specificalness, which is what I mean by chance, is capable of explanation
(¶¶ 142, 143) by his own philosophic method. He may explain one
particularity by another, of course; but to explain specificalness
itself, would be to show that a specific predicate is a necessary
consequence of a generic one, or that a whole is without ambiguity a
part of its part. Remark, reader, at this point, that chance, whether
it be absolute or not, is not the mere creature of our ignorance. It
is that diversity and variety of things and events which law does not
prevent. Such is that real chance upon which the kinetical theory of
gases, and the doctrines of political economy, depend. To say that it is
not absolute is to say that it,—this diversity, this specificalness,—can
be explained as a consequence of law. But this, as we have seen, is
logically absurd.
Dr. Carus admits that absolute chance is “not unimaginable” (¶ 150).
Chance itself pours in at every avenue of sense: it is of all, things
the most obtrusive. That it is absolute, is the most manifest of all
intellectual perceptions. That it is a being, living and conscious, is
what all the dullness that belongs to ratiocination’s self can scarce
muster hardihood to deny.
Almost as unthinking is the objection (¶ 61) that absolute chance could
never beget order. I have noticed elsewhere the historic oblivescence
of this objection. Must I once again repeat that the tendency to take
habits, being itself a habit, has _eo ipso_ a tendency to grow; so that
only a slightest germ is needed? A realist, such as I am, can find
no difficulty in the production of that first infinitesimal germ of
habit-taking by chance, provided he thinks chance could act at all. This
seems, at first blush, to be explaining something as a chance-result. But
exact analysis will show it is not so.
In like manner, when the eminent thinker who does me the honor to notice
my speculation, objects that I do not, after all, escape making law
absolute, since the tendency to take habits which I propose to make
universal is itself a law, I confess I can find only words without ideas
in the objection. Law is a word found convenient, I grant, in describing
that tendency; but is there no difference between a law the essence
of which is to be inviolable (which is the nominalistic conception of
mechanical law, whose being, they say, lies in its action) and that
mental law the violation of which is so included in its essence that
unless it were violated it would cease to exist? In my essay, “The Law
of Mind,” I have so described that law. In so describing it, I make it a
law, but not an absolute law; and thus I clearly escape the contradiction
attributed to me.
§ 26. In my attack on “The Doctrine of Necessity,” I offered four
positive arguments for believing in real chance. They were as follows:
1. The general prevalence of growth, which seems to be opposed to the
conservation of energy.
2. The variety of the universe, which is chance, and is manifestly
inexplicable.
3. Law, which requires to be explained, and like everything which is to
be explained must be explained by something else, that is, by non-law or
real chance.
4. Feeling, for which room cannot be found if the conservation of energy
is maintained.
In a brief conversation I had with him, my friend remarked (and it was an
inconsiderate concession, I certainly do not wish to hold him to it) that
while the theory of tychism had some attractive features, its weakness
consisted in the absence of any positive reasons in its favor. I infer
from this that I did not properly state the above four arguments. I
therefore desire once more to call attention to them, especially in their
relations to one another.
Mathematicians are familiar with the theorem that if a system of
particles is subject only to positional forces, it is such that if at any
instant the velocities were all suddenly reversed, without being altered
in quantity, the whole previous history of the system would be repeated
in inverse succession. Hence, when physicists find themselves confronted
with a phenomenon which takes place only in one order of succession
and never in the reverse order,—of which no better illustration could
be found than the phenomena of growth, for nobody ever heard of an
animal growing back into an egg,—they always take refuge in the laws of
probability as preventive of the velocities ever getting so reversed.
To understand my argument number 1, it is necessary to make this method
of escape from apparent violations of the law of energy quite familiar
to oneself. For example, according to the law of energy, it seems to
follow (and by the aid of the accepted theory of light it does follow)
that if a prism, or a grating, disperses white light into a spectrum,
then the colors of the spectrum falling upon the prism or grating
at the same angles, and in the same proportions, will be recombined
into white light; and, everybody knows that this does in fact happen.
Nevertheless, the usual and prevalent effect of prisms and gratings is to
produce colored spectra. Why? Evidently, because, by the principles of
probability, it will rarely happen that colored lights converging from
different directions will fall at just the right angles and in just the
right proportions to be recombined into white light. So, when physicists
meet with the phenomena of frictional and viscous resistance to a body
in motion, although, according to their doctrine, if the molecules were
to move with the same velocities in opposite directions the moving body
would be accelerated, yet they say that the laws of probability, applied
to the trillions of molecules concerned, render this practically certain
not to occur. I do no more, then, than follow the usual method of the
physicists, in calling in chance to explain the apparent violation of
the law of energy which is presented by the phenomena of growth: only
instead of chance as they understand it, I call in absolute chance. For
many months, I endeavored to satisfy the data of the case with ordinary
_quasi_ chance; but it would not do. I believe that in a broad view of
the universe, a simulation of a given elementary mode of action can
hardly be explained except by supposing the genuine mode of action
somewhere has place. If it is improbable that colored lights should
fall together in just such a way as to give a white ray, is it not an
equally extraordinary thing that they should all be generated in such
a way as to produce a white ray? If it is incredible that trillions of
molecules in a fluid should strike a solid body moving through it so as
to accelerate it, is it not marvellous that trillions of trillions of
molecules all alike should ever have got so segregated as to create a
state of things in which they should be practically certain to retard
the body? It is far from easy to understand how mere positional forces
could ever have brought about those vast congregations of similar atoms
which we suppose to exist in every mass of gas, and by which we account
for the apparent violations of the law of energy in the phenomena of the
viscosity of the gas. There is no difficulty in seeing how sulphuric acid
acting on marble may produce an aggregation of molecules of carbonic
anhydride, because there are similar aggregations in the acid and in
the marble, but how were such aggregations brought about in the first
place? I will not go so far as to say that such a result is manifestly
impossible with positional forces alone; but I do say that we cannot
help suspecting that the simulated violation of the law of energy has a
real violation of the same law as its ultimate explanation. Now, growth
_appears_ to violate the law of energy. To explain it, we must, at least,
suppose a simulated, or _quasi_, chance, such as Darwin calls in to
produce his fortuitous variations from strict heredity. It may be there
is no real violation of the law, and no real chance; but even if there
be nothing of the sort in the immediate phenomenon, can the conditions
upon which the phenomenon depends have been brought about except by real
chance? It is conceivable, again, that the law of the conservation of
forces is not strictly accurate, and that, nevertheless, there is no
absolute chance. But I think so much has been done to put the law of the
conservation of forces upon the level of the other mechanical laws, that
when one is led to entertain a serious doubt of the exactitude of that,
one will be inclined to question the others.
Besides, few psychologists will deny the very intimate connection which
seems to subsist between the law, or _quasi_-law, of growth and the
law of habit, which is the principal, if not (as I hold it to be) the
sole, law of mental action. Now, this law of habit seems to be quite
radically different in its general form from mechanical law, inasmuch as
it would at once cease to operate if it were rigidly obeyed; since in
that case all habits would at once become so fixed as to give room for no
further formation of habits. In this point of view, then, growth seems to
indicate a positive violation of law.
Let us now consider argument number 3: and remark how it fortifies number
1. Physical laws that appear to be radically different yet present some
striking analogies. Electrical force appears to be polar. Its polarity is
explained away by Franklin’s one-fluid theory, but in that view the force
is a repulsion. Now, gravitation is an attraction, and is, therefore,
essentially different from electricity. Yet both vary inversely as the
square of this distance. Radiation, likewise follows the same formula.
In this last case, the formula, in one aspect of it, follows from the
conservation of energy. In another aspect of it, it results from the
principle of probability, and does not hold good, in a certain sense,
when the light is concentrated by a lens free from spherical aberration.
But neither the conservation of energy nor the principle of probability
seems to afford any possible explanation of the application of this
theory to gravitation nor to electricity. How, then, are such analogies
to be explained? The law of the conservation of energy and that of the
perduration of matter present so striking an analogy that it has blinded
some powerful intellects to their radically different nature. The law
of action and reaction, again, has often been stated as the law of the
conservation of momentum. Yet it is not only an independent law, but is
even of a contrary nature, inasmuch as it is only the algebraical sum of
opposite momenta that is “conserved.”[123] How is this striking analogy
between three fundamental laws to be explained? Consider the still more
obvious analogy between space and time. Newton argues that the laws of
mechanics prove space and time to be absolute entities. Leibniz, on
the other hand, takes them as laws of nature. Either view calls for an
explanation of the analogy between them, which no such reflection as
the impossibility of motion without that analogy can supply. Kant’s
theory seems to hint at the possibility of an explanation from both
being derived from the nature of the same mind. Any three orthogonal
directions[124] in space are exactly alike, yet are dynamically
independent.
These things call for explanation; yet no explanation of them can be
given, if the laws are fundamentally original and absolute.
Moreover, law itself calls for explanation. But how is it to be explained
if it is as fundamentally original and absolute as it is commonly
supposed to be? Yet if it is not so absolute, there is such a phenomenon
as absolute chance.
Thus, the chance which growth calls for is now seen to be absolute, not
_quasi_ chance.
Now consider argument number 2. The variety of the universe so far as
it consists of unlikenesses between things calls for no explanation.
But so far as it is a general character, it ought to be explained. The
manifold diversity or specificalness, in general, which we see whenever
and wherever we open our eyes, constitutes its liveliness, or vivacity.
The perception of it is a direct, though darkling, perception of God.
Further explanation in that direction is uncalled for. But the question
is, whether this manifold specificalness was put into the universe at the
outset, whether God created the universe in the infinitely distant past
and has left it to its own machinery ever since, or whether there is an
incessant influx of specificalness. Some of us are evolutionists; that
is, we are so impressed with the pervasiveness of growth, whose course
seems only here and there to be interrupted, that it seems to us that
the universe as a whole, so far as anything can possibly be conceived or
logically opined of the whole, should be conceived as growing. But others
say, though parts of the universe simulate growth at intervals, yet there
really is no growth on the whole,—no passage from a simpler to a more
complex state of things, no increasing diversity.
Now, my argument is that, according to the principles of logic, we
never have a right to conclude that anything is absolutely inexplicable
or unaccountable. For such a conclusion goes beyond what can be
directly observed, and we have no right to conclude what goes beyond
what we observe, except so far as it explains or accounts for what we
observe. But it is no explanation or account of a fact to pronounce it
inexplicable or unaccountable, or to pronounce any other fact so. Now,
to say no process of diversification takes place in nature leaves the
infinite diversity of nature unaccounted for; while to say the diversity
is the result of a general tendency to diversification is a perfectly
logical probable inference. Suppose there be a general tendency to
diversification; what would be the consequence? Evidently, a high degree
of diversity. But this is just what we find in nature. It does not answer
the purpose to say there is diversity because God made it so, for we
cannot tell what God would do, nor penetrate his counsels. We see what
He _does_ do, and nothing more. For the same reason one cannot logically
infer the existence of God; one can only know Him by direct perception.
It is to be noted that a general tendency to diversification does not
explain diversity in its specific characters; nor is this called for.
Neither can such a tendency explain any specific fact. Any attempt to
make use of the principle in that manner would be utterly illogical. But
it can be used to explain universal facts, just as quasi-chance is used
to explain statistical facts. Now, the diversity of nature is a universal
fact.
To explain diversity is to go behind the chaos, to the original
undiversified nothing. Diversificacity was the first germ.
Argument No. 4 was, upon its negative side, sufficiently well presented
in my “Doctrine of Necessity Examined.” Mechanical causation, if
absolute, leaves nothing for consciousness to do in the world of matter;
and if the world of mind is merely a transcript of that of matter, there
is nothing for consciousness to do even in the mental realm. The account
of matters would be better, if it could be left out of account. But the
positive part of the argument, showing what can be done to reinstate
consciousness as a factor of the universe when once tychism is admitted,
is reinforced in the later papers. This ought to commend itself to Dr.
Carus, who shows himself fully alive to the importance of that part of
the task of science which consists in bridging gaps. But consciousness,
for the reason just stated, is not to be so reinstated without tychism;
nor can the work be accomplished by assigning to the mind an occult
power, as in two theories to be considered in the section following
this. As might be anticipated, (and a presumption of this kind is rarely
falsified in metaphysics,) to bridge the gap synechism is required.
Supposing matter to be but mind under the slavery of inveterate habit,
the law of mind still applies to it. According to that law, consciousness
subsides as habit becomes established, and is excited again at the
breaking up of habit. But the highest quality of mind involves a great
readiness to take habits, and a great readiness to lose them; and this
implies a degree of feeling neither very intense nor very feeble.
I have noticed above (§ 7) Dr. Carus’s dubious attitude toward the first
argument. I considered in the last section his attempted reply to the
second. To the third argument, he replies (¶ 65) that law ought to be
accounted for by the principle of sufficient reason. But, of course, that
principle cannot recommend itself to me, a realist; for it is nothing
but the lame attempt of a nominalist to wriggle out of his difficulties.
Reasons explain nothing, except upon some theistic hypothesis which may
be pardoned to the yearning heart of man, but which must appear doubtful
in the eyes of philosophy, since it comes to this, that Tom, Dick, and
Harry are competent to pry into the counsels of the Most High, and can
invite in their cousins and sweethearts and sweethearts’ cousins to look
over the original designs of the Ancient of Days.
§ 27. My fourth argument it is which seems to have made most impression
upon Dr. Carus’s mind (¶ 85), and his reply is rather elaborate.
While embracing unequivocally the necessitarian dogma, equally for
mind and for matter (¶ 193), Dr. Carus wishes utterly to repudiate
materialism and the mechanical philosophy (¶ 133). To facilitate his,
thus, walking the slack-rope, he makes (¶ 168) a division of events into
“(1) mechanical, (2) physical, (3) chemical, (4) physiological, and (5)
psychical events.” The first three (¶¶ 169-171) are merely distinguished
by the magnitude of the moving masses, so that, for philosophical
purposes, they do not differ at all. As for physiological events, though
he devotes a paragraph (¶ 172) to their definition, he utterly fails
to distinguish them from the mechanical (including the physical and
chemical) on the one hand, or from the psychical on the other. Dr. Carus
seems to think (¶ 176) that by this division he has separated himself
entirely from the materialists; but this is an illusion, for nobody
denies the existence of feelings.
The truth is, he distinctly enrolls himself in the mechanical army when
he asserts that mental laws are of the same necessitarian character
as mechanical laws (¶ 193). The only question that remains as to his
position is whether he is a materialist or not. He instances (¶ 185)
the case of a general receiving a written dispatch and being stimulated
into great activity by its perusal, and causing great motions to be
made and missiles to be sped in consequence. Now, the dilemma is this.
Will Dr. Carus, on the one hand, say that the motion of those missiles
was determined by mechanical laws alone, in which case, it would only
be necessary to state all the positions and velocities of particles
concerned, a hundred years before, to determine just how those bullets
would move and, consequently, whether the guns were to be fired or not,
and this would constitute him a materialist, or will he say that the laws
of motion do not suffice to determine motions of matter, in which case,
since they formally certainly do so suffice, they must be _violated_, and
he will be giving to mind a direct dynamical power which is open to every
objection that can be urged against tychism?
Now admire the decision with which he cuts the Gordian knot!
“THERE ARE NO PURELY MECHANICAL PHENOMENA.” (¶ 175.)
That is,
“_The laws of motion ARE applicable to and will explain all
motions_.” (¶ 177.)
But hold!
“The mechanical philosopher ... feels warranted in the hope
that ... the actions of man ... can be explained by the laws of
motion .... We may anticipate that this conclusion will prove
ERRONEOUS. _And so it is._” (¶ 176.)
At the same time,
“NO OBJECTION CAN BE MADE _to the possibility of explaining the
delicate motions in the nervous substance of the brain by the
laws of molar or molecular mechanics_.” (¶ 178.)
Yet,
“_The simplest_ psychical reflexes, including those
_physiological reflexes_ which we must suppose to have
originated by conscious adaptation ... CANNOT _be explained
from mechanical_ or physical _laws_ alone.” (¶ 186.)
However,
“_We do NOT say that there are motions_ ... in the brain ...
_which form exceptions to the laws of mechanics_.” (¶ 187.)
Nevertheless,
“The brain-atoms are possessed of the same spontaneity as
the atoms of a gravitating stone. Yet there is present an
additional feature; there are present states of awareness....
Neither states of awareness nor their meanings can be weighed
on any scales, be they ever so delicate, nor are they
determinable in foot-pounds.” (¶ 192.)
Clearness is the first merit of a philosopher; and what ¶ 192 comes
to is crystal-clear. Dr. Carus wants to have the three laws of motion
always obeyed; but he wishes the forces between the molecules to be
varied according to the momentary states of awareness. All right: he
is entitled to suppose whatever he likes, so long as the supposition
is self-consistent, as this supposition is. It conflicts with the law
of energy, it is true; for that law is that the forces depend on the
situations of the particles alone, and not on the time. It is liable
to give rise to perpetual motion. It was intended, no doubt, to be an
improvement on my molecular theory of protoplasm, earlier in the same
number. It escapes materialism. It supposes a direct dynamical action
between mind and matter, such as has not been supposed by any eminent
philosopher that I know of for centuries. I am sorry to say that it shows
a dangerous leaning toward originality. The argument for thus rejecting
the law of the conservation of energy, I leave to others to be weighed.
It seems to suppose a much larger falsification of that law than my
doctrine; but it is a pretty clever attempt to escape my conclusions. It
rejects what has to be rejected, the law of the conservation of energy;
and is far more intelligent than the theory of those (like Oliver and
Lodge) who wish to give to mind a power of deflecting atoms, which would
satisfy the conservation of energy while violating the law of action
and reaction. If it can have due consideration, I doubt not it will
accelerate the acceptance of my views. Meantime, I do not see where that
“inextricable confusion” into which I was to be led is to come in. (¶ 4.)
§ 28. Little more requires to be noticed in Dr. Carus’s articles. He
admits (¶ 2) that indeterminism is the more natural belief, which is no
slight argument in its favor.
§ 29. The remarks upon the theological bearings of the theories, if they
are found somewhat wide of the mark, are explained by the haste of the
editor to show just what all the affiliations of my views were, before
I had had time to explain what those views are. The remarks to which I
refer will be found in ¶¶ 3, 36, 81, 82, 83, 128, 203, 204. They are
worth putting together.
§ 30. The doctrine of symbolism, to which Dr. Carus has recourse,
seems to be similar to that of my essay “Some Consequences of Four
Incapacities” (_Journal of Speculative Philosophy_, II.) (¶¶ 180, 183,
199.) On this head, I can only approve of his ideas.
§ 31. It is true that I wrote many definitions for one of the
“encyclopedic lexicons.” But they were necessarily rather vaguely
expressed, in order to include the popular use of terms, and in some
cases were modified by proof-readers or editors; and for reasons not
needful here to explain, they are hardly such as I should give in a
Philosophical Dictionary proper.
C. S. PEIRCE.
FOOTNOTES:
[101] J. S. Mill had in the first edition of his _Logic_ decisively taken
an objective conception of chance and probability; but in his second
edition he had become puzzled and had retracted, leaving that chapter,
and with it his whole logic, a melancholy wreck, over which the qualified
reader sighs, “And this once seemed intelligible!” Venn in the first
edition of his book set forth the same objective conception with great
clearness, and for that he was entitled to high praise, notwithstanding
his manifest inadequacy to the problems treated. But in his second
edition, he too has fallen away from his first and correct view, and has
adopted a theory which I shall some day show to be untenable. Venn’s
whole method in logic, as well as his system, is in my opinion of the
weakest.
[102] Mill often did good service in substituting precise terms for
ambiguous ones; as when in speaking of mathematical conclusions he
prefers to say they are legitimate deductions rather than that they are
necessary.
[103] In his _Ursache, Grund and Zweck_, Dr. Carus alludes to this
passage. But he prefers the treatment of the question by Reid, whom he
calls Mill’s opponent (_Gegner_).
[104] It is of comparatively little consequence what Hume really meant.
The main interest is in what Kant thought he meant.