_HISTORY'S SCIENTIFIC PRETENSIONS_.
_Warwick._ There is a history in all men's lives,
Figuring the nature of the times deceased;
The which observed, a man may prophesy,
With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life, which in their seeds,
And weak beginnings, lie intreasured.
Such things become the hatch and brood of time;
And, by the necessary form of this,
King Richard might create a perfect guess,
That great Northumberland, then false to him,
Would, of that seed, grow to a greater falseness,
Which should not find a ground to root upon,
Unless on you.
_King Henry._ Are these things, then, necessities?
_King Henry IV._ Part II. Act. 3, Sc. I.
When equally competent thinkers appear to take directly opposite views
of a matter of purely speculative interest, it will commonly be found
that their differences arise from their using the same words in
different senses, or from their being, by some other cause, prevented
from thoroughly apprehending each other's meaning. An illustration is
afforded by the controversy regarding the possibility of constructing a
Science of History, which could scarcely have been so much prolonged if
all who have taken part in it had begun by defining their terms, had
agreed to and adhered to the same definitions, and had always kept
steadily in view the points really in debate. If the word 'science' had
been used only in the restricted, though rather inaccurate sense in
which it is sometimes employed by some of the most distinguished of the
disputants, there would have been less question as to its applicability
to history. No one doubts that from an extensive historical survey may
be drawn large general deductions on which reasonable expectations may
be founded. No one denies that the experience of the past may teach
lessons of political wisdom for the guidance of the future. If it were
not so, history would be as uninstructive as fairy lore; its chief use
would be to amuse the fancy; and little more practical advantage could
result from investigating the causes of the failure of James II.'s
designs on civil and religious liberty, than from an inquiry into the
artifices by which Jack-the-Giant-killer contrived to escape the maw of
the monsters against whom he had pitted himself. What is commonly
understood, however, by a Science of History is something far beyond the
idea entertained of it by such temperate reasoners as Mr. John Stuart
Mill and Mr. Fitzjames Stephen. The science, for the reality of which M.
Comte in France and Mr. Buckle in England have been the foremost
champions, would bear the same relation to political events as Optics
and Astronomy do to the phenomena of light and of the solar and sidereal
systems. It would deal less with the conjectural and probable than with
the predicable and positive. 'In the moral as in the physical world,'
say its leading advocates, 'are invariable rule, inevitable sequence,
undeviating regularity,' constituting 'one vast scheme of universal
order.' 'The actions of men, and therefore of societies, are governed by
fixed eternal laws,' which 'assign to every man his place in the
necessary chain of being,' and 'allow him no choice as to what that
place shall be.' One such law is that, 'in a given state of society, a
certain number of persons must put an end to their own lives:' another,
that a certain number of persons must commit murder; a third, that when
wages and prices are at certain points, a certain number of marriages
must annually take place, 'the number being determined not by the temper
and wishes of individuals, but by large general facts, over which
individuals can exercise no authority.' These are general laws; but the
special question as to who shall commit the crimes or the indiscretion
enjoined by them, 'depends upon special laws, which, however, in their
total action must obey the large social law to which they are all
subordinate.' A Science of History would consist of a collection of
'social laws,' duly systematised and codified, by the application of
which to given states of society the historical student might predict
the future course of political events, with a confidence similar to that
with which he could foretell the results of familiar chemical
combinations, or the movement of the planets.[22]
This is the theory which a few years ago was so much discussed, and
against which, notwithstanding the singular fascination it evidently
possesses for some minds, the moral sense of a much larger number
indignantly revolts, rightly apprehending that its establishment would
be subversive of all morality. For, if the actions of men are governed
by 'eternal and immutable laws,' men cannot be free agents; and where
there is not free agency there cannot be moral responsibility. Nor are
the apprehensions entertained on this score to be allayed by the answer,
ingenious as it is, which has been given to them[23] by one of the
ablest and most judicious apologists for the new creed. It is true that
human actions can be said to be 'governed' only in the same metaphorical
sense as that in which we speak of the laws of nature, which do not
really govern anything, but merely describe the invariable order in
which natural phenomena have been observed to occur. It is true that the
discovery of invariable regularity in human affairs, supposing such a
discovery to have been made, would not prove that there was any
necessity for such regularity. It is conceivable that the orbs of heaven
may be intelligent beings, possessing full power to change or to arrest
their own course, and moving constantly in the same orbits merely
because it pleases them to do so. Invariable regularity, therefore,
would be perfectly consistent with free agency. All this is perfectly
just, but it is also altogether beside the question. The offence given
by the writers on whose behalf the apology is set up consists not so
much in their asserting that there are, as in their insisting that there
must be, uniformity and regularity in human affairs; or, as Mr. Buckle
expresses it, that social phenomena 'are the results of large and
general causes which, working on the aggregate of society, _must_
produce certain consequences, without regard to the volition of the
particular men of whom the society is composed.' Now, though free agency
may co-exist with _invariable_ regularity, it obviously cannot co-exist
with _necessary_ regularity, which, consequently, is incompatible
likewise with moral responsibility. If men are compelled by the force of
circumstances, or by any force, to move only in one direction, they
cannot be responsible for not moving in a different direction. Nor is it
more to the purpose to undertake a subtle analysis of the nature of
causation, and to explain that it does not, properly speaking, involve
compulsion, but simply means invariable antecedence. Let it be that a
cannon-ball does not really knock down the wall against which it
strikes, and that it would be more correct to say that the ball
impinges and the wall falls; though, seeing that the wall would not have
fallen unless the ball had impinged, the distinction is too nice for
ordinary apprehension. As understood, at any rate, by the joint
headmasters of the new school, causation does involve compulsion. 'Men's
actions,' say they, 'are the product not of their volition, but of their
antecedents,' and 'result from large and general causes which must
produce certain consequences.' Neither, if this be so, is it of any
avail to suggest that, possibly, the large and general causes in
question may be of only temporary operation. 'It may be that the rules,'
in accordance with which the sun has hitherto risen every morning since
the creation of the world, 'will hold good only for a time.' It may be
that the springs, whatever they are, by which the universe is kept in
motion, may require to be periodically wound up like the works of a
clock, and that, unless this be done, 'on some particular day out of
many billions,' the sun may fail to rise, just as the clock, if suffered
to run down, would stop on the eighth day. The conjecture would, of
course, be not less applicable to social than to natural laws. It is
conceivable that the large general causes assumed to regulate human
actions might lose their efficacy at the end of a certain cycle, when
mankind might either have to recommence a social revolution similar to
the one just completed, or might have to begin an entirely different
revolution under entirely different laws. Be it so. Still, if the
causes, as long as they remained in operation, possessed a compulsory
character--if, during the continuance of the supposed cycle, men were
bound to act in a certain way in accordance with certain laws, and
irrespectively of their own volition--what would it matter that those
laws were not eternal and immutable? For the time being men would no
more be free agents than the hands of a clock, while the clock was wound
up. Both would be constrained to move in a prescribed direction, whether
they would or no. Men in such circumstances might well be likened, as by
Mr. Buckle they are likened, to links in a chain, but few would be
prevented from joining in Mr. Goldwin Smith's eloquent protest against
the comparison, by being told that the chain perhaps was not an endless
one.
It is clear, then, that the principles to which we have been adverting
would, if established, be really subversive of morality, inasmuch as
they are incompatible with free agency, without which there can be no
responsibility. The soundness of a doctrine does not, however, depend
upon its tendencies; and Mr. Buckle was fully warranted in demanding
that his views should be examined with reference, not at all to their
consequences, but solely and exclusively to their truth. They certainly
ought to be so examined, if examined at all; but morality is so
indispensable to the happiness of mankind, that if there were reason for
apprehending it to be based upon error, there would be equal reason for
avoiding an enquiry which might demonstrate the weakness of its
foundations, by bringing forward an antagonistic truth. The only
adequate excuse, therefore, for enquiring, as I now proceed to do, into
the validity of Mr. Buckle's theory, is the confidence I feel that it
will be found to contain not recondite, newly-discovered truth, but, at
best, only skilfully and curiously-compounded fallacies, which, being
dispelled, will leave the foundations of morality as firm and
unimpeachable as before.
In order that he might be able to prove the possibility of a Science of
History, Mr. Buckle asked no more than the following concessions:
'That, when we perform an action, we perform it in consequence of some
motive or motives; that those motives are the results of some
antecedents, and that therefore, if we were acquainted with the whole of
the antecedents and with all the laws of their movements, we could with
unerring certainty predict the whole of their immediate results.' Now,
there is certainly nothing in these demands which may not be
unhesitatingly conceded. As there can be no effect without a cause, so
there can be no action without a motive: the motive or motives of an
action are the product of all the conditions and circumstances among
which the agent is placed--which conditions and circumstances, again,
must have been brought about by antecedent events. The same
circumstances would indeed differently affect persons of different
mental constitutions and characters; but the original constitution of a
man's mind is itself the product of antecedent events, as is also any
subsequent modification of character which it may have undergone. It
cannot be denied, then, that men's motives are the results of
antecedents. Equally undeniable is it that a knowledge of all the
antecedents and of all the laws of their movements would enable us to
foresee their results, for this, supposing the laws referred to to have
any real existence, is merely equivalent to the self-evident
proposition, that if we perceived certain causes and knew exactly how
they would act, we should know beforehand what would be their effects.
But what if there be no such laws? What if, on the showing of Mr. Buckle
himself and of his associates, there neither are nor can be?
The true nature of a scientific law has never been better explained than
by the writer already quoted as Mr. Buckle's dexterous apologist. A
scientific law is not an ordinance, but a record. It simply professes
to describe the order in which certain phenomena have been observed
uniformly to recur. It differs from a legislative enactment, in that the
one would be a law although it were never obeyed, whereas the other
would cease to be a law if one single exception to its statement could
be pointed out. Thus the Act of Parliament enjoining the registration of
births, would be equally a law although no births were ever registered;
whereas the law, that in a body moving in consequence of pressure the
momentum generated is in proportion to the pressure, would entirely
forfeit its legal character if, on any one occasion or in any
circumstances, momentum were generated in any other proportion. It is
essential, then, to the existence of a scientific law that there should
be uniformity of phenomena. But in human affairs uniformity is
impossible. No doubt, in exactly the same circumstances exactly the same
events must happen; but exactly the same aggregation of circumstances
cannot possibly be repeated. Such repetition is inconsistent with the
very theory, which is based on the assumption that the repetition is
continually happening.
'In the moral as well as the physical world' there are, say the
exponents of the new theory, not only 'invariable rule' and 'inevitable
sequence,' but 'irresistible growth' and 'continual advance.' In other
words, things can never be twice in precisely the same condition--never,
at least, within the same cycle. It has, indeed, been suggested that
there may be in human affairs the same sort of regularity as is observed
by the hands of a clock; and that, as the latter, at the end of every
twenty-four hours, recommence the movement which they have just
concluded, so at the end of, say 'every ten thousand years,' all the
same events which have been happening throughout the period may begin
to happen over again in the same order as before. Such a succession,
however, would involve quite as much of retrogression as of progression,
and the continual advance so boastfully spoken of would be nothing else
than a tendency of society to return to the condition from which it had
originally emerged. But, even on this uncomfortable hypothesis, there
could be no regularity of occurrences within the same cycle; no clue as
to the future could be obtained from investigation of the past. On the
contrary, the only certainty would then, as now, be that no combination
of events which had happened once could happen again, as long as the
existing order of things continued. The inference here follows
necessarily from the premises. If there be continual advance--if things
are constantly moving forward--they cannot remain in the same state; and
if not in the same state, they cannot produce the same effects. For, if
it be obvious, on the one hand, that precisely the same causes must
invariably produce the same results, it is equally evident, on the
other, that the same results cannot be reproduced except by the same
causes. If causes calculated to bring about certain phenomena undergo
either augmentation or diminution, there must be a corresponding change
in the phenomena. Now, effects cannot be identical with their causes,
and, in the moral world, effects once produced become in turn causes,
acting either independently or in conjunction with pre-existing causes.
They become in turn the antecedents spoken of by Mr. Buckle, from which
spring the motives of human conduct. But, as all such antecedents must
necessarily differ from all former antecedents, they must also give rise
to motives, must be followed by actions, and must bring about
combinations of circumstances, differing from any previously
experienced. Thus, in human affairs, there can be no recurrence either
of antecedents or of consequences; and, as a scientific law is simply a
record of the uniform recurrence of consequences, it follows that in
human affairs there can be no scientific laws.
It will be understood that human conduct, and the circumstances or
causes which influence it, are here spoken of in the aggregate. It is
not pretended that particular causes or circumstances may not continue
permanently in operation, though with an influence modified by the
concomitance of fresh circumstances; or that they may not continue to
produce consequences differing from their former consequences not more
than in proportion to the modification undergone by the causes. Still
less is it pretended that certain human phenomena, with which human
motives have little or nothing to do, may not be repeated once and
again, notwithstanding the important changes constantly going on in
every human society. It is not denied that marriages may continue for
years together to bear much the same annual proportion to the
population, provided that during those years there be no material change
in the amount of the economical obstacles which commonly interfere, more
than anything else, with men's natural inclination to marry. Still less
is it denied that, in a given number of births, the number of girls may
always preserve nearly the same superiority over that of boys, or that
the proportion between red-haired and flaxen-haired children may
generally be about the same, or that the percentage of letters
misdirected in a given country may vary little during long periods. But,
in the first of these cases, men do not get married, as Mr. Buckle
imagined, irrespectively of their volition. If, for several years
together, marriages continue to bear about the same proportion to
population, it is because during that period circumstances continue to
present a certain amount, and no more, of opposition to men's connubial
proclivities. In the other cases, it is not at all because the parents
wish it that a girl is born instead of a boy, or with flaxen hair
instead of carrots; neither is it from any motive or intention that
letters are often misdirected, but, on the contrary, from want of
thought, and from the carelessness and haste with which letter-writing,
like most other human actions, is unfortunately too often performed.
But, before assuming that this carelessness and haste bear an invariable
proportion to numbers, we should inquire whether the proportion of
misdirected letters is the same in all human societies--the same, for
instance, in France and Spain as in England. If not--if varying
circumstances produce different results in this respect in different
countries--it may be inferred that a variation of circumstances may
produce a difference of result in the same country. It will, at any
rate, be clear that there is no 'necessary and invariable order' in
which letters are misdirected. In one sense, indeed, it may be said that
the proportion of misdirected letters depends upon 'the state of
society,' if by that expression be meant, among other things, the
numerical proportion which individuals of different characters and
habits bear to each other. In that sense, we may accept some far more
startling propositions. We may partly admit that the state of society
determines the number of murders and suicides, if by this be simply
meant that the number of murders and suicides committed will depend upon
the number of persons whose characters have been so moulded by
circumstances as to dispose them to put an end to their own or other
people's lives. But Mr. Buckle, by whom the assertion was made, was
careful to explain that his meaning was the very reverse of what is here
supposed. Speaking of suicide, he declares it to be 'a general law that,
in a given state of society, a certain number of persons must put an end
to their own lives;' adding that 'the question as to who shall commit
the crime depends upon special laws,' and that 'the individual felon
only carries into effect what is a necessary consequence of preceding
circumstances.' In other words, it is not the amount of crime that
depends upon the number of persons prepared to commit it; it is the
number of criminals which depends upon the amount of crime that must
needs be committed. 'Murder,' he elsewhere says, 'is committed with as
much regularity, and bears as uniform a relation to certain known
circumstances, as do the movements of the tides and the relations of the
seasons.' 'The uniform reproduction of crime is more clearly marked, and
more capable of being predicted, than are the physical laws connected
with the disease and destruction of our bodies. The offences of men are
the result not so much of the vices of individual offenders, as of the
state of society into which the individuals are thrown.'
There is here so much looseness and inconsistency of language, that what
is most offensive in it may easily bear more than one interpretation:
and the shocking dogma that, in a given state of society, the force of
circumstances constrains the commission of a certain amount of crime,
may possibly admit of being explained away and softened down into the
comparatively harmless proposition that, where all the circumstances,
conditions or causes required for the commission of a certain amount of
crime are present, that amount of crime will certainly be committed. But
what is most provoking in Mr. Buckle is the heedlessness or wantonness
with which he is constantly insisting that the causes in question are
necessarily present and uniformly acting. What he calls the uniform
reproduction of crime is likened by him to the uniform recurrence of the
tides. According to him, it is a law that a certain number of suicides
shall take place annually, just as it is a law that there shall be high
and low water twice in every twenty-four hours. Now a law, as the word
is here used, means a record of invariable repetitions of phenomena. Has
it been observed, then, that suicides bear, we will not say an
invariable, but anything like a definite proportion to population? Mr.
Buckle thinks it has, and he adduces some facts in support of the
opinion; but his facts, properly understood, disprove instead of proving
what he asserts; and, even if they proved it, they would yet afford no
support to his main theory.
In London, for some years past--how many is not stated--about 240
persons annually have made away with themselves--sometimes a few more,
sometimes a few less--the highest number having been 266 in 1846, and
the lowest 213 in 1849. But, while the number of suicides has thus been
nearly stationary, population has been anything but stationary in the
metropolitan district, but has advanced with vast and unremitting
strides at an average rate of nearly 43,000 a year. In 1841 it was
1,948,369; in 1851, 2,361,640; and in 1861, 2,803,989. The proportion of
suicide to population has consequently been by no means uniform, but has
varied exceedingly, and on the whole has shown a constant tendency to
decrease. But even if it had continued uniform, it would simply have
shown that, during a certain number of years, the general character of
Londoners had, in certain particulars, undergone no material change. It
would not have proved that the regularity of suicide observable among
Londoners was in accordance with any general law. To prove this it would
have been necessary to show that the proportion had been uniform, not
only in the same but in all societies; in Paris as well as in London,
among the Esquimaux of Labrador, and among the Negroes of Soudan. For,
if the proportion were found to vary by reason of the differing
circumstances of different societies, it would plainly be seen to be at
least susceptible of variation in the same society, inasmuch as in no
society do circumstances remain the same from generation to generation.
So equally with murders. Even if there were no doubt that the percentage
of such crimes in England had long continued the same, still that fact
would prove nothing as to the uniform reproduction of crime, if it could
be shown that the percentage had ever varied anywhere else--in France or
Italy, for example, or in Dahomey. For it would be mere childishness to
point to the different conditions of England and Dahomey, and to plead
that no more was intended to be said than that, with uniformity of
circumstances there would also be uniformity of results. So much no one,
in the least competent to discuss the subject, would for a moment dream
of disputing. But in political affairs there cannot be uniformity of
circumstances. The aggregate of circumstances from which spring human
motives cannot, from the nature of things, ever be repeated; and, though
a few general causes may continue permanently in operation, they cannot
continue to produce the same identical results; for even though they
could themselves remain stationary, it would be impossible that their
operation should not be affected by the constant change going on around,
or should not partake of an otherwise universal forward movement. In
political affairs there cannot possibly be any recurrence of identical
phenomena; nor can there, except within a very limited period, be any
occurrence of very similar phenomena. But recurrence (and not merely
recurrence, but complete and invariable recurrence) is the very
foundation of science. Without it there can be no scientific laws, and
without such laws--_i.e._, without records of past recurrences--there
can be no sure predictions as to the future. It is only because certain
motions of certain bodies have hitherto been observed to take place with
invariable regularity, that they are expected to continue to do so, and
it is upon that assumption only that we venture to predict that the sun
will rise to-morrow morning, or that an eclipse will take place next
year. But if no event recorded in history has ever yet been known to
occur twice under precisely the same conditions, and as a consequence of
the same causes, what ground can there be for predicting whether or when
any such event will occur again? What possibility is there of
constructing a science of history, when history supplies no materials
for either foundation or superstructure?
There is nothing in this conclusion in the slightest degree opposed to
the most approved doctrine of causation. No effect can be without a
cause. No doubt, then, the regency of invariable causation holds good of
human volitions. No doubt the volitions and consequently the actions of
men are the joint results of the external circumstances amid which men
are placed, and of their own characters; which again are the results of
circumstances, natural and artificial. So much must needs be admitted,
and something more besides. Certain causes will infallibly be succeeded
by certain effects. From any particular combination of circumstances,
certain determinate consequences and no others will result; those again
will give rise to consequences equally determinate, and those in turn to
others, and so on in an infinite series. It follows, then, from the
regency of causation, that there is a determinate course already, as it
were, traced out, which human events will certainly follow to the end of
time; every step of which course, however remote, might now be foreseen
and predicted by adequate, that is to say by infinite, intelligence.
Infinite intelligence would do this, however, not by the aid of law, but
by virtue of its own intrinsic and unassisted strength, wherewith it
would perceive how each succeeding combination of causes would operate.
For, as cannot be too often repeated, a law is merely a record of
recurrences; and in human affairs there can be no recurrences of the
same aggregate either of causes or results. There being then no historic
laws, there can be no Science of History, for science cannot exist
without laws. The historic prescience, which is an attribute of Infinite
Intelligence, not being regulated by law, or at any rate not by any law
except that of causation, is not, technically speaking, a science, and
even if it were, would be utterly beyond the reach of human intellect
and attainable only by Infinite Wisdom.
The admission made in the last paragraph has cleared the way for the
introduction of a question, from which the subject under discussion
derives its principal interest, and which it is indispensable therefore
carefully, though briefly, to examine. If there be certain determinate
lines of conduct which men will infallibly pursue throughout all
succeeding generations, how can men be free agents? How--for it is
merely the old puzzle over again--how can foreknowledge be reconciled
with freewill? The difficulty is not to be got rid of by discrediting
the reality of freewill, and treating it as a thing for which there is
no evidence. When Johnson silenced Boswell's chatter with the words,
'Sir, we know our will is free and there's an end on't,' he expressed a
great truth in language not the less philosophically accurate on account
of its colloquial curtness. The consciousness possessed by an agent
about to perform an act, that he is at liberty to perform it or not, is
really conclusive evidence that the act is free. For it matters not a
jot whether consciousness be 'an independent faculty,' or whether--as,
Mr. Buckle reminds us, 'is the opinion of some of the ablest
thinkers'--it be not merely 'a state or condition of the mind.' If
consciousness be a condition of the mind, so also is perception; but
perception, whatever else it be, is also that which makes us acquainted
with external phenomena, just as consciousness is that which makes us
acquainted with internal emotions. The two informants, it is true, are
not equally trustworthy. Perception often deceives us, but
consciousness, never. We often fancy we perceive what we do not
perceive. We may fancy we see a ghost, when we are merely mocked by an
optical illusion, or we may mistake the impalpable imagery of the Fata
Morgana for solid objects, or the rumbling of a cart for thunder. But
consciousness is infallible. We cannot fancy we experience an emotion
which we do not experience. We cannot fancy we are glad when we are not
glad, or sorry when we are not sorry, or hopeful when in despair; and to
pretend that we can possibly be conscious of willing when we are not
willing, would be as absurd as to meet the _cogito, ergo sum_ of
Descartes, with the reply that, perhaps, we do not really think, but
only think we think.
Freewill, then, being an indisputable reality, how can it be reconciled
with foreknowledge? There can be no more conclusive way of showing that
the two things are capable of co-existing than to point to an example of
their actual co-existence, and such an example is afforded by the idea
of Infinite Power. Omnipotence, which by its nature implies freewill,
comprehends also Omniscience. Omnipotence can do anything whatsoever
which does not involve a contradiction; but even Omnipotence can do
nothing which Omniscience does not foresee. It can, indeed, do
whatsoever it pleases; but Omniscience foresees precisely what it will
be pleased to do. With unbounded liberty to choose any course of action,
it can yet choose no course which has not been foreseen; but its freedom
of choice is evidently not affected by the fact that the choice which it
will make is known before hand. Neither is that of man. An eager
aspirant to ecclesiastical preferment is not the less at liberty to
refuse a proffered mitre, because all his acquaintances have a well
founded assurance that he will accept. A wayfarer, with a yawning
precipice before his eyes, may or may not, as he pleases, cast himself
down headlong. Whether he will do so or not must always have been
positively foreknown to Omniscience; but that fact in no degree affects
his power of deciding for himself. If arguing on the notion that what is
to be must be, he decide on moving forward to his destruction, then what
has been foreseen is simply that he will so argue and be self-deceived,
and will consequently perish. But the foreknowledge which simply
perceives what direction will be taken by the will is a very different
thing from an over-ruling destiny, which should compel the will to take
some special direction. Still it is obvious that, in this instance also,
foreknowledge is based entirely on causation. It is solely because human
volitions take place as inevitable effects of antecedent causes that
Omniscience itself can be conceived as capable of foreseeing them.
But on such conditions, how can human volitions really be free? How can
man be really at liberty to will of his good pleasure, if what he is
prompted to will depends on the influence which the circumstances that
happen to surround him may exercise on the constitution and character,
which he has derived from pre-existing circumstances? How can his will
be free, if that will be moulded and shaped by circumstances over which
he has no control? I have, I am aware, by the mode I have adopted of
reconciling free-will with foreknowledge, incurred the obligation of
reconciling it with another co-existence of yet greater apparent
incompatibility. By admitting that 'human volitions take place as
inevitable effects of antecedent causes,' that they must be such, and
cannot be other than such, as antecedent causes make them, I have
admitted that the will, though independent of law, is absolutely subject
to, and _must_ implicitly obey, causes. Freewill, then, must be shown to
be compatible not with foreknowledge only, but with necessity also. For
there is no use in attempting to ignore necessity; no use in exclaiming
with Professor Huxley: 'Fact I know, and Law I know; but what is
Necessity but an empty shadow of the mind's own throwing?'[24] A shadow
it most certainly is not, though it is a bugbear, and the veriest that
was ever suffered to torment a morbid imagination. It is an indisputable
reality, a substantial, but at the same time perfectly harmless, or
rather salutary reality, whose terrors need only to be boldly confronted
in order to disappear and to transform themselves into highly attractive
recommendations. For what, after all, does it imply? What but that
effects must follow their causes, and causes precede their effects, as
plainly they must, unless cause and effect be utterly unmeaning
expletives. Of course we must on all occasions be affected by
surrounding circumstances, in modes exactly accordant with our
idiosyncracies, moral and physical. Of course, too, our volitions must
exactly correspond with our contemporaneous affections. When we are
empty, we must, if in health, feel hungry, and desire to eat; when full,
we must, unless we are hogs, be satisfied, and prefer to ruminate. Most
men are so organised that when tickled they must laugh; when wronged,
must frown or sigh. The sight of distress makes them pity, and desire to
see it relieved. That of virtue makes them admire, and desire to see it
rewarded. That of vice makes them angry, and desire to see it punished.
Would we have all these things reversed? Would it be well for us that
our being starved or surfeited should make no difference in our wish to
feed, or our willingness to fast? Should we like the chances to be equal
whether we should desire distress to be alleviated or aggravated? If
not, what is the bondage under which we groan? What the liberty
wherewith we long to be made free? Our sole grievance is that, according
to actual arrangements, there must be reasons for our wishes, and that
on those reasons our wishes must depend. Should we then prefer that
there were no such reasons? Would we have our wishes to be independent
of reason, and adrift before irrational caprice? Probably we may, on
second thoughts, be content to forego an enfranchisement like this; but,
if not, we may at least console ourselves for its indefinite
postponement, by reflecting that Omnipotence itself is, equally with
ourselves, subject to the sort of necessity under which we are groaning;
equally destitute of the sort of free-will to which we aspire. It is
manifest that, since there cannot be omnipotence without boundless
liberty, omnipotence must possess completest freedom of will. Yet even
the Will of Omnipotence is subject to the despotism of causation. Divine
perfection cannot but be at all times affected in modes as exactly
corresponding with its own excellence as human imperfection is in modes
corresponding with its deficiencies, and the movements of the Divine
Mind cannot but correspond with the affections of the Divine Mind. Those
movements are not unmeaning, purposeless, wayward. They, too, have their
appropriate springs, and proceed by regular process from legitimate
causes, the chief of those causes being the infinite perfection of the
Divine Nature. Divine Power cannot then, any more than human, be
directed by its owner's will to purposes against which its owner's
nature revolts. But is this inability a matter to lament over? Those
must be greatly at a loss for a grievance who make one of its being
impossible for them to will things which they have over-ruling reasons
for not willing. Besides, does man, in order to believe himself free,
require more freedom than his Maker? The disciple is not above his
master, nor the servant above his lord. Surely it is sufficient that
the disciple be as his master, and the servant as his lord.[25]
The fact, then, that human conduct is subject to causation, and may by
adequate intelligence be predicted in its minutest details until the end
of time, no more proves that it is governed by invariable laws, which
act irrespectively of human volitions, than the corresponding fact with
reference to Divine conduct impairs the freedom of the Divine Will.
There is no one living to whom such a doctrine--degrading man, as it
does, into a helpless puppet, robbing him of all moral responsibility
and of every motive for either exertion or self-control--can be more
utterly repugnant than to Mr. Mill, who nevertheless, although
dissenting from Mr. Buckle's more extreme opinions, makes use of some
expressions which may be construed into a qualified approval of his
general views. Even Mr. Mill speaks of 'human volitions as depending on
scientific laws,' thereby implying that the circumstances from which
human motives and, consequently, human actions result are continually
recurring with a certain regularity. He speaks of 'general laws
affecting communities, which are indeed modified in their action by
special causes affecting individuals, but which, if their effects could
be observed over a field sufficiently wide and for a period sufficiently
long to embrace all possible combinations of the special causes, would
be found to produce constant results.'[26] This proposition seems to
proceed on the assumption that general causes are either of uniform
operation, or that, if they vary in their effects, their variations, and
also those of special causes, occur with a certain regularity, and
constantly recur within a certain definite period. But this is precisely
what cannot possibly happen. Among the general causes referred to, some
few are continuous--those, namely, which are inherent in human nature;
but even these are continually modified in their action by changes
continually taking place in those other general causes which constitute
the existing state of society, and which are not merely continually
changing, but are continually becoming more and more different from what
they were originally. So much is fully admitted by Mr. Mill himself, and
indeed can be scarcely more strongly enforced than by his own words.
'There is a progressive change,' he says, 'both in the character of the
human race, and in their outward circumstances, so far as moulded by
themselves; in each successive age the principal phenomena of society
are different from what they were in the age preceding, and still more
different from any previous age.'[27] It is admitted, then, that there
can be no recurrence of social phenomena; and it is obvious that, the
longer the period of observation, the less possibility can there be of
their recurring, since the greater is the certainty that new causes
will come into operation. But, even though it were possible that all the
external circumstances which have once influenced either communities or
individuals could be repeated, the same circumstances could not a second
time produce the same effects. Men of different characters are affected
in very different ways by the same influences, and the characters of any
particular generation of men are always very different from those of
every preceding generation. Let it be supposed, for the sake of
argument, that the French of the present day could be placed in
precisely the same social condition in which their fathers were towards
the close of the last century; still they would act very differently
from their fathers. Nay, even though they should, with one single
exception, have inherited the dispositions of their fathers, the
difference of character in one single individual might suffice to give
an entirely new turn to the course of events. If every other antecedent
of the first French Revolution were again present, still there might be
no second revolution, provided only that, instead of another Louis the
Sixteenth, a Leopold of Belgium, or a Frederick the Great were king.[28]
With the last mentioned on the throne, there would assuredly be no
repetition of that vacillation of purpose which rocked the cradle and
fostered the growth of popular fury till it culminated in a Reign of
Terror. Since, then, there cannot be either a repetition of the same
circumstances to act upon men, or a reproduction of the same sort of
men to be acted upon by circumstances, human conduct can never exhibit a
repetition of the same phenomena; experience of the past can never, in
social or political affairs, furnish a formula for predictions as to the
future. Accordingly Mr. Mill, in common with Mr. Stephen, disclaims the
idea of positive, and pleads only for conditional, predictions. But the
very term 'conditional predictions' involves a contradiction, since it
is obviously impossible to see beforehand what perhaps may never come to
pass. What is meant by the phrase is really nothing more than
conjectures; and conjectures, however ingenious and reasonable, cannot
be admitted within the pale of science. They cannot be accepted as
fruits of a tree which has by the quality of its fruits proved its right
to be entitled the Science of History.
With the view of enhancing the value of conditional predictions, it has
been urged that they are of precisely the same description as those
which we are in the habit of hazarding with respect to our familiar
acquaintance. There are, it is said, 'general maxims regarding human
conduct, by the application of which to given states of fact,
predictions may be made as to what will happen;' and all that is
necessary for the construction of historical science, is the employment
of these maxims on a larger scale. If the premiss here be sound, the
inference may be owned to be sufficiently legitimate. If there be any
formula with which the actions of individuals are observed to
correspond, there is every likelihood that the same formula may, by
extension and amplification, be adapted to the actions of communities.
But, although there are plenty of maxims telling men what they _ought_
to do, there is not one--except that which declares that they must all
die--which affords any positive information as to what they _will_ do.
'Thou shalt not steal,' 'thou shalt not kill,' 'thou shalt not commit
adultery;'--all these and many more are moral laws; but of not one of
them--the more's the pity--is the observance sufficiently regular, to
give it the smallest pretension to be styled a scientific law. General
propositions, too, there are in abundance, representing with more or
less accuracy the probable results of particular lines of conduct. Such
are the proverbial sayings, that 'Honesty is the best policy,' that 'A
rolling stone gathers no moss,' that 'The racecourse is the road to
ruin.' But adages like these were never supposed to afford any basis for
prophecy. It may be that an honest man more commonly gets on in the
world than a knave, though there is also much to be said on behalf of
the counter-proposition, that 'The children of darkness are wiser in
their generation than the children of light;' but, at any rate, there is
no doubt that a man may be honest without being prosperous, and that he
is often all the poorer for his probity. But, indeed, is there any one
conceivable situation in life in which a positive rule can be laid down
as to the course which men will follow? Can it even--to make use of an
illustration which has been very effectively employed on the other
side--can it even be said that a man will certainly marry a woman with
whom he is deeply in love, who returns his affection, whom he can marry
if he likes, and whom he has the means of maintaining in a suitable
manner? Nine times out of ten he probably will; but in the tenth
instance a Brahmin's passion may be checked by fear of contamination
with a Pariah, or a King Cophetua's pride may prevent his wedding a
beggar-maid, or the titled owner of an entailed estate may decline to
illegitimatise his offspring by espousing his deceased wife's sister, or
betrothed lovers may be parted by some such mysterious barrier as
sprang up between Talbot Bulstrode and Aurora Floyd, or an Adam Bede, in
spite of the example set by George Eliot's hero, may refrain from
marrying Dinah for fear of breaking his brother Seth's heart.
Equally vain would be the search for any rule invariably applicable to
political affairs. Even general propositions which sound like truisms
are not universally true. It cannot even be said that misgovernment
always produces discontent, or that the combination of superior strength
and superior strategy is always successful in war; for examples might be
cited of nations remaining patient under an iron despotism, and perhaps
also of campaigns lost by armies with every advantage of skill, numbers,
and discipline on their side. No better specimen can be given of what
are popularly spoken of as historical laws than one propounded by Mr. C.
Merivale, whose careful study of Roman annals has taught him to regard
it as 'a condition of permanent dominion that conquerors should absorb
the conquered gradually into their own body, by extending, as
circumstances arise, a share in their own exclusive privileges to the
masses from whom they have torn their original independence.' The
principle thus laid down is of great value, but it must not be mistaken
for an index pointing unerringly to a goal which will certainly be
obtained by following its direction. At least the offer of Austrian
citizenship had no perceptible effect in overcoming the exclusiveness of
Hungarian nationality; nor in inducing Venetia to become a willing
member of a Teutonic Federation, and to lend the same assistance to the
House of Hapsburg, as Gaul and Spain did to the Caesars, in suppressing
insurrection on the banks of the Danube. History supplies many
principles similar to the one evolved by Mr. Merivale, all more or less
useful for the guidance of the statesman. So far as they are just, they
indicate the results which would spring from the adoption of certain
lines of policy, unless something unforeseen should happen. It is true
that something unforeseen is almost sure to happen and to divert or
impede the course which events would otherwise take; but still, it is
most important to be able to perceive clearly the influence exerted by
certain causes, how much soever that influence may be disturbed by other
causes; since, if it does nothing else, it will at least prevent the
disturbing causes from producing what would otherwise have been their
full effect. On principles which indicate only a few out of many causes
in simultaneous operation, it is evident that nothing deserving to be
called predictions can be founded; but from them, nevertheless--inasmuch
as they teach that some causes act for good and others for evil, as far
as their action extends--practical rules of government may be deduced.
Such rules, however, which at best can only furnish a loose and shifting
basis for doubtful conjectures, stand without the confines of positive
knowledge; they occupy a middle-ground between science and nescience,
and constitute what, until very lately, was thought to be designated
with sufficient distinctness as the 'Philosophy of History.' By that
term, Mr. Stephen in one place says, is really meant all that he ever
meant by the Science of History; and the observation, were it not
apparently inconsistent with his general reasoning, might seem to imply
that the only question between him and his opponents is whether a thing,
the existence of which is not disputed, ought or ought not to receive a
new appellation. But it is otherwise, at any rate, with Mr. Mill. The
language used by him on this as on all other subjects, is too clear and
precise to admit of its being supposed that he has used a new phrase
without attaching to it a new signification, or to permit the present
writer to believe, as he fain would do, that a point of nomenclature is
the only point of difference between himself and one from whom it is so
difficult to differ without diffidence and self-distrust.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] Mr. Buckle's first chapter, _passim_.
[23] 'Cornhill Magazine,' for June and July, 1861.
[24] 'Lay Sermons,' p. 158.
[25] A highly esteemed literary friend, who has done me the favour of
looking over these pages in manuscript, considers that what I have
proved is, not that Omnipotence involves the co-existence of Freewill
and Necessity, but that Omnipotence itself, although capable of
possessing all things, could not possess Freewill, and that consequently
Freewill cannot possibly exist--that there cannot possibly be any such
thing.
Although, for reasons stated four pages back, not myself prepared to
accept this view of the matter, I should cheerfully accept it if I
could. The argument in the text proceeds upon the assumption that people
mean something when they talk about Freewill. If, however, they have no
meaning, if the phrase be a simple sound signifying nothing, of course
all controversy regarding the possible co-existence of that nothing with
Necessity is settled at once and for ever, while no great amount of
philosophy will be requisite to induce mankind to resign themselves very
placidly to the absence of that same nothing.
[26] Mill's 'Logic.' Fifth edition. Vol. ii. p. 527.
[27] Mill's 'Logic,' vol. ii. p. 504.
[28] 'S'il se fut trouve alors (vers 1750) sur le trone un prince de la
taille et de l'humeur du Grand Frederic, je ne doute point qu'il n'eut
accompli dans la societe et dans le gouvernement plusieurs des plus
grands changements que la Revolution y a faits, non-seulement sans
perdre sa couronne, mais en augmentant beaucoup son pouvoir.'--De
Tocqueville, _L'Ancien Regime_, p. 274.