OF METHODS OF ACQUIRING CLEAR SCIENTIFIC IDEAS, _continued._--OF THE
DISCUSSION OF IDEAS.
APHORISM XXXIII.
_The conception involved in scientific truths have attained the
requisite degree of clearness by means of the_ Discussions
_respecting ideas which have taken place among discoverers and their
followers. Such discussions are very far from being unprofitable to
science. They are_ metaphysical, _and must be so: the difference
between discoverers and barren reasoners is, that the former employ
good, and the latter bad metaphysics._
1. IT is easily seen that in every part of science, the
establishment of a new set of ideas has been accompanied with much
of doubt and dissent. And by means of discussions so occasioned, the
new conceptions, and the opinions which involve them, have gradually
become definite and clear. The authors and asserters of the new
opinions, in order to make them defensible, have been compelled to
make them consistent: in order to recommend them to others, they
have been obliged to make them more entirely intelligible to
themselves. And thus the Terms which formed the main points of the
controversy, although applied in a loose and vacillating manner at
first, have in the end become perfectly definite and exact. The
opinions discussed have been, in their main features, the same
throughout the debate; but they have at first been dimly, and at
last clearly apprehended: like the objects of a landscape, at which
we look through a telescope ill adjusted, till, by sliding the tube
backwards and {181} forwards, we at last bring it into focus, and
perceive every feature of the prospect sharp and bright.
2. We have in the last Book[21\3] fully exemplified this gradual
progress of conceptions from obscurity to clearness by means of
Discussion. We have seen, too, that this mode of treating the
subject has never been successful, except when it has been
associated with an appeal to facts as well as to reasonings. A
combination of experiment with argument, of observation with
demonstration, has always been found requisite in order that men
should arrive at those distinct conceptions which give them
substantial truths. The arguments used led to the rejection of
undefined, ambiguous, self-contradictory notions; but the reference
to facts led to the selection, or at least to the retention, of the
conceptions which were both true and useful. The two correlative
processes, definition and true assertion, the formation of clear
ideas and the induction of laws, went on together.
[Note 21\3: B. **ii. c. ii. Of the Explication of Conceptions.]
Thus those discussions by which scientific conceptions are rendered
ultimately quite distinct and fixed, include both reasonings from
Principles and illustrations from Facts. At present we turn our
attention more peculiarly to the former part of the process;
according to the distinction already drawn, between the Explication
of Conceptions and the Colligation of Facts. The Discussions of
which we here speak, are the Method (if they may be called a
_method_) by which the Explication of Conceptions is carried to the
requisite point among philosophers.
3. In the _History_ of the Fundamental Ideas of the Sciences which
forms the Prelude to this work, and in the _History of the Inductive
Sciences_, I have, in several instances, traced the steps by which,
historically speaking, these Ideas have obtained their ultimate and
permanent place in the minds of speculative men. I have thus
exemplified the reasonings and controversies which constitute such
Discussion as we now speak of. I have stated, at considerable length,
the {182} various attempts, failures, and advances, by which the
ideas which enter into the science of Mechanics were evolved into
their present evidence. In like manner we have seen the conception
of _refracted rays_ of light, obscure and confused in Seneca,
growing clearer in Roger Bacon, more definite in Descartes,
perfectly distinct in Newton. The _polarity_ of light, at first
contemplated with some perplexity, became very distinct to Malus,
Young, and Fresnel; yet the phenomena of _circular polarization_,
and still more, the _circular polarization of fluids_, leave us,
even at present, some difficulty in fully mastering this conception.
The _related polarities_ of electricity and magnetism are not yet
fully comprehended, even by our greatest philosophers. One of Mr.
Faraday's late papers (the Fourteenth Series of his Researches) is
employed in an experimental discussion of this subject, which leads
to no satisfactory result. The controversy between MM. Biot and
Ampère[22\3], on the nature of the Elementary Forces in
electro-dynamic action, is another evidence that the discussion of
this subject has not yet reached its termination. With regard to
_chemical polarity_, I have already stated that this idea is as yet
very far from being brought to an ultimate condition of
definiteness; and the subject of Chemical Forces, (for that whole
subject must be included in this idea of polarity,) which has
already occasioned much perplexity and controversy, may easily
occasion much more, before it is settled to the satisfaction of the
philosophical world. The ideas of the _classificatory_ sciences also
have of late been undergoing much, and very instructive discussion,
in the controversies respecting the relations and offices of the
natural and artificial methods. And with regard to _physiological_
ideas, it would hardly be too much to say, that the whole history of
physiology up to the present time has consisted of the discussion of
the fundamental ideas of the science, such as Vital Forces,
Nutrition, Reproduction, and the like. We had before us at some
length, in the _History of Scientific Ideas_, a review {183} of the
opposite opinions which have been advanced on this subject; and we
attempted in some degree to estimate the direction in which these
ideas are permanently settling. But without attaching any importance
to this attempt, the account there given may at least serve to show,
how important a share in the past progress of this subject the
_discussion_ of its Fundamental Ideas has hitherto had.
[Note 22\3: _Hist. Ind. Sc._ b. xiii. c. 6.]
4. There is one reflexion which is very pointedly suggested by what
has been said. The manner in which our scientific ideas acquire
their distinct and ultimate form being such as has been
described,--always involving much abstract reasoning and analysis of
our conceptions, often much opposite argumentation and debate;--how
unphilosophical is it to speak of abstraction and analysis, of
dispute and controversy, as frivolous and unprofitable processes, by
which true science can never be benefitted; and how erroneous to put
such employments in antithesis with the study of facts!
Yet some writers are accustomed to talk with contempt of all past
controversies, and to wonder at the blindness of those who did not
_at first_ take the view which was established _at last_. Such
persons forget that it was precisely the controversy, which
established among speculative men that final doctrine which they
themselves have quietly accepted. It is true, they have had no
difficulty in thoroughly adopting the truth; but that has occurred
because all dissentient doctrines have been suppressed and
forgotten; and because systems, and books, and language itself, have
been accommodated peculiarly to the expression of the accepted
truth. To despise those who have, by their mental struggles and
conflicts, brought the subject into a condition in which errour is
almost out of our reach, is to be ungrateful exactly in proportion
to the amount of the benefit received. It is as if a child, when its
teacher had with many trials and much trouble prepared a telescope
so that the vision through it was distinct, should wonder at his
stupidity in pushing the tube of the eye-glass out and in so often.
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5. Again, some persons condemn all that we have here spoken of as
the discussion of ideas, terming it _metaphysical_: and in this
spirit, one writer[23\3] has spoken of the 'metaphysical period' of
each science, as preceding the period of 'positive knowledge.' But
as we have seen, that process which is here termed
'metaphysical,'--the analysis of our conceptions and the exposure of
their inconsistencies,--(accompanied with the study of facts,)--has
always gone on most actively in the most prosperous periods of each
science. There is, in Galileo, Kepler, Gassendi, and the other
fathers of mechanical philosophy, as much of _metaphysics_ as in
their adversaries. The main difference is, that the metaphysics is
of a better kind; it is more conformable to metaphysical truth. And
the same is the case in other sciences. Nor can it be otherwise. For
all truth, before it can be consistent with _facts_, must be
consistent with _itself_: and although this rule is of undeniable
authority, its application is often far from easy. The perplexities
and ambiguities which arise from our having the same idea presented
to us under different aspects, are often difficult to disentangle:
and no common acuteness and steadiness of thought must be expended
on the task. It would be easy to adduce, from the works of all great
discoverers, passages more profoundly metaphysical than any which
are to be found in the pages of barren _à priori_ reasoners.
[Note 23\3: M. Auguste Comte, _Cours de Philosophie Positive_.]
6. As we have said, these metaphysical discussions are not to be put
in opposition to the study of facts; but are to be stimulated,
nourished and directed by a constant recourse to experiment and
observation. The cultivation of ideas is to be conducted as having
for its object the connexion of facts; never to be pursued as a mere
exercise of the subtilty of the mind, striving to build up a world
of its own, and neglecting that which exists about us. For although
man may in this way please himself, and admire the creations of his
own brain, he can never, by this course, hit upon the {185} real
scheme of nature. With his ideas unfolded by education, sharpened by
controversy, rectified by metaphysics, he may _understand_ the
natural world, but he cannot _invent_ it. At every step, he must try
the value of the advances he has made in thought, by applying his
thoughts to things. The Explication of Conceptions must be carried
on with a perpetual reference to the Colligation of Facts.
Having here treated of Education and Discussion as the methods by
which the former of these two processes is to be promoted, we have
now to explain the methods which science employs in order most
successfully to execute the latter. But the Colligation of Facts, as
already stated, may offer to us two steps of a very different
kind,--the laws of Phenomena, and their Causes. We shall first
describe some of the methods employed in obtaining truths of the
former of these two kinds.
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