In _The Monist_ for January, 1891, I endeavored to show what elementary
ideas ought to enter into our view of the universe. I may mention that on
those considerations I had already grounded a cosmical theory, and from
it had deduced a considerable number of consequences capable of being
compared with experience. This Comparison is now in progress, but under
existing circumstances must occupy many years.
I propose here to examine the common belief that every single fact in
the universe is precisely determined by law. It must not be supposed
that this is a doctrine accepted everywhere and at all times by all
rational men. Its first advocate appears to have been Democritus the
atomist, who was led to it, as we are informed, by reflecting upon the
“impenetrability, translation, and impact of matter (ἀντιτυπία καὶ φορὰ
καὶ πληγὴ τῆς ὕλης).” That is to say, having restricted his attention
to a field where no influence other than mechanical constraint could
possibly come before his notice, he straightway jumped to the conclusion
that throughout the universe that was the sole principle of action,—a
style of reasoning so usual in our day with men not unreflecting as to be
more than excusable in the infancy of thought. But Epicurus, in revising
the atomic doctrine and repairing its defences, found himself obliged
to suppose that atoms swerve from their courses by spontaneous chance;
and thereby he conferred upon the theory life and entelechy. For we now
see clearly that the peculiar function of the molecular hypothesis in
physics is to open an entry for the calculus of probabilities. Already,
the prince of philosophers had repeatedly and emphatically condemned the
dictum of Democritus (especially in the “Physics,” Book II, chapters
iv, v, vi), holding that events come to pass in three ways, namely,
(1) by external compulsion, or the action of efficient causes, (2) by
virtue of an inward nature, or the influence of final causes, and (3)
irregularly without definite cause, but just by absolute chance; and this
doctrine is of the inmost essence of Aristotelianism. It affords, at
any rate, a valuable enumeration of the possible ways in which anything
can be supposed to have come about. The freedom of the will, too, was
admitted both by Aristotle and by Epicurus. But the Stoa, which in every
department seized upon the most tangible, hard, and lifeless element,
and blindly denied the existence of every other, which, for example,
impugned the validity of the inductive method and wished to fill its
place with the _reductio ad absurdum_, very naturally became the one
school of ancient philosophy to stand by a strict necessitarianism, thus
returning to the single principle of Democritus that Epicurus had been
unable to swallow. Necessitarianism and materialism with the Stoics went
hand in hand, as by affinity they should. At the revival of learning,
Stoicism met with considerable favor, partly because it departed just
enough from Aristotle to give it the spice of novelty, and partly because
its superficialities well adapted it for acceptance by students of
literature and art who wanted their philosophy drawn mild. Afterwards,
the great discoveries in mechanics inspired the hope that mechanical
principles might suffice to explain the universe; and though without
logical justification, this hope has since been continually stimulated
by subsequent advances in physics. Nevertheless, the doctrine was in
too evident conflict with the freedom of the will and with miracles to
be generally acceptable, at first. But meantime there arose that most
widely spread of philosophical blunders, the notion that associationalism
belongs intrinsically to the materialistic family of doctrines; and thus
was evolved the theory of motives; and libertarianism became weakened.
At present, historical criticism has almost exploded the miracles, great
and small; so that the doctrine of necessity has never been in so great
vogue as now.
The proposition in question is that the state of things existing at any
time, together with certain immutable laws, completely determine the
state of things at every other time (for a limitation to _future_ time
is indefensible). Thus, given the state of the universe in the original
nebula, and given the laws of mechanics, a sufficiently powerful mind
could deduce from these data the precise form of every curlicue of every
letter I am now writing.
Whoever holds that every act of the will as well as every idea of the
mind is under the rigid governance of a necessity co-ordinated with that
of the physical world, will logically be carried to the proposition
that minds are part of the physical world in such a sense that the laws
of mechanics determine everything that happens according to immutable
attractions and repulsions. In that case, that instantaneous state of
things from which every other state of things is calculable consists
in the positions and velocities of all the particles at any instant.
This, the usual and most logical form of necessitarianism, is called the
mechanical philosophy.
When I have asked thinking men what reason they had to believe that every
fact in the universe is precisely determined by law, the first answer
has usually been that the proposition is a “presupposition” or postulate
of scientific reasoning. Well, if that is the best that can be said for
it, the belief is doomed. Suppose it be “postulated”: that does not
make it true, nor so much as afford the slightest rational motive for
yielding it any credence. It is as if a man should come to borrow money,
and when asked for his security, should reply he “postulated” the loan.
To “postulate” a proposition is no more than to hope it is true. There
are, indeed, practical emergencies in which we act upon assumptions of
certain propositions as true, because if they are not so, it can make no
difference how we act. But all such propositions I take to be hypotheses
of individual facts. For it is manifest that no universal principle can
in its universality be compromised in a special case or can be requisite
for the validity of any ordinary inference. To say, for instance, that
the demonstration by Archimedes of the property of the lever would fall
to the ground if men were endowed with free-will, is extravagant; yet
this is implied by those who make a proposition incompatible with the
freedom of the will the postulate of all inference. Considering, too,
that the conclusions of science make no pretence to being more than
probable, and considering that a probable inference can at most only
suppose something to be most frequently, or otherwise approximately,
true, but never that anything is precisely true without exception
throughout the universe, we see how far this proposition in truth is from
being so postulated.
But the whole notion of a postulate being involved in reasoning
appertains to a by-gone and false conception of logic. Non-deductive,
or ampliative inference is of three kinds: induction, hypothesis, and
analogy. If there be any other modes, they must be extremely unusual
and highly complicated, and may be assumed with little doubt to be of
the same nature as those enumerated. For induction, hypothesis, and
analogy, as far as their ampliative character goes, that is, so far as
they conclude something not implied in the premises, depend upon one
principle and involve the same procedure. All are essentially inferences
from sampling. Suppose a ship arrives in Liverpool laden with wheat
in bulk. Suppose that by some machinery the whole cargo be stirred up
with great thoroughness. Suppose that twenty-seven thimblefuls be taken
equally from the forward, midships, and aft parts, from the starboard,
centre, and larboard parts, and from the top, half depth, and lower
parts of her hold, and that these being mixed and the grains counted,
four fifths of the latter are found to be of quality _A_. Then we
infer, experientially and provisionally, that approximately four fifths
of all the grain in the cargo is of the same quality. I say we infer
this _experimentally_ and _provisionally_. By saying that we infer it
_experientially_, I mean that our conclusion makes no pretension to
knowledge of wheat-in-itself, our ἀλήθεια, as the derivation of that word
implies, has nothing to do with _latent_ wheat. We are dealing only with
the matter of possible experience,—experience in the full acceptation
of the term as something not merely affecting the senses but also as
the subject of thought. If there be any wheat hidden on the ship, so
that it can neither turn up in the sample nor be heard of subsequently
from purchasers,—or if it be half-hidden, so that it may, indeed, turn
up, but is less likely to do so than the rest,—or if it can affect our
senses and our pockets, but from some strange cause or causelessness
cannot be reasoned about,—all such wheat is to be excluded (or have
only its proportional weight) in calculating that true proportion of
quality _A_, to which our inference seeks to approximate. By saying that
we draw the inference _provisionally_, I mean that we do not hold that
we have reached any assigned degree of approximation as yet, but only
hold that if our experience be indefinitely extended, and if every fact
of whatever nature, as fast as it presents itself, be duly applied,
according to the inductive method, in correcting the inferred ratio,
then our approximation will become indefinitely close in the long run;
that is to say, close to the experience _to come_ (not merely close by
the exhaustion of a finite collection) so that if experience in general
is to fluctuate irregularly to and fro, in a manner to deprive the ratio
sought of all definite value, we shall be able to find out approximately
within what limits it fluctuates, and if, after having one definite
value, it changes and assumes another, we shall be able to find that out,
and in short, whatever may be the variations of this ratio in experience,
experience indefinitely extended will enable us to detect them, so as
to predict rightly, at last, what its ultimate value may be, if it have
any ultimate value, or what the ultimate law of succession of values may
be, if there be any such ultimate law, or that it ultimately fluctuates
irregularly within certain limits, if it do so ultimately fluctuate.
Now our inference, claiming to be no more than thus experiential and
provisional, manifestly involves no postulate whatever.
For what is a postulate? It is the formulation of a material fact which
we are not entitled to assume as a premise, but the truth of which is
requisite to the validity of an inference. Any fact, then, which might
be supposed postulated, must either be such that it would ultimately
present itself in experience, or not. If it will present itself, we
need not postulate it now in our provisional inference, since we shall
ultimately be entitled to use it as a premise. But if it never would
present itself in experience, our conclusion is valid but for the
possibility of this fact being otherwise than assumed, that is, it is
valid as far as possible experience goes, and that is all that we claim.
Thus, every postulate is cut off, either by the provisionality or by the
experientiality of our inference. For instance, it has been said that
induction postulates that, if an indefinite succession of samples be
drawn, examined, and thrown back each before the next is drawn, then in
the long run every grain will be drawn as often as any other, that is to
say postulates that the ratio of the numbers of times in which any two
are drawn will indefinitely approximate to unity. But no such postulate
is made; for if, on the one hand, we are to have no other experience of
the wheat than from such drawings, it is the ratio that presents itself
in those drawings and not the ratio which belongs to the wheat in its
latent existence that we are endeavoring to determine; while if, on
the other hand, there is some other mode by which the wheat is to come
under our knowledge, equivalent to another kind of sampling, so that
after all our care in stirring up the wheat, some experiential grains
will present themselves in the first sampling operation more often than
others in the long run, this very singular fact will be sure to get
discovered by the inductive method, which must avail itself of every sort
of experience; and our inference, which was only provisional, corrects
itself at last. Again, it has been said, that induction postulates that
under like circumstances like events will happen, and that this postulate
is at bottom the same as the principle of universal causation. But this
is a blunder, or _bevue_, due to thinking exclusively of inductions
where the concluded ratio is either 1 or 0. If any such proposition were
postulated, it would be that under like circumstances (the circumstances
of drawing the different samples) different events occur in the same
proportions in all the different sets,—a proposition which is false and
even absurd. But in truth no such thing is postulated, the experiential
character of the inference reducing the condition of validity to this,
that if a certain result does not occur, the opposite result will be
manifested, a condition assured by the provisionality of the inference.
But it may be asked whether it is not conceivable that every instance
of a certain class destined to be ever employed as a datum of induction
should have one character, while every instance destined not to be so
employed should have the opposite character. The answer is that in that
case, the instances excluded from being subjects of reasoning would not
be experienced in the full sense of the word, but would be among these
_latent_ individuals of which our conclusion does not pretend to speak.
To this account of the rationale of induction I know of but one objection
worth mention: it is that I thus fail to deduce the full degree of
force which this mode of inference in fact possesses; that according to
my view, no matter how thorough and elaborate the stirring and mixing
process had been, the examination of a single handful of grain would
not give me any assurance, sufficient to risk money upon, that the next
handful would not greatly modify the concluded value of the ratio under
inquiry, while, in fact, the assurance would be very high that this ratio
was not greatly in error. If the true ratio of grains of quality _A_ were
0.80 and the handful contained a thousand grains, nine such handfuls out
of every ten would contain from 780 to 820 grains of quality _A_. The
answer to this is that the calculation given is correct when we know
that the units of this handful and the quality inquired into have the
normal independence of one another, if for instance the stirring has been
complete and the character sampled for has been settled upon in advance
of the examination of the sample. But in so far as these conditions are
not known to be complied with, the above figures cease to be applicable.
Random sampling and predesignation of the character sampled for should
always be striven after in inductive reasoning, but when they cannot be
attained, so long as it is conducted honestly, the inference retains some
value. When we cannot ascertain how the sampling has been done or the
sample-character selected, induction still has the essential validity
which my present account of it shows it to have.
I do not think a man who combines a willingness to be convinced with a
power of appreciating an argument upon a difficult subject can resist the
reasons which have been given to show that the principle of universal
necessity cannot be defended as being a postulate of reasoning. But then
the question immediately arises whether it is not proved to be true, or
at least rendered highly probable, by observation of nature.
Still, this question ought not long to arrest a person accustomed to
reflect upon the force of scientific reasoning. For the essence of
the necessitarian position is that certain continuous quantities have
certain exact values. Now, how can observation determine the value of
such a quantity with a probable error absolutely _nil_? To one who is
behind the scenes, and knows that the most refined comparisons of masses,
lengths, and angles, far surpassing in precision all other measurements,
yet fall behind the accuracy of bank-accounts, and that the ordinary
determinations of physical constants, such as appear from month to month
in the journals, are about on a par with an upholsterer’s measurements
of carpets and curtains, the idea of mathematical exactitude being
demonstrated in the laboratory will appear simply ridiculous. There is
a recognised method of estimating the probable magnitudes of errors in
physics,—the method of least squares. It is universally admitted that
this method makes the errors smaller than they really are; yet even
according to that theory an error indefinitely small is indefinitely
improbable; so that any statement to the effect that a certain continuous
quantity has a certain exact value, if well-founded at all, must be
founded on something other than observation.
Still, I am obliged to admit that this rule is subject to a certain
qualification. Namely, it only applies to continuous[53] quantity. Now,
certain kinds of continuous quantity are discontinuous at one or at
two limits, and for such limits the rule must be modified. Thus, the
length of a line cannot be less than zero. Suppose, then, the question
arises how long a line a certain person had drawn from a marked point
on a piece of paper. If no line at all can be seen, the observed length
is zero; and the only conclusion this observation warrants is that the
length of the line is less than the smallest length visible with the
optical power employed. But indirect observations,—for example, that the
person supposed to have drawn the line was never within fifty feet of the
paper,—may make it probable that no line at all was made, so that the
concluded length will be strictly zero. In like manner, experience no
doubt would warrant the conclusion that there is absolutely _no_ indigo
in a given ear of wheat, and absolutely _no_ attar in a given lichen.
But such inferences can only be rendered valid by positive experiential
evidence, direct or remote, and cannot rest upon a mere inability to
detect the quantity in question. We have reason to think there is no
indigo in the wheat, because we have remarked that wherever indigo is
produced it is produced in considerable quantities, to mention only
one argument. We have reason to think there is no attar in the lichen,
because essential oils seem to be in general peculiar to single species,
if the question had been whether there was iron in the wheat or the
lichen, though chemical analysis should fail to detect its presence,
we should think some of it probably was there, since iron is almost
everywhere. Without any such information, one way or the other, we
could only abstain from any opinion as to the presence of the substance
in question. It cannot, I conceive, be maintained that we are in any
_better_ position than this in regard to the presence of the element of
chance or spontaneous departures from law in nature.
Those observations which are generally adduced in favor of mechanical
causation simply prove that there is an element of regularity in nature,
and have no bearing whatever upon the question of whether such regularity
is exact and universal, or not. Nay, in regard to this _exactitude_, all
observation is directly _opposed_ to it; and the most that can be said
is that a good deal of this observation can be explained away. Try to
verify any law of nature, and you will find that the more precise your
observations, the more certain they will be to show irregular departures
from the law. We are accustomed to ascribe these, and I do not say
wrongly, to errors of observation; yet we cannot usually account for such
errors in any antecedently probable way. Trace their causes back far
enough, and you will be forced to admit they are always due to arbitrary
determination, or chance.
But it may be asked whether if there were an element of real chance in
the universe it must not occasionally be productive of signal effects
such as could not pass unobserved. In answer to this question, without
stopping to point out that there is an abundance of great events
which one might be tempted to suppose were of that nature, it will be
simplest to remark that physicists hold that the particles of gases
are moving about irregularly, substantially as if by real chance, and
that by the principles of probabilities there must occasionally happen
to be concentrations of heat in the gases contrary to the second law
of thermodynamics, and these concentrations, occurring in explosive
mixtures, must sometimes have tremendous effects. Here, then, is in
substance the very situation supposed; yet no phenomena ever have
resulted which we are forced to attribute to such chance concentration of
heat, or which anybody, wise or foolish, has ever dreamed of accounting
for in that manner.
In view of all these considerations, I do not believe that anybody, not
in a state of case-hardened ignorance respecting the logic of science,
can maintain that the precise and universal conformity of facts to
law is clearly proved, or even rendered particularly probable, by any
observations hitherto made. In this way, the determined advocate of exact
regularity will soon find himself driven to _a priori_ reasons to support
his thesis. These received such a sockdologer from Stuart Mill in his
Examination of Hamilton, that holding to them now seems to me to denote
a high degree of imperviousness to reason; so that I shall pass them by
with little notice.
To say that we cannot help believing a given proposition is no argument,
but it is a conclusive fact if it be true; and with the substitution
of “I” for “we,” it is true in the mouths of several classes of minds,
the blindly passionate, the unreflecting and ignorant, and the person
who has overwhelming evidence before his eyes. But that which has been
inconceivable to-day has often turned out indisputable on the morrow.
Inability to conceive is only a stage through which every man must pass
in regard to a number of beliefs,—unless endowed with extraordinary
obstinacy and obtuseness. His understanding is enslaved to some blind
compulsion which a vigorous mind is pretty sure soon to cast off.
Some seek to back up the _a priori_ position with empirical arguments.
They say that the exact regularity of the world is a natural belief, and
that natural beliefs have generally been confirmed by experience. There
is some reason in this. Natural beliefs, however, if they generally
have a foundation of truth, also require correction and purification
from natural illusions. The principles of mechanics are undoubtedly
natural beliefs; but, for all that, the early formulations of them were
exceedingly erroneous. The general approximation to truth in natural
beliefs is, in fact, a case of the general adaptation of genetic products
to recognisable utilities or ends. Now, the adaptations of nature,
beautiful and often marvellous as they verily are, are never found to
be quite perfect; so that the argument is quite _against_ the absolute
exactitude of any natural belief, including that of the principle of
causation.
Another argument, or convenient commonplace, is that absolute chance is
_inconceivable_. This word has eight current significations. The Century
Dictionary enumerates six. Those who talk like this will hardly be
persuaded to say in what sense they mean that chance is inconceivable.
Should they do so, it would easily be shown either that they have no
sufficient reason for the statement or that the inconceivability is of a
kind which does not prove that chance is non-existent.
Another _a priori_ argument is that chance is unintelligible; that is
to say, while it may perhaps be conceivable, it does not disclose to
the eye of reason the how or why of things; and since a hypothesis can
only be justified so far as it renders some phenomenon intelligible, we
never can have any right to suppose absolute chance to enter into the
production of anything in nature. This argument may be considered in
connection with two others. Namely, instead of going so far as to say
that the supposition of chance can _never_ properly be used to explain
any observed fact, it may be alleged merely that no facts are known
which such a supposition could in any way help in explaining. Or again,
the allegation being still further weakened, it may be said that since
departures from law are not unmistakably observed, chance is not a _vera
causa_, and ought not unnecessarily to be introduced into a hypothesis.
These are no mean arguments, and require us to examine the matter a
little more closely. Come, my superior opponent, let me learn from your
wisdom. It seems to me that every throw of sixes with a pair of dice is a
manifest instance of chance.
“While you would hold a throw of deuce-ace to be brought about by
necessity?” [The opponent’s supposed remarks are placed in quotation
marks.]
Clearly one throw is as much chance as another.
“Do you think throws of dice are of a different nature from other events?”
I see that I must say that _all_ the diversity and specificalness of
events is attributable to chance.
“Would you, then, deny that there is any regularity in the world?”
That is clearly undeniable. I must acknowledge there is an approximate
regularity, and that every event is influenced by it. But the
diversification, specificalness, and irregularity of things I suppose is
chance. A throw of sixes appears to me a case in which this element is
particularly obtrusive.
“If you reflect more deeply, you will come to see that _chance_ is only a
name for a cause that is unknown to us.”
Do you mean that we have no idea whatever what kind of causes could bring
about a throw of sixes?
“On the contrary, each die moves under the influence of precise
mechanical laws.”
But it appears to me that it is not these _laws_ which made the die turn
up sixes; for these laws act just the same when other throws come up. The
chance lies in the diversity of throws; and this diversity cannot be due
to laws which are immutable.
“The diversity is due to the diverse circumstances under which the
laws act. The dice lie differently in the box, and the motion given to
the box is different. These are the unknown causes which produce the
throws, and to which we give the name of chance; not the mechanical law
which regulates the operation of these causes. You see you are already
beginning to think more clearly about this subject.”
Does the operation of mechanical law not increase the diversity?
“Properly not. You must know that the instantaneous state of a system
of particles is defined by six times as many numbers as there are
particles, three for the co-ordinates of each particle’s position, and
three more for the components of its velocity. This number of numbers,
which expresses the amount of diversity in the system, remains the same
at all times. There may be, to be sure, some kind of relation between
the co-ordinates and component velocities of the different particles, by
means of which the state of the system might be expressed by a smaller
number of numbers. But, if this is the case, a precisely corresponding
relationship must exist between the co-ordinates and component velocities
at any other time, though it may doubtless be a relation less obvious
to us. Thus, the intrinsic complexity of the system is the same at all
times.”
Very well, my obliging opponent, we have now reached an issue. You think
all the arbitrary specifications of the universe were introduced in one
dose, in the beginning, if there was a beginning, and that the variety
and complication of nature has always been just as much as it is now. But
I, for my part, think that the diversification, the specification, has
been continually taking place. Should you condescend to ask me why I so
think, I should give my reasons as follows:
1) Question any science which deals with the course of time. Consider
the life of an individual animal or plant, or of a mind. Glance at the
history of states, of institutions, of language, of ideas. Examine the
successions of forms shown by paleontology, the history of the globe
as set forth in geology, of what the astronomer is able to make out
concerning the changes of stellar systems. Everywhere the main fact is
growth and increasing complexity. Death and corruption are mere accidents
or secondary phenomena. Among some of the lower organisms, it is a moot
point with biologists whether there be anything which ought to be called
death. Races, at any rate, do not die out except under unfavorable
circumstances. From these broad and ubiquitous facts we may fairly infer,
by the most unexceptionable logic, that there is probably in nature some
agency by which the complexity and diversity of things can be increased;
and that consequently the rule of mechanical necessity meets in some way
with interference.
2) By thus admitting pure spontaneity or life as a character of the
universe, acting always and everywhere though restrained within narrow
bounds by law, producing infinitesimal departures from law continually,
and great ones with infinite infrequency, I account for all the variety
and diversity of the universe, in the only sense in which the really
_sui generis_ and new can be said to be accounted for. The ordinary view
has to admit the inexhaustible multitudinous variety of the world, has
to admit that its mechanical law cannot account for this in the least,
that variety can spring only from spontaneity, and yet denies without
any evidence or reason the existence of this spontaneity, or else shoves
it back to the beginning of time and supposes it dead ever since. The
superior logic of my view appears to me not easily controverted.
3) When I ask the necessitarian how he would explain the diversity and
irregularity of the universe, he replies to me out of the treasury of his
wisdom that irregularity is something which from the nature of things we
must not seek to explain. Abashed at this, I seek to cover my confusion
by asking how he would explain the uniformity and regularity of the
universe, whereupon he tells me that the laws of nature are immutable and
ultimate facts, and no account is to be given of them. But my hypothesis
of spontaneity does explain irregularity, in a certain sense; that is, it
explains the general fact of irregularity, though not, of course, what
each lawless event is to be. At the same time, by thus loosening the
bond of necessity, it gives room for the influence of another kind of
causation, such as seems to be operative in the mind in the formation of
associations, and enables us to understand how the uniformity of nature
could have been brought about. That single events should be hard and
unintelligible, logic will permit without difficulty: we do not expect
to make the shock of a personally experienced earthquake appear natural
and reasonable by any amount of cogitation. But logic does expect things
_general_ to be understandable. To say that there is a universal law, and
that it is a hard, ultimate, unintelligible fact, the why and wherefore
of which can never be inquired into, at this a sound logic will revolt;
and will pass over at once to a method of philosophising which does not
thus barricade the road of discovery.
4) Necessitarianism cannot logically stop short of making the whole
action of the mind a part of the physical universe. Our notion that
we decide what we are going to do, if as the necessitarian says, it
has been calculable since the earliest times, is reduced to illusion.
Indeed, consciousness in general thus becomes a mere illusory aspect of
a material system. What we call red, green, and violet are in reality
only different rates of vibration. The sole reality is the distribution
of qualities of matter in space and time. Brain-matter is protoplasm
in a certain degree and kind of complication,—a certain arrangement of
mechanical particles. Its feeling is but an inward aspect, a phantom.
For, from the positions and velocities of the particles at any one
instant, and the knowledge of the immutable forces, the positions at all
other times are calculable; so that the universe of space, time, and
matter is a rounded system uninterfered with from elsewhere. But from
the state of feeling at any instant, there is no reason to suppose the
states of feeling at all other instants are thus exactly calculable; so
that feeling is, as I said, a mere fragmentary and illusive aspect of the
universe. This is the way, then, that necessitarianism has to make up
its accounts. It enters consciousness under the head of sundries, as a
forgotten trifle; its scheme of the universe would be more satisfactory
if this little fact could be dropped out of sight. On the other hand,
by supposing the rigid exactitude of causation to yield, I care not how
little,—be it but by a strictly infinitesimal amount,—we gain room to
insert mind into our scheme, and to put it into the place where it is
needed, into the position which, as the sole self-intelligible thing, it
is entitled to occupy, that of the fountain of existence; and in so doing
we resolve the problem of the connection of soul and body.
5) But I must leave undeveloped the chief of my reasons, and can
only adumbrate it. The hypothesis of chance-spontaneity is one whose
inevitable consequences are capable of being traced out with mathematical
precision into considerable detail. Much of this I have done and find the
consequences to agree with observed facts to an extent which seems to me
remarkable. But the matter and methods of reasoning are novel, and I have
no right to promise that other mathematicians shall find my deductions as
satisfactory as I myself do, so that the strongest reason for my belief
must for the present remain a private reason of my own, and cannot
influence others. I mention it to explain my own position; and partly to
indicate to future mathematical speculators a veritable goldmine, should
time and circumstances and the abridger of all joys prevent my opening it
to the world.
If now I, in my turn, inquire of the necessitarian why he prefers to
suppose that all specification goes back to the beginning of things,
he will answer me with one of those last three arguments which I left
unanswered.
First, he may say that chance is a thing absolutely unintelligible, and
therefore that we never can be entitled to make such a supposition.
But does not this objection smack of naïve impudence? It is not mine,
it is his own conception of the universe which leads abruptly up to
hard, ultimate, inexplicable, immutable law, on the one hand, and to
inexplicable specification and diversification of circumstances on the
other. My view, on the contrary, hypothetises nothing at all, unless it
be hypothesis to say that all specification came about in some sense,
and is not to be accepted as unaccountable. To undertake to account for
anything by saying boldly that it is due to chance would, indeed, be
futile. But this I do not do. I make use of chance chiefly to make room
for a principle of generalisation, or tendency to form habits, which I
hold has produced all regularities. The mechanical philosopher leaves
the whole specification of the world utterly unaccounted for, which is
pretty nearly as bad as to boldly attribute it to chance. I attribute
it altogether to chance, it is true, but to chance in the form of a
spontaneity which is to some degree regular. It seems to me clear at any
rate that one of these two positions must be taken, or else specification
must be supposed due to a spontaneity which develops itself in a certain
and not in a chance way, by an objective logic like that of Hegel. This
last way I leave as an open possibility, for the present; for it is as
much opposed to the necessitarian scheme of existence as my own theory is.
Secondly the necessitarian may say there are, at any rate, no observed
phenomena which the hypothesis of chance could aid in explaining.
In reply, I point first to the phenomenon of growth and developing
complexity, which appears to be universal, and which though it may
possibly be an affair of mechanism perhaps, certainly presents all
the appearance of increasing diversification. Then, there is variety
itself, beyond comparison the most obtrusive character of the universe:
no mechanism can account for this. Then, there is the very fact the
necessitarian most insists upon, the regularity of the universe which for
him serves only to block the road of inquiry. Then, there are the regular
relationships between the laws of nature,—similarities and comparative
characters, which appeal to our intelligence as its cousins, and call
upon us for a reason. Finally, there is consciousness, feeling, a patent
fact enough, but a very inconvenient one to the mechanical philosopher.
Thirdly, the necessitarian may say that chance is not a _vera causa_,
that we cannot know positively there is any such element in the universe.
But the doctrine of the _vera causa_ has nothing to do with elementary
conceptions. Pushed to that extreme, it at once cuts off belief in the
existence of a material universe; and without that necessitarianism
could hardly maintain its ground. Besides, variety is a fact which must
be admitted; and the theory of chance merely consists in supposing this
diversification does not antedate all time. Moreover, the avoidance of
hypotheses involving causes nowhere positively known to act—is only a
recommendation of logic, not a positive command. It cannot be formulated
in any precise terms without at once betraying its untenable character,—I
mean as rigid rule, for as a recommendation it is wholesome enough.
I believe I have thus subjected to fair examination all the important
reasons for adhering to the theory of universal necessity, and have shown
their nullity. I earnestly beg that whoever may detect any flaw in my
reasoning will point it out to me, either privately or publicly; for if
I am wrong, it much concerns me to be set right speedily. If my argument
remains unrefuted, it will be time, I think, to doubt the absolute
truth of the principle of universal law; and when once such a doubt
has obtained a living root in any man’s mind, my cause with him, I am
persuaded, is gained.