Note 11-1 — Chapter I · THE BEARING OF THE LAWS OF MIND ON RELIGION.
Reading edition
The extension of the mechanical laws of motion to organic motion was, I believe, first carried out by Comte. His biological form of the first law is as follows: “Tout état, statique ou dynamique, tend à persister spontanément, sans aucune altération, en resistant aux perturbations extérieures.” Système de Politique Positive, Tome iv. p. 178. The metaphysical ground of this law has, I think, been very well shown by Schopenhauer to be in the Kantian principle that time is not a force, nor a quality of matter, but a condition of perception, and hence it can exert no physical influence. See Schopenhauer, Parerga und Paralipomena, Bd. II, s. 37.