113 Dr. Whewell (_Phil. of Discov._, p. 246) will not allow these and

similar erroneous judgments to be called inductions; inasmuch as

such superstitious fancies “were not collected from the facts by

seeking a law of their occurrence, but were suggested by an

imagination of the anger of superior powers, shown by such

deviations from the ordinary course of nature.” I conceive the

question to be, not in what manner these notions were at first

suggested, but by what evidence they have, from time to time, been

supposed to be substantiated. If the believers in these erroneous

opinions had been put on their defense, they would have referred to

experience: to the comet which preceded the assassination of Julius

Cæsar, or to oracles and other prophecies known to have been

fulfilled. It is by such appeals to facts that all analogous

superstitions, even in our day, attempt to justify themselves; the

supposed evidence of experience is necessary to their hold on the

mind. I quite admit that the influence of such coincidences would

not be what it is, if strength were not lent to it by an antecedent

presumption; but this is not peculiar to such cases; preconceived

notions of probability form part of the explanation of many other

cases of belief on insufficient evidence. The _a priori_ prejudice

does not prevent the erroneous opinion from being sincerely regarded

as a legitimate conclusion from experience; though it improperly

predisposes the mind to that interpretation of experience.

Thus much in defense of the sort of examples objected to. But it

would be easy to produce instances, equally adapted to the purpose,

and in which no antecedent prejudice is at all concerned. “For many

ages,” says Archbishop Whately, “all farmers and gardeners were

firmly convinced—and convinced of their knowing it by

experience—that the crops would never turn out good unless the seed

were sown during the increase of the moon.” This was induction, but

bad induction; just as a vicious syllogism is reasoning, but bad

reasoning.

114 The assertion, that any and every one of the conditions of a

phenomenon may be and is, on some occasions and for some purposes,

spoken of as the cause, has been disputed by an intelligent reviewer

of this work in the _Prospective Review_ (the predecessor of the

justly esteemed _National Review_), who maintains that “we always

apply the word cause rather to that element in the antecedents which

exercises _force_, and which would _tend_ at all times to produce

the same or a similar effect to that which, under certain

conditions, it would actually produce.” And he says, that “every one

would feel” the expression, that the cause of a surprise was the

sentinel’s being off his post, to be incorrect; but that the

“allurement or force which _drew_ him off his post, might be so

called, because in doing so it removed a resisting power which would

have prevented the surprise.” I can not think that it would be wrong

to say, that the event took place because the sentinel was absent,

and yet right to say that it took place because he was bribed to be

absent. Since the only direct effect of the bribe was his absence,

the bribe could be called the remote cause of the surprise, only on

the supposition that the absence was the proximate cause; nor does

it seem to me that any one (who had not a theory to support) would

use the one expression and reject the other.

The reviewer observes, that when a person dies of poison, his

possession of bodily organs is a necessary condition, but that no

one would ever speak of it as the cause. I admit the fact; but I

believe the reason to be, that the occasion could never arise for so

speaking of it; for when in the inaccuracy of common discourse we

are led to speak of some one condition of a phenomenon as its cause,

the condition so spoken of is always one which it is at least

possible that the hearer may require to be informed of. The

possession of bodily organs is a known condition, and to give that

as the answer, when asked the cause of a person’s death, would not

supply the information sought. Once conceive that a doubt could

exist as to his having bodily organs, or that he were to be compared

with some being who had them not, and cases may be imagined in which

it might be said that his possession of them was the cause of his

death. If Faust and Mephistopheles together took poison, it might be

said that Faust died because he was a human being, and had a body,

while Mephistopheles survived because he was a spirit.

It is for the same reason that no one (as the reviewer remarks)

“calls the cause of a leap, the muscles or sinews of the body,

though they are necessary conditions; nor the cause of a

self-sacrifice, the knowledge which was necessary for it; nor the

cause of writing a book, that a man has time for it, which is a

necessary condition.” These conditions (besides that they are

antecedent _states_, and not proximate antecedent _events_, and are

therefore never the conditions in closest apparent proximity to the

effect) are all of them so obviously implied, that it is hardly

possible there should exist that necessity for insisting on them,

which alone gives occasion for speaking of a single condition as if

it were the cause. Wherever this necessity exists in regard to some

one condition, and does not exist in regard to any other, I conceive

that it is consistent with usage, when scientific accuracy is not

aimed at, to apply the name cause to that one condition. If the only

condition which can be supposed to be unknown is a negative

condition, the negative condition may be spoken of as the cause. It

might be said that a person died for want of medical advice: though

this would not be likely to be said, unless the person was already

understood to be ill, and in order to indicate that this negative

circumstance was what made the illness fatal, and not the weakness

of his constitution, or the original virulence of the disease. It

might be said that a person was drowned because he could not swim;

the positive condition, namely, that he fell into the water, being

already implied in the word drowned. And here let me remark, that

his falling into the water is in this case the only positive

condition: all the conditions not expressly or virtually included in

this (as that he could not swim, that nobody helped him, and so

forth) are negative. Yet, if it were simply said that the cause of a

man’s death was falling into the water, there would be quite as

great a sense of impropriety in the expression, as there would be if

it were said that the cause was his inability to swim; because,

though the one condition is positive and the other negative, it

would be felt that neither of them was sufficient, without the

other, to produce death.

With regard to the assertion that nothing is termed the cause,

except the element which exerts active force; I waive the question

as to the meaning of active force, and accepting the phrase in its

popular sense, I revert to a former example, and I ask, would it be

more agreeable to custom to say that a man fell because his foot

slipped in climbing a ladder, or that he fell because of his weight?

for his weight, and not the motion of his foot, was the active force

which determined his fall. If a person walking out in a frosty day,

stumbled and fell, it might be said that he stumbled because the

ground was slippery, or because he was not sufficiently careful: but

few people, I suppose, would say, that he stumbled because he

walked. Yet the only active force concerned was that which he

exerted in walking: the others were mere negative conditions; but

they happened to be the only ones which there could be any necessity

to state; for he walked, most likely, in exactly his usual manner,

and the negative conditions made all the difference. Again, if a

person were asked why the army of Xerxes defeated that of Leonidas,

he would probably say, because they were a thousand times the

number; but I do not think he would say, it was because they fought,

though that was the element of active force. To borrow another

example, used by Mr. Grove and by Mr. Baden Powell, the opening of

flood-gates is said to be the cause of the flow of water; yet the

active force is exerted by the water itself, and opening the

flood-gates merely supplies a negative condition. The reviewer adds,

“There are some conditions absolutely passive, and yet absolutely

necessary to physical phenomena, viz., the relations of space and

time; and to these no one ever applies the word cause without being

immediately arrested by those who hear him.” Even from this

statement I am compelled to dissent. Few persons would feel it

incongruous to say (for example) that a secret became known because

it was spoken of when A. B. was within hearing; which is a condition

of space: or that the cause why one of two particular trees is

taller than the other, is that it has been longer planted; which is

a condition of time.

115 There are a few exceptions; for there are some properties of objects

which seem to be purely preventive; as the property of opaque

bodies, by which they intercept the passage of light. This, as far

as we are able to understand it, appears an instance not of one

cause counteracting another by the same law whereby it produces its

own effects, but of an agency which manifests itself in no other way

than in defeating the effects of another agency. If we knew on what

other relations to light, or on what peculiarities of structure,

opacity depends, we might find that this is only an apparent, not a

real, exception to the general proposition in the text. In any case

it needs not affect the practical application. The formula which

includes all the negative conditions of an effect in the single one

of the absence of counteracting causes, is not violated by such

cases as this; though, if all counteracting agencies were of this

description, there would be no purpose served by employing the

formula.

116 I mean by this expression, the ultimate laws of nature (whatever

they may be) as distinguished from the derivative laws and from the

collocations. The diurnal revolution of the earth (for example) is

not a part of the constitution of things, because nothing can be so

called which might possibly be terminated or altered by natural

causes.

117 I use the words “straight line” for brevity and simplicity. In

reality the line in question is not exactly straight, for, from the

effect of refraction, we actually see the sun for a short interval

during which the opaque mass of the earth is interposed in a direct

line between the sun and our eyes; thus realizing, though but to a

limited extent, the coveted desideratum of seeing round a corner.

_ 118 Second Burnett Prize Essay_, by Principal Tulloch, p. 25.

_ 119 Letters on the Philosophy of the Human Mind_, First Series, p. 219.

_ 120 Essays_, pp. 206–208.

121 To the universality which mankind are agreed in ascribing to the Law

of Causation, there is one claim of exception, one disputed case,

that of the Human Will; the determinations of which, a large class

of metaphysicians are not willing to regard as following the causes

called motives, according to as strict laws as those which they

suppose to exist in the world of mere matter. This controverted

point will undergo a special examination when we come to treat

particularly of the Logic of the Moral Sciences (Book vi., chap. 2).

In the mean time, I may remark that these metaphysicians, who, it

must be observed, ground the main part of their objection on the

supposed repugnance of the doctrine in question to our

consciousness, seem to me to mistake the fact which consciousness

testifies against. What is really in contradiction to consciousness,

they would, I think, on strict self-examination, find to be, the

application to human actions and volitions of the ideas involved in

the common use of the term Necessity; which I agree with them in

objecting to. But if they would consider that by saying that a

person’s actions _necessarily_ follow from his character, all that

is really meant (for no more is meant in any case whatever of

causation) is that he invariably _does_ act in conformity to his

character, and that any one who thoroughly knew his character could

certainly predict how he would act in any supposable case; they

probably would not find this doctrine either contrary to their

experience or revolting to their feelings. And no more than this is

contended for by any one but an Asiatic fatalist.

122 I believe, however, the accredited authorities do suppose that

molecular motion, equivalent in amount to that which will be

manifested in the combustion of the coal, is actually taking place

during the whole of the long interval, if not in the coal, yet in

the oxygen which will then combine with it. But how purely

hypothetical this supposition is, need hardly be remarked; I venture

to say, unnecessarily and extravagantly hypothetical.

_ 123 Lectures on Metaphysics_, vol. ii., Lect. xxxix., pp. 391–2.

I regret that I can not invoke the authority of Sir William Hamilton

in favor of my own opinions on Causation, as I can against the

particular theory which I am now combating. But that acute thinker

has a theory of Causation peculiar to himself, which has never yet,

as far as I know, been analytically examined, but which, I venture

to think, admits of as complete refutation as any one of the false

or insufficient psychological theories which strew the ground in

such numbers under his potent metaphysical scythe. (Since examined

and controverted in the sixteenth chapter of _An Examination of Sir

William Hamilton’s Philosophy_.)

124 Unless we are to consider as such the following statement, by one of

the writers quoted in the text: “In the case of mental exertion, the

result to be accomplished is _preconsidered_ or meditated, and is

therefore known _a priori_, or before experience.”—(Bowen’s _Lowell

Lectures on the Application of Metaphysical and Ethical Science to

the Evidence of Religion_. Boston, 1849.) This is merely saying that

when we will a thing we have an idea of it. But to have an idea of

what we wish to happen, does not imply a prophetic knowledge that it

will happen. Perhaps it will be said that the _first time_ we

exerted our will, when we had of course no experience of any of the

powers residing in us, we nevertheless must already have known that

we possessed them, since we can not will that which we do not

believe to be in our power. But the impossibility is perhaps in the

words only, and not in the facts; for we may _desire_ what we do not

know to be in our power; and finding by experience that our bodies

move according to our _desire_, we may then, and only then, pass

into the more complicated mental state which is termed will.

After all, even if we had an instinctive knowledge that our actions

would follow our will, this, as Brown remarks, would prove nothing

as to the nature of Causation. Our knowing, previous to experience,

that an antecedent will be followed by a certain consequent, would

not prove the relation between them to be any thing more than

antecedence and consequence.

125 Reid’s _Essays on the Active Powers_, Essay iv., chap. 3.

_ 126 Prospective Review_ for February, 1850.

127 Vide supra, p. 178, note.

_ 128 Westminster Review_ for October, 1855.

129 See the whole doctrine in Aristotle _de Ánimâ_, where the θρεπτικὴ

ψυχὴ is treated as exactly equivalent to θρεπτικὴ δύναμις.

130 It deserves notice that the parts of nature which Aristotle regards

as representing evidence of design, are the Uniformities: the

phenomena in so far as reducible to law. Τύχη and τὸ αὐτομάτον

satisfy him as explanations of the variable element in phenomena,

but their occurring according to a fixed rule can only, to his

conceptions, be accounted for by an Intelligent Will. The common, or

what may be called the instinctive, religious interpretation of

nature, is the reverse of this. The events in which men

spontaneously see the hand of a supernatural being, are those which

can not, as they think, be reduced to a physical law. What they can

distinctly connect with physical causes, and especially what they

can predict, though of course ascribed to an Author of Nature, if

they already recognize such an author, might be conceived, they

think, to arise from a blind fatality, and in any case do not appear

to them to bear so obviously the mark of a divine will. And this

distinction has been countenanced by eminent writers on Natural

Theology, in particular by Dr. Chalmers, who thinks that though

design is present everywhere, the irresistible evidence of it is to

be found not in the _laws_ of nature but in the collocations,

_i.e._, in the part of nature in which it is impossible to trace any

law. A few properties of dead matter might, he thinks, conceivably

account for the regular and invariable succession of effects and

causes; but that the different kinds of matter have been so placed

as to promote beneficent ends, is what he regards as the proof of a

Divine Providence. Mr. Baden Powell, in his Essay entitled

“Philosophy of Creation,” has returned to the point of view of

Aristotle and the ancients, and vigorously re-asserts the doctrine

that the indication of design in the universe is not special

adaptations, but Uniformity and Law, these being the evidences of

mind, and not what appears to us to be a provision for our uses.

While I decline to express any opinion here on this _vexata

quæstio_, I ought not to mention Mr. Powell’s volume without the

acknowledgment due to the philosophic spirit which pervades

generally the three Essays composing it, forming in the case of one

of them (the “Unity of Worlds”) an honorable contrast with the other

dissertations, so far as they have come under my notice, which have

appeared on either side of that controversy.

131 In the words of Fontenelle, another celebrated Cartesian, “les

philosophes aussi bien que le peuple avaient cru que l’âme et le

corps agissaient réellement et physiquement l’un sur l’autre.

Descartes vint, qui prouva que leur nature ne permettait point cette

sorte de communication véritable, et qu’ils n’en pouvaient avoir

qu’une apparente, dont Dieu était le Médiateur.”—(_Œuvres de

Fontenelle_, ed. 1767, tom. v., p. 534.)

132 I omit, for simplicity, to take into account the effect, in this

latter case, of the diminution of pressure, in diminishing the flow

of water through the drain; which evidently in no way affects the

truth or applicability of the principle, since when the two causes

act simultaneously the conditions of that diminution of pressure do

not arise.

133 Professor Bain adds several other well-established chemical

generalizations: “The laws that simple substances exhibit the

strongest affinities; that compounds are more fusible than their

elements; that combination tends to a lower state of matter from gas

down to solid;” and some general propositions concerning the

circumstances which facilitate or resist chemical combination.

(Logic, ii., 254.)

134 Professor Bain (Logic, ii., 39) points out a class of cases, other

than that spoken of in the text, which he thinks must be regarded as

an exception to the Composition of Causes. “Causes that merely make

good the collocation for bringing a prime mover into action, or that

release a potential force, do not follow any such rule. One man may

direct a gun upon a fort as well as three: two sparks are not more

effectual than one in exploding a barrel of gunpowder. In medicine

there is a certain dose that answers the end; and adding to it does

no more good.”

I am not sure that these cases are really exceptions. The law of

Composition of Causes, I think, is really fulfilled, and the

appearance to the contrary is produced by attending to the remote

instead of the immediate effect of the causes. In the cases

mentioned, the immediate effect of the causes in action is a

collocation, and the duplication of the cause does double the

quantity of collocation. Two men could raise the gun to the required

angle twice as quickly as one, though one is enough. Two sparks put

two sets of particles of the gunpowder into the state of intestine

motion which makes them explode, though one is sufficient. It is the

collocation itself that does not, by being doubled, always double

the effect; because in many cases a certain collocation, once

obtained, is all that is required for the production of the whole

amount of effect which can be produced at all at the given time and

place. Doubling the collocation with difference of time and place,

as by pointing two guns, or exploding a second barrel after the

first, does double the effect. This remark applies still more to Mr.

Bain’s third example, that of a double dose of medicine; for a

double dose of an aperient does purge more violently, and a double

dose of laudanum does produce longer and sounder sleep. But a double

purging, or a double amount of narcotism, may have remote effects

different in kind from the effect of the smaller amount, reducing

the case to that of heteropathic laws, discussed in the text.

135 Unless, indeed, the consequent was generated, not by the antecedent,

but by the means employed to produce the antecedent. As, however,

these means are under our power, there is so far a probability that

they are also sufficiently within our knowledge to enable us to

judge whether that could be the case or not.

_ 136 Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy_, p. 179.

137 For this speculation, as for many other of my scientific

illustrations, I am indebted to Professor Bain, whose subsequent

treatise on Logic abounds with apt illustrations of all the

inductive methods.

138 This view of the necessary co-existence of opposite excitements

involves a great extension of the original doctrine of two

electricities. The early theorists assumed that, when amber was

rubbed, the amber was made positive and the rubber negative to the

same degree; but it never occurred to them to suppose that the

existence of the amber charge was dependent on an opposite charge in

the bodies with which the amber was contiguous, while the existence

of the negative charge on the rubber was equally dependent on a

contrary state of the surfaces that might accidentally be confronted

with it; that, in fact, in a case of electrical excitement by

friction, four charges were the minimum that could exist. But this

double electrical action is essentially implied in the explanation

now universally adopted in regard to the phenomena of the common

electric machine.

139 Pp. 110, 111.

140 Infra, book iv., chap. ii., On Abstraction.

141 I must, however, remark, that this example, which seems to militate

against the assertion we made of the comparative inapplicability of

the Method of Difference to cases of pure observation, is really one

of those exceptions which, according to a proverbial expression,

prove the general rule. For in this case, in which Nature, in her

experiment, seems to have imitated the type of the experiments made

by man, she has only succeeded in producing the likeness of man’s

most imperfect experiments; namely, those in which, though he

succeeds in producing the phenomenon, he does so by employing

complex means, which he is unable perfectly to analyze, and can

form, therefore, no sufficient judgment what portion of the effects

may be due, not to the supposed cause, but to some unknown agency of

the means by which that cause was produced. In the natural

experiment which we are speaking of, the means used was the clearing

off a canopy of clouds; and we certainly do not know sufficiently in

what this process consists, or on what it depends, to be certain _a

priori_ that it might not operate upon the deposition of dew

independently of any thermometric effect at the earth’s surface.

Even, therefore, in a case so favorable as this to Nature’s

experimental talents, her experiment is of little value except in

corroboration of a conclusion already attained through other means.

142 In his subsequent work, _Outlines of Astronomy_ (§ 570), Sir John

Herschel suggests another possible explanation of the acceleration

of the revolution of a comet.

143 Discourse, pp. 156–8, and 171.

144 Outlines of Astronomy, § 856.

_ 145 Philosophy of Discovery_, pp. 263, 264.

146 See, on this point, the second chapter of the present book.

147 Ante, chap. vii., § 1.

148 It seems hardly necessary to say that the word _impinge_, as a

general term to express collision of forces, is here used by a

figure of speech, and not as expressive of any theory respecting the

nature of force.

_ 149 Essays on some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy_, Essay V.

150 It is justly remarked by Professor Bain, that though the Methods of

Agreement and Difference are not applicable to these cases, they are

not wholly inaccessible to the Method of Concomitant Variations. “If

a cause happens to vary alone, the effect will also vary alone: a

cause and effect may be thus singled out under the greatest

complications. Thus, when the appetite for food increases with the

cold, we have a strong evidence of connection between these two

facts, although other circumstances may operate in the same

direction. The assigning of the respective parts of the sun and moon

in the action of the tides may be effected, to a certain degree of

exactness, by the variations of the amount according to the

positions of the two attractive bodies. By a series of experiments

of Concomitant Variations, directed to ascertain the elimination of

nitrogen from the human body under varieties of muscular exercise,

Dr. Parkes obtained the remarkable conclusion, that a muscle grows

during exercise, and loses bulk during the subsequent rest.”

(_Logic_, ii., 83.)

It is, no doubt, often possible to single out the influencing causes

from among a great number of mere concomitants, by noting what are

the antecedents, a variation in which is followed by a variation in

the effect. But when there are many influencing causes, no one of

them greatly predominating over the rest, and especially when some

of these are continually changing, it is scarcely ever possible to

trace such a relation between the variations of the effect and those

of any one cause as would enable us to assign to that cause its real

share in the production of the effect.

151 Bain’s _Logic_, ii., 360.

152 What is said in the text on the applicability of the experimental

methods to resolve particular questions of medical treatment, does

not detract from their efficacy in ascertaining the general laws of

the animal or human system. The functions, for example, of the

different classes of nerves have been discovered, and probably could

only have been discovered, by experiments on living animals.

Observation and experiment are the ultimate basis of all knowledge:

from them we obtain the elementary laws of life, as we obtain all

other elementary truths. It is in dealing with the complex

combinations that the experimental methods are for the most part

illusory, and the deductive mode of investigation must be invoked to

disentangle the complexity.

153 Professor Bain, though concurring generally in the views expressed

in this chapter, seems to estimate more highly than I do the scope

for specific experimental evidence in politics. (_Logic_, ii.,

333–337.) There are, it is true, as he remarks (p. 336), some cases

“when an agent suddenly introduced is almost instantaneously

followed by some other changes, as when the announcement of a

diplomatic rupture between two nations is followed the same day by a

derangement of the money-market.” But this experiment would be quite

inconclusive merely as an experiment. It can only serve, as any

experiment may, to verify the conclusion of a deduction. Unless we

already knew by our knowledge of the motives which act on business

men, that the prospect of war _tends_ to derange the money-market,

we should never have been able to prove a connection between the two

facts, unless after having ascertained historically that the one

followed the other in too great a number of instances to be

consistent with their having been recorded with due precautions.

Whoever has carefully examined any of the attempts continually made

to prove economic doctrines by such a recital of instances, knows

well how futile they are. It always turns out that the circumstances

of scarcely any of the cases have been fully stated; and that cases,

in equal or greater numbers, have been omitted which would have

tended to an opposite conclusion.

154 Vide Memoir by Thomas Graham, F.R.S., Master of the Mint, “On Liquid

Diffusion applied to Analysis,” in the _Philosophical Transactions_

for 1862, reprinted in the _Journal of the Chemical Society_, and

also separately as a pamphlet.

155 It was an old generalization in surgery, that tight bandaging had a

tendency to prevent or dissipate local inflammation. This sequence,

being, in the progress of physiological knowledge, resolved into

more general laws, led to the important surgical invention made by

Dr. Arnott, the treatment of local inflammation and tumors by means

of an equable pressure, produced by a bladder partially filled with

air. The pressure, by keeping back the blood from the part, prevents

the inflammation, or the tumor, from being nourished: in the case of

inflammation, it removes the stimulus, which the organ is unfit to

receive; in the case of tumors, by keeping back the nutritive fluid,

it causes the absorption of matter to exceed the supply, and the

diseased mass is gradually absorbed and disappears.

156 Since acknowledged and reprinted in Mr. Martineau’s _Miscellanies_.

_ 157 Dissertations and Discussions_, vol. i., fourth paper.

158 Written before the rise of the new views respecting the relation of

heat to mechanical force; but confirmed rather than contradicted by

them.

159 As is well remarked by Professor Bain, in the very valuable chapter

of his Logic which treats of this subject (ii., 121), “scientific

explanation and inductive generalization being the same thing, the

limits of Explanation are the limits of Induction,” and “the limits

to inductive generalization are the limits to the agreement or

community of facts. Induction supposes similarity among phenomena;

and when such similarity is discovered, it reduces the phenomena

under a common statement. The similarity of terrestrial gravity to

celestial attraction enables the two to be expressed as one

phenomenon. The similarity between capillary attraction, solution,

the operation of cements, etc., leads to their being regarded not as

a plurality, but as a unity, a single causative link, the operation

of a single agency.... If it be asked whether we can merge gravity

itself in some still higher law, the answer must depend upon the

facts. Are there any other forces, at present held distinct from

gravity, that we may hope to make fraternize with it, so as to join

in constituting a higher unity? Gravity is an attractive force; and

another great attractive force is cohesion, or the force that binds

together the atoms of solid matter. Might we, then, join these two

in a still higher unity, expressed under a more comprehensive law?

Certainly we might, but not to any advantage. The two kinds of force

agree in the one point, attraction, but they agree in no other;

indeed, in the manner of the attraction, they differ widely; so

widely that we should have to state totally distinct laws for each.

Gravity is common to all matter, and equal in amount in equal masses

of matter, whatever be the kind; it follows the law of the diffusion

of space from a point (the inverse square of the distance); it

extends to distances unlimited; it is indestructible and invariable.

Cohesion is special for each separate substance; it decreases

according to distance much more rapidly than the inverse square,

vanishing entirely at very small distances. Two such forces have not

sufficient kindred to be generalized into one force; the

generalization is only illusory; the statement of the difference

would still make two forces; while the consideration of one would

not in any way simplify the phenomena of the other, as happened in

the generalization of gravity itself.”

To the impassable limit of the explanation of laws of nature, set

forth in the text, must therefore be added a further limitation.

Although, when the phenomena to be explained are not, in their own

nature, generically distinct, the attempt to refer them to the same

cause is scientifically legitimate; yet to the success of the

attempt it is indispensable that the cause should be shown to be

capable of producing them according to the same law. Otherwise the

unity of cause is a mere guess, and the generalization only a

nominal one, which, even if admitted, would not diminish the number

of ultimate laws of nature.

_ 160 Cours de Philosophie Positive_, ii., 656.

161 Vide supra, book iii., chap. xi.

_ 162 Philosophy of Discovery_, p. 185 et seq.

163 Comte, _Philosophie Positive_, ii., 434–437.

164 As an example of legitimate hypothesis according to the test here

laid down, has been justly cited that of Broussais, who, proceeding

on the very rational principle that every disease must originate in

some definite part or other of the organism, boldly assumed that

certain fevers, which not being known to be local were called

constitutional, had their origin in the mucous membrane of the

alimentary canal. The supposition was, indeed, as is now generally

admitted, erroneous; but he was justified in making it, since by

deducing the consequences of the supposition, and comparing them

with the facts of those maladies, he might be certain of disproving

his hypothesis if it was ill founded, and might expect that the

comparison would materially aid him in framing another more

conformable to the phenomena.

The doctrine now universally received that the earth is a natural

magnet, was originally an hypothesis of the celebrated Gilbert.

Another hypothesis, to the legitimacy of which no objection can lie,

and which is well calculated to light the path of scientific

inquiry, is that suggested by several recent writers, that the brain

is a voltaic pile, and that each of its pulsations is a discharge of

electricity through the system. It has been remarked that the

sensation felt by the hand from the beating of a brain, bears a

strong resemblance to a voltaic shock. And the hypothesis, if

followed to its consequences, might afford a plausible explanation

of many physiological facts, while there is nothing to discourage

the hope that we may in time sufficiently understand the conditions

of voltaic phenomena to render the truth of the hypothesis amenable

to observation and experiment.

The attempt to localize, in different regions of the brain, the

physical organs of our different mental faculties and propensities,

was, on the part of its original author, a legitimate example of a

scientific hypothesis; and we ought not, therefore, to blame him for

the extremely slight grounds on which he often proceeded, in an

operation which could only be tentative, though we may regret that

materials barely sufficient for a first rude hypothesis should have

been hastily worked up into the vain semblance of a science. If

there be really a connection between the scale of mental endowments

and the various degrees of complication in the cerebral system, the

nature of that connection was in no other way so likely to be

brought to light as by framing, in the first instance, an hypothesis

similar to that of Gall. But the verification of any such hypothesis

is attended, from the peculiar nature of the phenomena, with

difficulties which phrenologists have not shown themselves even

competent to appreciate, much less to overcome.

Mr. Darwin’s remarkable speculation on the Origin of Species is

another unimpeachable example of a legitimate hypothesis. What he

terms “natural selection” is not only a _vera causa_, but one proved

to be capable of producing effects of the same kind with those which

the hypothesis ascribes to it; the question of possibility is

entirely one of degree. It is unreasonable to accuse Mr. Darwin (as

has been done) of violating the rules of Induction. The rules of

Induction are concerned with the conditions of Proof. Mr. Darwin has

never pretended that his doctrine was proved. He was not bound by

the rules of Induction, but by those of Hypothesis. And these last

have seldom been more completely fulfilled. He has opened a path of

inquiry full of promise, the results of which none can foresee. And

is it not a wonderful feat of scientific knowledge and ingenuity to

have rendered so bold a suggestion, which the first impulse of every

one was to reject at once, admissible and discussible, even as a

conjecture?

165 Whewell’s _Phil. of Discovery_, pp. 275, 276.

166 What has most contributed to accredit the hypothesis of a physical

medium for the conveyance of light, is the certain fact that light

_travels_ (which can not be proved of gravitation); that its

communication is not instantaneous, but requires time; and that it

is intercepted (which gravitation is not) by intervening objects.

These are analogies between its phenomena and those of the

mechanical motion of a solid or fluid substance. But we are not

entitled to assume that mechanical motion is the only power in

nature capable of exhibiting those attributes.

_ 167 Phil. of Discovery_, p. 274.

168 P. 271.

169 P. 251 and the whole of Appendix G.

170 In Dr. Whewell’s latest version of his theory (_Philosophy of

Discovery_, p. 331) he makes a concession respecting the medium of

the transmission of light, which, taken in conjunction with the rest

of his doctrine on the subject, is not, I confess, very intelligible

to me, but which goes far toward removing, if it does not actually

remove, the whole of the difference between us. He is contending,

against Sir William Hamilton, that all matter has weight. Sir

William, in proof of the contrary, cited the luminiferous ether, and

the calorific and electric fluids, “which,” he said, “we can neither

denude of their character of substance, nor clothe with the

attribute of weight.” “To which,” continues Dr. Whewell, “my reply

is, that precisely because I can not clothe these agents with the

attribute of Weight, I _do_ denude them of the character of

Substance. They are not substances, but agencies. These Imponderable

Agents are not properly called Imponderable Fluids. This I conceive

that I have proved.” Nothing can be more philosophical. But if the

luminiferous ether is not matter, and fluid matter, too, what is the

meaning of its undulations? Can an agency undulate? Can there be

alternate motion forward and backward of the particles of an agency?

And does not the whole mathematical theory of the undulations imply

them to be material? Is it not a series of deductions from the known

properties of elastic fluids? _This_ opinion of Dr. Whewell reduces

the undulations to a figure of speech, and the undulatory theory to

the proposition which all must admit, that the transmission of light

takes place according to laws which present a very striking and

remarkable agreement with those of undulations. If Dr. Whewell is

prepared to stand by this doctrine, I have no difference with him on

the subject.

171 Thus water, of which eight-ninths in weight are oxygen, dissolves

most bodies which contain a high proportion of oxygen, such as all

the nitrates (which have more oxygen than any others of the common

salts), most of the sulphates, many of the carbonates, etc. Again,

bodies largely composed of combustible elements, like hydrogen and

carbon, are soluble in bodies of similar composition; resin, for

instance, will dissolve in alcohol, tar in oil of turpentine. This

empirical generalization is far from being universally true; no

doubt because it is a remote, and therefore easily defeated, result

of general laws too deep for us at present to penetrate; but it will

probably in time suggest processes of inquiry, leading to the

discovery of those laws.

172 Or, according to Laplace’s theory, the sun and the sun’s rotation.

173 Supra, book iii., chap. v., § 7.

174 Supra, book iii., chap. x., § 2

175 In the preceding discussion, the _mean_ is spoken of as if it were

exactly the same thing with the _average_. But the mean, for

purposes of inductive inquiry, is not the average, or arithmetical

mean, though in a familiar illustration of the theory the difference

may be disregarded. If the deviations on one side of the average are

much more numerous than those on the other (these last being fewer

but greater), the effect due to the invariable cause, as distinct

from the variable ones, will not coincide with the average, but will

be either below or above the average, the deviation being toward the

side on which the greatest number of the instances are found. This

follows from a truth, ascertained both inductively and deductively,

that small deviations from the true central point are greatly more

frequent than large ones. The mathematical law is, “that the most

probable determination of one or more invariable elements from

observation is that in which the _sum of the squares_ of the

individual aberrations,” or deviations, “_shall be the least

possible_.” See this principle stated, and its grounds popularly

explained, by Sir John Herschel, in his review of Quetelet on

Probabilities, _Essays_, p. 395 _et seq._

_ 176 Essai Philosophique sur les Probabilités_, fifth Paris edition, p.

7.

177 It even appears to me that the calculation of chances, where there

are no data grounded either on special experience or on special

inference, must, in an immense majority of cases, break down, from

sheer impossibility of assigning any principle by which to be guided

in setting out the list of possibilities. In the case of the colored

balls we have no difficulty in making the enumeration, because we

ourselves determine what the possibilities shall be. But suppose a

case more analogous to those which occur in nature: instead of three

colors, let there be in the box all possible colors, we being

supposed ignorant of the comparative frequency with which different

colors occur in nature, or in the productions of art. How is the

list of cases to be made out? Is every distinct shade to count as a

color? If so, is the test to be a common eye, or an educated eye—a

painter’s, for instance? On the answer to these questions would

depend whether the chances against some particular color would be

estimated at ten, twenty, or perhaps five hundred to one. While if

we knew from experience that the particular color occurs on an

average a certain number of times in every hundred or thousand, we

should not require to know any thing either of the frequency or of

the number of the other possibilities.

_ 178 Prospective Review_ for February, 1850.

179 “If this be not so, why do we feel so much more probability added by

the first instance than by any single subsequent instance? Why,

except that the first instance gives us its possibility (a cause

_adequate_ to it), while every other only gives us the frequency of

its conditions? If no reference to a cause be supposed, possibility

would have no meaning; yet it is clear that, antecedent to its

happening, we might have supposed the event impossible, _i.e._, have

believed that there was no physical energy really existing in the

world equal to producing it.... After the first time of happening,

which is, then, more important to the whole probability than any

other single instance (because proving the possibility), the

_number_ of times becomes important as an index to the intensity or

extent of the cause, and its independence of any particular time. If

we took the case of a tremendous leap, for instance, and wished to

form an estimate of the probability of its succeeding a certain

number of times; the first instance, by showing its possibility

(before doubtful) is of the most importance; but every succeeding

leap shows the power to be more perfectly under control, greater and

more invariable, and so increases the probability; and no one would

think of reasoning in this case straight from one instance to the

next, without referring to the physical energy which each leap

indicated. Is it not, then, clear that we do not ever” (let us

rather say, that we do not in an advanced state of our knowledge)

“conclude directly from the happening of an event to the probability

of its happening again; but that we refer to the cause, regarding

the past cases as an index to the cause, and the cause as our guide

to the future?”—_Ibid._

180 The writer last quoted says that the valuation of chances by

comparing the number of cases in which the event occurs with the

number in which it does not occur, “would generally be wholly

erroneous,” and “is not the true theory of probability.” It is at

least that which forms the foundation of insurance, and of all those

calculations of chances in the business of life which experience so

abundantly verifies. The reason which the reviewer gives for

rejecting the theory is, that it “would regard an event as certain

which had hitherto never failed; which is exceedingly far from the

truth, even for a very large number of constant successes.” This is

not a defect in a particular theory, but in any theory of chances.

No principle of evaluation can provide for such a case as that which

the reviewer supposes. If an event has never once failed, in a

number of trials sufficient to eliminate chance, it really has all

the certainty which can be given by an empirical law; it _is_

certain during the continuance of the same collocation of causes

which existed during the observations. If it ever fails, it is in

consequence of some change in that collocation. Now, no theory of

chances will enable us to infer the future probability of an event

from the past, if the causes in operation, capable of influencing

the event, have intermediately undergone a change.

181 Pp. 18, 19. The theorem is not stated by Laplace in the exact terms

in which I have stated it; but the identity of import of the two

modes of expression is easily demonstrable.

182 For a fuller treatment of the many interesting questions raised by

the theory of probabilities, I may now refer to a recent work by Mr.

Venn, Fellow of Caius College, Cambridge, “The Logic of Chance;” one

of the most thoughtful and philosophical treatises on any subject

connected with Logic and Evidence which have been produced, to my

knowledge, for many years. Some criticisms contained in it have been

very useful to me in revising the corresponding chapters of the

present work. In several of Mr. Venn’s opinions, however, I do not

agree. What these are will be obvious to any reader of Mr. Venn’s

work who is also a reader of this.

183 Hartley’s _Observations on Man_, vol. i., p. 16. The passage is not

in Priestley’s curtailed edition.

184 I am happy to be able to quote the following excellent passage from

Mr. Baden Powell’s _Essay on the Inductive Philosophy_, in

confirmation, both in regard to history and to doctrine, of the

statement made in the text. Speaking of the “conviction of the

universal and permanent uniformity of nature,” Mr. Powell says (pp.

98–100):

“We may remark that this idea, in its proper extent, is by no means

one of popular acceptance or natural growth. Just so far as the

daily experience of every one goes, so far indeed he comes to

embrace a certain persuasion of this kind, but merely to this

limited extent, that what is going on around him at present, in his

own narrow sphere of observation, will go on in like manner in

future. The peasant believes that the sun which rose to-day will

rise again to-morrow; that the seed put into the ground will be

followed in due time by the harvest this year as it was last year,

and the like; but has no notion of such inferences in subjects

beyond his immediate observation. And it should be observed that

each class of persons, in admitting this belief within the limited

range of his own experience, though he doubt or deny it in every

thing beyond, is, in fact, bearing unconscious testimony to its

universal truth. Nor, again, is it only among the _most_ ignorant

that this limitation is put upon the truth. There is a very general

propensity to believe that every thing beyond common experience, or

especially ascertained laws of nature, is left to the dominion of

chance or fate or arbitrary intervention; and even to object to any

attempted explanation by physical causes, if conjecturally thrown

out for an apparently unaccountable phenomenon.

“The precise doctrine of the _generalization_ of this idea of the

uniformity of nature, so far from being obvious, natural, or

intuitive, is utterly beyond the attainment of the many. In all the

extent of its universality it is characteristic of the philosopher.

It is clearly the result of philosophic cultivation and training,

and by no means the spontaneous offspring of any primary principle

naturally inherent in the mind, as some seem to believe. It is no

mere vague persuasion taken up without examination, as a common

prepossession to which we are always accustomed; on the contrary,

all common prejudices and associations are against it. It is

pre-eminently _an acquired idea_. It is not attained without deep

study and reflection. The best informed philosopher is the man who

most firmly believes it, even in opposition to received notions; its

acceptance depends on the extent and profoundness of his inductive

studies.”

185 Supra, book iii., chap. iii., § 1

186 It deserves remark, that these early generalizations did not, like

scientific inductions, presuppose causation. What they did

presuppose, was _uniformity_ in physical facts. But the observers

were as ready to presume uniformity in the co-existence of facts as

in the sequences. On the other hand, they never thought of assuming

that this uniformity was a principle pervading all nature: their

generalizations did not imply that there was uniformity in every

thing, but only that as much uniformity as existed within their

observation, existed also beyond it. The induction, fire burns, does

not require for its validity that all nature should observe uniform

laws, but only that there should be uniformity in one particular

class of natural phenomena; the effects of fire on the senses and on

combustible substances. And uniformity to this extent was not

assumed, anterior to the experience, but proved by the experience.

The same observed instances which proved the narrower truth, proved

as much of the wider one as corresponded to it. It is from losing

sight of this fact, and considering the law of causation in its full

extent as necessarily presupposed in the very earliest

generalizations, that persons have been led into the belief that the

law of causation is known _a priori_, and is not itself a conclusion

from experience.

187 Book ii., chap. iii.

188 One of the most rising thinkers of the new generation in France, M.

Taine (who has given, in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, the most

masterly analysis, at least in one point of view, ever made of the

present work), though he rejects, on this and similar points of

psychology, the intuition theory in its ordinary form, nevertheless

assigns to the law of causation, and to some other of the most

universal laws, that certainty beyond the bounds of human

experience, which I have not been able to accord to them. He does

this on the faith of our faculty of abstraction, in which he seems

to recognize an independent source of evidence, not indeed

disclosing truths not contained in our experience, but affording an

assurance which experience can not give, of the universality of

those which it does contain. By abstraction M. Taine seems to think

that we are able, not merely to analyze that part of nature which we

see, and exhibit apart the elements which pervade it, but to

distinguish such of them as are elements of the system of nature

considered as a whole, not incidents belonging to our limited

terrestrial experience. I am not sure that I fully enter into M.

Taine’s meaning; but I confess I do not see how any mere abstract

conception, elicited by our minds from our experience, can be

evidence of an objective fact in universal Nature, beyond what the

experience itself bears witness of; or how, in the process of

interpreting in general language the testimony of experience, the

limitations of the testimony itself can be cast off.

Dr. Ward, in an able article in the _Dublin Review_ for October,

1871, contends that the uniformity of nature can not be proved from

experience, but from “transcendental considerations” only, and that,

consequently, all physical science would be deprived of its basis,

if such transcendental proof were impossible.

When physical science is said to depend on the assumption that the

course of nature is invariable, all that is meant is that the

conclusions of physical science are not known as _absolute_ truths:

the truth of them is _conditional_ on the uniformity of the course

of nature; and all that the most conclusive observations and

experiments can prove, is that the result arrived at will be true

if, and as long as, the present laws of nature are valid. But this

is all the assurance we require for the guidance of our conduct. Dr.

Ward himself does not think that his transcendental proofs make it

practically greater; for he believes, as a Catholic, that the course

of nature not only has been, but frequently and even daily is,

suspended by supernatural intervention.

But though this conditional conclusiveness of the evidence of

experience, which is sufficient for the purposes of life, is all

that I was necessarily concerned to prove, I have given reasons for

thinking that the uniformity, as itself a part of experience, is

sufficiently proved to justify undoubting reliance on it. This Dr.

Ward contests, for the following reasons:

First (p. 315), supposing it true that there has hitherto been no

well authenticated case of a breach in the uniformity of nature;

“the number of natural agents constantly at work is incalculably

large; and the observed cases of uniformity in their action must be

immeasurably fewer than one thousandth of the whole. Scientific men,

we assume for the moment, have discovered that in a certain

proportion of instances—immeasurably fewer than one thousandth of

the whole—a certain fact has prevailed; the fact of uniformity; and

they have not found a single instance in which that fact does _not_

prevail. Are they justified, we ask, in inferring from these

premises that the fact is universal? Surely the question answers

itself. Let us make a very grotesque supposition, in which, however,

the conclusion would really be tried according to the arguments

adduced. In some desert of Africa there is an enormous connected

edifice, surrounding some vast space, in which dwell certain

reasonable beings, who are unable to leave the inclosure. In this

edifice are more than a thousand chambers, which some years ago were

entirely locked up, and the keys no one knew where. By constant

diligence twenty-five keys have been found, out of the whole number;

and the corresponding chambers, situated promiscuously throughout

the edifice, have been opened. Each chamber, when examined, is found

to be in the precise shape of a dodecahedron. Are the inhabitants

justified on that account in holding with certitude that the

remaining 975 chambers are built on the same plan?”

Not with perfect certitude, but (if the chambers to which the keys

have been found are really “situated promiscuously”) with so high a

degree of probability that they would be justified in acting upon

the presumption until an exception appeared.

Dr. Ward’s argument, however, does not touch mine as it stands in

the text. My argument is grounded on the fact that the uniformity of

the course of nature as a whole, is constituted by the uniform

sequences of special effects from special natural agencies; that the

number of these natural agencies in the part of the universe known

to us is not incalculable, nor even extremely great; that we have

now reason to think that at least the far greater number of them, if

not separately, at least in some of the combinations into which they

enter, have been made sufficiently amenable to observation, to have

enabled us actually to ascertain some of their fixed laws; and that

this amount of experience justifies the same degree of assurance

that the course of nature is uniform throughout, which we previously

had of the uniformity of sequence among the phenomena best known to

us. This view of the subject, if correct, destroys the force of Dr.

Ward’s first argument.

His second argument is, that many or most persons, both scientific

and unscientific, believe that there _are_ well authenticated cases

of breach in the uniformity of nature, namely, miracles. Neither

does this consideration touch what I have said in the text. I admit

no other uniformity in the events of nature than the law of

Causation; and (as I have explained in the chapter of this volume

which treats of the Grounds of Disbelief) a miracle is no exception

to that law. In every case of alleged miracle, a _new antecedent_ is

affirmed to exist; a _counteracting cause_, namely, the volition of

a supernatural being. To all, therefore, to whom beings with

superhuman power over nature are a _vera causa_, a miracle is a

_case_ of the Law of Universal Causation, not a deviation from it.

Dr. Ward’s last, and as he says, strongest argument, is the familiar

one of Reid, Stewart, and their followers—that whatever knowledge

experience gives us of the past and present, it gives us none of the

future. I confess that I see no force whatever in this argument.

Wherein does a future fact differ from a present or a past fact,

except in their merely momentary relation to the human beings at

present in existence? The answer made by Priestley, in his

_Examination of Reid_, seems to me sufficient, viz., that though we

have had no experience of what _is_ future, we have had abundant

experience of what _was_ future. The “leap in the dark” (as

Professor Bain calls it) from the past to the future, is exactly as

much in the dark and no more, as the leap from a past which we have

personally observed, to a past which we have not. I agree with Mr.

Bain in the opinion that the resemblance of what we have not

experienced to what we have, is, by a law of our nature, presumed

through the mere energy of the idea, before experience has proved

it. This _psychological_ truth, however, is not, as Dr. Ward when

criticising Mr. Bain appears to think, inconsistent with the

_logical_ truth that experience does prove it. The proof comes after

the presumption, and consists in its invariable _verification_ by

experience when the experience arrives. The fact which while it was

future could not be observed, having as yet no existence, is always,

when it becomes present and _can_ be observed, found conformable to

the past.

Dr. M’Cosh maintains (_Examination of Mr. J. S. Mill’s Philosophy_,

p. 257) that the uniformity of the course of nature is a different

thing from the law of causation; and while he allows that the former

is only proved by a long continuance of experience, and that it is

not inconceivable nor necessarily incredible that there may be

worlds in which it does not prevail, he considers the law of

causation to be known intuitively. There is, however, no other

uniformity in the events of nature than that which arises from the

law of causation: so long therefore as there remained any doubt that

the course of nature was uniform throughout, at least when not

modified by the intervention of a new (supernatural) cause, a doubt

was necessarily implied, not indeed of the reality of causation, but

of its universality. If the uniformity of the course of nature has

any exceptions—if any events succeed one another without fixed

laws—to that extent the law of causation fails; there are events

which do not depend on causes.

189 Book i., chap. vii.

190 In some cases, a Kind is sufficiently identified by some one

remarkable property: but most commonly several are required; each

property considered singly, being a joint property of that and of

other Kinds. The color and brightness of the diamond are common to

it with the paste from which false diamonds are made; its octohedral

form is common to it with alum, and magnetic iron ore; but the color

and brightness and the form together, identify its Kind: that is,

are a mark to us that it is combustible; that when burned it

produces carbonic acid; that it can not be cut with any known

substance; together with many other ascertained properties, and the

fact that there exist an indefinite number still unascertained.

191 This doctrine of course assumes that the allotropic forms of what is

chemically the same substance are so many different Kinds; and such,

in the sense in which the word Kind is used in this treatise, they

really are.

192 Professor Bain (Logic, ii., 13) mentions two empirical laws, which

he considers to be, with the exception of the law connecting Gravity

with Resistance to motion, “the two most widely operating laws as

yet discovered whereby two distinct properties are conjoined

throughout substances generally.” The first is, “a law connecting

Atomic Weight and Specific Heat by an inverse proportion. For equal

weights of the simple bodies, the atomic weight multiplied by a

number expressing the specific heat, gives a nearly uniform product.

The products, for all the elements, are near the constant number 6.”

The other is a law which obtains “between the specific gravity of

substances in the gaseous state, and the atomic weights. The

relationship of the two numbers is in some instances equality; in

other instances the one is a multiple of the other.”

Neither of these generalizations has the smallest appearance of

being an ultimate law. They point unmistakably to higher laws. Since

the heat necessary to raise to a given temperature the same weight

of different substances (called their specific heat) is inversely as

their atomic weight, that is, directly as the number of atoms in a

given weight of the substance, it follows that a single atom of

every substance requires the same amount of heat to raise it to a

given temperature; a most interesting and important law, but a law

of causation. The other law mentioned by Mr. Bain points to the

conclusion, that in the gaseous state all substances contain, in the

same space, the same number of atoms; which, as the gaseous state

suspends all cohesive force, might naturally be expected, though it

could not have been positively assumed. This law may also be a

result of the mode of action of causes, namely, of molecular

motions. The cases in which one of the numbers is not identical with

the other, but a multiple of it, may be explained on the nowise

unlikely supposition, that in our present estimate of the atomic

weights of some substances, we mistake two, or three, atoms for one,

or one for several.

193 Dr. M’Cosh (p. 324 of his book) considers the laws of the chemical

composition of bodies as not coming under the principle of

Causation; and thinks it an omission in this work not to have

provided special canons for their investigation and proof. But every

case of chemical composition is, as I have explained, a case of

causation. When it is said that water is composed of hydrogen and

oxygen, the affirmation is that hydrogen and oxygen, by the action

on one another which they exert under certain conditions, _generate_

the properties of water. The Canons of Induction, therefore, as laid

down in this treatise, are applicable to the case. Such special

adaptations as the Inductive methods may require in their

application to chemistry, or any other science, are a proper subject

for any one who treats of the logic of the special sciences, as

Professor Bain has done in the latter part of his work; but they do

not appertain to General Logic.

Dr. M’Cosh also complains (p. 325) that I have given no canons for

those sciences in which “the end sought is not the discovery of

Causes or of Composition, but of Classes; that is, Natural Classes.”

Such canons could be no other than the principles and rules of

Natural Classification, which I certainly thought that I had

expounded at considerable length. But this is far from the only

instance in which Dr. M’Cosh does not appear to be aware of the

contents of the books he is criticising.

194 Mr. De Morgan, in his _Formal Logic_, makes the just remark, that

from two such premises as Most A are B, and Most A are C, we may

infer with certainty that some B are C. But this is the utmost limit

of the conclusions which can be drawn from two approximate

generalizations, when the precise degree of their approximation to

universality is unknown or undefined.

_ 195 Rationale of Judicial Evidence_, vol. iii., p. 224.

196 The evaluation of the chances in this statement has been objected to

by a mathematical friend. The correct mode, in his opinion, of

setting out the possibilities is as follows. If the thing (let us

call it T) which is both an A and a C, is a B, something is true

which is only true twice in every thrice, and something else which

is only true thrice in every four times. The first fact being true

eight times in twelve, and the second being true six times in every

eight, and consequently six times in those eight; both facts will be

true only six times in twelve. On the other hand, if T, although it

is both an A and a C, is not a B, something is true which is only

true once in every thrice, and something else which is only true

once in every four times. The former being true four times out of

twelve, and the latter once in every four, and therefore once in

those four; both are only true in one case out of twelve. So that T

is a B six times in twelve, and T is not a B, only once: making the

comparative probabilities, not eleven to one, as I had previously

made them, but six to one.

In the last edition I accepted this reasoning as conclusive. More

attentive consideration, however, has convinced me that it contains

a fallacy.

The objector argues, that the fact of A’s being a B is true eight

times in twelve, and the fact of C’s being a B six times in eight,

and consequently six times in those eight; both facts, therefore,

are true only six times in every twelve. That is, he concludes that

because among As taken indiscriminately only eight out of twelve are

Bs and the remaining four are not, it must equally hold that four

out of twelve are not Bs when the twelve are taken from the select

portion of As which are also Cs. And by this assumption he arrives

at the strange result, that there are fewer Bs among things which

are both As and Cs than there are among either As or Cs taken

indiscriminately; so that a thing which has both chances of being a

B, is less likely to be so than if it had only the one chance or

only the other.

The objector (as has been acutely remarked by another correspondent)

applies to the problem under consideration, a mode of calculation

only suited to the reverse problem. Had the question been—If two of

every three Bs are As and three out of every four Bs are Cs, how

many Bs will be both As and Cs, his reasoning would have been

correct. For the Bs that are both As and Cs must be fewer than

either the Bs that are As or the Bs that are Cs, and to find their

number we must abate either of these numbers in the ratio due to the

other. But when the problem is to find, not how many Bs are both As

and Cs, but how many things that are both As and Cs are Bs, it is

evident that among these the proportion of Bs must be not less, but

greater, than among things which are only A, or among things which

are only B.

The true theory of the chances is best found by going back to the

scientific grounds on which the proportions rest. The degree of

frequency of a coincidence depends on, and is a measure of, the

frequency, combined with the efficacy, of the causes in operation

that are favorable to it. If out of every twelve As taken

indiscriminately eight are Bs and four are not, it is implied that

there are causes operating on A which tend to make it a B, and that

these causes are sufficiently constant and sufficiently powerful to

succeed in eight out of twelve cases, but fail in the remaining

four. So if of twelve Cs, nine are Bs and three are not, there must

be causes of the same tendency operating on C, which succeed in nine

cases and fail in three. Now suppose twelve cases which are both As

and Cs. The whole twelve are now under the operation of both sets of

causes. One set is sufficient to prevail in eight of the twelve

cases, the other in nine. The analysis of the cases shows that six

of the twelve will be Bs through the operation of both sets of

causes; two more in virtue of the causes operating on A; and three

more through those operating on C, and that there will be only one

case in which all the causes will be inoperative. The total number,

therefore, which are Bs will be eleven in twelve, and the evaluation

in the text is correct.

197 Supra, book i., chap. v.

198 Supra, book i., chap. v., § 1, and book ii., chap, v., § 5.

199 The axiom, “Equals subtracted from equals leave equal differences,”

may be demonstrated from the two axioms in the text. If A = _a_ and

B = _b_, A-B = _a-b_. For if not, let A-B = _a-b+c_. Then since B =

_b_, adding equals to equals, A = _a+c_. But A = _a_. Therefore _a =

a+c_, which is impossible.

This proposition having been demonstrated, we may, by means of it,

demonstrate the following: “If equals be added to unequals, the sums

are unequal.” If A = _a_ and B not = _b_, A+B is not = _a+b_. For

suppose it to be so. Then, since A = _a_ and A+B = _a+b_,

subtracting equals from equals, B = _b_; which is contrary to the

hypothesis.

So again, it may be proved that two things, one of which is equal

and the other unequal to a third thing, are unequal to one another.

If A = _a_ and A not = B, neither is _a_ = B. For suppose it to be

equal. Then since A = _a_ and _a_ = B, and since things equal to the

same thing are equal to one another A = B; which is contrary to the

hypothesis.

200 Geometers have usually preferred to define parallel lines by the

property of being in the same plane and never meeting. This,

however, has rendered it necessary for them to assume, as an

additional axiom, some other property of parallel lines; and the

unsatisfactory manner in which properties for that purpose have been

selected by Euclid and others has always been deemed the opprobrium

of elementary geometry. Even as a verbal definition, equidistance is

a fitter property to characterize parallels by, since it is the

attribute really involved in the signification of the name. If to be

in the same plane and never to meet were all that is meant by being

parallel, we should feel no incongruity in speaking of a curve as

parallel to its asymptote. The meaning of parallel lines is, lines

which pursue exactly the same direction, and which, therefore,

neither draw nearer nor go farther from one another; a conception

suggested at once by the contemplation of nature. That the lines

will never meet is of course included in the more comprehensive

proposition that they are everywhere equally distant. And that any

straight lines which are in the same plane and not equidistant will

certainly meet, may be demonstrated in the most rigorous manner from

the fundamental property of straight lines assumed in the text,

viz., that if they set out from the same point, they diverge more

and more without limit.

_ 201 Philosophie Positive_, iii., 414–416.

202 See the two remarkable notes (A) and (F), appended to his _Inquiry

into the Relation of Cause and Effect_.

203 Supra, p. 413.

204 A writer to whom I have several times referred, gives as the

definition of an impossibility, that which there exists in the world

no cause adequate to produce. This definition does not take in such

impossibilities as these—that two and two should make five; that two

straight lines should inclose a space; or that any thing should

begin to exist without a cause. I can think of no definition of

impossibility comprehensive enough to include all its varieties,

except the one which I have given: viz., An impossibility is that,

the truth of which would conflict with a complete induction, that

is, with the most conclusive evidence which we possess of universal

truth.

As to the reputed impossibilities which rest on no other grounds

than our ignorance of any cause capable of producing the supposed

effects; very few of them are certainly impossible, or permanently

incredible. The facts of traveling seventy miles an hour, painless

surgical operations, and conversing by instantaneous signals between

London and New York, held a high place, not many years ago, among

such impossibilities.

205 Not, however, as might at first sight appear, 999 times as much. A

complete analysis of the cases shows that (always assuming the

veracity of the witness to be ⁹⁄₁₀) in 10,000 drawings, the drawing

of No. 79 will occur nine times, and be announced incorrectly once;

the credibility, therefore, of the announcement of No. 79 is ⁹⁄₁₀;

while the drawing of a white ball will occur nine times, and be

announced incorrectly 999 times. The credibility, therefore, of the

announcement of white is ⁹⁄₁₀₀₈, and the ratio of the two 1008:10;

the one announcement being thus only about a hundred times more

credible than the other, instead of 999 times.

206 Supra, book iii., chap. ii., § 3, 4, 5.

207 Mr. Bailey has given the best statement of this theory. “The general

name,” he says, “raises up the image sometimes of one individual of

the class formerly seen, sometimes of another, not unfrequently of

many individuals in succession; and it sometimes suggests an image

made up of elements from several different objects, by a latent

process of which I am not conscious.” (Letters on the Philosophy of

the Human Mind, 1st series, letter 22.) But Mr. Bailey must allow

that we carry on inductions and ratiocinations respecting the class,

by means of this idea or conception of some one individual in it.

This is all I require. The name of a class calls up some idea,

through which we can, to all intents and purposes, think of the

class as such, and not solely of an individual member of it.

208 I have entered rather fully into this question in chap. xvii. of _An

Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy_, headed “The

Doctrine of Concepts or General Notions,” which contains my last

views on the subject.

209 Other examples of inappropriate conceptions are given by Dr. Whewell

(_Phil. Ind. Sc._ ii., 185) as follows: “Aristotle and his followers

endeavored in vain to account for the mechanical relation of forces

in the lever, by applying the _inappropriate_ geometrical

conceptions of the properties of the circle: they failed in

explaining the _form_ of the luminous spot made by the sun shining

through a hole, because they applied the _inappropriate_ conception

of a circular _quality_ in the sun’s light: they speculated to no

purpose about the elementary composition of bodies, because they

assumed the _inappropriate_ conception of _likeness_ between the

elements and the compound, instead of the genuine notion of elements

merely _determining_ the qualities of the compound.” But in these

cases there is more than an inappropriate conception; there is a

false conception; one which has no prototype in nature, nothing

corresponding to it in facts. This is evident in the last two

examples, and is equally true in the first; the “properties of the

circle” which were referred to, being purely fantastical. There is,

therefore, an error beyond the wrong choice of a principle of

generalization; there is a false assumption of matters of fact. The

attempt is made to resolve certain laws of nature into a more

general law, that law not being one which, though real, is

inappropriate, but one wholly imaginary.

210 Professor Bain.

211 This sentence having been erroneously understood as if I had meant

to assert that belief is nothing but an irresistible association, I

think it necessary to observe that I express no theory respecting

the ultimate analysis either of reasoning or of belief, two of the

most obscure points in analytical psychology. I am speaking not of

the powers themselves, but of the previous conditions necessary to

enable those powers to exert themselves: of which conditions I am

contending that language is not one, senses and association being

sufficient without it. The irresistible association theory of

belief, and the difficulties connected with the subject, have been

discussed at length in the notes to the new edition of Mr. James

Mill’s _Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind_.

212 Mr. Bailey agrees with me in thinking that whenever “from something

actually present to my senses, conjoined with past experience, I

feel satisfied that something has happened, or will happen, or is

happening, beyond the sphere of my personal observation,” I may with

strict propriety be said to reason: and of course to reason

inductively, for demonstrative reasoning is excluded by the

circumstances of the case. (_The Theory of Reasoning_, 2d ed., p.

27.)

_ 213 Novum Organum Renovatum_, pp. 35–37.

_ 214 Novum Organum Renovatum_, pp. 39, 40.

215 P. 217, 4to edition.

216 “E, ex, extra, extraneus, étranger, stranger.”

Another etymological example sometimes cited is the derivation of

the English _uncle_ from the Latin _avus_. It is scarcely possible

for two words to bear fewer outward marks of relationship, yet there

is but one step between them, _avus_, _avunculus_, _uncle_. So

_pilgrim_, from _ager_: _per agrum_, _peragrinus_, _peregrinus_,

_pellegrino_, _pilgrim_. Professor Bain gives some apt examples of

these transitions of meaning. “The word ‘damp’ primarily signified

moist, humid, wet. But the property is often accompanied with the

feeling of cold or chilliness, and hence the idea of cold is

strongly suggested by the word. This is not all. Proceeding upon the

superadded meaning, we speak of damping a man’s ardor, a metaphor

where the cooling is the only circumstance concerned; we go on still

further to designate the iron slide that shuts off the draft of a

stove, ‘the damper,’ the primary meaning being now entirely dropped.

‘Dry,’ in like manner, through signifying the absence of moisture,

water, or liquidity, is applied to sulphuric acid containing water,

although not thereby ceasing to be a moist, wet, or liquid

substance.” So in the phrases, dry sherry, or Champagne.

“‘Street,’ originally a paved way, with or without houses, has been

extended to roads lined with houses, whether paved or unpaved.

‘Impertinent’ signified at first irrelevant, alien to the purpose in

hand: through which it has come to mean, meddling, intrusive,

unmannerly, insolent.” (_Logic_, ii., 173, 174.)

217 Pp. 226, 227.

_ 218 Essays_, p. 214.

_ 219 Essays_, p. 215.

220 Though no such evil consequences as take place in these instances

are likely to arise from the modern freak of writing _sanatory_

instead of sanitary, it deserves notice as a charming specimen of

pedantry ingrafted upon ignorance. Those who thus undertake to

correct the spelling of the classical English writers, are not aware

that the meaning of _sanatory_, if there were such a word in the

language, would have reference not to the preservation of health,

but to the cure of disease.

_ 221 Historical Introduction_, vol. i., pp. 66–68.

_ 222 History of Scientific Ideas_, ii., 110, 111.

_ 223 History of Scientific Ideas_, ii., 111–113.

_ 224 Nov. Org. Renov._, pp. 286, 287.

_ 225 History of Scientific Ideas_, ii., 120–122.

_ 226 Nov. Org. Renov._, p. 274.

_ 227 Hist. Sc. Id._, i. 133.

228 Dr. Whewell, in his reply (_Philosophy of Discovery_, p. 270) says

that he “stopped short of, or rather passed by, the doctrine of a

series of organized beings,” because he “thought it bad and narrow

philosophy.” If he did, it was evidently without understanding this

form of the doctrine; for he proceeds to quote a passage from his

“History,” in which the doctrine he condemns is designated as that

of “a mere linear progression in nature, which would place each

genus in contact only with the preceding and succeeding ones.” Now

the series treated of in the text agrees with this linear

progression in nothing whatever but in being a progression.

229 Supra, p. 137.

_ 230 Vulgar Errors_, book v., chap. 21.

_ 231 Pharmacologia_, Historical Introduction, p. 16.

232 The author of one of the Bridgewater Treatises has fallen, as it

seems to me, into a similar fallacy when, after arguing in rather a

curious way to prove that matter may exist without any of the known

properties of matter, and may therefore be changeable, he concludes

that it can not be eternal, because “eternal (passive) existence

necessarily involves incapability of change.” I believe it would be

difficult to point out any other connection between the facts of

eternity and unchangeableness, than a strong association between the

two ideas. Most of the _a priori_ arguments, both religious and

anti-religious, on the origin of things, are fallacies drawn from

the same source.

233 Supra, book ii., chap. v., § 6, and chap. vii., § 1, 2, 3, 4. See

also _Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy_, chap. vi.

and elsewhere.

234 It seems that this doctrine was, before the time I have mentioned,

disputed by some thinkers. Dr. Ward mentions Scotus, Vasquez, Biel,

Francis Lugo, and Valentia.

235 I quote this passage from Playfair’s celebrated _Dissertation on the

Progress of Mathematical and Physical Science_.

236 This statement I must now correct, as too unqualified. The maxim in

question was maintained with full conviction by no less an authority

than Sir William Hamilton. See my _Examination_, chap. xxiv.

_ 237 Nouveaux Essais sur l’Entendement Humain—Avant-propos._ (Œuvres,

Paris ed., 1842, vol. i., p. 19.)

238 This doctrine also was accepted as true, and conclusions were

grounded on it, by Sir William Hamilton. See _Examination_, chap.

xxiv.

239 Not that of Leibnitz, but the principle commonly appealed to under

that name by mathematicians.

_ 240 Dissertation_, p. 27.

_ 241 Hist. Ind. Sc._, Book i., chap. i.

_ 242 Novum Organum_, Aph. 75.

243 Supra, book iii., chap. vii., § 4.

244 It is hardly needful to remark that nothing is here intended to be

said against the possibility at some future period of making gold—by

first discovering it to be a compound, and putting together its

different elements or ingredients. But this is a totally different

idea from that of the seekers of the grand arcanum.

_ 245 Pharmacologia_, pp. 43–45.

246 Vol. i., chap. 8.

_ 247 Nov. Org._, Aph. 46.

248 Playfair’s _Dissertation_, sect. 4.

_ 249 Nov. Org. Renov._, p. 61.

_ 250 Pharmacologia_, p. 21.

_ 251 Pharmacologia_, pp. 23, 24.

252 Ibid., p. 28.

253 Ibid., p. 62.

254 Ibid., pp. 61, 62.

_ 255 Supra_, p. 450.

_ 256 Elements of the Philosophy of the Mind_, vol. ii., chap. 4, sect.

5.

257 “Thus Fourcroy,” says Dr. Paris, “explained the operation of mercury

by its specific gravity, and the advocates of this doctrine favored

the general introduction of the preparations of iron, especially in

scirrhus of the spleen or liver, upon the same hypothetical

principle; for, say they, whatever is most forcible in removing the

obstruction must be the most proper instrument of cure: such is

steel, which, besides the attenuating power with which it is

furnished, has still a greater force in this case from the gravity

of its particles, which, being seven times specifically heavier than

any vegetable, acts in proportion with a stronger impulse, and

therefore is a more powerful deobstruent. This may be taken as a

specimen of the style in which these mechanical physicians reasoned

and practiced.”—_Pharmacologia_, pp. 38, 39.

_ 258 Pharmacologia_, pp. 39, 40.

259 I quote from Dr. Whewell’s _Hist. Ind. Sc._, 3d ed., i., 129.

_ 260 Hist. Ind. Sc._, i., 52.

_ 261 Nov. Org._, Aph. 60.

262 “An advocate,” says Mr. De Morgan (_Formal Logic_, p. 270), “is

sometimes guilty of the argument _à dicto secundum quid ad dictum

simpliciter_: it is his business to do for his client all that his

client might _honestly_ do for himself. Is not the word in italics

frequently omitted? _Might_ any man honestly try to do for himself

all that counsel frequently try to do for him? We are often reminded

of the two men who stole the leg of mutton; one could swear he had

not got it, the other that he had not taken it. The counsel is doing

his duty by his client, the client has left the matter to his

counsel. Between the unexecuted intention of the client, and the

unintended execution of the counsel, there may be a wrong done, and,

if we are to believe the usual maxims, no wrong-doer.”

The same writer justly remarks (p. 251) that there is a converse

fallacy, _à dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid_, called by

the scholastic logicians _fallacia accidentis_; and another which

may be called _à dicto secundum quid ad dictum secundum alterum

quid_ (p. 265). For apt instances of both, I must refer the reader

to Mr. De Morgan’s able chapter on Fallacies.

263 An example of this fallacy is the popular error that _strong_ drink

must be a cause of _strength_. There is here fallacy within fallacy;

for granting that the words “strong” and “strength” were not (as

they are) applied in a totally different sense to fermented liquors

and to the human body, there would still be involved the error of

supposing that an effect must be like its cause; that the conditions

of a phenomenon are likely to resemble the phenomenon itself; which

we have already treated of as an _a priori_ fallacy of the first

rank. As well might it be supposed that a strong poison will make

the person who takes it strong.

264 In his later editions, Archbishop Whately confines the name of

Petitio Principii “to those cases in which one of the premises

either is manifestly the same in sense with the conclusion, or is

actually proved from it, or is such as the persons you are

addressing are not likely to know, or to admit, except as an

inference from the conclusion; as, _e.g._, if any one should infer

the authenticity of a certain history, from its recording such and

such facts, the reality of which rests on the evidence of that

history.”

265 No longer even a probable hypothesis, since the establishment of the

atomic theory; it being now certain that the integral particles of

different substances gravitate unequally. It is true that these

particles, though real _minima_ for the purposes of chemical

combination, may not be the ultimate particles of the substance; and

this doubt alone renders the hypothesis admissible, even as an

hypothesis.

_ 266 Hist. Ind. Sc._, i., 34.

267 “And coxcombs vanquish Berkeley with a grin.”

268 Some arguments and explanations, supplementary to those in the text,

will be found in _An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s

Philosophy_, chap. xxvi.

_ 269 Supra_, p. 424.

270 When this chapter was written, Professor Bain had not yet published

even the first part (“The Senses and the Intellect”) of his profound

Treatise on the Mind. In this the laws of association have been more

comprehensively stated and more largely exemplified than by any

previous writer; and the work, having been completed by the

publication of “The Emotions and the Will,” may now be referred to

as incomparably the most complete analytical exposition of the

mental phenomena, on the basis of a legitimate Induction, which has

yet been produced. More recently still, Mr. Bain has joined with me

in appending to a new edition of the “Analysis,” notes intended to

bring up the analytic science of Mind to its latest improvements.

Many striking applications of the laws of association to the

explanation of complex mental phenomena are also to be found in Mr.

Herbert Spencer’s “Principles of Psychology.”

271 In the case of the moral sentiments the place of direct experiment

is to a considerable extent supplied by historical experience, and

we are able to trace with a tolerable approach to certainty the

particular associations by which those sentiments are engendered.

This has been attempted, so far as respects the sentiment of

justice, in a little work by the present author, entitled

_Utilitarianism_.

272 The most favorable cases for making such approximate generalizations

are what may be termed collective instances; where we are

fortunately enabled to see the whole class respecting which we are

inquiring in action at once, and, from the qualities displayed by

the collective body, are able to judge what must be the qualities of

the majority of the individuals composing it. Thus the character of

a nation is shown in its acts as a nation; not so much in the acts

of its government, for those are much influenced by other causes;

but in the current popular maxims, and other marks of the general

direction of public opinion; in the character of the persons or

writings that are held in permanent esteem or admiration; in laws

and institutions, so far as they are the work of the nation itself,

or are acknowledged and supported by it; and so forth. But even here

there is a large margin of doubt and uncertainty. These things are

liable to be influenced by many circumstances; they are partially

determined by the distinctive qualities of that nation or body of

persons, but partly also by external causes which would influence

any other body of persons in the same manner. In order, therefore,

to make the experiment really complete, we ought to be able to try

it without variation upon other nations: to try how Englishmen would

act or feel if placed in the same circumstances in which we have

supposed Frenchmen to be placed; to apply, in short, the Method of

Differences as well as that of Agreement. Now these experiments we

can not try, nor even approximate to.

273 “To which,” says Dr. Whewell, “we may add, that it is certain, from

the history of the subject, that in that case the hypothesis would

never have been framed at all.”

Dr. Whewell (_Philosophy of Discovery_, pp. 277–282) defends Bacon’s

rule against the preceding strictures. But his defense consists only

in asserting and exemplifying a proposition which I had myself

stated, viz., that though the largest generalizations may be the

earliest made, they are not at first seen in their entire

generality, but acquire it by degrees, as they are found to explain

one class after another of phenomena. The laws of motion, for

example, were not known to extend to the celestial regions, until

the motions of the celestial bodies had been deduced from them.

This, however, does not in any way affect the fact, that the middle

principles of astronomy, the central force, for example, and the law

of the inverse square, could not have been discovered, if the laws

of motion, which are so much more universal, had not been known

first. On Bacon’s system of step-by-step generalization, it would be

impossible in any science to ascend higher than the empirical laws;

a remark which Dr. Whewell’s own Inductive Tables, referred to by

him in support of his argument, amply bear out.

_ 274 Supra_, page 317 to the end of the chapter.

_ 275 Biographia Literaria_, i., 214.

_ 276 Supra_, p. 321.

_ 277 Essays on some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy_, pp.

137–140.

278 The quotations in this paragraph are from a paper written by the

author, and published in a periodical in 1834.

_ 279 Cours de Philosophie Positive_, iv., 325–29.

280 Since reprinted entire in _Dissertations and Discussions_, as the

concluding paper of the first volume.

281 Written and first published in 1840.

282 This great generalization is often unfavorably criticised (as by Dr.

Whewell, for instance) under a misapprehension of its real import.

The doctrine, that the theological explanation of phenomena belongs

only to the infancy of our knowledge of them, ought not to be

construed as if it was equivalent to the assertion, that mankind, as

their knowledge advances, will necessarily cease to believe in any

kind of theology. This was M. Comte’s opinion; but it is by no means

implied in his fundamental theorem. All that is implied is, that in

an advanced state of human knowledge, no other Ruler of the World

will be acknowledged than one who rules by universal laws, and does

not at all, or does not unless in very peculiar cases, produce

events by special interpositions. Originally all natural events were

ascribed to such interpositions. At present every educated person

rejects this explanation in regard to all classes of phenomena of

which the laws have been fully ascertained; though some have not yet

reached the point of referring all phenomena to the idea of Law, but

believe that rain and sunshine, famine and pestilence, victory and

defeat, death and life, are issues which the Creator does not leave

to the operation of his general laws, but reserves to be decided by

express acts of volition. M. Comte’s theory is the negation of this

doctrine.

Dr. Whewell equally misunderstands M. Comte’s doctrine respecting

the second or metaphysical stage of speculation. M. Comte did not

mean that “discussions concerning ideas” are limited to an early

stage of inquiry, and cease when science enters into the positive

stage. (_Philosophy of Discovery_, pp. 226 et seq.) In all M.

Comte’s speculations as much stress is laid on the process of

clearing up our conceptions as on the ascertainment of facts. When

M. Comte speaks of the metaphysical stage of speculation, he means

the stage in which men speak of “Nature” and other abstractions as

if they were active forces, producing effects; when Nature is said

to do this, or forbid that; when Nature’s horror of a vacuum,

Nature’s non-admission of a break, Nature’s _vis medicatrix_, were

offered as explanations of phenomena; when the qualities of things

were mistaken for real entities dwelling in the things; when the

phenomena of living bodies were thought to be accounted for by being

referred to a “vital force;” when, in short, the abstract names of

phenomena were mistaken for the causes of their existence. In this

sense of the word it can not be reasonably denied that the

metaphysical explanation of phenomena, equally with the theological,

gives way before the advance of real science.

That the final, or positive stage, as conceived by M. Comte, has

been equally misunderstood, and that, notwithstanding some

expressions open to just criticism, M. Comte never dreamed of

denying the legitimacy of inquiry into all causes which are

accessible to human investigation, I have pointed out in a former

place.

283 Buckle’s _History of Civilization_, i., 30.

284 I have been assured by an intimate friend of Mr. Buckle that he

would not have withheld his assent from these remarks, and that he

never intended to affirm or imply that mankind are not progressive

in their moral as well as in their intellectual qualities. “In

dealing with his problem, he availed himself of the artifice

resorted to by the Political Economist, who leaves out of

consideration the generous and benevolent sentiments, and founds his

science on the proposition that mankind are actuated by acquisitive

propensities alone,” not because such is the fact, but because it is

necessary to begin by treating the principal influence as if it was

the sole one, and make the due corrections afterward. “He desired to

make abstraction of the intellect as the determining and dynamical

element of the progression, eliminating the more dependent set of

conditions, and treating the more active one as if it were an

entirely independent variable.”

The same friend of Mr. Buckle states that when he used expressions

which seemed to exaggerate the influence of general at the expense

of special causes, and especially at the expense of the influence of

individual minds, Mr. Buckle really intended no more than to affirm

emphatically that the greatest men can not effect great changes in

human affairs unless the general mind has been in some considerable

degree prepared for them by the general circumstances of the age; a

truth which, of course, no one thinks of denying. And there

certainly are passages in Mr. Buckle’s writings which speak of the

influence exercised by great individual intellects in as strong

terms as could be desired.

285 Essay on Dryden, in Miscellaneous Writings, i., 186.

286 In the _Cornhill Magazine_ for June and July, 1861.

287 It is almost superfluous to observe, that there is another meaning

of the word Art, in which it may be said to denote the poetical

department or aspect of things in general, in contradistinction to

the scientific. In the text, the word is used in its older, and I

hope, not yet obsolete sense.

288 Professor Bain and others call the selection from the truths of

science made for the purposes of an art, a Practical Science, and

confine the name Art to the actual rules.

289 The word Teleology is also, but inconveniently and improperly,

employed by some writers as a name for the attempt to explain the

phenomena of the universe from final causes.

290 For an express discussion and vindication of this principle, see the

little volume entitled “Utilitarianism.”