§ 1. Formal Inference.
Inference is the conditional acceptance of a proposition, Assent is
the unconditional; the object of Assent is a truth, the object of
Inference is the truth-like or a verisimilitude. The problem which I
have undertaken is that of ascertaining how it comes to pass that a
conditional act leads to an unconditional; and, having now shown that
assent really is unconditional, I proceed to show how inferential
exercises, as such, always must be conditional.
We reason, when we hold this by virtue of that; whether we hold it as
evident or as approximating or tending to be evident, in either case we
so hold it because of holding something else to be evident or tending
to be evident. In the next place, our reasoning ordinarily presents
itself to our mind as a simple act, not a process or series of acts.
We apprehend the antecedent and then apprehend the consequent, without
explicit recognition of the medium connecting the two, as if by a sort
of direct association of the first thought with the second. We proceed
by a sort of instinctive perception, from premiss to conclusion. I call
it instinctive, not as if the faculty were one and the same to all
men in strength and quality (as we generally conceive of instinct),
but because ordinarily, or at least often, it acts by a spontaneous
impulse, as prompt and inevitable as the exercise of sense and memory.
We perceive external objects, and we remember past events, without
knowing how we do so; and in like manner we reason without effort and
intention, or any necessary consciousness of the path which the mind
takes in passing from antecedent to conclusion.
Such is ratiocination, in what may be called a state of nature, as it
is found in the uneducated,—nay, in all men, in its ordinary exercise;
nor is there any antecedent ground for determining that it will not be
as correct in its informations as it is instinctive, as trustworthy
as are sensible perception and memory, though its informations are
not so immediate and have a wider range. By means of sense we gain
knowledge directly; by means of reasoning we gain it indirectly, that
is, by virtue of a previous knowledge. And if we may justly regard
the universe, according to the meaning of the word, as one whole, we
may also believe justly that to know one part of it is necessarily to
know much more than that one part. This thought leads us to a further
view of ratiocination. The proverb says, “Ex pede Herculem;” and we
have actual experience how the practised zoologist can build up some
intricate organization from the sight of its smallest bone, evoking
the whole as if it were a remembrance; how, again, a philosophical
antiquarian, by means of an inscription, interprets the mythical
traditions of former ages, and makes the past live; and how a Columbus
is led, from considerations which are common property, and fortuitous
phenomena which are successively brought to his notice, to have such
faith in a western world, as willingly to commit himself to the terrors
of a mysterious ocean in order to arrive at it. That which the mind is
able thus variously to bring together into unity, must have some real
intrinsic connexion of part with part. But if this _summa rerum_ is
thus one whole, it must be constructed on definite principles and laws,
the knowledge of which will enlarge our capacity of reasoning about it
in particulars;—thus we are led on to aim at determining on a large
scale and on system, what even gifted or practised intellects are only
able by their own personal vigour to reach piece-meal and fitfully,
that is, at substituting scientific methods, such as all may use, for
the action of individual genius.
There is another reason for attempting to discover an instrument of
reasoning (that is, of gaining new truths by means of old), which may
be less vague and arbitrary than the talent and experience of the few
or the common-sense of the many. As memory is not always accurate, and
has on that account led to the adoption of writing, as being a _memoria
technica_, unaffected by the failure of mental impressions,—as our
senses at times deceive us, and have to be corrected by each other; so
is it also with our reasoning faculty. The conclusions of one man are
not the conclusions of another; those of the same man do not always
agree together; those of ever so many who agree together may differ
from the facts themselves, which those conclusions are intended to
ascertain. In consequence it becomes a necessity, if it be possible,
to analyze the process of reasoning, and to invent a method which may
act as a common measure between mind and mind, as a means of joint
investigation, and as a recognized intellectual standard,—a standard
such as to secure us against hopeless mistakes, and to emancipate us
from the capricious _ipse dixit_ of authority.
As the index on the dial notes down the sun’s course in the heavens,
as a key, revolving through the intricate wards of the lock, opens for
us a treasure-house, so let us, if we can, provide ourselves with some
ready expedient to serve as a true record of the system of objective
truth, and an available rule for interpreting its phenomena; or at
least let us go as far as we can in providing it. One such experimental
key is the science of geometry, which, in a certain department of
nature, substitutes a collection of true principles, fruitful and
interminable in consequences, for the guesses, _pro re natâ_, of our
intellect, and saves it both the labour and the risk of guessing.
Another far more subtle and effective instrument is algebraical
science, which acts as a spell in unlocking for us, without merit or
effort of our own individually, the _arcana_ of the concrete physical
universe. A more ambitious, because a more comprehensive contrivance
still, for interpreting the concrete world is the method of logical
inference. What we desiderate is something which may supersede the need
of personal gifts by a far-reaching and infallible rule. Now, without
external symbols to mark out and to steady its course, the intellect
runs wild; but with the aid of symbols, as in algebra, it advances with
precision and effect. Let then our symbols be words: let all thought
be arrested and embodied in words. Let language have a monopoly of
thought; and thought go for only so much as it can show itself to be
worth in language. Let every prompting of the intellect be ignored,
every _momentum_ of argument be disowned, which is unprovided with an
equivalent wording, as its ticket for sharing in the common search
after truth. Let the authority of nature, common-sense, experience,
genius, go for nothing. Ratiocination, thus restricted and put into
grooves, is what I have called Inference, and the science, which is its
regulating principle, is Logic.
The first step in the inferential method is to throw the question to be
decided into the form of a proposition; then to throw the proof itself
into propositions, the force of the proof lying in the comparison of
these propositions with each other. When the analysis is carried out
fully and put into form, it becomes the Aristotelic syllogism. However,
an inference need not be expressed thus technically; an enthymeme
fulfils the requirements of what I have called Inference. So does any
other form of words with the mere grammatical expressions, “for,”
“therefore,” “supposing,” “so that,” “similarly,” and the like. Verbal
reasoning, of whatever kind, as opposed to mental, is what I mean by
inference, which differs from logic only inasmuch as logic is its
scientific form. And it will be more convenient here to use the two
words indiscriminately, for I shall say nothing about logic which does
not in its substance also apply to inference.
Logical inference, then, being such, and its office such as I have
described, the question follows, how far it answers the purpose for
which it is used. It proposes to provide both a test and a common
measure of reasoning; and I think it will be found partly to succeed
and partly to fail; succeeding so far as words can in fact be found for
representing the countless varieties and subtleties of human thought,
failing on account of the fallacy of the original assumption, that
whatever can be thought can be adequately expressed in words.
In the first place, Inference, being conditional, is hampered with
other propositions besides that which is especially its own, that
is, with the premisses as well as the conclusion, and with the rules
connecting the latter with the former. It views its own proper
proposition in the medium of prior propositions, and measures it
by them. It does not hold a proposition for its own sake, but as
dependent upon others, and those others it entertains for the sake of
the conclusion. Thus it is practically far more concerned with the
comparison of propositions, than with the propositions themselves.
It is obliged to regard all the propositions, with which it has to
do, not so much for their own sake, as for the sake of each other,
as regards the identity or likeness, independence or dissimilarity,
which has to be mutually predicated of them. It follows from this,
that the more simple and definite are the words of a proposition,
and the narrower their meaning, and the more that meaning in each
proposition is restricted to the relation which it has to the words of
the other propositions compared with it,—in other words, the nearer
the propositions concerned in the inference approach to being mental
abstractions, and the less they have to do with the concrete reality,
and the more closely they are made to express exact, intelligible,
comprehensible, communicable notions, and the less they stand for
objective things, that is, the more they are the subjects, not of real,
but of notional apprehension,—so much the more suitable do they become
for the purposes of Inference.
Hence it is that no process of argument is so perfect, as that which is
conducted by means of symbols. In Arithmetic 1 is 1, and just 1, and
never anything else but 1; it never is 2, it has no tendency to change
its meaning, and to become 2; it has no portion, quality, admixture of
2 in its meaning. And 6 under all circumstances is 3 times 2, and the
sum of 2 and 4; nor can the whole world supply anything to throw doubt
upon these elementary positions. It is not so with language. Take, by
contrast, the word “inference,” which I have been using: it may stand
for the act of inferring, as I have used it; or for the connecting
principle, or _inferentia_, between premisses and conclusions; or
for the conclusion itself. And sometimes it will be difficult, in a
particular sentence, to say which it bears of these three senses. And
so again in Algebra, _a_ is never _x_, or anything but _a_, wherever it
is found; and _a_ and _b_ are always standard quantities, to which _x_
and _y_ are always to be referred, and by which they are always to be
measured. In Geometry again, the subjects of argument, points, lines,
and surfaces, are precise creations of the mind, suggested indeed by
external objects, but meaning nothing but what they are defined to
mean: they have no colour, no motion, no heat, no qualities which
address themselves to the ear or to the palate; so that, in whatever
combinations or relations the words denoting them occur, and to
whomsoever they come, those words never vary in their meaning, but are
just of the same measure and weight at one time and at another.
What is true of Arithmetic, Algebra, and Geometry, is true also of
Aristotelic argumentation in its typical modes and figures. It compares
two given words separately with a third, and then determines how they
stand towards each other, in a _bona fide_ identity of sense. In
consequence, its formal process is best conducted by means of symbols,
A, B, and C. While it keeps to these, it is safe; it has the cogency of
mathematical reasoning, and draws its conclusions by a rule as unerring
as it is blind.
Symbolical notation, then, being the perfection of the syllogistic
method, it follows that, when words are substituted for symbols, it
will be its aim to circumscribe and stint their import as much as
possible, lest perchance A should not always exactly mean A, and B mean
B; and to make them, as much as possible, the _calculi_ of notions,
which are in our absolute power, as meaning just what we choose them
to mean, and as little as possible the tokens of real things, which
are outside of us, and which mean we do not know how much, but so much
certainly as may run away with us, in proportion as we enter into them,
beyond the range of scientific management. The concrete matter of
propositions is a constant source of trouble to syllogistic reasoning,
as marring the simplicity and perfection of its process. Words, which
denote things, have innumerable implications; but in inferential
exercises it is the very triumph of that clearness and hardness of
head, which is the characteristic talent for the art, to have stripped
them of all these connatural senses, to have drained them of that
depth and breadth of associations which constitute their poetry, their
rhetoric, and their historical life, to have starved each term down
till it has become the ghost of itself, and everywhere one and the
same ghost, “omnibus umbra locis,” so that it may stand for just one
unreal aspect of the concrete thing to which it properly belongs, for a
relation, a generalization, or other abstraction, for a notion neatly
turned out of the laboratory of the mind, and sufficiently tame and
subdued, because existing only in a definition.
Thus it is that the logician for his own purposes, and most usefully
as far as those purposes are concerned, turns rivers, full, winding,
and beautiful, into navigable canals. To him dog or horse is not a
thing which he sees, but a mere name suggesting ideas; and by dog or
horse universal he means, not the aggregate of all individual dogs
or horses brought together, but a common aspect, meagre but precise,
of all existing or possible dogs or horses, which all the while does
not really correspond to any one single dog or horse out of the whole
aggregate. Such minute fidelity in the representation of individuals
is neither necessary nor possible to his art; his business is not
to ascertain facts in the concrete, but to find and dress up middle
terms; and, provided they and the extremes which they go between are
not equivocal, either in themselves or in their use, and he can enable
his pupils to show well in a _vivâ voce_ disputation, or in a popular
harangue, or in a written dissertation, he has achieved the main
purpose of his profession.
Such are the characteristics of reasoning, viewed as a science or
scientific art, or inferential process, and we might anticipate that,
narrow as by necessity is its field of view, for that reason its
pretensions to be demonstrative were incontrovertible. In a certain
sense they really are so; while we talk logic, we are unanswerable;
but then, on the other hand, this universal living scene of things is
after all as little a logical world as it is a poetical; and, as it
cannot without violence be exalted into poetical perfection, neither
can it be attenuated into a logical formula. Abstract can only conduct
to abstract; but we have need to attain by our reasonings to what
is concrete; and the margin between the abstract conclusions of the
science, and the concrete facts which we wish to ascertain, will be
found to reduce the force of the inferential method from demonstration
to the mere determination of the probable. Thus, whereas (as I have
already said) Inference starts with conditions, as starting with
premisses, here are two reasons why, when employed upon matters of
fact, it can only conclude probabilities: first, because its premisses
are assumed, not proved; and secondly, because its conclusions are
abstract, and not concrete. I will now consider these two points
separately.
1.
Inference comes short of proof in concrete matters, because it has
not a full command over the objects to which it relates, but merely
assumes its premisses. In order to complete the proof, we are thrown
upon some previous syllogism or syllogisms, in which the assumptions
may be proved; and then, still farther back, we are thrown upon others
again, to prove the new assumptions of that second order of syllogisms.
Where is this process to stop? especially since it must run upon
separated, divergent, and multiplied lines of argument, the farther
the investigation is carried back. At length a score of propositions
present themselves, all to be proved by propositions more evident than
themselves, in order to enable them respectively to become premisses to
that series of inferences which terminates in the conclusion which we
originally drew. But even now the difficulty is not at an end; it would
be something to arrive at length at premisses which are undeniable,
however long we might be in arriving at them; but in this case the long
retrospection lodges us at length at what are called first principles,
the recondite sources of all knowledge, as to which logic provides
no common measure of minds,—which are accepted by some, rejected by
others,—in which, and not in the syllogistic exhibitions, lies the
whole problem of attaining to truth,—and which are called self-evident
by their respective advocates because they are evident in no other way.
One of the two uses contemplated in reasoning by rule, or in verbal
argumentation, was, as I have said, to establish a standard of truth
and to supersede the _ipse dixit_ of authority: how does it fulfil this
end, if it only leads us back to first principles, about which there is
interminable controversy? We are not able to prove by syllogism that
there are any self-evident propositions at all; but supposing there
are (as of course I hold there are), still who can determine these by
logic? Syllogism, then, though of course it has its use, still does
only the minutest and easiest part of the work, in the investigation of
truth, for when there is any difficulty, that difficulty commonly lies
in determining first principles, not in the arrangement of proofs.
Even when argument is the most direct and severe of its kind, there
must be those assumptions in the process which resolve themselves into
the conditions of human nature; but how many more assumptions does that
process in ordinary concrete matters involve, subtle assumptions not
directly arising out of these primary conditions, but accompanying the
course of reasoning, step by step, and traceable to the sentiments of
the age, country, religion, social habits and ideas, of the particular
inquirers or disputants, and passing current without detection,
because admitted equally on all hands! And to these must be added
the assumptions which are made from the necessity of the case, in
consequence of the prolixity and elaborateness of any argument which
should faithfully note down all the propositions which go to make it
up. We recognize this tediousness even in the case of the theorems of
Euclid, though mathematical proof is comparatively simple.
Logic then does not really prove; it enables us to join issue with
others; it suggests ideas; it opens views; it maps out for us the lines
of thought; it verifies negatively; it determines when differences of
opinion are hopeless; and when and how far conclusions are probable;
but for genuine proof in concrete matter we require an _organon_ more
delicate, versatile, and elastic than verbal argumentation.
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I ought to give an illustration of what I have been stating in general
terms; but it is difficult to do so without a digression. However, if
it must be, I look round the room in which I happen to be writing, and
take down the first book which catches my eye. It is an old volume
of a Magazine of great name; I open it at random and fall upon a
discussion about the then lately discovered emendations of the text of
Shakespeare. It will do for my purpose.
In the account of Falstaff’s death in “Henry V.” (act ii. scene 3) we
read, according to the received text, the well-known words, “His nose
was as sharp as a pen, and ’a babbled of green fields.” In the first
authentic edition, published in 1623, some years after Shakespeare’s
death, the words, I believe, ran, “and a table of green fields,” which
has no sense. Accordingly, an anonymous critic, reported by Theobald in
the last century, corrected them to “and ’a talked of green fields,”
Theobald himself improved the reading into “and ’a babbled of green
fields,” which since his time has been the received text. But just
twenty years ago an annotated copy of the edition of 1632 was found,
annotated perhaps by a contemporary, which, among as many as 20,000
corrections of the text, substituted for the corrupt reading of
1623, the words “on a table of green frieze,” which has a sufficient
sense, though far less acceptable to an admirer of Shakespeare, than
Theobald’s. The genuineness of this copy with its annotations, as it is
presented to us, I shall here take for granted.
Now I understand, or at least will suppose, the argument, maintained
in the article of the Magazine in question, to run thus:—“Theobald’s
reading, as at present received, is to be retained, to the exclusion
of the text of 1623 and of the emendation made on the copy of the
edition of 1632;—to the exclusion of the text of 1623 because that
text is corrupt; to the exclusion of the annotation of 1632 because
it is anonymous.” I wish it then observed how many large questions
are opened in the discussion which ensues, how many recondite and
untractable principles have to be settled, and how impotent is logic,
or any reasonings which can be thrown into language, to deal with these
indispensable first principles.
The first position is, “The authoritative reading of 1623 is not to
be restored to the received text, because it is corrupt.” Now are we
to take it for granted, as a first principle, which needs no proof,
that a text may be tampered with, because it is corrupt? However the
corrupt reading arose, it is authoritative. It is found in an edition,
published by known persons, only six years after Shakespeare’s death,
from his own manuscript, as it appears, and with his corrections of
earlier faulty impressions. Authority cannot sanction nonsense, but
it can forbid critics from experimentalizing upon it. If the text of
Shakespeare is corrupt, it should be published as corrupt.
I believe the best editors of the Greek tragedians have given up the
impertinence of introducing their conjectures into the text; and a
classic like Shakespeare has a right to be treated with the same
respect as Æschylus. To this it will be replied, that Shakespeare is
for the general public and Æschylus for students of a dead language;
that the run of men read for amusement or as a recreation, and that,
if the editions of Shakespeare were made on critical principles, they
would remain unsold. Here, then, we are brought to the question whether
it is any advantage to read Shakespeare except with the care and pains
which a classic demands, and whether he is in fact read at all by those
whom such critical exactness would offend; and thus we are led on to
further questions about cultivation of mind and the education of the
masses. Further, the question presents itself, whether the general
admiration of Shakespeare is genuine, whether it is not a mere fashion,
whether the multitude of men understand him at all, whether it is not
true that every one makes much of him, because every one else makes
much of him. Can we possibly make Shakespeare light reading, especially
in this day of cheap novels, by ever so much correction of his text?
Now supposing this point settled, and the text of 1623 put out of
court, then comes the claim of the Annotator to introduce into
Shakespeare’s text the emendation made upon his copy of the edition of
1632; why is he not of greater authority than Theobald, the inventor
of the received reading, and his emendation of more authority than
Theobald’s? If the corrupt reading must any how be got out of the
way, why should not the Annotator, rather than Theobald, determine
its substitute? For what we know, the authority of the anonymous
Annotator may be very great. There is nothing to show that he was
not a contemporary of the poet; and if so, the question arises, what
is the character of his emendations? are they his own private and
arbitrary conjectures, or are they informations from those who knew
Shakespeare, traditions of the theatre, of the actors or spectators of
his plays? Here, then, we are involved in intricate questions which
can only be decided by a minute examination of the 20,000 emendations
so industriously brought together by this anonymous critic. But
it is obvious that a verbal argumentation upon 20,000 corrections
is impossible: there must be first careful processes of perusal,
classification, discrimination, selection, which mainly are acts of the
mind without the intervention of language. There must be a cumulation
of arguments on one side and on the other, of which only the heads or
the results can be put upon paper. Next come in questions of criticism
and taste, with their recondite and disputable premisses, and the
usual deductions from them, so subtle and difficult to follow. All
this being considered, am I wrong in saying that, though controversy
is both possible and useful at all times, yet it is not adequate
to this occasion; rather that that sum-total of argument (whether
for or against the Annotator) which is furnished by his numerous
emendations,—or what may be called the multiform, evidential fact, in
which the examination of these emendations results,—requires rather
to be photographed on the individual mind as by one impression, than
admits of delineation for the satisfaction of the many in any known or
possible language, however rich in vocabulary and flexible in structure?
And now as to the third point which presents itself for consideration,
the claim of Theobald’s emendation to retain its place in the _textus
receptus_. It strikes me with wonder that an argument in its defence
could have been put forward to the following effect, viz. that true
though it be, that the Editors of 1623 are of much more authority than
Theobald, and that the Annotator’s reading in the passage in question
is more likely to be correct than Theobald’s, nevertheless Theobald’s
has by this time acquired a prescriptive right to its place there,
the prescription of more than a hundred years;—that usurpation has
become legitimacy; that Theobald’s words have sunk into the hearts of
thousands; that in fact they have become Shakespeare’s; that it would
be a dangerous innovation and an evil precedent to touch them. If we
begin an unsettlement of the popular mind, where is it to stop?
Thus it appears, in order to do justice to the question before us, we
have to betake ourselves to the consideration of myths, pious frauds,
and other grave matters, which introduce us into a _sylva_, dense and
intricate, of first principles and elementary phenomena, belonging to
the domains of archeology and theology. Nor is this all; when such
views of the duty of garbling a classic are propounded, they open upon
us a long vista of sceptical interrogations which go far to disparage
the claims upon us, the genius, the very existence of the great poet
to whose honour these views are intended to minister. For perhaps,
after all, Shakespeare is really but a collection of many Theobalds,
who have each of them a right to his own share of him. There was a
great dramatic school in his day; he was one of a number of first-rate
artists,—perhaps they wrote in common. How are we to know what is his,
or how much? Are the best parts his, or the worst? It is said that the
players put in what is vulgar and offensive in his writings; perhaps
they inserted the beauties. I have heard it urged years ago, as an
objection to Sheridan’s claim of authorship to the plays which bear
his name, that they were so unlike each other; is not this the very
peculiarity of those imputed to Shakespeare? Were ever the writings of
one man so various, so impersonal? can we form any one true idea of
what he was in history or character, by means of them? is he not in
short “_vox et præterea nihil_”? Then again, in corroboration, is there
any author’s life so deficient in biographical notices as his? We know
about Hooker, Spenser, Spelman, Raleigh, Harvey, his contemporaries:
what do we know of Shakespeare? Is he much more than a name? Is not
the traditional object of an Englishman’s idolatry after all a nebula
of genius, destined, like Homer, to be resolved into its separate and
independent luminaries, as soon as we have a criticism powerful enough
for the purpose? I must not be supposed for a moment to countenance
such scepticism myself,—though it is a subject worthy the attention
of a sceptical age: here I have introduced it simply to suggest how
many words go to make up a thoroughly valid argument; how short and
easy a way to a true conclusion is the logic of good sense; how little
syllogisms have to do with the formation of opinion; how little depends
upon the inferential proofs, and how much upon those pre-existing
beliefs and views, in which men either already agree with each other or
hopelessly differ, before they begin to dispute, and which are hidden
deep in our nature, or, it may be, in our personal peculiarities.
2.
So much on the multiplicity of assumptions, which in spite of formal
exactness, logical reasoning in concrete matters is forced to admit,
and on the consequent uncertainty which attends its conclusions. Now
I come to the second reason why its conclusions are thus wanting in
precision.
In this world of sense we have to do with things, far more than with
notions. We are not solitary, left to the contemplation of our own
thoughts and their legitimate developments. We are surrounded by
external beings, and our enunciations are directed to the concrete.
We reason in order to enlarge our knowledge of matters, which do not
depend on us for being what they are. But how is an exercise of mind,
which is for the most part occupied with notions, not things, competent
to deal with things, except partially and indirectly? This is the main
reason why an inference, however fully worded, (except perhaps in some
peculiar cases, which are out of place here,) never can reach so far
as to ascertain a fact. As I have already said, arguments about the
abstract cannot handle and determine the concrete. They may approximate
to a proof, but they only reach the probable, because they cannot reach
the particular.
Even in mathematical physics a margin is left for possible imperfection
in the investigation. When the planet Neptune was discovered, it was
deservedly considered a triumph of science, that abstract reasonings
had done so much towards determining the planet and its orbit. There
would have been no triumph in success, had there been no hazard of
failure; it is no triumph to Euclid, in pure mathematics, that the
geometrical conclusions of his second book can be worked out and
verified by algebra.
The motions of the heavenly bodies are almost mathematical in their
precision; but there is a multitude of matters, to which mathematical
science is applied, which are in their nature intricate and obscure,
and require that reasoning by rule should be completed by the living
mind. Who would be satisfied with a navigator or engineer, who had no
practice or experience whereby to carry on his scientific conclusions
out of their native abstract into the concrete and the real? What is
the meaning of the distrust, which is ordinarily felt, of speculators
and theorists but this, that they are dead to the necessity of personal
prudence and judgment to qualify and complete their logic? Science,
working by itself, reaches truth in the abstract, and probability in
the concrete; but what we aim at is truth in the concrete.
This is true of other inferences besides mathematical. They come to
no definite conclusions about matters of fact, except as they are
made effectual for their purpose by the living intelligence which
uses them. “All men have their price; Fabricius is a man; he has his
price;” but he had not his price; how is this? Because he is more
than a universal; because he falls under other universals; because
universals are ever at war with each other; because what is called a
universal is only a general; because what is only general does not lead
to a necessary conclusion. Let us judge him by another universal. “Men
have a conscience; Fabricius is a man; he has a conscience.” Until we
have actual experience of Fabricius, we can only say, that, since he is
a man, perhaps he will take a bribe, and perhaps he will not. “Latet
dolus in generalibus;” they are arbitrary and fallacious, if we take
them for more than broad views and aspects of things, serving as our
notes and indications for judging of the particular, but not absolutely
touching and determining facts.
Let units come first, and (so-called) universals second; let universals
minister to units, not units be sacrificed to universals. John,
Richard, and Robert are individual things, independent, incommunicable.
We may find some kind of common measure between them, and we may give
it the name of man, man as such, the typical man, the _auto-anthropos_.
We are justified in so doing, and in investing it with general
attributes, and bestowing on it what we consider a definition. But
we think we may go on to impose our definition on the whole race,
and to every member of it, to the thousand Johns, Richards, and
Roberts who are found in it. No; each of them is what he is, in spite
of it. Not any one of them is man, as such, or coincides with the
_auto-anthropos_. Another John is not necessarily rational, because
“all men are rational,” for he may be an idiot;—nor because “man is a
being of progress,” does the second Richard progress, for he may be a
dunce;—nor, because “man is made for society,” must we therefore go on
to deny that the second Robert is a gipsy or a bandit, as he is found
to be. There is no such thing as stereotyped humanity; it must ever
be a vague, bodiless idea, because the concrete units from which it
is formed are independent realities. General laws are not inviolable
truths; much less are they necessary causes. Since, as a rule, men are
rational, progressive, and social, there is a high probability of this
rule being true in the case of a particular person; but we must know
him to be sure of it.
Each thing has its own nature and its own history. When the nature and
the history of many things are similar, we say that they have the same
nature; but there is no such thing as one and the same nature; they are
each of them itself, not identical, but like. A law is not a fact, but
a notion. “All men die; therefore Elias has died;” but he has not died,
and did not die. He was an exception to the general law of humanity;
so far, he did not come under that law, but under the law (so to say)
of Elias. It was the peculiarity of his individuality, that he left
the world without dying: what right have we to subject the person of
Elias to the scientific notion of an abstract humanity, which we have
formed without asking his leave? Why must the tyrant majority find a
rule for his history? “But all men are mortal;” not so; what is really
meant is, that “man, as such, is mortal,” or the abstract, typical
_auto-anthropos_; therefore the minor premiss ought to be, “Elias was
the _auto-anthropos_ or abstract man;” but he was not, and could not be
the abstract man, nor could any one else, any more than the average man
of an Insurance Company is every individual man who insures his life
with it. Such a syllogism proves nothing about the veritable Elias,
except in the way of antecedent probability. If it be said that Elias
was exempted from death, not by nature, but by miracle, what is this
to the purpose, undeniable as it is? Still, to have this miraculous
exemption was the personal prerogative of Elias. We call it miracle,
because God ordinarily acts otherwise. He who causes men in general
to die, gave to Elias not to die. This miraculous gift comes into the
individuality of Elias. On this individuality we must fix our thoughts,
and not begin our notion of him by ignoring it. He was a man, and
something more than “man”; and if we do not take this into account, we
fall into an initial error in our thoughts of him.
What is true of Elias is true of every one in his own place and degree.
We call rationality the distinction of man, when compared with other
animals. This is true in logic; but in fact a man differs from a brute,
not in rationality only, but in all that he is, even in those respects
in which he is most like a brute; so that his whole self, his bones,
limbs, make, life, reason, moral feeling, immortality, and all that
he is besides, is his real _differentia_, in contrast to a horse or
a dog. And in like manner as regards John and Richard, when compared
with one another; each is himself, and nothing else, and, though,
regarded abstractedly, the two may fairly be said to have something in
common, (viz. that abstract sameness which does not exist at all,) yet,
strictly speaking, they have nothing in common, for each of them has a
vested interest in all that he himself is; and, moreover, what seems
to be common in the two, becomes in fact so uncommon, so _sui simile_,
in their respective individualities—the bodily frame of each is so
singled out from all other bodies by its special constitution, sound
or weak, by its vitality, activity, pathological history and changes,
and, again, the mind of each is so distinct from all other minds, in
disposition, powers, and habits,—that, instead of saying, as logicians
say, that the two men differ only in number, we ought, I repeat, rather
to say that they differ from each other in all that they are, in
identity, in incommunicability, in personality.
Nor does any real thing admit, by any calculus of logic, of being
dissected into all the possible general notions which it admits, nor,
in consequence, of being recomposed out of them; though the attempt
thus to treat it is more unpromising in proportion to the intricacy
and completeness of its make. We cannot see through any one of the
myriad beings which make up the universe, or give the full catalogue
of its belongings. We are accustomed, indeed, and rightly, to speak of
the Creator Himself as incomprehensible; and, indeed, He is so by an
incommunicable attribute; but in a certain sense each of His creatures
is incomprehensible to us also, in the sense that no one has a perfect
understanding of it but He. We recognize and appropriate aspects of
them, and logic is useful to us in registering these aspects and what
they imply; but it does not give us to know even one individual being.
So much on logical argumentation; and in speaking of the syllogism,
I have spoken of all inferential processes whatever, as expressed
in language, (if they are such as to be reducible to science,) for
they all require general notions, as conditions of their coming to a
conclusion.
Thus, in the deductive argument, “Europe has no security for peace,
till its large standing armies in its separate states are reduced; for
a large standing army is in its very idea provocative of war,” the
conclusion is only probable, for it may so be that in no country is
that pure idea realized, but in every country in concrete fact there
may be circumstances, political or social, which destroy the abstract
dangerousness.
So, too, as regards Induction and Analogy, as modes of Inference;
for, whether I argue, “This place will have the cholera, unless it is
drained; for there are a number of well-ascertained cases which point
to this conclusion;” or, “The sun will rise to-morrow, for it rose
to-day;” in either method of reasoning I appeal, in order to prove a
particular case, to a general principle or law, which has not force
enough to warrant more than a probable conclusion. As to the cholera,
the place in question may have certain antagonist advantages, which
anticipate or neutralize the miasma which is the principle of the
poison; and as to the sun’s rising to-morrow, there was a first day of
the sun’s rising, and therefore there may be a last.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
This is what I have to say on formal Inference, when taken to represent
Ratiocination. Science in all its departments has too much simplicity
and exactness, from the nature of the case, to be the measure of fact.
In its very perfection lies its incompetency to settle particulars
and details. As to Logic, its chain of conclusions hangs loose at
both ends; both the point from which the proof should start, and the
points at which it should arrive, are beyond its reach; it comes
short both of first principles and of concrete issues. Even its most
elaborate exhibitions fail to represent adequately the sum total
of considerations by which an individual mind is determined in its
judgment of things; even its most careful combinations made to bear
on a conclusion want that steadiness of aim which is necessary for
hitting it. As I said when I began, thought is too keen and manifold,
its sources are too remote and hidden, its path too personal, delicate,
and circuitous, its subject-matter too various and intricate, to admit
of the trammels of any language, of whatever subtlety and of whatever
compass.
Nor is it any disparagement of the proper value of formal reasonings
thus to speak of them. That they cannot proceed beyond probabilities
is most readily allowed by those who use them most. Philosophers,
experimentalists, lawyers, in their several ways, have commonly the
reputation of being, at least on moral and religious subjects, hard
of belief; because, proceeding in the necessary investigation by the
analytical method of verbal inference, they find within its limits
no sufficient resources for attaining a conclusion. Nay, they do not
always find it possible in their own special province severally; for,
even when in their hearts they have no doubt about a conclusion, still
often, from the habit of their minds, they are reluctant to own it,
and dwell upon the deficiencies of the evidence, or the possibility of
error, because they speak by rule and by book, though they judge and
determine by common-sense.
Every exercise of nature or of art is good in its place; and the uses
of this logical inference are manifold. It is the great principle of
order in our thinking; it reduces a chaos into harmony; it catalogues
the accumulations of knowledge; it maps out for us the relations of
its separate departments; it puts us in the way to correct its own
mistakes. It enables the independent intellects of many, acting and
re-acting on each other, to bring their collective force to bear upon
one and the same subject-matter, or the same question. If language
is an inestimable gift to man, the logical faculty prepares it for
our use. Though it does not go so far as to ascertain truth, still it
teaches us the direction in which truth lies, and how propositions
lie towards each other. Nor is it a slight benefit to know what is
probable, and what is not so, what is needed for the proof of a point,
what is wanting in a theory, how a theory hangs together, and what
will follow, if it be admitted. Though it does not itself discover
the unknown, it is one principal way by which discoveries are made.
Moreover, a course of argument, which is simply conditional, will
point out when and where experiment and observation should be applied,
or testimony sought for, as often happens both in physical and legal
questions. A logical hypothesis is the means of holding facts together,
explaining difficulties, and reconciling the imagination to what is
strange. And, again, processes of logic are useful as enabling us to
get over particular stages of an investigation speedily and surely, as
on a journey we now and then gain time by travelling by night, make
short cuts when the high-road winds, or adopt water-carriage to avoid
fatigue.
But reasoning by rule and in words is too natural to us, to admit
of being regarded merely in the light of utility. Our inquiries
spontaneously fall into scientific sequence, and we think in logic,
as we talk in prose, without aiming at doing so. However sure we are
of the accuracy of our instinctive conclusions, we as instinctively
put them into words, as far as we can; as preferring, if possible, to
have them in an objective shape which we can fall back upon,—first
for our own satisfaction, then for our justification with others.
Such a tangible defence of what we hold, inadequate as it necessarily
is, considered as an analysis of our ratiocination in its length and
breadth, nevertheless is in such sense associated with our holdings,
and so fortifies and illustrates them, that it acts as a vivid
apprehension acts, giving them luminousness and force. Thus inference
becomes a sort of symbol of assent, and even bears upon action.
I have enlarged on these obvious considerations, lest I should seem
paradoxical; but they do not impair the main position of this Section,
that Inference, considered in the shape of verbal argumentation,
determines neither our principles, nor our ultimate judgments,—that it
is neither the test of truth, nor the adequate basis of assent.(12)
§ 2. Informal Inference.
It is plain that formal logical sequence is not in fact the method
by which we are enabled to become certain of what is concrete; and
it is equally plain, from what has been already suggested, what the
real and necessary method is. It is the cumulation of probabilities,
independent of each other, arising out of the nature and circumstances
of the particular case which is under review; probabilities too fine
to avail separately, too subtle and circuitous to be convertible into
syllogisms, too numerous and various for such conversion, even were
they convertible. As a man’s portrait differs from a sketch of him, in
having, not merely a continuous outline, but all its details filled in,
and shades and colours laid on and harmonized together, such is the
multiform and intricate process of ratiocination, necessary for our
reaching him as a concrete fact, compared with the rude operation of
syllogistic treatment.
Let us suppose I wish to convert an educated, thoughtful Protestant,
and accordingly present for his acceptance a syllogism of the following
kind:—“All Protestants are bound to join the Church; you are a
Protestant: ergo.” He answers, we will say, by denying both premisses;
and he does so by means of arguments, which branch out into other
arguments, and those into others, and all of them severally requiring
to be considered by him on their own merits, before the syllogism
reaches him, and in consequence mounting up, taken all together, into
an array of inferential exercises large and various beyond calculation.
Moreover, he is bound to submit himself to this complicated process
from the nature of the case; he would act rashly, if he did not; for
he is a concrete individual unit, and being so, is under so many laws,
and is the subject of so many predications all at once, that he cannot
determine, offhand, his position and his duty by the law and the
predication of one syllogism in particular. I mean he may fairly say,
“Distinguo,” to each of its premisses: he says, “Protestants are bound
to join the Church,—under circumstances,” and “I am a Protestant—in a
certain sense;” and therefore the syllogism, at first sight, does not
touch him at all.
Before, then, he grants the major, he asks whether all Protestants
really are bound to join the Church—are they bound in case they do
not feel themselves bound; if they are satisfied that their present
religion is a safe one; if they are sure it is true; if, on the other
hand, they have grave doubts as to the doctrinal fidelity and purity of
the Church; if they are convinced that the Church is corrupt; if their
conscience instinctively rejects certain of its doctrines; if history
convinces them that the Pope’s power is not _jure divino_, but merely
in the order of Providence? if, again, they are in a heathen country
where priests are not? or where the only priest who is to be found
exacts of them, as a condition of their reception, a profession, which
the Creed of Pope Pius IV. says nothing about; for instance, that the
Holy See is fallible even when it teaches, or that the Temporal Power
is an anti-Christian corruption? On one or other of such grounds he
thinks he need not change his religion; but presently he asks himself,
Can a Protestant be in such a state as to be really satisfied with
his religion, as he has just now been professing? Can he possibly
believe Protestantism came from above, as a whole? how much of it can
he believe came from above? and, as to that portion which he feels did
come from above, has it not all been derived to him from the Church,
when traced to its source? Is not Protestantism in itself a negation?
Did not the Church exist before it? and can he be sure, on the other
hand, that any one of the Church’s doctrines is not from above?
Further, he finds he has to make up his mind what is a corruption,
and what are the tests of it; what he means by a religion; whether
it is obligatory to profess any religion in particular; what are the
standards of truth and falsehood in religion; and what are the special
claims of the Church.
And so, again, as to the minor premiss, perhaps he will answer, that
he is not a Protestant; that he is a Catholic of the early undivided
Church; that he is a Catholic, but not a Papist. Then he has to
determine questions about division, schism, visible unity, what is
essential, what is desirable; about provisional states; as to the
adjustment of the Church’s claims with those of personal judgment and
responsibility; as to the soul of the Church contrasted with the body;
as to degrees of proof, and the degree necessary for his conversion;
as to what is called his providential position, and the responsibility
of change; as to the sincerity of his purpose to follow the Divine
Will, whithersoever it may lead him; as to his intellectual capacity of
investigating such questions at all.
None of these questions, as they come before him, admit of simple
demonstration; but each carries with it a number of independent
probable arguments, sufficient, when united, for a reasonable
conclusion about itself. And first he determines that the questions are
such as he personally, with such talents or attainments as he has, may
fairly entertain; and then he goes on, after deliberation, to form a
definite judgment upon them; and determines them, one way or another,
in their bearing on the bald syllogism which was originally offered
to his acceptance. And, we will say, he comes to the conclusion, that
he ought to accept it as true in his case; that he is a Protestant
in such a sense, of such a complexion, of such knowledge, under such
circumstances, as to be called upon by duty to join the Church; that
this is a conclusion of which he can be certain, and ought to be
certain, and that he will be incurring grave responsibility, if he
does not accept it as certain, and act upon the certainty of it. And
to this conclusion he comes, as is plain, not by any possible verbal
enumeration of all the considerations, minute but abundant, delicate
but effective, which unite to bring him to it; but by a mental
comprehension of the whole case, and a discernment of its upshot,
sometimes after much deliberation, but, it may be, by a clear and rapid
act of the intellect, always, however, by an unwritten summing-up,
something like the summation of the terms, _plus_ and _minus_ of an
algebraical series.
This I conceive to be the real method of reasoning in concrete matters;
and it has these characteristics:—First, it does not supersede the
logical form of inference, but is one and the same with it; only it is
no longer an abstraction, but carried out into the realities of life,
its premisses being instinct with the substance and the momentum of
that mass of probabilities, which, acting upon each other in correction
and confirmation, carry it home definitely to the individual case,
which is its original scope.
Next, from what has been said it is plain, that such a process of
reasoning is more or less implicit, and without the direct and full
advertence of the mind exercising it. As by the use of our eyesight we
recognize two brothers, yet without being able to express what it is by
which we distinguish them; as at first sight we perhaps confuse them
together, but, on better knowledge, we see no likeness between them at
all; as it requires an artist’s eye to determine what lines and shades
make a countenance look young or old, amiable, thoughtful, angry or
conceited, the principle of discrimination being in each case real,
but implicit;—so is the mind unequal to a complete analysis of the
motives which carry it on to a particular conclusion, and is swayed and
determined by a body of proof, which it recognizes only as a body, and
not in its constituent parts.
And thirdly, it is plain, that, in this investigation of the method of
concrete inference, we have not advanced one step towards depriving
inference of its conditional character; for it is still as dependent on
premisses, as it is in its elementary idea. On the contrary, we have
rather added to the obscurity of the problem; for a syllogism is at
least a demonstration, when the premisses are granted, but a cumulation
of probabilities, over and above their implicit character, will vary
both in their number and their separate estimated value, according to
the particular intellect which is employed upon it. It follows that
what to one intellect is a proof is not so to another, and that the
certainty of a proposition does properly consist in the certitude of
the mind which contemplates it. And this of course may be said without
prejudice to the objective truth or falsehood of propositions, since it
does not follow that these propositions on the one hand are not true,
and based on right reason, and those on the other not false, and based
on false reason, because not all men discriminate them in the same way.
Having thus explained the view which I would take of reasoning in
the concrete, viz. that, from the nature of the case, and from the
constitution of the human mind, certitude is the result of arguments
which, taken in the letter, and not in their full implicit sense,
are but probabilities, I proceed to dwell on some instances and
circumstances of a phenomenon which seems to me as undeniable as to
many it may be perplexing.
1.
Let us take three instances belonging respectively to the present, the
past, and the future.
1. We are all absolutely certain, beyond the possibility of doubt, that
Great Britain is an island. We give to that proposition our deliberate
and unconditional adhesion. There is no security on which we should
be better content to stake our interests, our property, our welfare,
than on the fact that we are living in an island. We have no fear of
any geographical discovery which may reverse our belief. We should be
amused or angry at the assertion, as a bad jest, did any one say that
we were at this time joined to the main-land in Norway or in France,
though a canal was cut across the isthmus. We are as little exposed to
the misgiving, “Perhaps we are not on an island after all,” as to the
question, “Is it quite certain that the angle in a semi-circle is a
right-angle?” It is a simple and primary truth with us, if any truth is
such; to believe it is as legitimate an exercise of assent, as there
are legitimate exercises of doubt or of opinion. This is the position
of our minds towards our insularity; yet are the arguments producible
for it (to use the common expression) in black and white commensurate
with this overpowering certitude about it?
Our reasons for believing that we are circumnavigable are such as
these:—first, we have been so taught in our childhood, and it is so in
all the maps; next, we have never heard it contradicted or questioned;
on the contrary, every one whom we have heard speak on the subject
of Great Britain, every book we have read, invariably took it for
granted; our whole national history, the routine transactions and
current events of the country, our social and commercial system, our
political relations with foreigners, imply it in one way or another.
Numberless facts, or what we consider facts, rest on the truth of it;
no received fact rests on its being otherwise. If there is anywhere a
junction between us and the continent, where is it? and how do we know
it? is it in the north or in the south? There is a manifest _reductio
ad absurdum_ attached to the notion that we can be deceived on such a
point as this.
However, negative arguments and circumstantial evidence are not all,
in such a matter, which we have a right to require. They are not the
highest kind of proof possible. Those who have circumnavigated the
island have a right to be certain: have we ever ourselves even fallen
in with any one who has? And as to the common belief, what is the proof
that we are not all of us believing it on the credit of each other?
And then, when it is said that every one believes it, and everything
implies it, how much comes home to me personally of this “every one”
and “everything”? The question is, Why do I believe it myself? A living
statesman is said to have fancied Demerara an island; his belief was
an impression; have we personally more than an impression, if we view
the matter argumentatively, a lifelong impression about Great Britain,
like the belief, so long and so widely entertained, that the earth was
immovable, and the sun careered round it? I am not at all insinuating
that we are not rational in our certitude; I only mean that we cannot
analyze a proof satisfactorily, the result of which good sense actually
guarantees to us.
2. Father Hardouin maintained that Terence’s Plays, Virgil’s “Æneid,”
Horace’s Odes, and the Histories of Livy and Tacitus, were the
forgeries of the monks of the thirteenth century. That he should be
able to argue in behalf of such a position, shows of course that the
proof in behalf of the received opinion is not overwhelming. That is,
we have no means of inferring absolutely, that Virgil’s episode of
Dido, or of the Sibyl, and Horace’s “Te quoque mensorem” and “Quem
tu Melpomene,” belong to that Augustan age, which owes its celebrity
mainly to those poets. Our common-sense, however, believes in their
genuineness without any hesitation or reserve, as if it had been
demonstrated, and not in proportion to the available evidence in its
favour, or the balance of arguments.
So much at first sight;—but what are our grounds for dismissing thus
summarily, as we are likely to do, a theory such as Hardouin’s? For
let it be observed first, that all knowledge of the Latin classics
comes to us from the medieval transcriptions of them, and they who
transcribed them had the opportunity of forging or garbling them. We
are simply at their mercy; for neither by oral transmission, nor by
monumental inscriptions, nor by contemporaneous manuscripts are the
works of Virgil, Horace, and Terence, of Livy and Tacitus, brought
to our knowledge. The existing copies, whenever made, are to us the
autographic originals. Next, it must be considered, that the numerous
religious bodies, then existing over the face of Europe, had leisure
enough, in the course of a century, to compose, not only all the
classics, but all the Fathers too. The question is, whether they had
the ability. This is the main point on which the inquiry turns, or at
least the most obvious; and it forms one of those arguments, which,
from the nature of the case, are felt rather than are convertible into
syllogisms. Hardouin allows that the Georgics, Horace’s Satires and
Epistles, and the whole of Cicero, are genuine: we have a standard
then in these undisputed compositions of the Augustan age. We have a
standard also, in the extant medieval works, of what the thirteenth
century could do; and we see at once how widely the disputed works
differ from the medieval. Now could the thirteenth century simulate
Augustan writers better than the Augustan could simulate such writers
as those of the thirteenth? No. Perhaps, when the subject is critically
examined, the question may be brought to a more simple issue; but
as to our personal reasons for receiving as genuine the whole of
Virgil, Horace, Livy, Tacitus, and Terence, they are summed up in
our conviction that the monks had not the ability to write them.
That is, we take for granted that we are sufficiently informed about
the capabilities of the human mind, and the conditions of genius, to
be quite sure that an age which was fertile in great ideas and in
momentous elements of the future, robust in thought, hopeful in its
anticipations, of singular intellectual curiosity and acumen, and of
high genius in at least one of the fine arts, could not, for the very
reason of its pre-eminence in its own line, have an equal pre-eminence
in a contrary one. We do not pretend to be able to draw the line
between what the medieval intellect could or could not do; but we feel
sure that at least it could not write the classics. An instinctive
sense of this, and a faith in testimony, are the sufficient, but the
undeveloped argument on which to ground our certitude.
I will add, that, if we deal with arguments in the mere letter, the
question of the authorship of works in any case has much difficulty.
I have noticed it in the instance of Shakespeare, and of Newton. We
are all certain that Johnson wrote the prose of Johnson, and Pope the
poetry of Pope; but what is there but prescription, at least after
contemporaries are dead, to connect together the author of the work and
the owner of the name? Our lawyers prefer the examination of present
witnesses to affidavits on paper; but the tradition of “testimonia,”
such as are prefixed to the classics and the Fathers, together with the
absence of dissentient voices, is the adequate groundwork of our belief
in the history of literature.
3. Once more: what are my grounds for thinking that I, in my own
particular case, shall die? I am as certain of it in my own innermost
mind, as I am that I now live; but what is the distinct evidence on
which I allow myself to be certain? how would it tell in a court of
justice? how should I fare under a cross-examination upon the grounds
of my certitude? Demonstration of course I cannot have of a future
event, unless by means of a Divine Voice; but what logical defence can
I make for that undoubting, obstinate anticipation of it, of which I
could not rid myself, if I tried?
First, the future cannot be proved _à posteriori_; therefore we
are compelled by the nature of the case to put up with _à priori_
arguments, that is, with antecedent probability, which is by itself no
logical proof. Men tell me that there is a law of death, meaning by law
a necessity; and I answer that they are throwing dust into my eyes,
giving me words instead of things. What is a law but a generalized
fact? and what power has the past over the future? and what power has
the case of others over my own case? and how many deaths have I seen?
how many ocular witnesses have imparted to me their experience of
deaths, sufficient to establish what is called a law?
But let there be a law of death; so there is a law, we are told, that
the planets, if let alone, would severally fall into the sun—it is the
centrifugal law which hinders it, and so the centripetal law is never
carried out. In like manner I am not under the law of death alone,
I am under a thousand laws, if I am under one; and they thwart and
counteract each other, and jointly determine the irregular line, along
which my actual history runs, divergent from the special direction
of any one of them. No law is carried out, except in cases where it
acts freely: how do I know that the law of death will be allowed its
free action in my particular case? We often are able to avert death by
medical treatment: why should death have its effect, sooner or later,
in every case conceivable?
It is true that the human frame, in all instances which come before
me, first grows, and then declines, wastes, and decays, in visible
preparation for dissolution. We see death seldom, but of this decline
we are witnesses daily; still, it is a plain fact, that most men who
die, die, not by any law of death, but by the law of disease; and some
writers have questioned whether death is ever, strictly speaking,
natural. Now, are diseases necessary? is there any law that every one,
sooner or later, must fall under the power of disease? and what would
happen on a large scale, were there no diseases? Is what we call the
law of death anything more than the chance of disease? Is the prospect
of my death, in its logical evidence,—as that evidence is brought home
to me—much more than a high probability?