Alexander. (1870). Logic: Deductive and Inductive (pg. 75). D. Appleton and Co., 1889.
2. (a) Mill, John S. (1843). A System of Logic, Ratiocination and Inductive: Being a Connected View of the Principles of Evidence and the Methods of Scientific Investigation (pg. 110). Harper & Brothers, 1904.
(b) A System of Logic – Wikipedia.
3. Stewart, Balfour. (1874). The Conservation of Energy: with an Appendix, treating of the Vital and Mental Applications of the Doctrine (ch. VI: The Position of Life, pgs. 154-70; Appendix I: Correlation of Vital with Chemical and Physical Forces, by Joseph le Conte, pgs. 171-; Appendix II: Correlation of Nervous and Mental Forces, by Alexander Bain, pgs. 205). Appleton.
External links
● Alexander Bain – Wikipedia.
