At the head of these stands that multitudinous body of fallacious

reasonings, in which the source of error is the ambiguity of terms: when

something which is true if a word be used in a particular sense, is

reasoned on as if it were true in another sense. In such a case there is

not a mal-estimation of evidence, because there is not properly any

evidence to the point at all; there is evidence, but to a different

point, which from a confused apprehension of the meaning of the terms

used, is supposed to be the same. This error will naturally be oftener

committed in our ratiocinations than in our direct inductions, because

in the former we are deciphering our own or other people's notes, while

in the latter we have the things themselves present, either to the

senses or to the memory. Except, indeed, when the induction is not from

individual cases to a generality, but from generalities to a still

higher generalization; in that case the fallacy of ambiguity may affect

the inductive process as well as the ratiocinative. It occurs in

ratiocination in two ways: when the middleterm is ambiguous, or when one

of the terms of the syllogism is taken in one sense in the premises, and

in another sense in the conclusion.

Some good exemplifications of this fallacy are given by Archbishop

Whately. "One case," says he, "which may be regarded as coming under the

head of Ambiguous Middle, is (what I believe logical writers mean by

'_Fallacia Figuræ Dictionis_,') the fallacy built on the grammatical

structure of language, from men's usually taking for granted that

_paronymous_ (or _conjugate_) words, _i.e._ those belonging to each

other, as the substantive, adjective, verb, &c. of the same root, have a

precisely corresponding meaning; which is by no means universally the

case. Such a fallacy could not indeed be even exhibited in strict

logical form, which would preclude even the attempt at it, since it has

two middleterms in sound as well as sense. But nothing is more common in

practice than to vary continually the terms employed, with a view to

grammatical convenience; nor is there anything unfair in such a

practice, as long as the _meaning_ is preserved unaltered; _e.g._

'murder should be punished with death; this man is a murderer, therefore

he deserves to die,' &c. Here we proceed on the assumption (in this case

just) that to commit murder, and to be a murderer,--to deserve death,

and to be one who ought to die, are, respectively, equivalent

expressions; and it would frequently prove a heavy inconvenience to be

debarred this kind of liberty; but the abuse of it gives rise to the

Fallacy in question: _e.g._ _projectors_ are unfit to be trusted; this

man has formed a _project_, therefore he is unfit to be trusted: here

the sophist proceeds on the hypothesis that he who forms a _project_

must be a _projector_: whereas the bad sense that commonly attaches to

the latter word, is not at all implied in the former. This fallacy may

often be considered as lying not in the Middle, but in one of the terms

of the Conclusion; so that the conclusion drawn shall not be, in

reality, at all warranted by the premises, though it will appear to be

so, by means of the grammatical affinity of the words: _e.g._ to be

acquainted with the guilty is a _presumption_ of guilt; this man is so

acquainted, therefore we may _presume_ that he is guilty: this argument

proceeds on the supposition of an exact correspondence between _presume_

and _presumption_, which, however, does not really exist; for

'presumption' is commonly used to express a kind of _slight suspicion_;

whereas, 'to presume' amounts to actual belief. There are innumerable

instances of a non-correspondence in paronymous words, similar to that

above instanced; as between _art_ and _artful_, _design_ and

_designing_, _faith_ and _faithful_, &c.; and the more slight the

variation of the meaning, the more likely is the fallacy to be

successful; for when the words have become so widely removed in sense as

'pity' and 'pitiful,' every one would perceive such a fallacy, nor could

it be employed but in jest.[34]

"The present Fallacy is nearly allied to, or rather, perhaps, may be

regarded as a branch of, that founded on _etymology_; viz. when a term

is used, at one time in its customary, and at another in its

etymological sense. Perhaps no example of this can be found that is more

extensively and mischievously employed than in the case of the word

_representative_: assuming that its right meaning must correspond

exactly with the strict and original sense of the verb 'represent,' the

sophist persuades the multitude, that a member of the House of Commons

is bound to be guided in all points by the opinion of his constituents;

and, in short, to be merely their _spokesman_; whereas law and custom,

which in this case may be considered as fixing the meaning of the term,

require no such thing, but enjoin the representative to act according to

the best of his _own_ judgment, and on his own responsibility."

The following are instances of great practical importance, in which

arguments are habitually founded on a verbal ambiguity.

The mercantile public are frequently led into this fallacy by the

phrase, "scarcity of money." In the language of commerce "money" has two

meanings: _currency_, or the circulating medium; and _capital seeking

investment_, especially investment on loan. In this last sense the word

is used when the "money market" is spoken of, and when the "value of

money" is said to be high or low, the rate of interest being meant. The

consequence of this ambiguity is, that as soon as scarcity of money in

the latter of these senses begins to be felt,--as soon as there is

difficulty of obtaining loans, and the rate of interest is high,--it is

concluded that this must arise from causes acting upon the quantity of

money in the other and more popular sense; that the circulating medium

must have diminished in quantity, or ought to be increased. I am aware

that, independently of the double meaning of the term, there are in

facts themselves some peculiarities, giving an apparent support to this

error; but the ambiguity of the language stands on the very threshold of

the subject, and intercepts all attempts to throw light upon it.

Another ambiguous expression which continually meets us in the political

controversies of the present time, especially in those which relate to

organic changes, is the phrase "influence of property:" which is

sometimes used for the influence of respect for superior intelligence,

or gratitude for the kind offices which persons of large property have

it so much in their power to bestow; at other times for the influence of

fear; fear of the worst sort of power, which large property also gives

to its possessor, the power of doing mischief to dependents. To confound

these two, is the standing fallacy of ambiguity brought against those

who seek to purify the electoral system from corruption and

intimidation. Persuasive influence, acting through the conscience of the

voter, and carrying his heart and mind with it, is beneficial--therefore

(it is pretended) coercive influence, which compels him to forget that

he is a moral agent, or to act in opposition to his moral convictions,

ought not to be placed under restraint.

Another word which is often turned into an instrument of the fallacy of

ambiguity, is Theory. In its most proper acceptation, theory means the

completed result of philosophical induction from experience. In that

sense, there are erroneous as well as true theories, for induction may

be incorrectly performed, but theory of some sort is the necessary

result of knowing anything of a subject, and having put one's knowledge

into the form of general propositions for the guidance of practice. In

this, the proper sense of the word, Theory is the explanation of

practice. In another and a more vulgar sense, theory means any mere

fiction of the imagination, endeavouring to conceive how a thing may

possibly have been produced, instead of examining how it was produced.

In this sense only are theory, and theorists, unsafe guides; but because

of this, ridicule or discredit is attempted to be attached to theory in

its proper sense, that is, to legitimate generalization, the end and aim

of all philosophy; and a conclusion is represented as worthless, just

because that has been done, which if done correctly, constitutes the

highest worth that a principle for the guidance of practice can possess,

namely, to comprehend in a few words the real law on which a phenomenon

depends, or some property or relation which is universally true of it.

"The Church" is sometimes understood to mean the clergy alone, sometimes

the whole body of believers, or at least of communicants. The

declamations respecting the inviolability of church property are

indebted for the greater part of their apparent force to this ambiguity.

The clergy, being called the church, are supposed to be the real owners

of what is called church property; whereas they are in truth only the

managing members of a much larger body of proprietors, and enjoy on

their own part a mere usufruct, not extending beyond a life interest.

The following is a Stoical argument taken from Cicero _De Finibus_, book

the third: "Quod est bonum, omne laudabile est. Quod autem laudabile

est, omne honestum est. Bonum igitur quod est, honestum est." Here the

ambiguous word is _laudabile_, which in the minor premise means anything

which mankind are accustomed, on good grounds, to admire or value; as

beauty, for instance, or good fortune: but in the major, it denotes

exclusively moral qualities. In much the same manner the Stoics

endeavoured logically to justify as philosophical truths, their

figurative and rhetorical expressions of ethical sentiment: as that the

virtuous man is alone free, alone beautiful, alone a king, &c. Whoever

has virtue has Good (because it has been previously determined not to

call anything else good); but, again, Good necessarily includes

freedom, beauty, and even kingship, all these being good things;

therefore whoever has virtue has all these.

The following is an argument of Descartes to prove, in his _à priori_

manner, the being of a God. The conception, says he, of an infinite

Being proves the real existence of such a being. For if there is not

really any such being, _I_ must have made the conception; but if I could

make it, I can also unmake it; which evidently is not true; therefore

there must be, externally to myself, an archetype, from which the

conception was derived. In this argument (which, it may be observed,

would equally prove the real existence of ghosts and of witches) the

ambiguity is in the pronoun _I_, by which, in one place, is to be

understood my _will_, in another the _laws of my nature_. If the

conception, existing as it does in my mind, had no original without, the

conclusion would unquestionably follow that _I_ made it; that is, the

laws of my nature must have somehow evolved it: but that my _will_ made

it, would not follow. Now when Descartes afterwards adds that I cannot

unmake the conception, he means that I cannot get rid of it by an act of

my will: which is true, but is not the proposition required. I can as

much unmake this conception as I can any other: no conception which I

have once had, can I ever dismiss by mere volition: but what some of the

laws of my nature have produced, other laws, or those same laws in other

circumstances, may, and often do, subsequently efface.

Analogous to this are some of the ambiguities in the free-will

controversy; which, as they will come under special consideration in the

concluding Book, I only mention _memoriæ causâ_. In that discussion,

too, the word _I_ is often shifted from one meaning to another, at one

time standing for my volitions, at another time for the actions which

are the consequences of them, or the mental dispositions from which they

proceed. The latter ambiguity is exemplified in an argument of Coleridge

(in his _Aids to Reflection_), in support of the freedom of the will. It

is not true, he says, that a man is governed by motives; "the man makes

the motive, not the motive the man;" the proof being that "what is a

strong motive to one man is no motive at all to another." The premise is

true, but only amounts to this, that different persons have different

degrees of susceptibility to the same motive; as they have also to the

same intoxicating liquid, which however does not prove that they are

free to be drunk or not drunk, whatever quantity of the fluid they may

drink. What is proved is, that certain mental conditions in the person

himself, must co-operate, in the production of the act, with the

external inducement: but those mental conditions also are the effect of

causes; and there is nothing in the argument to prove that they can

arise without a cause--that a spontaneous determination of the will,

without any cause at all, ever takes place, as the free-will doctrine

supposes.

The double use, in the free-will controversy, of the word Necessity,

which sometimes stands only for Certainty, at other times for

Compulsion; sometimes for what _cannot_ be prevented, at other times

only for what we have reason to be assured _will_ not; we shall have

occasion hereafter to pursue to some of its ulterior consequences.

A most important ambiguity, both in common and in metaphysical language,

is thus pointed out by Archbishop Whately in the Appendix to his Logic:

"_Same_ (as well as _One_, _Identical_, and other words derived from

them,) is used frequently in a sense very different from its primary

one, as applicable to a _single_ object; being employed to denote great

_similarity_. When several objects are undistinguishably alike, _one

single description_ will apply equally to any of them; and thence they

are said to be all of _one and the same_ nature, appearance, &c. As,

_e.g._ when we say 'this house is built of the _same_ stone with such

another,' we only mean that the stones are undistinguishable in their

qualities; not that the one building was pulled down, and the other

constructed with the materials. Whereas _sameness_, in the primary

sense, does not even necessarily imply similarity; for if we say of any

man that he is greatly altered since such a time, we understand, and

indeed imply by the very expression, that he is _one person_, though

different in several qualities. It is worth observing also, that Same,

in the secondary sense, admits, according to popular usage, of degrees:

we speak of two things being _nearly_ the same, but not entirely:

personal identity does not admit of degrees. Nothing, perhaps, has

contributed more to the error of Realism than inattention to this

ambiguity. When several persons are said to have _one and the same_

opinion, thought, or idea, many men, overlooking the true simple

statement of the case, which is, that they are _all thinking alike_,

look for something more abstruse and mystical, and imagine there must be

some _One Thing_, in the primary sense, though not an individual, which

is present at once in the mind of each of these persons; and thence

readily sprung Plato's theory of Ideas, each of which was, according to

him, one real, eternal object, existing entire and complete in each of

the individual objects that are known by one name."

It is, indeed, not a matter of inference but of authentic history, that

Plato's doctrine of Ideas, and the Aristotelian doctrine (in this

respect similar to the Platonic) of substantial forms and second

substances, grew up in the precise way here pointed out; from the

supposed necessity of finding, in things which were said to have the

_same_ nature, or the _same_ qualities, something which was the _same_

in the very sense in which a man is the same as himself. All the idle

speculations respecting [Greek: to on, to hen, to homoion], and similar

abstractions, so common in the ancient and in some modern schools of

thought, sprang from the same source. The Aristotelian logicians saw,

however, one case of the ambiguity, and provided against it with their

peculiar felicity in the invention of technical language, when they

distinguished things which differed both _specie_ and _numero_, from

those which differed _numero tantum_, that is, which were exactly alike

(in some particular respect at least) but were distinct individuals. An

extension of this distinction to the two meanings of the word Same,

namely, things which are the same _specie tantum_, and a thing which is

the same _numero_ as well as _specie_, would have prevented the

confusion which has been a source of so much darkness and such an

abundance of positive error in metaphysical philosophy.

One of the most singular examples of the length to which a thinker of

eminence may be led away by an ambiguity of language, is afforded by

this very case. I refer to the famous argument by which Bishop Berkeley

flattered himself that he had for ever put an end to "scepticism,

atheism, and irreligion." It is briefly as follows. I thought of a thing

yesterday; I ceased to think of it; I think of it again to-day. I had,

therefore, in my mind yesterday an _idea_ of the object; I have also an

idea of it to-day; this idea is evidently not another, but the very same

idea. Yet an intervening time elapsed in which I had it not. Where was

the idea during this interval? It must have been somewhere; it did not

cease to exist; otherwise the idea I had yesterday could not be the

_same_ idea; no more than the man I see alive to-day can be the same

whom I saw yesterday, if the man has died in the meanwhile. Now an idea

cannot be conceived to exist anywhere except in a mind; and hence there

must exist an Universal Mind, in which all ideas have their permanent

residence, during the intervals of their conscious presence in our own

minds.

It is evident that Berkeley here confounded sameness _numero_ with

sameness _specie_, that is, with exact resemblance, and assumed the

former where there was only the latter; not perceiving that when we say

we have the same thought to-day which we had yesterday, we do not mean

the same individual thought, but a thought exactly similar: as we say

that we have the same illness which we had last year, meaning only the

same sort of illness.

In one remarkable instance the scientific world was divided into two

furiously hostile parties by an ambiguity of language affecting a branch

of science which, more completely than most others, enjoys the advantage

of a precise and well-defined terminology. I refer to the famous dispute

respecting the _vis viva_, the history of which is given at large in

Professor Playfair's Dissertation. The question was, whether the _force_

of a moving body was proportional (its mass being given) to its velocity

simply, or to the square of its velocity: and the ambiguity was in the

word Force. "One of the effects," says Playfair, "produced by a moving

body is proportional to the square of the velocity, while another is

proportional to the velocity simply:" from whence clearer thinkers were

subsequently led to establish a double measure of the efficiency of a

moving power, one being called _vis viva_, and the other _momentum_.

About the facts, both parties were from the first agreed: the only

question was, with which of the two effects the term _force_ should be,

or could most conveniently be, associated. But the disputants were by no

means aware that this was all; they thought that force was one thing,

the production of effects another; and the question, by which set of

effects the force which produced both the one and the other should be

measured, was supposed to be a question not of terminology but of fact.

The ambiguity of the word Infinite is the real fallacy in the amusing

logical puzzle of Achilles and the Tortoise, a puzzle which has been too

hard for the ingenuity or patience of many philosophers, and which no

less a thinker than Sir William Hamilton considered as insoluble; as a

sound argument, though leading to a palpable falsehood. The fallacy, as

Hobbes hinted, lies in the tacit assumption that whatever is infinitely

divisible is infinite; but the following solution, (to the invention of

which I have no claim,) is more precise and satisfactory.

The argument is, let Achilles run ten times as fast as the tortoise, yet

if the tortoise has the start, Achilles will never overtake him. For

suppose them to be at first separated by an interval of a thousand feet:

when Achilles has run these thousand feet, the tortoise will have got on

a hundred; when Achilles has run those hundred, the tortoise will have

run ten, and so on for ever: therefore Achilles may run for ever without

overtaking the tortoise.

Now, the "for ever," in the conclusion, means, for any length of time

that can be supposed; but in the premises "ever" does not mean any

_length_ of time: it means any _number of subdivisions_ of time. It

means that we may divide a thousand feet by ten, and that quotient again

by ten, and so on as often as we please; that there never needs be an

end to the subdivisions of the distance, nor consequently to those of

the time in which it is performed. But an unlimited number of

subdivisions may be made of that which is itself limited. The argument

proves no other infinity of duration than may be embraced within five

minutes. As long as the five minutes are not expired, what remains of

them may be divided by ten, and again by ten, as often as we like, which

is perfectly compatible with their being only five minutes altogether.

It proves, in short, that to pass through this finite space requires a

time which is infinitely divisible, but not an infinite time: the

confounding of which distinction Hobbes had already seen to be the gist

of the fallacy.

The following ambiguities of the word _right_ (in addition to the

obvious and familiar one of _a_ right and the _adjective_ right) are

extracted from a forgotten paper of my own, in a periodical:--

"Speaking morally, you are said to have a right to do a thing, if all

persons are morally bound not to hinder you from doing it. But, in

another sense, to have a right to do a thing is the opposite of having

_no_ right to do it, _i.e._ of being under a moral obligation to forbear

doing it. In this sense, to say that you have a right to do a thing,

means that you may do it without any breach of duty on your part; that

other persons not only ought not to hinder you, but have no cause to

think worse of you for doing it. This is a perfectly distinct

proposition from the preceding. The right which you have by virtue of a

duty incumbent upon other persons, is obviously quite a different thing

from a right consisting in the absence of any duty incumbent upon

yourself. Yet the two things are perpetually confounded. Thus a man will

say he has a right to publish his opinions; which may be true in this

sense, that it would be a breach of duty in any other person to

interfere and prevent the publication: but he assumes thereupon, that in

publishing his opinions, he himself violates no duty; which may either

be true or false, depending, as it does, on his having taken due pains

to satisfy himself, first, that the opinions are true, and next, that

their publication in this manner, and at this particular juncture, will

probably be beneficial to the interests of truth on the whole.

"The second ambiguity is that of confounding a right of any kind, with a

right to enforce that right by resisting or punishing a violation of it.

People will say, for example, that they have a right to good government,

which is undeniably true, it being the moral duty of their governors to

govern them well. But in granting this, you are supposed to have

admitted their right or liberty to turn out their governors, and perhaps

to punish them, for having failed in the performance of this duty;

which, far from being the same thing, is by no means universally true,

but depends on an immense number of varying circumstances," requiring to

be conscientiously weighed before adopting or acting on such a

resolution. This last example is (like others which have been cited) a

case of fallacy within fallacy; it involves not only the second of the

two ambiguities pointed out, but the first likewise.

One not unusual form of the Fallacy of Ambiguous Terms, is known

technically as the Fallacy of Composition and Division: when the same

term is collective in the premises, distributive in the conclusion, or

_vice versâ_: or when the middle term is collective in one premise,

distributive in the other. As if one were to say (I quote from

Archbishop Whately) "All the angles of a triangle are equal to two right

angles: ABC is an angle of a triangle; therefore ABC is equal to two

right angles.... There is no fallacy more common, or more likely to

deceive, than the one now before us. The form in which it is most

usually employed is to establish some truth, separately, concerning

_each single_ member of a certain class, and thence to infer the same of

the _whole collectively_." As in the argument one sometimes hears, to

prove that the world could do without great men. If Columbus (it is

said) had never lived, America would still have been discovered, at most

only a few years later; if Newton had never lived, some other person

would have discovered the law of gravitation; and so forth. Most true:

these things would have been done, but in all probability not until

some one had again been found with the qualities of Columbus or Newton.

Because any one great man might have had his place supplied by other

great men, the argument concludes that all great men could have been

dispensed with. The term "great men" is distributive in the premises and

collective in the conclusion.

"Such also is the fallacy which probably operates on most adventurers in

lotteries; _e.g._ 'the gaining of a high prize is no uncommon

occurrence; and what is no uncommon occurrence may reasonably be

expected; therefore the gaining of a high prize may reasonably be

expected:' the conclusion when applied to the individual (as in practice

it is) must be understood in the sense of 'reasonably expected _by a

certain individual_;' therefore for the major premise to be true, the

middle term must be understood to mean, 'no uncommon occurrence to some

one _particular_ person;' whereas for the minor (which has been placed

first) to be true, you must understand it of 'no uncommon occurrence to

_some one or other_;' and thus you will have the Fallacy of Composition.

"This is a Fallacy with which men are extremely apt to deceive

_themselves_; for when a multitude of particulars are presented to the

mind, many are too weak or too indolent to take a comprehensive view of

them, but confine their attention to each single point, by turns; and

then decide, infer, and act, accordingly: _e.g._ the imprudent

spendthrift, finding that he is able to afford this, _or_ that, _or_ the

other expense, forgets that _all of them together_ will ruin him." The

debauchee destroys his health by successive acts of intemperance,

because no _one_ of those acts would be of itself sufficient to do him

any serious harm. A sick person reasons with himself, "one, and another,

and another, of my symptoms, do not prove that I have a fatal disease;"

and practically concludes that all taken together do not prove it.

§ 2. We have now sufficiently exemplified one of the principal Genera in

this Order of Fallacies; where, the source of error being the ambiguity

of terms, the premises are verbally what is required to support the

conclusion, but not really so. In the second great Fallacy of Confusion

they are neither verbally nor really sufficient, though, from their

multiplicity and confused arrangement, and still oftener from defect of

memory, they are not seen to be what they are. The fallacy I mean is

that of Petitio Principii, or begging the question; including the more

complex and not uncommon variety of it, which is termed Reasoning in a

Circle.

_Petitio Principii_, as defined by Archbishop Whately, is the fallacy

"in which the premise either appears manifestly to be the same as the

conclusion, or is actually proved from the conclusion, or is such as

would naturally and properly so be proved." By the last clause I presume

is meant, that it is not susceptible of any other proof; for otherwise,

there would be no fallacy. To deduce from a proposition, propositions

from which it would itself more naturally be deduced, is often an

allowable deviation from the usual didactic order; or at most, what, by

an adaptation of a phrase familiar to mathematicians, may be called a

logical _inelegance_.[35]

The employment of a proposition to prove that on which it is itself

dependent for proof, by no means implies the degree of mental imbecility

which might at first be supposed. The difficulty of comprehending how

this fallacy could possibly be committed, disappears when we reflect

that all persons, even the instructed, hold a great number of opinions

without exactly recollecting how they came by them. Believing that they

have at some former time verified them by sufficient evidence, but

having forgotten what the evidence was, they may easily be betrayed into

deducing from them the very propositions which are alone capable of

serving as premises for their establishment. "As if," says Archbishop

Whately, "one should attempt to prove the being of a God from the

authority of Holy Writ;" which might easily happen to one with whom both

doctrines, as fundamental tenets of his religious creed, stand on the

same ground of familiar and traditional belief.

Arguing in a circle, however, is a stronger case of the fallacy, and

implies more than the mere passive reception of a premise by one who

does not remember how it is to be proved. It implies an actual attempt

to prove two propositions reciprocally from one another; and is seldom

resorted to, at least in express terms, by any person in his own

speculations, but is committed by those who, being hard pressed by an

adversary, are forced into giving reasons for an opinion of which, when

they began to argue, they had not sufficiently considered the grounds.

As in the following example from Archbishop Whately: "Some mechanicians

attempt to prove (what they ought to lay down as a probable but doubtful

hypothesis[36]) that every particle of matter gravitates equally: 'why?'

'because those bodies which contain more particles ever gravitate more

strongly, _i.e._ are heavier:' 'but, (it may be urged,) those which are

heaviest are not always more bulky;' 'no, but they contain more

particles, though more closely condensed:' 'how do you know that?'

'because they are heavier:' 'how does that prove it?' 'because all

particles of matter gravitating equally, that mass which is specifically

the heavier must needs have the more of them in the same space.'" It

appears to me that the fallacious reasoner, in his private thoughts,

would not be likely to proceed beyond the first step. He would acquiesce

in the sufficiency of the reason first given, "bodies which contain more

particles are heavier." It is when he finds this questioned, and is

called upon to prove it, without knowing how, that he tries to

establish his premise by supposing proved what he is attempting to prove

by it. The most effectual way, in fact, of exposing a Petitio Principii,

when circumstances allow of it, is by challenging the reasoner to prove

his premises; which if he attempts to do, he is necessarily driven into

arguing in a circle.

It is not uncommon, however, for thinkers, and those not of the lowest

description, to be led, even in their own thoughts, not indeed into

formally proving each of two propositions from the other, but into

admitting propositions which can only be so proved. In the preceding

example the two together form a complete and consistent, though

hypothetical, explanation of the facts concerned. And the tendency to

mistake mutual coherency for truth; to trust one's safety to a strong

chain though it has no point of support; is at the bottom of much which,

when reduced to the strict forms of argumentation, can exhibit itself no

otherwise than as reasoning in a circle. All experience bears testimony

to the enthralling effect of neat concatenation in a system of

doctrines, and the difficulty with which people admit the persuasion

that anything which holds so well together can possibly fall.

Since every case where a conclusion which can only be proved from

certain premises is used for the proof of those premises, is a case of

_petitio principii_, that fallacy includes a very great proportion of

all incorrect reasoning. It is necessary, for completing our view of the

fallacy, to exemplify some of the disguises under which it is accustomed

to mask itself, and to escape exposure.

A proposition would not be admitted by any person in his senses as a

corollary from itself, unless it were expressed in language which made

it seem different. One of the commonest modes of so expressing it, is to

present the proposition itself in abstract terms, as a proof of the same

proposition expressed in concrete language. This is a very frequent

mode, not only of pretended proof, but of pretended explanation; and is

parodied when Molière makes one of his absurd physicians say, "l'opium

endormit parcequ'il a une vertu soporifique," or, in the equivalent

doggrel,

Mihi à docto doctore,

Domandatur causam et rationem quare

Opium facit dormire.

A quoi respondeo,

Quia est in eo

Virtus dormitiva,

Cujus est natura

Sensus assoupire.

The words Nature and Essence are grand instruments of this mode of

begging the question. As in the well-known argument of the scholastic

theologians, that the mind thinks always, because the _essence_ of the

mind is to think. Locke had to point out, that if by essence is here

meant some property which must manifest itself by actual exercise at all

times, the premise is a direct assumption of the conclusion; while if it

only means that to think is the distinctive property of a mind, there is

no connexion between the premise and the conclusion, since it is not

necessary that a distinctive property should be perpetually in action.

The following is one of the modes in which these abstract terms, Nature

and Essence, are used as instruments of this fallacy. Some particular

properties of a thing are selected, more or less arbitrarily, to be

termed its nature or essence; and when this has been done, these

properties are supposed to be invested with a kind of indefeasibleness;

to have become paramount to all the other properties of the thing, and

incapable of being prevailed over or counteracted by them. As when

Aristotle, in a passage already cited, "decides that there is no void on

such arguments as this: in a void there could be no difference of up and

down; for as in nothing there are no differences, so there are none in a

privation or negation; but a void is merely a privation or negation of

matter; therefore, in a void, bodies could not move up and down, which

it is in their _nature_ to do."[37] In other words; it is in the

_nature_ of bodies to move up and down, _ergo_ any physical fact which

supposes them not so to move, cannot be authentic. This mode of

reasoning, by which a bad generalization is made to overrule all facts

which contradict it, is _petitio principii_ in one of its most palpable

forms.

None of the modes of assuming what should be proved are in more frequent

use than what are termed by Bentham "question-begging appellatives;"

names which beg the question under the disguise of stating it. The most

potent of these are such as have a laudatory or vituperative character.

For instance, in politics, the word Innovation. The dictionary meaning

of this term being merely "a change to something new," it is difficult

for the defenders even of the most salutary improvement to deny that it

is an innovation; yet the word having acquired in common usage a

vituperative connotation in addition to its dictionary meaning, the

admission is always construed as a large concession to the disadvantage

of the thing proposed.

The following passage from the argument in refutation of the Epicureans,

in the second book of Cicero _de Finibus_, affords a fine example of

this sort of fallacy. "Et quidem illud ipsum non nimium probo (et tantum

patior) philosophum loqui de cupiditatibus finiendis. An potest

cupiditas finiri? tollenda est, atque extrahenda radicitus. Quis est

enim, in quo sit cupiditas, quin recte cupidus dici possit? Ergo et

avarus erit, sed finite: adulter, verum habebit modum: et luxuriosus

eodem modo. Qualis ista philosophia est, quæ non interitum afferat

pravitatis, sed sit contenta mediocritate vitiorum?" The question was,

whether certain desires, when kept within bounds, are vices or not; and

the argument decides the point by applying to them a word (_cupiditas_)

which _implies_ vice. It is shown, however, in the remarks which follow,

that Cicero did not intend this as a serious argument, but as a

criticism on what he deemed an inappropriate expression. "Rem ipsam

prorsus probo: elegantiam desidero. Appellet hæc _desideria naturæ_;

cupiditatis nomen servet alio," &c. But many persons, both ancient and

modern, have employed this, or something equivalent to it, as a real and

conclusive argument. We may remark that the passage respecting

_cupiditas_ and _cupidus_ is also an example of another fallacy already

noticed, that of Paronymous Terms.

Many more of the arguments of the ancient moralists, and especially of

the Stoics, fall within the definition of Petitio Principii. In the _De

Finibus_, for example, which I continue to quote as being probably the

best extant exemplification at once of the doctrines and the methods of

the schools of philosophy existing at that time; of what value as

arguments are such pleas as those of Cato in the third book: That if

virtue were not happiness, it could not be a thing to _boast_ of: That

if death or pain were evils, it would be impossible not to fear them,

and it could not, therefore, be laudable to despise them, &c. In one way

of viewing these arguments, they may be regarded as appeals to the

authority of the general sentiment of mankind, which had stamped its

approval upon certain actions and characters by the phrases referred to;

but that such could have been the meaning intended is very unlikely,

considering the contempt of the ancient philosophers for vulgar opinion.

In any other sense they are clear cases of Petitio Principii, since the

word laudable, and the idea of boasting, imply principles of conduct;

and practical maxims can only be proved from speculative truths, namely

from the properties of the subject matter, and cannot, therefore, be

employed to prove those properties. As well might it be argued that a

government is good because we ought to support it, or that there is a

God because it is our duty to pray to him.

It is assumed by all the disputants in the _De Finibus_ as the

foundation of the inquiry into the _summum bonum_, that "sapiens semper

beatus est." Not simply that wisdom gives the best chance of happiness,

or that wisdom consists in knowing what happiness is, and by what things

it is promoted; these propositions would not have been enough for

them:--but that the sage always is, and must of necessity be, happy. The

idea that wisdom could be consistent with unhappiness, was always

rejected as inadmissible: the reason assigned by one of the

interlocutors, near the beginning of the third book, being, that if the

wise could be unhappy, there was little use in pursuing wisdom. But by

unhappiness they did not mean pain or suffering; to that, it was granted

that the wisest person was liable in common with others: he was happy,

because in possessing wisdom he had the most valuable of all

possessions, the most to be sought and prized of all things, and to

possess the most valuable thing was to be the most happy. By laying it

down, therefore, at the commencement of the inquiry, that the sage must

be happy, the disputed question respecting the _summum bonum_ was in

fact begged; with the further assumption, that pain and suffering, so

far as they can coexist with wisdom, are not unhappiness, and are no

evil.

The following are additional instances of Petitio Principii, under more

or less of disguise.

Plato, in the _Sophistes_, attempts to prove that things may exist which

are incorporeal, by the argument that justice and wisdom are

incorporeal, and justice and wisdom must be something. Here, if by

_something_ be meant, as Plato did in fact mean, a thing capable of

existing in and by itself, and not as a quality of some other thing, he

begs the question in asserting that justice and wisdom must be

something: if he means anything else, his conclusion is not proved. This

fallacy might also be classed under ambiguous middleterm: _something_,

in the one premise, meaning some substance, in the other merely some

object of thought, whether substance or attribute.

It was formerly an argument employed in proof of what is now no longer a

popular doctrine, the infinite divisibility of matter, that every

portion of matter, however small, must at least have an upper and an

under surface. Those who used this argument did not see that it assumed

the very point in dispute, the impossibility of arriving at a minimum of

thickness; for if there be a minimum, its upper and under surface will

of course be one: it will be itself a surface, and no more. The argument

owes its very considerable plausibility to this, that the premise does

actually seem more obvious than the conclusion, though really identical

with it. As expressed in the premise, the proposition appeals directly

and in concrete language to the incapacity of the human imagination for

conceiving a minimum. Viewed in this light, it becomes a case of the _à

priori_ fallacy or natural prejudice, that whatever cannot be conceived

cannot exist. Every fallacy of Confusion (it is almost unnecessary to

repeat) will, if cleared up, become a fallacy of some other sort; and it

will be found of deductive or ratiocinative fallacies generally, that

when they mislead, there is mostly, as in this case, a fallacy of some

other description lurking under them, by virtue of which chiefly it is

that the verbal juggle, which is the outside or body of this kind of

fallacy, passes undetected.

Euler's Algebra, a book otherwise of great merit, but full, to

overflowing, of logical errors in respect to the foundation of the

science, contains the following argument to prove that _minus_

multiplied by _minus_ gives _plus_, a doctrine the opprobrium of all

mere mathematicians, and which Euler had not a glimpse of the true

method of proving. He says, _minus_ multiplied by _minus_ cannot give

_minus_; for _minus_ multiplied by _plus_ gives _minus_, and _minus_

multiplied by _minus_ cannot give the same product as _minus_ multiplied

by _plus_. Now one is obliged to ask, why minus multiplied by minus must

give any product at all? and if it does, why its product cannot be the

same as that of minus multiplied by plus? for this would seem, at the

first glance, not more absurd than that minus by minus should give the

same as plus by plus, the proposition which Euler prefers to it. The

premise requires proof, as much as the conclusion: nor can it be proved,

except by that more comprehensive view of the nature of multiplication,

and of algebraic processes in general, which would also supply a far

better proof of the mysterious doctrine which Euler is here endeavouring

to demonstrate.

A striking instance of reasoning in a circle is that of some ethical

writers, who first take for their standard of moral truth what, being

the general, they deem to be the natural or instinctive sentiments and

perceptions of mankind, and then explain away the numerous instances of

divergence from their assumed standard, by representing them as cases in

which the perceptions are unhealthy. Some particular mode of conduct or

feeling is affirmed to be _unnatural_; why? because it is abhorrent to

the universal and natural sentiments of mankind. Finding no such

sentiment in yourself, you question the fact; and the answer is (if your

antagonist is polite), that you are an exception, a peculiar case. But

neither (say you) do I find in the people of some other country, or of

some former age, any such feeling of abhorrence; "ay, but their feelings

were sophisticated and unhealthy."

One of the most notable specimens of reasoning in a circle is the

doctrine of Hobbes, Rousseau, and others, which rests the obligations by

which human beings are bound as members of society, on a supposed social

compact. I wave the consideration of the fictitious nature of the

compact itself; but when Hobbes, through the whole Leviathan,

elaborately deduces the obligation of obeying the sovereign, not from

the necessity or utility of doing so, but from a promise supposed to

have been made by our ancestors, on renouncing savage life and agreeing

to establish political society, it is impossible not to retort by the

question, why are we bound to keep a promise made for us by others? or

why bound to keep a promise at all? No satisfactory ground can be

assigned for the obligation, except the mischievous consequences of the

absence of faith and mutual confidence among mankind. We are, therefore,

brought round to the interests of society, as the ultimate ground of the

obligation of a promise; and yet those interests are not admitted to be

a sufficient justification for the existence of government and law.

Without a promise it is thought that we should not be bound to that

which is implied in all modes of living in society, namely, to yield a

general obedience to the laws therein established; and so necessary is

the promise deemed, that if none has actually been made, some additional

safety is supposed to be given to the foundations of society by feigning

one.

§ 3. Two principal subdivisions of the class of Fallacies of Confusion

having been disposed of; there remains a third, in which the confusion

is not, as in the Fallacy of Ambiguity, in misconceiving the import of

the premises, nor, as in _Petitio Principii_, in forgetting what the

premises are, but in mistaking the conclusion which is to be proved.

This is the fallacy of _Ignoratio Elenchi_, in the widest sense of the

phrase; also called by Archbishop Whately the Fallacy of Irrelevant

Conclusion. His examples and remarks are highly worthy of citation.

"Various kinds of propositions are, according to the occasion,

substituted for the one of which proof is required: sometimes the

particular for the universal; sometimes a proposition with different

terms; and various are the contrivances employed to effect and to

conceal this substitution, and to make the conclusion which the sophist

has drawn, answer practically the same purpose as the one he ought to

have established. We say, 'practically the same purpose,' because it

will very often happen that some _emotion_ will be excited, some

sentiment impressed on the mind, (by a dexterous employment of this

fallacy), such as shall bring men into the _disposition_ requisite for

your purpose; though they may not have assented to, or even stated

distinctly in their own minds, the _proposition_ which it was your

business to establish. Thus if a sophist has to defend one who has been

guilty of some _serious_ offence, which he wishes to extenuate, though

he is unable distinctly to prove that it is not such, yet if he can

succeed in _making the audience laugh_ at some casual matter, he has

gained practically the same point. So also if any one has pointed out

the extenuating circumstances in some particular case of offence, so as

to show that it differs widely from the generality of the same class,

the sophist if he find himself unable to disprove these circumstances,

may do away the force of them, by simply _referring the action to that

very class_, which no one can deny that it belongs to, and the very name

of which will excite a feeling of disgust sufficient to counteract the

extenuation; _e.g._ let it be a case of peculation, and that many

_mitigating_ circumstances have been brought forward which cannot be

denied; the sophistical opponent will reply, 'Well, but after all, the

man is a _rogue_, and there is an end of it;' now in reality this was

(by hypothesis) never the question; and the mere assertion of what was

never denied, _ought_ not, in fairness, to be regarded as decisive: but,

practically, the odiousness of the word, arising in great measure from

the association of those very circumstances which belong to most of the

class, but which we have supposed to be _absent_ in _this particular_

instance, excites precisely that feeling of disgust, which in effect

destroys the force of the defence. In like manner we may refer to this

head all cases of improper appeal to the passions, and everything else

which is mentioned by Aristotle as extraneous to the matter in hand

([Greek: exô tou pragmatos])."

Again, "instead of proving that 'this prisoner has committed an

atrocious fraud,' you prove that the fraud he is accused of is

atrocious: instead of proving (as in the well-known tale of Cyrus and

the two coats) that the taller boy had a right to force the other boy to

exchange coats with him, you prove that the exchange would have been

advantageous to both: instead of proving that the poor ought to be

relieved in this way rather than in that, you prove that the poor ought

to be relieved: instead of proving that the irrational agent--whether a

brute or a madman--can never be deterred from any act by apprehension of

punishment (as for instance a dog from sheep-biting, by fear of being

beaten), you prove that the beating of one dog does not operate as an

_example_ to _other_ dogs, &c.

"It is evident that _ignoratio elenchi_ may be employed as well for the

apparent refutation of your opponent's proposition, as for the apparent

establishment of your own; for it is substantially the same thing, to

prove what was not denied or to disprove what was not asserted. The

latter practice is not less common, and it is more offensive, because it

frequently amounts to a personal affront, in attributing to a person,

opinions, &c., which he perhaps holds in abhorrence. Thus, when in a

discussion one party vindicates, on the ground of general expediency, a

particular instance of resistance to government in a case of intolerable

oppression, the opponent may gravely maintain, 'that we ought not to do

evil that good may come;' a proposition which of course had never been

denied, the point in dispute being, 'whether resistance in this

particular case _were_ doing evil or not.' Or again, by way of

disproving the assertion of the right of private judgment in religion,

one may hear a grave argument to prove that 'it is impossible every one

can be _right in his judgment_.'"

The works of controversial writers are seldom free from this fallacy.

The attempts, for instance, to disprove the population doctrines of

Malthus, have been mostly cases of _ignoratio elenchi_. Malthus has been

supposed to be refuted if it could be shown that in some countries or

ages population has been nearly stationary; as if he had asserted that

population always increases in a given ratio, or had not expressly

declared that it increases only in so far as it is not restrained by

prudence, or kept down by poverty and disease. Or, perhaps, a collection

of facts is produced to prove that in some one country the people are

better off with a dense population than they are in another country with

a thin one; or that the people have become more numerous and better off

at the same time. As if the assertion were that a dense population could

not possibly be well off: as if it were not part of the very doctrine,

and essential to it, that where there is a more abundant capital there

may be a greater population without any increase of poverty, or even

with a diminution of it.

The favourite argument against Berkeley's theory of the non-existence of

matter, and the most popularly effective, next to a "grin"[38]--an

argument, moreover, which is not confined to "coxcombs," nor to men like

Samuel Johnson, whose greatly overrated ability certainly did not lie in

the direction of metaphysical speculation, but is the stock argument of

the Scotch school of metaphysicians--is a palpable _ignoratio elenchi_.

The argument is perhaps as frequently expressed by gesture as by words,

and one of its commonest forms consists in knocking a stick against the

ground. This short and easy confutation overlooks the fact, that in

denying matter, Berkeley did not deny anything to which our senses bear

witness, and therefore cannot be answered by any appeal to them. His

scepticism related to the supposed substratum, or hidden cause of the

appearances perceived by our senses: the evidence of which, whatever may

be thought of its conclusiveness, is certainly not the evidence of

sense. And it will always remain a signal proof of the want of

metaphysical profundity of Reid, Stewart, and, I am sorry to add, of

Brown, that they should have persisted in asserting that Berkeley, if he

believed his own doctrine, was bound to walk into the kennel, or run his

head against a post. As if persons who do not recognise an occult cause

of their sensations, could not possibly believe that a fixed order

subsists among the sensations themselves. Such a want of comprehension

of the distinction between a thing and its sensible manifestation, or,

in metaphysical language, between the noumenon and the phenomenon, would

be impossible to even the dullest disciple of Kant or Coleridge.

It would be easy to add a greater number of examples of this fallacy, as

well as of the others which I have attempted to characterize. But a more

copious exemplification does not seem to be necessary; and the

intelligent reader will have little difficulty in adding to the

catalogue from his own reading and experience. We shall therefore here

close our exposition of the general principles of logic, and proceed to

the supplementary inquiry which is necessary to complete our design.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Supra, p. 204.

[2] _Vulgar Errors_, book v. chap. 21.

[3] _Pharmacologia_, Historical Introduction, p. 16.

[4] 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 cannot be eternal, because "eternal (passive) existence necessarily

involves incapability of change." I believe it would be difficult to

point out any other connexion between the facts of eternity and

unchangeableness, than a strong association between the two ideas. Most

of the _à priori_ arguments, both religious and anti-religious, on the

origin of things, are fallacies drawn from the same source.

[5] Supra, book ii. chap. v. § 6, and ch. vii. § 1, 2, 3. See also

_Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy_, chap. vi. and

elsewhere.

[6] I quote this passage from Playfair's celebrated _Dissertations on

the Progress of Mathematical and Physical Science_.

[7] 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.

[8] _Nouveaux Essais sur l'Entendement Humain--Avant-propos_.

([OE]uvres, Paris ed. 1842, vol. i. p. 19.)

[9] This doctrine also was accepted as true, and conclusions were

grounded on it, by Sir William Hamilton. See _Examination_, chap. xxiv.

[10] Not that of Leibnitz, but the principle commonly appealed to under

that name by mathematicians.

[11] _Dissertation_, ut supra, p. 27.

[12] _Hist. Ind. Sc._ Book i. chap. i.

[13] _Novum Organum_, Aph. 75.

[14] Supra, book iii. ch. vii. § 4.

[15] 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.

[16] _Pharmacologia_, pp. 43-5.

[17] Vol. i. chap. 8.

[18] _Nov. Org._, Aph. 46.

[19] Playfair's _Dissertation_, sect. 4.

[20] _Nov. Org. Renov._, p. 61.

[21] _Pharmacologia_, p. 21.

[22] _Pharmacologia_, pp. 23-4.

[23] Ibid. p. 28.

[24] Ibid. p. 62.

[25] _Pharmacologia_, pp. 61-2.

[26] Supra, p. 182.

[27] _Elements of the Philosophy of the Mind_, vol. ii. ch. 4, sect. 5.

[28] "Thus Fourcroy," says Dr. Paris, "explained the operation of

mercury by its specific gravity, and the advocates of this doctrine

favoured 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

practised."--_Pharmacologia_, pp. 38-9.

[29] _Pharmacologia_, pp. 39, 40.

[30] I quote from Dr. Whewell's _Hist. Ind. Sc._ 3rd ed. i. 129.

[31] _Hist. Ind. Sc._ i. 52.

[32] _Nov. Org._ Aph. 60.

[33] "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.

[34] 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 _à priori_ fallacy of the first rank. As well might it be

supposed that a strong poison will make the person who takes it, strong.

[35] 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."

[36] 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.

[37] _Hist. Ind. Sc._ i. 34.

[38] "And coxcombs vanquish Berkeley with a grin."

BOOK VI.

ON THE LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES.

"Si l'homme peut prédire, avec une assurance presque entière, les

phénomènes dont il connaît les lois; si lors même qu'elles lui sont

inconnues, il peut, d'après l'expérience, prévoir avec une grande

probabilité les événemens de l'avenir; pourquoi regarderait-on comme une

entreprise chimérique, celle de tracer avec quelque vraisemblance le

tableau des destinées futures de l'espèce humaine, d'après les résultats

de son histoire? Le seul fondement de croyance dans les sciences

naturelles, est cette idée, que les lois générales, connues ou ignorées,

qui règlent les phénomènes de l'univers, sont nécessaires et constantes;

et par quelle raison ce principe serait-il moins vrai pour le

développement des facultés intellectuelles et morales de l'homme, que

pour les autres opérations de la nature? Enfin, puisque des opinions

formées d'après l'expérience ... sont la seule règle de la conduite des

hommes les plus sages, pourquoi interdirait-on au philosophe d'appuyer

ses conjectures sur cette même base, pourvu qu'il ne leur attribue pas

une certitude supérieure à celle qui peut naître du nombre, de la

constance, de l'exactitude des observations?"--CONDORCET, _Esquisse d'un

Tableau Historique des Progrès de l'Esprit Humain_.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

§ 1. Principles of Evidence and Theories of Method are not to be

constructed _à priori_. The laws of our rational faculty, like those of

every other natural agency, are only learnt by seeing the agent at work.

The earlier achievements of science were made without the conscious

observance of any Scientific Method; and we should never have known by

what process truth is to be ascertained, if we had not previously

ascertained many truths. But it was only the easier problems which could

be thus resolved: natural sagacity, when it tried its strength against

the more difficult ones, either failed altogether, or if it succeeded

here and there in obtaining a solution, had no sure means of convincing

others that its solution was correct. In scientific investigation, as in

all other works of human skill, the way of obtaining the end is seen as

it were instinctively by superior minds in some comparatively simple

case, and is then, by judicious generalization, adapted to the variety

of complex cases. We learn to do a thing in difficult circumstances, by

attending to the manner in which we have spontaneously done the same

thing in easier ones.

This truth is exemplified by the history of the various branches of

knowledge which have successively, in the ascending order of their

complication, assumed the character of sciences; and will doubtless

receive fresh confirmation from those, of which the final scientific

constitution is yet to come, and which are still abandoned to the

uncertainties of vague and popular discussion. Although several other

sciences have emerged from this state at a comparatively recent date,

none now remain in it except those which relate to man himself, the

most complex and most difficult subject of study on which the human mind

can be engaged.

Concerning the physical nature of man, as an organized being,--though

there is still much uncertainty and much controversy, which can only be

terminated by the general acknowledgment and employment of stricter

rules of induction than are commonly recognised,--there is, however, a

considerable body of truths which all who have attended to the subject

consider to be fully established; nor is there now any radical

imperfection in the method observed in this department of science by its

most distinguished modern teachers. But the laws of Mind, and, in even a

greater degree, those of Society, are so far from having attained a

similar state of even partial recognition, that it is still a

controversy whether they are capable of becoming subjects of science in

the strict sense of the term: and among those who are agreed on this

point, there reigns the most irreconcileable diversity on almost every

other. Here, therefore, if anywhere, the principles laid down in the

preceding Books may be expected to be useful.

If, on matters so much the most important with which human intellect can

occupy itself, a more general agreement is ever to exist among thinkers;

if what has been pronounced "the proper study of mankind" is not

destined to remain the only subject which Philosophy cannot succeed in

rescuing from Empiricism; the same process through which the laws of

many simpler phenomena have by general acknowledgment been placed beyond

dispute, must be consciously and deliberately applied to those more

difficult inquiries. If there are some subjects on which the results

obtained have finally received the unanimous assent of all who have

attended to the proof, and others on which mankind have not yet been

equally successful; on which the most sagacious minds have occupied

themselves from the earliest date, and have never succeeded in

establishing any considerable body of truths, so as to be beyond denial

or doubt; it is by generalizing the methods successfully followed in the

former inquiries, and adapting them to the latter, that we may hope to

remove this blot on the face of science. The remaining chapters are an

endeavour to facilitate this most desirable object.

§ 2. In attempting this, I am not unmindful how little can be done

towards it in a mere treatise on Logic, or how vague and unsatisfactory

all precepts of Method must necessarily appear, when not practically

exemplified in the establishment of a body of doctrine. Doubtless, the

most effectual mode of showing how the sciences of Ethics and Politics

may be constructed, would be to construct them: a task which, it needs

scarcely be said, I am not about to undertake. But even if there were no

other examples, the memorable one of Bacon would be sufficient to

demonstrate, that it is sometimes both possible and useful to point out

the way, though without being oneself prepared to adventure far into it.

And if more were to be attempted, this at least is not a proper place

for the attempt.

In substance, whatever can be done in a work like this for the Logic of

the Moral Sciences, has been or ought to have been accomplished in the

five preceding Books; to which the present can be only a kind of

supplement or appendix, since the methods of investigation applicable to

moral and social science must have been already described, if I have

succeeded in enumerating and characterizing those of science in general.

It remains, however, to examine which of those methods are more

especially suited to the various branches of moral inquiry; under what

peculiar facilities or difficulties they are there employed; how far the

unsatisfactory state of those inquiries is owing to a wrong choice of

methods, how far to want of skill in the application of right ones; and

what degree of ultimate success may be attained or hoped for, by a

better choice or more careful employment of logical processes

appropriate to the case. In other words, whether moral sciences exist,

or can exist; to what degree of perfection they are susceptible of being

carried; and by what selection or adaptation of the methods brought to

view in the previous part of this work, that degree of perfection is

attainable.

At the threshold of this inquiry we are met by an objection, which, if

not removed, would be fatal to the attempt to treat human conduct as a

subject of science. Are the actions of human beings, like all other

natural events, subject to invariable laws? Does that constancy of

causation, which is the foundation of every scientific theory of

successive phenomena, really obtain among them? This is often denied;

and for the sake of systematic completeness, if not from any very urgent

practical necessity, the question should receive a deliberate answer in

this place. We shall devote to the subject a chapter apart.

CHAPTER II.

OF LIBERTY AND NECESSITY.

§ 1. The question, whether the law of causality applies in the same

strict sense to human actions as to other phenomena, is the celebrated

controversy concerning the freedom of the will: which, from at least as

far back as the time of Pelagius, has divided both the philosophical and

the religious world. The affirmative opinion is commonly called the

doctrine of Necessity, as asserting human volitions and actions to be

necessary and inevitable. The negative maintains that the will is not

determined, like other phenomena, by antecedents, but determines itself;

that our volitions are not, properly speaking, the effects of causes, or

at least have no causes which they uniformly and implicitly obey.

I have already made it sufficiently apparent that the former of these

opinions is that which I consider the true one; but the misleading terms

in which it is often expressed, and the indistinct manner in which it is

usually apprehended, have both obstructed its reception, and perverted

its influence when received. The metaphysical theory of free will, as

held by philosophers, (for the practical feeling of it, common in a

greater or less degree to all mankind, is in no way inconsistent with

the contrary theory,) was invented because the supposed alternative of

admitting human actions to be _necessary_, was deemed inconsistent with

every one's instinctive consciousness, as well as humiliating to the

pride and even degrading to the moral nature of man. Nor do I deny that

the doctrine, as sometimes held, is open to these imputations; for the

misapprehension in which I shall be able to show that they originate,

unfortunately is not confined to the opponents of the doctrine, but

participated in by many, perhaps we might say by most, of its

supporters.

§ 2. Correctly conceived, the doctrine called Philosophical Necessity

is simply this: that, given the motives which are present to an

individual's mind, and given likewise the character and disposition of

the individual, the manner in which he will act might be unerringly

inferred: that if we knew the person thoroughly, and knew all the

inducements which are acting upon him, we could foretell his conduct

with as much certainty as we can predict any physical event. This

proposition I take to be a mere interpretation of universal experience,

a statement in words of what every one is internally convinced of. No

one who believed that he knew thoroughly the circumstances of any case,

and the characters of the different persons concerned, would hesitate to

foretell how all of them would act. Whatever degree of doubt he may in

fact feel, arises from the uncertainty whether he really knows the

circumstances, or the character of some one or other of the persons,

with the degree of accuracy required: but by no means from thinking that

if he did know these things, there could be any uncertainty what the

conduct would be. Nor does this full assurance conflict in the smallest

degree with what is called our feeling of freedom. We do not feel

ourselves the less free, because those to whom we are intimately known

are well assured how we shall will to act in a particular case. We

often, on the contrary, regard the doubt what our conduct will be, as a

mark of ignorance of our character, and sometimes even resent it as an

imputation. The religious metaphysicians who have asserted the freedom

of the will, have always maintained it to be consistent with divine

foreknowledge of our actions: and if with divine, then with any other

foreknowledge. We may be free, and yet another may have reason to be

perfectly certain what use we shall make of our freedom. It is not,

therefore, the doctrine that our volitions and actions are invariable

consequents of our antecedent states of mind, that is either

contradicted by our consciousness, or felt to be degrading.

But the doctrine of causation, when considered as obtaining between our

volitions and their antecedents, is almost universally conceived as

involving more than this. Many do not believe, and very few practically

feel, that there is nothing in causation but invariable, certain, and

unconditional sequence. There are few to whom mere constancy of

succession appears a sufficiently stringent bond of union for so

peculiar a relation as that of cause and effect. Even if the reason

repudiates, the imagination retains, the feeling of some more intimate

connexion, of some peculiar tie, or mysterious constraint exercised by

the antecedent over the consequent. Now this it is which, considered as

applying to the human will, conflicts with our consciousness, and

revolts our feelings. We are certain that, in the case of our volitions,

there is not this mysterious constraint. We know that we are not

compelled, as by a magical spell, to obey any particular motive. We

feel, that if we wished to prove that we have the power of resisting the

motive, we could do so, (that wish being, it needs scarcely be observed,

a _new antecedent_;) and it would be humiliating to our pride, and (what

is of more importance) paralysing to our desire of excellence if we

thought otherwise. But neither is any such mysterious compulsion now

supposed, by the best philosophical authorities, to be exercised by any

other cause over its effect. Those who think that causes draw their

effects after them by a mystical tie, are right in believing that the

relation between volitions and their antecedents is of another nature.

But they should go farther, and admit that this is also true of all

other effects and their antecedents. If such a tie is considered to be

involved in the word necessity, the doctrine is not true of human

actions; but neither is it then true of inanimate objects. It would be

more correct to say that matter is not bound by necessity than that mind

is so.

That the free-will metaphysicians, being mostly of the school which

rejects Hume's and Brown's analysis of Cause and Effect, should miss

their way for want of the light which that analysis affords, cannot

surprise us. The wonder is, that the necessarians, who usually admit

that philosophical theory, should in practice equally lose sight of it.

The very same misconception of the doctrine called Philosophical

Necessity, which prevents the opposite party from recognising its truth,

I believe to exist more or less obscurely in the minds of most

necessarians, however they may in words disavow it. I am much mistaken

if they habitually feel that the necessity which they recognise in

actions is but uniformity of order, and capability of being predicted.

They have a feeling as if there were at bottom a stronger tie between

the volitions and their causes: as if, when they asserted that the will

is governed by the balance of motives, they meant something more cogent

than if they had only said, that whoever knew the motives, and our

habitual susceptibilities to them, could predict how we should will to

act. They commit, in opposition to their own scientific system, the very

same mistake which their adversaries commit in obedience to theirs; and

in consequence do really in some instances suffer those depressing

consequences, which their opponents erroneously impute to the doctrine

itself.

§ 3. I am inclined to think that this error is almost wholly an effect

of the associations with a word; and that it would be prevented, by

forbearing to employ, for the expression of the simple fact of

causation, so extremely inappropriate a term as Necessity. That word, in

its other acceptations, involves much more than mere uniformity of

sequence: it implies irresistibleness. Applied to the will, it only

means that the given cause will be followed by the effect, subject to

all possibilities of counteraction by other causes: but in common use it

stands for the operation of those causes exclusively, which are supposed

too powerful to be counteracted at all. When we say that all human

actions take place of necessity, we only mean that they will certainly

happen if nothing prevents:--when we say that dying of want, to those

who cannot get food, is a necessity, we mean that it will certainly

happen whatever may be done to prevent it. The application of the same

term to the agencies on which human actions depend, as is used to

express those agencies of nature which are really uncontrollable, cannot

fail, when habitual, to create a feeling of uncontrollableness in the

former also. This however is a mere illusion. There are physical

sequences which we call necessary, as death for want of food or air;

there are others which, though as much cases of causation as the

former, are not said to be necessary, as death from poison, which an

antidote, or the use of the stomach-pump, will sometimes avert. It is

apt to be forgotten by people's feelings, even if remembered by their

understandings, that human actions are in this last predicament: they

are never (except in some cases of mania) ruled by any one motive with

such absolute sway, that there is no room for the influence of any

other. The causes, therefore, on which action depends, are never

uncontrollable; and any given effect is only necessary provided that the

causes tending to produce it are not controlled. That whatever happens,

could not have happened otherwise unless something had taken place which

was capable of preventing it, no one surely needs hesitate to admit. But

to call this by the name necessity is to use the term in a sense so

different from its primitive and familiar meaning, from that which it

bears in the common occasions of life, as to amount almost to a play

upon words. The associations derived from the ordinary sense of the term

will adhere to it in spite of all we can do: and though the doctrine of

Necessity, as stated by most who hold it, is very remote from fatalism,

it is probable that most necessarians are fatalists, more or less, in

their feelings.

A fatalist believes, or half believes (for nobody is a consistent

fatalist), not only that whatever is about to happen, will be the

infallible result of the causes which produce it, (which is the true

necessarian doctrine,) but moreover that there is no use in struggling

against it; that it will happen however we may strive to prevent it.

Now, a necessarian, believing that our actions follow from our

characters, and that our characters follow from our organization, our

education, and our circumstances, is apt to be, with more or less of

consciousness on his part, a fatalist as to his own actions, and to

believe that his nature is such, or that his education and circumstances

have so moulded his character, that nothing can now prevent him from

feeling and acting in a particular way, or at least that no effort of

his own can hinder it. In the words of the sect which in our own day has

most perseveringly inculcated and most perversely misunderstood this

great doctrine, his character is formed _for_ him, and not _by_ him;

therefore his wishing that it had been formed differently is of no use;

he has no power to alter it. But this is a grand error. He has, to a

certain extent, a power to alter his character. Its being, in the

ultimate resort, formed for him, is not inconsistent with its being, in

part, formed _by_ him as one of the intermediate agents. His character

is formed by his circumstances (including among these his particular

organization); but his own desire to mould it in a particular way, is

one of those circumstances, and by no means one of the least

influential. We cannot, indeed, directly will to be different from what

we are. But neither did those who are supposed to have formed our

characters, directly will that we should be what we are. Their will had

no direct power except over their own actions. They made us what they

did make us, by willing, not the end, but the requisite means; and we,

when our habits are not too inveterate, can, by similarly willing the

requisite means, make ourselves different. If they could place us under

the influence of certain circumstances, we, in like manner, can place

ourselves under the influence of other circumstances. We are exactly as

capable of making our own character, _if we will_, as others are of

making it for us.

Yes (answers the Owenite), but these words, "if we will," surrender the

whole point: since the will to alter our own character is given us, not

by any efforts of ours, but by circumstances which we cannot help; it

comes to us either from external causes, or not at all. Most true: if

the Owenite stops here, he is in a position from which nothing can expel

him. Our character is formed by us as well as for us; but the wish which

induces us to attempt to form it is formed for us; and how? Not, in

general, by our organization, nor wholly by our education, but by our

experience; experience of the painful consequences of the character we

previously had: or by some strong feeling of admiration or aspiration,

accidentally aroused. But to think that we have no power of altering our

character, and to think that we shall not use our power unless we desire

to use it, are very different things, and have a very different effect

on the mind. A person who does not wish to alter his character, cannot

be the person who is supposed to feel discouraged or paralysed by

thinking himself unable to do it. The depressing effect of the fatalist

doctrine can only be felt where there _is_ a wish to do what that

doctrine represents as impossible. It is of no consequence what we think

forms our character, when we have no desire of our own about forming it;

but it is of great consequence that we should not be prevented from

forming such a desire by thinking the attainment impracticable, and that

if we have the desire, we should know that the work is not so

irrevocably done as to be incapable of being altered.

And indeed, if we examine closely, we shall find that this feeling, of

our being able to modify our own character _if we wish_, is itself the

feeling of moral freedom which we are conscious of. A person feels

morally free who feels that his habits or his temptations are not his

masters, but he theirs: who even in yielding to them knows that he could

resist; that were he desirous of altogether throwing them off, there

would not be required for that purpose a stronger desire than he knows

himself to be capable of feeling. It is of course necessary, to render

our consciousness of freedom complete, that we should have succeeded in

making our character all we have hitherto attempted to make it; for if

we have wished and not attained, we have, to that extent, not power over

our own character, we are not free. Or at least, we must feel that our

wish, if not strong enough to alter our character, is strong enough to

conquer our character when the two are brought into conflict in any

particular case of conduct. And hence it is said with truth, that none

but a person of confirmed virtue is completely free.

The application of so improper a term as Necessity to the doctrine of

cause and effect in the matter of human character, seems to me one of

the most signal instances in philosophy of the abuse of terms, and its

practical consequences one of the most striking examples of the power of

language over our associations. The subject will never be generally

understood, until that objectionable term is dropped. The free-will

doctrine, by keeping in view precisely that portion of the truth which

the word Necessity puts out of sight, namely the power of the mind to

co-operate in the formation of its own character, has given to its

adherents a practical feeling much nearer to the truth than has

generally (I believe) existed in the minds of necessarians. The latter

may have had a stronger sense of the importance of what human beings can

do to shape the characters of one another; but the free-will doctrine

has, I believe, fostered in its supporters a much stronger spirit of

self-culture.

§ 4. There is still one fact which requires to be noticed (in addition

to the existence of a power of self-formation) before the doctrine of

the causation of human actions can be freed from the confusion and

misapprehensions which surround it in many minds. When the will is said

to be determined by motives, a motive does not mean always, or solely,

the anticipation of a pleasure or of a pain. I shall not here inquire

whether it be true that, in the commencement, all our voluntary actions

are mere means consciously employed to obtain some pleasure, or avoid

some pain. It is at least certain that we gradually, through the

influence of association, come to desire the means without thinking of

the end: the action itself becomes an object of desire, and is performed

without reference to any motive beyond itself. Thus far, it may still be

objected, that, the action having through association become

pleasurable, we are, as much as before, moved to act by the anticipation

of a pleasure, namely the pleasure of the action itself. But granting

this, the matter does not end here. As we proceed in the formation of

habits, and become accustomed to will a particular act or a particular

course of conduct because it is pleasurable, we at last continue to will

it without any reference to its being pleasurable. Although, from some

change in us or in our circumstances, we have ceased to find any

pleasure in the action, or perhaps to anticipate any pleasure as the

consequence of it, we still continue to desire the action, and

consequently to do it. In this manner it is that habits of hurtful

excess continue to be practised although they have ceased to be

pleasurable; and in this manner also it is that the habit of willing to

persevere in the course which he has chosen, does not desert the moral

hero, even when the reward, however real, which he doubtless receives

from the consciousness of well-doing, is anything but an equivalent for

the sufferings he undergoes, or the wishes which he may have to

renounce.

A habit of willing is commonly called a purpose; and among the causes of

our volitions, and of the actions which flow from them, must be reckoned

not only likings and aversions, but also purposes. It is only when our

purposes have become independent of the feelings of pain or pleasure

from which they originally took their rise, that we are said to have a

confirmed character. "A character," says Novalis, "is a completely

fashioned will:" and the will, once so fashioned, may be steady and

constant, when the passive susceptibilities of pleasure and pain are

greatly weakened, or materially changed.

With the corrections and explanations now given, the doctrine of the

causation of our volitions by motives, and of motives by the desirable

objects offered to us, combined with our particular susceptibilities of

desire, may be considered, I hope, as sufficiently established for the

purposes of this treatise.[1]

CHAPTER III.

THAT THERE IS, OR MAY BE, A SCIENCE OF HUMAN NATURE.

§ 1. It is a common notion, or at least it is implied in many common

modes of speech, that the thoughts, feelings, and actions of sentient

beings are not a subject of science, in the same strict sense in which

this is true of the objects of outward nature. This notion seems to

involve some confusion of ideas, which it is necessary to begin by

clearing up.

Any facts are fitted, in themselves, to be a subject of science, which

follow one another according to constant laws; although those laws may

not have been discovered, nor even be discoverable by our existing

resources. Take, for instance, the most familiar class of meteorological

phenomena, those of rain and sunshine. Scientific inquiry has not yet

succeeded in ascertaining the order of antecedence and consequence among

these phenomena, so as to be able, at least in our regions of the earth,

to predict them with certainty, or even with any high degree of

probability. Yet no one doubts that the phenomena depend on laws, and

that these must be derivative laws resulting from known ultimate laws,

those of heat, electricity, vaporization, and elastic fluids. Nor can it

be doubted that if we were acquainted with all the antecedent

circumstances, we could, even from those more general laws, predict

(saving difficulties of calculation) the state of the weather at any

future time. Meteorology, therefore, not only has in itself every

natural requisite for being, but actually is, a science; though, from

the difficulty of observing the facts on which the phenomena depend (a

difficulty inherent in the peculiar nature of those phenomena) the

science is extremely imperfect; and were it perfect, might probably be

of little avail in practice, since the data requisite for applying its

principles to particular instances would rarely be procurable.

A case may be conceived, of an intermediate character between the

perfection of science, and this its extreme imperfection. It may happen

that the greater causes, those on which the principal part of the

phenomena depends, are within the reach of observation and measurement;

so that if no other causes intervened, a complete explanation could be

given not only of the phenomenon in general, but of all the variations

and modifications which it admits of. But inasmuch as other, perhaps

many other causes, separately insignificant in their effects, co-operate

or conflict in many or in all cases with those greater causes; the

effect, accordingly, presents more or less of aberration from what would

be produced by the greater causes alone. Now if these minor causes are

not so constantly accessible, or not accessible at all, to accurate

observation; the principal mass of the effect may still, as before, be

accounted for, and even predicted; but there will be variations and

modifications which we shall not be competent to explain thoroughly, and

our predictions will not be fulfilled accurately, but only

approximately.

It is thus, for example, with the theory of the tides. No one doubts

that Tidology (as Dr. Whewell proposes to call it) is really a science.

As much of the phenomena as depends on the attraction of the sun and

moon is completely understood, and may in any, even unknown, part of the

earth's surface, be foretold with certainty; and the far greater part of

the phenomena depends on those causes. But circumstances of a local or

casual nature, such as the configuration of the bottom of the ocean, the

degree of confinement from shores, the direction of the wind, &c.,

influence, in many or in all places, the height and time of the tide;

and a portion of these circumstances being either not accurately

knowable, not precisely measurable, or not capable of being certainly

foreseen, the tide in known places commonly varies from the calculated

result of general principles by some difference that we cannot explain,

and in unknown ones may vary from it by a difference that we are not

able to foresee or conjecture. Nevertheless, not only is it certain

that these variations depend on causes, and follow their causes by laws

of unerring uniformity; not only, therefore, is tidology a science, like

meteorology, but it is, what hitherto at least meteorology is not, a

science largely available in practice. General laws may be laid down

respecting the tides, predictions may be founded on those laws, and the

result will in the main, though often not with complete accuracy,

correspond to the predictions.

And this is what is or ought to be meant by those who speak of sciences

which are not _exact_ sciences. Astronomy was once a science, without

being an exact science. It could not become exact until not only the

general course of the planetary motions, but the perturbations also,

were accounted for, and referred to their causes. It has become an exact

science, because its phenomena have been brought under laws

comprehending the whole of the causes by which the phenomena are

influenced, whether in a great or only in a trifling degree, whether in

all or only in some cases, and assigning to each of those causes the

share of effect which really belongs to it. But in the theory of the

tides the only laws as yet accurately ascertained, are those of the

causes which affect the phenomenon in all cases, and in a considerable

degree; while others which affect it in some cases only, or, if in all,

only in a slight degree, have not been sufficiently ascertained and

studied to enable us to lay down their laws; still less to deduce the

completed law of the phenomenon, by compounding the effects of the

greater with those of the minor causes. Tidology, therefore, is not yet

an exact science; not from any inherent incapacity of being so, but from

the difficulty of ascertaining with complete precision the real

derivative uniformities. By combining, however, the exact laws of the

greater causes, and of such of the minor ones as are sufficiently known,

with such empirical laws or such approximate generalizations respecting

the miscellaneous variations as can be obtained by specific observation,

we can lay down general propositions which will be true in the main, and

on which, with allowance for the degree of their probable inaccuracy, we

may safely ground our expectations and our conduct.

§ 2. The science of human nature is of this description. It falls far

short of the standard of exactness now realized in Astronomy; but there

is no reason that it should not be as much a science as Tidology is, or

as Astronomy was when its calculations had only mastered the main

phenomena, but not the perturbations.

The phenomena with which this science is conversant being the thoughts,

feelings, and actions of human beings, it would have attained the ideal

perfection of a science if it enabled us to foretell how an individual

would think, feel, or act, throughout life, with the same certainty with

which astronomy enables us to predict the places and the occultations of

the heavenly bodies. It needs scarcely be stated that nothing

approaching to this can be done. The actions of individuals could not be

predicted with scientific accuracy, were it only because we cannot

foresee the whole of the circumstances in which those individuals will

be placed. But further, even in any given combination of (present)

circumstances, no assertion, which is both precise and universally true,

can be made respecting the manner in which human beings will think,

feel, or act. This is not, however, because every person's modes of

thinking, feeling, and acting, do not depend on causes; nor can we doubt

that if, in the case of any individual, our data could be complete, we

even now know enough of the ultimate laws by which mental phenomena are

determined, to enable us in many cases to predict, with tolerable

certainty, what, in the greater number of supposable combinations of

circumstances, his conduct or sentiments would be. But the impressions

and actions of human beings are not solely the result of their present

circumstances, but the joint result of those circumstances and of the

characters of the individuals: and the agencies which determine human

character are so numerous and diversified, (nothing which has happened

to the person throughout life being without its portion of influence,)

that in the aggregate they are never in any two cases exactly similar.

Hence, even if our science of human nature were theoretically perfect,

that is, if we could calculate any character as we can calculate the

orbit of any planet, _from given data_; still, as the data are never

all given, nor ever precisely alike in different cases, we could neither

make positive predictions, nor lay down universal propositions.

Inasmuch, however, as many of those effects which it is of most

importance to render amenable to human foresight and control are

determined, like the tides, in an incomparably greater degree by general

causes, than by all partial causes taken together; depending in the main

on those circumstances and qualities which are common to all mankind, or

at least to large bodies of them, and only in a small degree on the

idiosyncrasies of organization or the peculiar history of individuals;

it is evidently possible with regard to all such effects, to make

predictions which will _almost_ always be verified, and general

propositions which are almost always true. And whenever it is sufficient

to know how the great majority of the human race, or of some nation or

class of persons, will think, feel, and act, these propositions are

equivalent to universal ones. For the purposes of political and social

science this _is_ sufficient. As we formerly remarked,[2] an approximate

generalization is, in social inquiries, for most practical purposes

equivalent to an exact one; that which is only probable when asserted of

individual human beings indiscriminately selected, being certain when

affirmed of the character and collective conduct of masses.

It is no disparagement, therefore, to the science of Human Nature, that

those of its general propositions which descend sufficiently into detail

to serve as a foundation for predicting phenomena in the concrete, are

for the most part only approximately true. But in order to give a

genuinely scientific character to the study, it is indispensable that

these approximate generalizations, which in themselves would amount only

to the lowest kind of empirical laws, should be connected deductively

with the laws of nature from which they result; should be resolved into

the properties of the causes on which the phenomena depend. In other

words, the science of Human Nature may be said to exist, in proportion

as the approximate truths, which compose a practical knowledge of

mankind, can be exhibited as corollaries from the universal laws of

human nature on which they rest; whereby the proper limits of those

approximate truths would be shown, and we should be enabled to deduce

others for any new state of circumstances, in anticipation of specific

experience.

The proposition now stated is the text on which the two succeeding

chapters will furnish the comment.

CHAPTER IV.

OF THE LAWS OF MIND.

§ 1. What the Mind is, as well as what Matter is, or any other question

respecting Things in themselves, as distinguished from their sensible

manifestations, it would be foreign to the purposes of this treatise to

consider. Here, as throughout our inquiry, we shall keep clear of all

speculations respecting the mind's own nature, and shall understand by

the laws of mind, those of mental Phenomena; of the various feelings or

states of consciousness of sentient beings. These, according to the

classification we have uniformly followed, consist of Thoughts,

Emotions, Volitions, and Sensations; the last being as truly states of

Mind as the three former. It is usual indeed to speak of sensations as

states of body, not of mind. But this is the common confusion, of giving

one and the same name to a phenomenon and to the proximate cause or

conditions of the phenomenon. The immediate antecedent of a sensation is

a state of body, but the sensation itself is a state of mind. If the

word mind means anything, it means that which feels. Whatever opinion we

hold respecting the fundamental identity or diversity of matter and

mind, in any case the distinction between mental and physical facts,

between the internal and the external world, will always remain, as a

matter of classification: and in that classification, sensations, like

all other feelings, must be ranked as mental phenomena. The mechanism of

their production, both in the body itself and in what is called outward

nature, is all that can with any propriety be classed as physical.

The phenomena of mind, then, are the various feelings of our nature,

both those improperly called physical, and those peculiarly designated

as mental: and by the laws of mind, I mean the laws according to which

those feelings generate one another.

§ 2. All states of mind are immediately caused either by other states of

mind, or by states of body. When a state of mind is produced by a state

of mind, I call the law concerned in the case, a law of Mind. When a

state of mind is produced directly by a state of body, the law is a law

of Body, and belongs to physical science.

With regard to those states of mind which are called sensations, all are

agreed that these have for their immediate antecedents, states of body.

Every sensation has for its proximate cause some affection of the

portion of our frame called the nervous system; whether this affection

originate in the action of some external object, or in some pathological

condition of the nervous organization itself. The laws of this portion

of our nature--the varieties of our sensations, and the physical

conditions on which they proximately depend--manifestly belong to the

province of Physiology.

Whether the remainder of our mental states are similarly dependent on

physical conditions, is one of the _vexatæ questiones_ in the science of

human nature. It is still disputed whether our thoughts, emotions, and

volitions are generated through the intervention of material mechanism;

whether we have organs of thought and of emotion, in the same sense in

which we have organs of sensation. Many eminent physiologists hold the

affirmative. These contend, that a thought (for example) is as much the

result of nervous agency, as a sensation: that some particular state of

our nervous system, in particular of that central portion of it called

the brain, invariably precedes, and is presupposed by, every state of

our consciousness. According to this theory, one state of mind is never

really produced by another: all are produced by states of body. When one

thought seems to call up another by association, it is not really a

thought which recals a thought; the association did not exist between

the two thoughts, but between the two states of the brain or nerves

which preceded the thoughts: one of those states recals the other, each

being attended, in its passage, by the particular state of consciousness

which is consequent on it. On this theory the uniformities of succession

among states of mind would be mere derivative uniformities, resulting

from the laws of succession of the bodily states which cause them. There

would be no original mental laws, no Laws of Mind in the sense in which

I use the term, at all: and mental science would be a mere branch,

though the highest and most recondite branch, of the science of

physiology. M. Comte, accordingly, claims the scientific cognizance of

moral and intellectual phenomena exclusively for physiologists; and not

only denies to Psychology, or Mental Philosophy properly so called, the

character of a science, but places it, in the chimerical nature of its

objects and pretensions, almost on a par with astrology.

But, after all has been said which can be said, it remains incontestible

that there exist uniformities of succession among states of mind, and

that these can be ascertained by observation and experiment. Further,

that every mental state has a nervous state for its immediate antecedent

and proximate cause, though extremely probable, cannot hitherto be said

to be proved, in the conclusive manner in which this can be proved of

sensations; and even were it certain, yet every one must admit that we

are wholly ignorant of the characteristics of these nervous states; we

know not, and at present have no means of knowing, in what respect one

of them differs from another; and our only mode of studying their

successions or coexistences must be by observing the successions and

coexistences of the mental states, of which they are supposed to be the

generators or causes. The successions, therefore, which obtain among

mental phenomena, do not admit of being deduced from the physiological

laws of our nervous organization: and all real knowledge of them must

continue, for a long time at least, if not always, to be sought in the

direct study, by observation and experiment, of the mental successions

themselves. Since therefore the order of our mental phenomena must be

studied in those phenomena, and not inferred from the laws of any

phenomena more general, there is a distinct and separate Science of

Mind.

The relations, indeed, of that science to the science of physiology must

never be overlooked or undervalued. It must by no means be forgotten

that the laws of mind may be derivative laws resulting from laws of

animal life, and that their truth therefore may ultimately depend on

physical conditions; and the influence of physiological states or

physiological changes in altering or counteracting the mental

successions, is one of the most important departments of psychological

study. But, on the other hand, to reject the resource of psychological

analysis, and construct the theory of the mind solely on such data as

physiology at present affords, seems to me as great an error in

principle, and an even more serious one in practice. Imperfect as is the

science of mind, I do not scruple to affirm, that it is in a

considerably more advanced state than the portion of physiology which

corresponds to it; and to discard the former for the latter appears to

me an infringement of the true canons of inductive philosophy, which

must produce, and which does produce, erroneous conclusions in some very

important departments of the science of human nature.

§ 3. The subject, then, of Psychology, is the uniformities of

succession, the laws, whether ultimate or derivative, according to which

one mental state succeeds another; is caused by, or at least, is caused

to follow, another. Of these laws, some are general, others more

special. The following are examples of the most general laws.

First: Whenever any state of consciousness has once been excited in us,

no matter by what cause; an inferior degree of the same state of

consciousness, a state of consciousness resembling the former, but

inferior in intensity, is capable of being reproduced in us, without the

presence of any such cause as excited it at first. Thus, if we have once

seen or touched an object, we can afterwards think of the object though

it be absent from our sight or from our touch. If we have been joyful or

grieved at some event, we can think of, or remember our past joy or

grief, though no new event of a happy or painful nature has taken place.

When a poet has put together a mental picture of an imaginary object, a

Castle of Indolence, a Una, or a Hamlet, he can afterwards think of the

ideal object he has created, without any fresh act of intellectual

combination. This law is expressed by saying, in the language of Hume,

that every mental _impression_ has its _idea_.

Secondly: These ideas, or secondary mental states, are excited by our

impressions, or by other ideas, according to certain laws which are

called Laws of Association. Of these laws the first is, that similar

ideas tend to excite one another. The second is, that when two

impressions have been frequently experienced (or even thought of) either

simultaneously or in immediate succession, then whenever one of these

impressions, or the idea of it, recurs, it tends to excite the idea of

the other. The third law is, that greater intensity in either or both of

the impressions, is equivalent, in rendering them excitable by one

another, to a greater frequency of conjunction. These are the laws of

ideas: on which I shall not enlarge in this place, but refer the reader

to works professedly psychological, in particular to Mr. James Mill's

_Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind_, where the principal laws

of association, along with many of their applications, are copiously

exemplified, and with a masterly hand.[3]

These simple or elementary Laws of Mind have been ascertained by the

ordinary methods of experimental inquiry; nor could they have been

ascertained in any other manner. But a certain number of elementary

laws having thus been obtained, it is a fair subject of scientific

inquiry how far those laws can be made to go in explaining the actual

phenomena. It is obvious that complex laws of thought and feeling not

only may, but must, be generated from these simple laws. And it is to be

remarked, that the case is not always one of Composition of Causes: the

effect of concurring causes is not always precisely the sum of the

effects of those causes when separate, nor even always an effect of the

same kind with them. Reverting to the distinction which occupies so

prominent a place in the theory of induction; the laws of the phenomena

of mind are sometimes analogous to mechanical, but sometimes also to

chemical laws. When many impressions or ideas are operating in the mind

together, there sometimes takes place a process, of a similar kind to

chemical combination. When impressions have been so often experienced in

conjunction, that each of them calls up readily and instantaneously the

ideas of the whole group, those ideas sometimes melt and coalesce into

one another, and appear not several ideas, but one; in the same manner

as, when the seven prismatic colours are presented to the eye in rapid

succession, the sensation produced is that of white. But as in this last

case it is correct to say that the seven colours when they rapidly

follow one another _generate_ white, but not that they actually _are_

white; so it appears to me that the Complex Idea, formed by the blending

together of several simpler ones, should, when it really appears simple,

(that is, when the separate elements are not consciously distinguishable

in it,) be said to _result from_, or _be generated by_, the simple

ideas, not to _consist_ of them. Our idea of an orange really _consists_

of the simple ideas of a certain colour, a certain form, a certain taste

and smell, &c., because we can, by interrogating our consciousness,

perceive all these elements in the idea. But we cannot perceive, in so

apparently simple a feeling as our perception of the shape of an object

by the eye, all that multitude of ideas derived from other senses,

without which it is well ascertained that no such visual perception

would ever have had existence; nor, in our idea of Extension, can we

discover those elementary ideas of resistance, derived from our

muscular frame, in which it has been conclusively shown that the idea

originates. These therefore are cases of mental chemistry: in which it

is proper to say that the simple ideas generate, rather than that they

compose, the complex ones.

With respect to all the other constituents of the mind, its beliefs, its

abstruser conceptions, its sentiments, emotions, and volitions; there

are some (among whom are Hartley, and the author of the _Analysis_) who

think that the whole of these are generated from simple ideas of

sensation, by a chemistry similar to that which we have just

exemplified. These philosophers have made out a great part of their

case, but I am not satisfied that they have established the whole of it.

They have shown that there is such a thing as mental chemistry; that the

heterogeneous nature of a feeling A, considered in relation to B and C,

is no conclusive argument against its being generated from B and C.

Having proved this, they proceed to show, that where A is found, B and C

were or may have been present, and why therefore, they ask, should not A

have been generated from B and C? But even if this evidence were carried

to the highest degree of completeness which it admits of; if it were

shown (which hitherto it has not, in all cases, been) that certain

groups of associated ideas not only might have been, but actually were,

present whenever the more recondite mental feeling was experienced; this

would amount only to the Method of Agreement, and could not prove

causation until confirmed by the more conclusive evidence of the Method

of Difference. If the question be whether Belief is a mere case of close

association of ideas, it would be necessary to examine experimentally if

it be true that any ideas whatever, provided they are associated with

the required degree of closeness, give rise to belief. If the inquiry be

into the origin of moral feelings, the feeling for example of moral

reprobation, it is necessary to compare all the varieties of actions or

states of mind which are ever morally disapproved, and see whether in

all these cases it can be shown, or reasonably surmised, that the action

or state of mind had become connected by association, in the

disapproving mind, with some particular class of hateful or disgusting

ideas; and the method employed is, thus far, that of Agreement. But

this is not enough. Supposing this proved, we must try further by the

Method of Difference, whether this particular kind of hateful or

disgusting ideas, when it becomes associated with an action previously

indifferent, will render that action a subject of moral disapproval. If

this question can be answered in the affirmative, it is shown to be a

law of the human mind, that an association of that particular

description is the generating cause of moral reprobation. That all this

is the case has been rendered extremely probable, but the experiments

have not been tried with the degree of precision necessary for a

complete and absolutely conclusive induction.[4]

It is further to be remembered, that even if all which this theory of

mental phenomena contends for could be proved, we should not be the more

enabled to resolve the laws of the more complex feelings into those of

the simpler ones. The generation of one class of mental phenomena from

another, whenever it can be made out, is a highly interesting fact in

psychological chemistry; but it no more supersedes the necessity of an

experimental study of the generated phenomenon, than a knowledge of the

properties of oxygen and sulphur enables us to deduce those of sulphuric

acid without specific observation and experiment. Whatever, therefore,

may be the final issue of the attempt to account for the origin of our

judgments, our desires, or our volitions, from simpler mental phenomena,

it is not the less imperative to ascertain the sequences of the complex

phenomena themselves, by special study in conformity to the canons of

Induction. Thus, in respect to Belief, psychologists will always have to

inquire, what beliefs we have by direct consciousness, and according to

what laws one belief produces another; what are the laws, in virtue of

which one thing is recognised by the mind, either rightly or

erroneously, as evidence of another thing. In regard to Desire, they

will have to examine what objects we desire naturally, and by what

causes we are made to desire things originally indifferent, or even

disagreeable to us; and so forth. It may be remarked, that the general

laws of association prevail among these more intricate states of mind,

in the same manner as among the simpler ones. A desire, an emotion, an

idea of the higher order of abstraction, even our judgments and

volitions when they have become habitual, are called up by association,

according to precisely the same laws as our simple ideas.

§ 4. In the course of these inquiries it will be natural and necessary

to examine, how far the production of one state of mind by another is

influenced by any assignable state of body. The commonest observation

shows that different minds are susceptible in very different degrees, to

the action of the same psychological causes. The idea, for example, of a

given desirable object, will excite in different minds very different

degrees of intensity of desire. The same subject of meditation,

presented to different minds, will excite in them very unequal degrees

of intellectual action. These differences of mental susceptibility in

different individuals may be, first, original and ultimate facts, or,

secondly, they may be consequences of the previous mental history of

those individuals, or thirdly and lastly, they may depend on varieties

of physical organization. That the previous mental history of the

individuals must have some share in producing or in modifying the whole

of their mental character, is an inevitable consequence of the laws of

mind; but that differences of bodily structure also co-operate, is the

opinion of all physiologists, confirmed by common experience. It is to

be regretted that hitherto this experience, being accepted in the gross,

without due analysis, has been made the groundwork of empirical

generalizations most detrimental to the progress of real knowledge.

It is certain that the natural differences which really exist in the

mental predispositions or susceptibilities of different persons, are

often not unconnected with diversities in their organic constitution.

But it does not therefore follow that these organic differences must in

all cases influence the mental phenomena directly and immediately. They

often affect them through the medium of their psychological causes. For

example, the idea of some particular pleasure may excite in different

persons, even independently of habit or education, very different

strengths of desire, and this may be the effect of their different

degrees or kinds of nervous susceptibility; but these organic

differences, we must remember, will render the pleasurable sensation

itself more intense in one of these persons than in the other; so that

the idea of the pleasure will also be an intenser feeling, and will, by

the operation of mere mental laws, excite an intenser desire, without

its being necessary to suppose that the desire itself is directly

influenced by the physical peculiarity. As in this, so in many cases,

such differences in the kind or in the intensity of the physical

sensations as must necessarily result from differences of bodily

organization, will of themselves account for many differences not only

in the degree, but even in the kind, of the other mental phenomena. So

true is this, that even different _qualities_ of mind, different types

of mental character, will naturally be produced by mere differences of

intensity in the sensations generally: as is well pointed out in an able

essay on Dr. Priestley, mentioned in a former chapter:--