be nothing more than their relation to certain events that invariably
attend them, is this definition consistent with the notion which
we form of the power of the Creator? or, Is not _his_ efficiency
altogether different in nature, as well as in degree? The omnipotence
of God, it must, indeed, be allowed, bears to every created power the
same relation of awful superiority, which his infinite wisdom and
goodness bear to the humble knowledge and virtue of his creatures. But
as we know his wisdom and goodness, only by knowing what that human
wisdom and goodness are, which, with all their imperfection, he has yet
permitted to know and adore him,--so, it is only by knowing created
power, weak and limited as it is, that we can rise to the contemplation
of his omnipotence. In contemplating it, we consider only his _will_,
as the direct _antecedent_ of those glorious effects which the universe
displays. The power of God is not any thing different from God; but
is the Almighty himself, willing whatever seems to him good, and
creating or altering all things by his very will to create or alter.
It is enough for our devotion to trace every where the characters of
the Divinity,--of provident arrangement _prior_ to this system of
things,--and to know, therefore, that, without that divine will as
_antecedent_, nothing could have been. Wherever we turn our eyes,--to
the earth--to the heavens--to the myriads of beings that live and
move around us--or to those more than myriads of worlds, which seem
themselves almost like animated inhabitants of the infinity through
which they range,--above us, beneath us, on every side, we discover,
with a certainty that admits not of doubt, intelligence and design,
that must have preceded the existence of every thing which exists. Yet,
when we analyse those great, but obscure, ideas which rise in our mind,
while we attempt to think of the creation of things, we feel, that it
is still only a sequence of events which we are considering,--though
of events, the magnitude of which allows us no comparison, because it
has nothing in common with those earthly changes which fall beneath our
view. We do not see any third circumstance existing intermediately,
and binding, as it were, the will of the Omnipotent Creator to the
things which are to be; we conceive only the _divine will itself_, as
if made visible to our imagination, and all nature at the very moment
rising around. It is evident, that in the case of the divine agency,
as well as in every other instance of causation, the introduction of
any circumstance, as a bond of closer connexion, would only furnish a
new phenomenon to be itself connected; but even though it were possible
to conceive the closer connexion of such a third circumstance, as is
supposed to constitute the inexplicable efficiency between the _will_
of the Creator and _the rise of the universe_, it would _diminish_,
indeed, but it certainly cannot be supposed to elevate, the majesty of
the person, and of the scene. Our feeling of his omnipotence is not
rendered stronger by the elevation of the complicated process; it is,
on the contrary, the immediate succession of the object to the desire,
which impresses the force of the omnipotence on our mind; and it is
to the divine agency, therefore, that the representation of _instant_
sequence seems peculiarly suited, as if it were more emphatically
powerful. Such is the great charm of the celebrated passage of Genesis,
descriptive of the creation of light. It is from stating nothing more
than the antecedent and consequent, that the majestic simplicity of
the description is derived. God _speaks_, and _it is done_. We imagine
nothing intermediate. In our highest contemplation of His power, we
believe only, that, when He _willed_ creation, a world arose; and that,
in all future time, His will to create cannot exist, without being
followed by the instant rise into being of whatever He may have willed;
that His will to destroy any thing, will be, in like manner, followed
by its non-existence; and His will to vary the course of things, by
miraculous appearances. The will is the only necessary previous change;
and that Being has almighty power, whose every will is immediately and
invariably _followed_ by the existence of its object.
FOOTNOTES:
[27] Mart. Scrib. c. 7.--Pope's Works, _Ed._ 1757, v. vii. p. 58, 59.
[28] Cicero de Officiis, lib. i. c. 4.
[29] Recherche de la veritè, liv iv. c. ii.--Vol. II. p. 322.
LECTURE VIII.
ON HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY.
The observations which I have already made on _power_, Gentlemen, have,
I hope, shown you, both what it truly is, and the sources of that
illusion, which leads us to regard it as something more mysterious.
The principal source of this illusion, we found to be our incapacity
of distinguishing the minute elements of bodies,--that leads us, in
a manner, which it is unnecessary now to recapitulate, to suspect
constantly some intermediate and unobserved objects and events, between
the parts of sequences, which we truly observe, and, by the influence
of this habit, to transfer, at least, the notion of power, from the
antecedent which we observe, to the supposed more direct antecedent,
which we only imagine, and to consider the causes of events as some
unknown circumstances, that exist between all the antecedents which we
know, and the consequents which we know, and connect these together in
mysterious union.
The same imperfection of our senses, which, from our incapacity of
discovering all the minute elements, and consequently all the minute
elementary changes, in bodies, leads us to form erroneous notions of
power and causation, has tended, in like manner, to produce a fondness
for _hypotheses_, which, without rendering the observed phenomena, in
any respect, more intelligible, only render them more complicated, and
increase the very difficulty, which they are supposed to diminish.
Of this tendency of the mind, which is a very injurious one to the
progress of sound philosophy, I must request your attention to a
little fuller elucidation. To know well, what _hypotheses_ truly are
in themselves, and what it is which they contribute to the explanation
of phenomena, is, I am convinced, the surest of all preservatives
against that too ready assent, which you might otherwise be disposed
to give to them; and to guard you from the ready adoption of such loose
conclusions, in the reasonings of others, and from the tendency to
similar rashness of arrangement and inference, in your own speculative
inquiries, is to perform for you the most important office that can be
performed, for the regulation, both of your present studies, and of
those maturer investigations, to which, I trust, your present studies
are to lead.
I have also endeavoured to point out to you, in what manner we are led
to believe, that we explain the sequence of two events, by stating some
intermediate event. If asked, _How_ it is that we hear a voice at a
distance, or see a distant object? we immediately answer, Because the
primary vibration of the organs of speech is propagated in successive
vibrations through the intervening air, and because light is reflected
or emitted from the distant object to the eye; and he who hears this
answer, which is obviously nothing more than the statement of another
effect, or series of effects, that takes place before that particular
effect, concerning which the question is put, is perfectly satisfied,
for the time, with the acquisition which he has made, and thinks,
that he now knows, how it is, that we hear and see. To know _why_ a
succession of events takes place, is thus at length conceived by us,
to be the same thing, as to know some other changes, or series of
changes, which take place between them; and, with this opinion, as to
the necessary presence of some intervening and connecting link, it is
very natural, that, when we can no longer state or imagine any thing
which intervenes, we should feel as if the sequence itself were less
intelligible, though unquestionably, when we can state some intervening
circumstance, we have merely found a new antecedent in the train of
physical events, so as to have now _two_ antecedents and consequents,
instead of _one_ simple antecedent and consequent, and have thus only
doubled our supposed mystery, instead of removing it.
Since it does _appear_ to us, however, to remove the very mystery
which it doubles, it is the same thing, with respect to our general
practice of philosophizing, as if it _did_ remove it. If we suppose
the intervention of some unknown cause, in every phenomenon which we
perceive, we must be equally desirous of discovering that unknown
cause, which we suppose to be intermediate,--and, when this is not
easily discoverable, we must feel a strong tendency to divine what it
is, and to acquiesce, more readily than we should otherwise have done,
in the certainty of what we have only imagined,--always, of course,
imagining the cause, which seems to have most analogy to the observed
effect.
Such is the nature of that illusion, from which the love of hypotheses
flows,--as seeming, by the intervention of a new antecedent, to
render more intelligible the sequences of events that are obviously
before us,--though all which is truly done, is to double the number
of antecedents; and, therefore, to double, instead of removing the
difficulty, that is supposed to be involved in the consideration of a
simple sequence of events. A stone tends to the ground--that it should
have this _tendency_, in consequence of the mere presence of the earth,
appears to us most wonderful; and we think, that it would be much less
wonderful, if we could discover the presence, though it were the _mere
presence_, of something else. We therefore, in our mind, run over every
circumstance analogous, to discover something which we may consider
as present, that may represent to our imagination the cause which we
seek. The effect of _impulse_, in producing motion, we know by constant
experience; and, as the motion, which it produces, in a particular
direction, seems analogous to the motion of the stone in its particular
direction, we conceive, that the motion of a stone, in its fall to the
earth, is rendered more intelligible, by the imagined intervention of
some impelling body. The circumstances, which we observe, however,
are manifestly inconsistent with the supposition of the impulse of
any very gross matter. The analogies of gross matter are accordingly
excluded from our thoughts, and we suppose the impulse to proceed from
some very subtle fluid, to which we give the name of _ether_, or any
other name, which we may choose to invent for it. The hypothesis is
founded, you will observe, on the mere analogy of another species of
motion, and which would account for gravitation by the impulse of some
fine fluid. It is evident, that there may be, in this way, as many
hypotheses to explain a single fact, as there have been circumstances
analogous observed in all the various phenomena of nature. Accordingly,
another set of philosophers, instead of explaining gravitation by the
analogy of _impulse_, have had recourse to another analogy, still more
intimately familiar to us--that of the phenomena of life: We are able
to move our limbs by our mere volition. The mind, therefore, it is
evident, can produce motion in matter; and it is hence some interposed
spiritual agent, which produces all the phenomena of gravitation. Every
orb, in its revolution on its axis, or in its great journey through
the heavens, has, according to this system of philosophical mythology,
some peculiar _genius_, or directing spirit, that regulates its course,
in the same manner as, of old, the universe itself was considered as
one enormous animal, performing its various movements by its own vital
energies. It is the influence of this analogy of our own muscular
motions, as obedient to our volition,--together with the mistaken
belief of adding greater honour to the divine Omnipotent,--which has
led a very large class of philosophers to ascribe every change in the
universe, material or intellectual, not to the original _foresight_
and arrangement merely,--the irresistible evidence of which even the
impiety, that professes to question it, _must_ secretly admit,--but to
the direct operation of the Creator and Sovereign of the world,--
“The mighty Hand,
That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres,
Works in the secret deep; shoots streaming thence
The fair profusion that o'erspreads the spring;
Flings from the sun direct the flaming day;
Feeds every creature; hurls the tempest forth;
And, as on earth this grateful change revolves,
With transport touches all the springs of life.”
So prone is the mind to complicate every phenomenon, by the insertion
of imagined causes, in the simple sequences of physical events,
that one hypothesis may often be said to involve in it many other
hypotheses, invented for the explanation of that very phenomenon, which
is adduced in explanation of another phenomenon, as simple as itself.
The production of muscular motion by the will, which is the source
of the hypothesis of direct spiritual agency, in every production
of motion, or change, in the universe, has itself given occasion to
innumerable speculations of this kind. Indeed, on no subject has the
imagination been more fruitful of fancies, that have been strangely
given to the world under the name of philosophy. Though you cannot be
supposed to be acquainted with the minute nomenclature of anatomy, you
yet all know, that there are parts termed _muscles_, and other parts
termed _nerves_, and that it is by the contraction of our muscles
that our limbs are moved. The nerves, distributing to the different
muscles, are evidently instrumental to their contraction; since the
destruction of the nerve puts an end to the voluntary contraction
of the muscle, and consequently to the apparent motion of the limb.
But what is the influence that is propagated along the nerve, and in
what manner is it propagated? For explaining this most familiar of
all phenomena, there is scarcely any class of phenomena in nature, to
the _analogy_ of which recourse has not been had,--the vibration of
musical chords,--the coiling or uncoiling of springs,--the motion of
elastic fluids, electricity, magnetism, galvanism;--and the result of
so many hypotheses,--after all the labour of striving to adapt them to
the phenomena, and the still greater labour of striving to prove them
exactly adapted, when they were far from being so--has been the return
to the _simple fact_, that muscular motion follows a certain state
of the nerve;--in the same manner, as the result of all the similar
labour, that has been employed to account, as it has been termed, for
gravitation, has been a return to the simple fact, that, at all visible
distances observed, the bodies in nature tend toward each other.
The mere sequence of one event after another event, is, however, too
easily conceived, and has too little in it of that complication,
which at once busies and delights us, to allow the mind to rest in it
long. It must forever have something to disentangle, and, therefore,
something which is perplexed; for, such is the strange nature of man,
that the simplicity of truth, which might seem to be its essential
charm,--and which renders it doubly valuable, in relation to the
weakness of his faculties,--is the very circumstance that renders it
least attractive to him; and though, in his analysis of every thing
that is compound in matter, or involved in thought, he constantly
flatters himself, that it is this very simplicity, which he loves
and seeks, he yet, when he arrives at _absolute simplicity_, feels
an equal tendency to turn away from it, and gladly prefers to it any
thing that is _more_ mysterious, merely because it is mysterious.
“I am persuaded,” said one, who knew our nature well, “that, if the
majority of mankind could be made to see the order of the universe,
such as it is, as they would not remark in it any virtues attached to
certain numbers, nor any properties inherent in certain planets, nor
fatalities, in certain times and revolutions of these, they would
not be able to restrain themselves, on the sight of this admirable
regularity and beauty, from crying out with astonishment, What, is this
all?”
For the fidelity of this picture, in which Fontenelle has so justly
represented one of the common weaknesses of our intellectual nature,
we unfortunately need not refer to the majority of mankind alone,
to whom, it may be said, almost with equal truth, that every thing
is wonderful, and that nothing is wonderful. The feeling which it
describes exists even in the most philosophic mind, and had certainly
no increased influence even on that mind which described it so truly,
when it employed all its great powers, in still striving to support
the cumbrous system of the _Vortices_, against the simple theory of
_attraction_. Even Newton himself, whose transcendent intellect was so
well fitted to perceive the sublimity, which simplification adds to
every thing that is truly great in itself, yet, showed, by his query
with respect to the agency of ether, that he was not absolutely exempt
from that human infirmity of which I speak; and though philosophers may
now be considered as almost unanimous with respect to gravitation,--in
considering it as the mere tendency of bodies towards each other, we
yet, in admiring this tendency which we perceive, feel some reluctance
to admit a mere fact, that presents itself so simply to our conception,
and would be better pleased, if any other mode could be pointed out,
by which, with some decent appearance of reason on its side, the same
effect could seem to be brought about, by a natural apparatus, better
suited to gratify our passion for the _complicated_ and the wonderful.
Though the theory of _Vortices_ can scarcely be said now to have any
lingering defender left, there is a constant tendency, and a tendency
which requires all our philosophy to repress it,--to relapse into
the supposition of a great etherial fluid, by the immense ocean, or
immense streams, of which the phenomenon now asserted to gravitate, may
be explained, and we have no objection, to fill the whole boundless
void of the universe, with an infinite profusion of this invisible
matter, merely that we may think, with more comfort, that we know how
a _feather_ falls to the ground;--though the fall of the feather,
after this magnificent cast of contrivance, would still be as truly
inexplicable as at present; and though many other difficulties must,
in that case, be admitted in addition. It is only in _geometry_, that
we readily allow a straight line, to be the shortest that can be drawn
between any two points. In the physics of mind, or of matter, we are
far from allowing this. We prefer to it almost any _curve_ that is
presented to us by others,--and, without all doubt, any curve which we
have described ourselves; and we boldly maintain, and, which is yet
more fairly believe, that we have found out a _shorter road_, merely
because, in our philosophical peregrination, we have chosen to journey
many miles about, and in our delight of gazing on new objects, have
never thought of measuring the ground which we have trod.
I am aware, indeed, that, in the consideration of the simple
antecedents, and consequents which nature exhibits, it is not the
mere complication of these, by the introduction of new intervening
substances or events, which obtains from the mind so ready an adoption
of hypotheses. On the contrary, there is a sort of false simplification
in the introduction of hypotheses, which itself aids the illusion of
the mystery. I term the simplification _false_, because it is not
in the phenomena themselves, but in our mode of conceiving them. It
is certainly far more simple, _in nature_, that bodies should have
a tendency toward each other, than that there should be oceans of a
subtle fluid, circulating around them, in vortices,--or streams of
such a fluid, projected continually on them from some unknown source,
merely to produce the same exact motions, which would be the result of
the reciprocal tendency in the bodies themselves. But the interposition
of all this immensity of matter, to account for the fall of a feather
or rain-drop, cumbrous as the contrivance must be allowed to be, is
yet in one respect, more simple to our conception, because, instead
of two classes of phenomena, those of _gravitation_ and of _impulse_,
we have, in referring all to _impulse_, only one general class. Man
loves what is simple _much_, but he loves what is mysterious _more_;
and a mighty ocean of ether, operating invisibly in all the visible
phenomena of the universe, has thus a sort of double charm, by uniting
the false simplification, of which I have spoken, with abundance of
real mystery. This mixture of the simple and the mysterious, is, in
some measure, like the mixture of uniformity with diversity, that is
so delightful in works of art. However pleasing objects may separately
be, we are soon wearied with wandering over them, when, from their
extreme irregularity, we cannot group them in any distinct assemblage,
or discover some slight relation of parts to the whole; and we are
still sooner, and more painfully fatigued, when every object which we
see is in exact symmetry with some other object. In like manner, the
mind would be perplexed and oppressed, if it were to conceive a great
multitude of objects or circumstances, concurring in the production
of one observed event. But it feels a sort of dissatisfaction also,
when the sequences of events which it observes, are reduced to the
mere antecedents and consequents of which they consist, and must have
a little more _complication_ to flatter it with the belief, that it
has learned something which it is important to have learned. To know
that a withered leaf falls to the ground, is to know, what the very
vulgar know, as well as ourselves; but an ocean of _ether_, whirling
it downward, is something of which the vulgar have no conception, and
gives a kind of mysterious magnificence to a very simple event, which
makes us think, that our knowledge is greater, because we have given,
in our imagination, a sort of cumbrous magnitude to the phenomenon
itself.