the conclusion that an evolutionary philosophy of some kind must be
accepted,—including among such philosophies systems like those of
Aristotle and of Hegel. From this point the reasoning was more rapid.
Evolution had been a prominent study for half a generation; and much
light had been thrown upon the conditions for a fruitful evolutionary
philosophy. The first question was, how far shall this evolution go back?
What shall we suppose _not_ to be a product of growth? I fancy it is this
cautious reflectiveness of my procedure which especially displeases Dr.
Carus. It is not positivistic: it is architectonic. But the answer to the
question was not far to seek. If an evolutionary explanation is to be
adopted, philosophy, logic, and the economy of research all dictate that
in the first essay, at least, that style of explanation be carried as far
back as explanation is called for. What elements of the universe require
no explanation? This was a simple question, capable of being decided
by logic with as much facility and certainty as a suitable problem is
solved by differential calculus. Being, and the uniformity in which being
consists, require to be explained. The only thing that does not require
it is non-existent spontaneity. This was soon seen to mean absolute
chance. The conclusion so reached was clinched by a careful reëxamination
of the office of chance in science generally, and especially in the
doctrines of evolution. Arrived at this point, the next question was,
what is the principle by which the development is to proceed? It was a
difficult inquiry, and involved researches from different points of view.
But I will not trouble the reader with further autobiographical details.
I have given enough to show that my method has neither been in theory
purely empirical, nor in practice mere brain-spinning; and that, in
short, my friend Dr. Carus’s account of it has been as incorrect as can
be.
§ 18. The learned doctor (¶¶ 6, 7, 8) pronounces me to be an imitator of
David Hume, or, at least, classes my opinions as closely allied to his.
Yet be it known that never, during the thirty years in which I have been
writing on philosophical questions, have I failed in my allegiance to
realistic opinions and to certain Scotistic ideas; while all that Hume
has to say is said at the instance and in the interest of the extremest
nominalism. Moreover, instead of being a purely negative critic, like
Hume, seeking to annul a fundamental conception generally admitted,
I am a positive critic, pleading for the admission to a place in our
scheme of the universe for an idea generally rejected. In the first
paper of this series, in which I gave a preliminary sketch of such of my
ideas as could be so presented, I carefully recorded my opposition to
all philosophies which deny the reality of the Absolute, and asserted
that “the one intelligible theory of the universe is that of objective
idealism, that matter is effete mind.” This is as much as to say that I
am a Schellingian, of some stripe; so that, on the whole, I do not think
Dr. Carus has made a very happy hit in likening me to Hume, to whose
whole method and style of philosophising I have always been perhaps too
intensely averse. Yet, notwithstanding my present disclaimer, I have
little doubt apriorians will continue to describe me as belonging to the
sceptical school. They have their wonderful ways of arriving at truth,
without stooping to confront their conclusions with facts; and it is
amusing to see how sincerely they are convinced that nobody can have
science at heart, without denying all they uphold.[117]
My opponent has a habit of throwing out surprising opinions without
the least attempt to illuminate them with the effulgence of reason.
Thus he says (¶ 8): “If Kant’s answer to Hume had been satisfactory,
Mr. Peirce would probably not have renewed the attack.” What attack?
All that Hume attacked I defend, namely, law as a reality. How could a
defence of that which I defend as essential to my position, cause me to
surrender that position, namely, that real regularity is imperfect? In
any sense in which Hume could have admitted the possibility of law, it
must be precisely followed; since its existence could consist only in
the conformity of facts unto it. But perhaps Dr. Carus means that if one
question had been completely settled, I should probably have confined
myself to talking about that, instead of broaching a new one.
§ 19. Another misunderstanding of my position on the part of Dr. Carus
(¶¶ 12, 13) is simply due to “boldly” having been twice printed where
the reading should have been “baldly,” in my paper on “The Doctrine of
Necessity.” (_The Monist_, Vol. II, p. 336, lines 20 and 25.) I wish
printers would learn that I never use the word _bold_. I have so little
of the quality, that I don’t know what it means. As I read the “revise,”
as usual, it was presumably my fault that the _erratum_ occurred. At any
rate, had my meaning been clearly expressed, the proof-reader would not
have been misled by my defective chirography. What I was trying to say
was, in substance, this: Absolute chance is a hypothesis; and, like every
hypothesis, can only be defended as explaining certain phenomena.[118]
Yet to suppose that an event is brought about by absolute chance is
utterly illogical, since as a hypothesis it could only be admitted on
the ground of its explaining observed facts; now from mere non-law
nothing necessarily follows, and therefore nothing can be explained; for
to explain a fact is to show that it is a necessary, or, at least, a
probable, result from another fact, known or supposed. Why is not this a
complete refutation of the theory of absolute chance? _Answer_: because
the _existence_ of absolute chance, as well as many of its characters,
are not themselves absolute chances, or sporadic events, unsubject to
general law. On the contrary, these things _are_ general laws. Everybody
is familiar with the fact that chance has laws, and that statistical
results follow therefrom. Very well: I do not propose to explain
anything as due to the action of chance, that is, as being lawless. I
do not countenance the idea that Bible stories, for instance, show that
nature’s laws were violated;—though they may help to show that nature’s
laws are not so mechanical as we are accustomed to think. But I only
propose to explain the regularities of nature as consequences of the only
uniformity, or general fact, there was in the chaos, namely, the general
absence of any, determinate law.[119] In fact, after the first step is
taken, I only use _chance_ to give room for the development of law by
means of the law of habits.
§ 20. In ¶ 28, I read: “Mr. Peirce does not object to necessity in
certain cases; he objects to necessity being a universal feature of
the world.” This is correctly stated, and so it is in ¶ 203. I object
to necessity being universal, as well as to its ever being exact. In
short, I object to absolute universality, absolute exactitude, absolute
necessity, being attributed to any proposition that does not deal with
the Α and the Ω, in the which I do not include any object of ordinary
knowledge. But it is careless to write (¶ 193) that I “describe the
domain of mind as the absence of law.” Is not one of my papers entitled
“The Law of Mind”? It is true that I make the law of mind essentially
different in its mode of action from the law of mechanics, inasmuch as
it requires its own violation; but it is law, not chance uncontrolled.
That it is not “an undetermined and indeterminable sporting” should have
been obvious from my expressly stating that its ultimate result must
be the entire elimination of chance from the universe. That directly
negatives the adjective “indeterminable,” and hence also the adjective
“undetermined.” Still more unwarranted is the statement (¶ 205) that
I deny “that there are samenesses in this world.” If the slightest
excuse for such an accusation can be found in all my writings I shall be
mightily surprised.
§ 21. Dr. Carus fully admits (¶ 9) the justice of my first reply to the
argument that necessity is postulated in all scientific reasoning, which
reply is that to postulate necessity does not make it true. As this
reply, if correct is complete, Dr. Carus was bound after that admission
to drop the postulate-argument in favor of necessity.[120] But he takes
no notice, at all, of my four-page argument to show that scientific
reasoning does _not_ postulate absolute universality, exactitude, or
necessity (_The Monist_, Vol. II, pp. 324-327); but calmly asserts,
four or five times over (¶¶ 5, 11, 16, 62, 79), without one scintilla
of argumentation, that that postulate _is_ made, and uses this as an
argument in favor of necessity.
§ 22. He also fully admits (¶¶ 11, 14, 22) the justice of my argument
that the absoluteness of universality, exactitude, and necessity, cannot
be proved, nor rendered probable, by arguments from observation. That
argument consisted in assuming that all arguments from observation are
probable arguments, and in showing that probable inferences are always
affected with probable errors.
Had I deemed it requisite, I might easily have fortified that argument
by a more profound analysis of scientific reasoning. Such an analysis I
had formerly given in my “Theory of Probable Inference” (in “Studies in
Logic,” Boston: Little and Brown).
But, notwithstanding his admissions, Dr. Carus sets up his _ipse dixit_
against my argumentation. “We deny most positively,” says the editorial
Elohim, “that the calculus of probabilities is applicable to the order of
the world, as to whether it may or may not be universal.” (¶¶ 27, 31.)
To support this, he cites (¶¶ 31-34) four passages from articles written
by me sixteen years ago. I hope my mind has not been stationary during
all these years; yet there is little in those old articles which I now
think positively erroneous, and nothing in the passages cited. My present
views had, at that time, already begun to urge themselves on my mind;
but they were not ripe for public avowal. In the first of the passages
cited, I express the opinion, which I first uttered in my earlier
lectures before the Lowell Institute, in 1866, afterwards in the _Popular
Science Monthly_ in 1877, in still fuller elaboration in my “Theory
of Probable Inference” in 1882, and maintain now as strongly as ever,
that no definite probability can be assigned to any general arrangement
of nature. To speak of an _antecedent_ probability would imply that
there was a statistical science of different universes; and a _deduced_
probability requires an antecedent probability for one of its data.[121]
This consideration only goes to fortify my present position, that we
cannot conclude from observed facts with any degree of probability,
and therefore _a fortiori_ not with certainty, that any proposition is
absolutely universal, exact, or necessary. In the absence of any weight
of probability in favor of any particular exact statement, the formal
presumption is altogether against any one out of innumerable possible
statements of that kind.
The second passage cited is one in which I argue that the universe is
not a chaos, or chance-medley. Now Dr. Carus admits (¶ 28) that I do not
to-day maintain that it is a chance-medley.
The third passage cited is this: “A contradiction is involved in the
very idea of a chance-world.” This is in entire harmony with my present
position that “a chaos ... being without connection or regularity would
properly be without existence.” (“Architecture of Theories,” _The
Monist_, Vol. I, p. 176.)
The fourth passage is to the effect that “the interest which the
uniformities of nature have for an animal measures his place in the scale
of intelligence.” This I still believe.
So much for my supposed contradictions. If I am not mistaken, our
amiable editor, whose admirable editorship springs so largely out of his
amiability, in copying out these passages was really not half so much
intent on showing me to be wrong at present, as on showing me to have
been right formerly. However hard he hits, he contrives to honey his
sockdologers, and sincerely cares more to make the reader admire his
antagonist when he is right than to condemn him when he is wrong. There
is a touch of art in this that proclaims the born editor, and which I can
hardly hope to imitate.
Though Dr. Carus admits over and over again that necessity cannot be
based on observation, he often slips back to the idea that it can be so
based. He says, (¶ 30) that “form is a quality of this world, not of some
samples of it, but throughout, so far as we know of existence in even the
most superficial way.” But does he not see that all we _do_ know, and all
we _shall_ to-morrow, or at any date know, is nothing but a sample of our
possible experience,—nay, is but a sample of what we are in the future
to have already experienced? I have characterised inductive inference as
reasoning from samples; but the most usual way of sampling a class is by
examining _all_ the instances of it that have come under our observation,
or which we can at once collect.
§ 23. Dr. Carus (¶¶ 44, 46) holds that from my social theory of reality,
namely, that the real is the idea in which the community ultimately
settles down, the existence of something inevitable is to be inferred.
I confess I never anticipated that anybody would urge that. I thought
just the reverse might be objected, namely, that all absoluteness was
removed from reality by that theory, and it was many years ago that, in
my “Theory of Probable Inference,” I admitted the obvious justice, as
it seemed to me, of that objection. We cannot be quite sure that the
community ever will settle down to an unalterable conclusion upon any
given question. Even if they do so for the most part, we have no reason
to think the unanimity will be quite complete, nor can we rationally
presume any overwhelming _consensus_ of opinion will be reached upon
every question. All that we are entitled to assume is in the form of a
_hope_ that such conclusion may be substantially reached concerning the
particular questions with which our inquiries are busied.
Such, at least, are the results to which the consideration of the
doctrine of probability brings my mind irresistibly. So that, the social
theory of reality, far from being incompatible with tychism, inevitably
leads up to that form of philosophy. Socialistic, or as I prefer to term
it, agapastic ontology seems to me likely to find favor with many minds
at an early day, because it is a natural path by which the nominalist may
be led into the realistic ways of thought, ways toward which many facts
and inward forces impel him. It is well, therefore, to call attention
to the circumstances that the realism to which it leads is a doctrine
which declares general truths to be real,—independent of the opinions
of any particular collection of minds,—but not to be destined, in a
strictly universal, exact, and sure acceptation, to be so settled, and
established. Now to assert that general truths are objectively real,
but to deny that they are strictly universal, exact, and certain, is to
embrace the doctrine of absolute chance. Thus it is that the agapastic
ontologist who endeavors to escape tychism will find himself “led into”
that “inextricable confusion” which Dr. Carus (¶ 4) has taken a contract
to show that I am led into.
§ 24. Conservatism is wholesome and necessary; the most convinced radical
must admit the wisdom of it, in the abstract; and a conservative will
be in no haste to espouse the doctrine of absolute chance. I, myself,
pondered over it for long years before doing so. But I am persuaded, at
length, that mankind will before very long take up with it; and I do not
believe philosophers will be found tagging on to the tail of the general
procession.
My little dialogue between the tychist and the necessitarian (_The
Monist_, Vol. II, pp. 331-333) seems to have represented pretty fairly
the views of the latter; for Dr. Carus, in ¶¶ 151-155, does little more
than reiterate them, without much, if at all, reinforcing them. His ¶¶
158-160 merely work out, in a form perhaps not quite clear, what is
manifest from the elementary principles of dynamics, and was considered
in my dialogue.
His arguments in this connection, apart from those already noticed, are
that absolute chance is something which if it existed would require
explanation, that the manifold specificalness of nature is explained by
law without any aid from chance, and that absolute chance if it existed,
in the sense in which it is supposed to exist in my chaos, could not
possibly breed law as supposed by me. To the consideration of these
arguments I proceed to apply myself.
§ 25. One of the architectonic—and, therefore, I suppose, by Dr.
Carus considered as highly reprehensible—features of my theory, is
that, instead of saying off-hand what elements strike me as requiring
explanation and what as not doing so, which seems to be his way, I
have devoted a long time to the study of the whole logical doctrine of
explanation, and of the history of explanations, and have based upon the
general principles so ascertained my conclusions as to what things do and
what do not require to be explained.
Dr. Carus (¶ 67) defines _explanation_ as a description of a special
process of nature in such a way that the process is recognised as a
transformation. This I cannot quite grant. First, I cannot admit that
“special processes of nature” are the only things to be explained.
For instance, if I were to meet a gentleman who seemed to conform
scrupulously to all the usages of good society, except that he wore to
an evening party an emerald satin vest, that would be a fact calling for
explanation, although it would not be a “special process of nature.”
Second, I cannot admit that an explanation is a description of the fact
explained. It is true that in the setting forth of some explanations,
it is convenient to restate the fact explained, so as to set it under
another aspect; but even in these cases, the statement of _other_ facts
is essential. In all cases, it is _other facts_, usually hypothetical,
which constitute the explanation; and the process of explaining is a
process by which from those other facts the fact to be explained is
shown to follow as a consequence, by virtue of a general principle, or
otherwise. Thus, a “special process of nature” calling for explanation
is the circumstance that the planet Mars, while moving in a general way
from west to east among the fixed stars, yet retrogrades a part of the
time, so as to describe loops in the heavens. The explanation is that
Mars revolves in one approximate circle and we in another. Again, it has
been stated that a warm spring in Europe is usually followed by a cool
autumn, and the explanation has been offered that so many more icebergs
than usual are liberated during a warm spring, that they subsequently
lower sensibly the temperature of Europe. I care little whether the
fact and the explanation are correct or no. The case illustrates, at
any rate, my point that an explanation is a special fact, supposed or
known, from which the fact to be explained follows as a consequence.
Third, I cannot admit that every description which recognises the fact
described as a transformation is an explanation; far less that “it is
complete and exhaustive” (¶ 67). A magician transforms a watch into a
dove. Recognise it as a transformation and the trick is explained, is
it? This is delightfully facile. Describe the change from a caterpillar
to a butterfly as a transformation, and does that explain it? Fourth, I
cannot admit that every explanation recognises the fact explained as a
transformation. The explanation of the loops in the motion of Mars is not
of that nature. But I willingly recognise in Dr. Carus’s definition an
attempt,—more or less successful,—to formulate one of the great offices
of scientific inquiry, that of bridging over the gap between the familiar
and the unfamiliar.
_Explanation_, however, properly speaking, is the replacement of a
complex predicate, or one which seems improbable or extraordinary, by
a simple predicate from which the complex predicate follows on known
principles. In like manner, a _reason_, in one sense, is the replacement
of a multiple subject of an observational proposition by a general
subject, which by the very conditions of the special experience is
predicable of the multiple subject.[122] Such a reason may be called an
explanation in a loose sense.
Accordingly, that which alone requires an explanation is a coincidence.
Hence, I say that a uniformity, or law, is _par excellence_, the thing
that requires explanation. And Dr. Carus (¶ 51) admits that this “is
perfectly true.”
But I cannot imagine anything further from the truth than his statement
(¶ 66) that “the only thing in the world of which we cannot and need not
give account is the existence of facts itself.” I should say, on the
contrary, that the existence of facts is the only thing of which we need
give account. Forms may indulge in whatever eccentricities they please in
the world of dreams, without responsibility; but when they attempt that
kind of thing in the world of real existence, they must expect to have
their conduct inquired into. But should Dr. Carus reply that I mistake
his meaning, that it is only “being in general” (¶ 66) that he holds
unaccountable, I reply that this is simply expressing scepticism as to
the possibility and need of philosophy. In a certain sense, my theory of
reality, namely that reality is the dynamical reaction of certain forms
upon the mind of the community, is a proposed explanation of being in
general; and be it remarked that the mind of the community, itself, is
the thing the nature of whose being this explanation first of all puts
upon an idealistic footing.
Chance, according to me, or irregularity,—that is, the absence of any
coincidence,—calls for no explanation. If _law_ calls for a particular
explanation, as Dr. Carus admits it does, surely the mere absence of law
calls for no further explanation than is afforded by the mere absence of
any particular circumstance necessitating the result. An explanation is
the conception of a fact as a necessary result, thereby accounting for
the coincidence it presents. It would be highly absurd to say that the
absence of any definite character, must be accounted for, as if it were a
peculiar phenomenon, simply because the imperfection of language leads us
so to talk of it. Quite unfounded, therefore, is Dr. Carus’s opinion that
“chance needs exactly as much explanation as anything else” (¶ 53);—an
opinion which, so far as I can see, rests on no defensible principle.
Equally hasty is his oft repeated objection (¶ 55, 58, 61) that my
absolute chance is something ultimate and inexplicable. I go back to
a chaos so irregular that in strictness the word existence is not
applicable to its merely germinal state of being; and here I reach a
region in which the objection to ultimate causes loses its force. But
I do not stop there. Even this nothingness, though it antecedes the
infinitely distant absolute beginning of time, is traced back to a
nothingness more rudimentary still, in which there is no variety, but
only an indefinite specificability, which is nothing but a tendency to
the diversification of the nothing, while leaving it as nothing as it
was before. What objectionable ultimacy is here? The objection to an
ultimate consists in its raising a barrier across the path of inquiry,
in its specifying a phenomenon at which questions must stop, contrary
to the postulate, or hope, of logic. But what question to which any
meaning can be attached am I forbidding by my absolute chance? If
what is demanded is a theological backing, or rational antecedent,
to the chaos, that my theory fully supplies. The chaos is a state of
intensest feeling, although, memory and habit being totally absent,
it is sheer nothing still. Feeling has existence only so far as it is
welded into feeling. Now the welding of this feeling to the great whole
of feeling is accomplished only by the reflection of a later date. In
itself, therefore, it is nothing; but in its relation to the end, it is
everything.