FURTHER ADVANCE OF THE SENSATIONAL SCHOOL.
M. AUGUSTE COMTE.
I shall now take the liberty of noticing the views published by a
contemporary writer; not that it forms part of my design to offer
any criticism upon the writings of all those who have treated of
those subjects on which we are now employed; but because we can
more distinctly in this manner point out the contrasts and ultimate
tendencies of the several systems of opinion which have come under
our survey: and since from among these systems we have endeavoured to
extract and secure the portion of truth which remains in each, and
to reject the rest, we are led to point out the errors on which our
attention is thus fixed, in recent as well as older writers.
M. Auguste Comte published in 1830 the first, and in 1835 the second
volume of his _Cours de Philosophie Positive_; of which the aim is not
much different from that of the present work, since as he states (p.
viii.) such a title as the _Philosophy of the Sciences_ would describe
a part of his object, and would be inappropriate only by excluding that
portion (not yet published) which refers to speculations concerning
social relations.
1. _M. Comte on Three States of Science._--By employing the term
_Philosophie Positive_, he wishes to distinguish the philosophy
involved in the present state of our sciences from the previous forms
of human knowledge. For according to him, each branch of knowledge
passes, in the course of man's history, through three different states;
it is first _theological_, then _metaphysical_, then _positive_. By
the latter term he implies a state which includes nothing but general
representations of facts;--phenomena _arranged according_ to relations
of succession and resemblance. This "positive philosophy" rejects all
inquiry after causes, which inquiry he holds to be void of sense[247]
and inaccessible. All such conceptions belong to the "metaphysical"
state of science which deals with abstract forces, real entities,
and the like. Still more completely does he reject, as altogether
antiquated and absurd, the "theological" view of phenomena. Indeed he
conceives[248] that any one's own consciousness of what passes within
himself is sufficient to convince him of the truth of the law of the
three phases through which knowledge must pass. "Does not each of us,"
he says, "in contemplating his own history, recollect that he has been
successively a _theologian_ in his infancy, a _metaphysician_ in his
youth, and a _physicist_ in his ripe age? This may easily be verified
for all men who are up to the level of their time."
It is plain from such statements, and from the whole course of his
work, that M. Comte holds, in their most rigorous form, the doctrines
to which the speculations of Locke and his successors led; and which
tended, as we have seen, to the exclusion of all ideas except those
of number and resemblance. As M. Comte refuses to admit into his
philosophy the fundamental idea of Cause, he of course excludes most of
the other ideas, which are, as we endeavoured to show, the foundations
of science; such as the ideas of Media by which secondary qualities are
made known to us; the ideas of Chemical Attraction, of Polar Forces,
and the like. He would reduce all science to the mere expression of
laws of phenomena, expressed in formulæ of space, time, and number; and
would condemn as unmeaning, and as belonging to an obsolete state of
science, all endeavours to determine the causes of phenomena, or even
to refer them to any of the other ideas just mentioned.
2. _M. Comte rejects the Search of Causes._--In a previous work[249]
I have shown, I trust decisively, that it is the genuine office
of science to inquire into the causes as well as the laws of
phenomena;--that such an inquiry cannot be avoided; and that it has
been the source of almost all the science we possess. I need not here
repeat the arguments there urged; but I may make a remark or two upon
M. Comte's hypothesis, that all science is first "metaphysical" and
then "positive;" since it is in virtue of this hypothesis that he
rejects the investigation of causes, as worthy only of the infancy
of science. All discussions concerning ideas, M. Comte would condemn
as "metaphysical," and would consider as mere preludes to positive
philosophy. Now I venture to assert, on the contrary, that discussions
concerning ideas, and real discoveries, have in every science gone
hand in hand. There is no science in which the pretended order of
things can be pointed out. There is no science in which the discoveries
of the laws of phenomena, when once begun, have been carried on
independently of discussions concerning ideas. There is no science
in which the expression of the laws of phenomena can at this time
dispense with ideas which have acquired their place in science in
virtue of metaphysical considerations. There is no science in which
the most active disquisitions concerning ideas did not come _after_,
not _before_, the first discovery of laws of phenomena. In Astronomy,
the discovery of the phenomenal laws of the epicyclical motions of the
heavens led to assumptions of the metaphysical principle of equable
circular motions: Kepler's discoveries would never have been made
but for his metaphysical notions. These discoveries of the laws of
phenomena did not lead immediately to Newton's theory, _because_ a
century of metaphysical discussions was requisite as a preparation.
Newton then discovered, not merely a law of phenomena, but a _cause_;
and _therefore_ he was the greatest of discoverers. The same is the
case in Optics; the ancients possessed some share of our knowledge
of facts; but meddled little with the metaphysical reasonings of the
subject. In modern times when men began to inquire into the _nature_
of light, they soon extended their knowledge of its _laws_. When this
series of discoveries had come to a pause, a new series of brilliant
discoveries of laws of phenomena went on, inseparably connected with a
new series of views of the nature and cause of light. In like manner,
the most modern discoveries in chemistry involve indispensably the idea
of polar forces. The metaphysics (in M. Comte's sense) of each subject
advances in a parallel line with the knowledge of physical laws. The
Explication of Conceptions must go on, as we have already shown, at the
same rate as the Colligation of Facts.
M. Comte will say[250] that Newton's discovery of gravitation only
consists in exhibiting the astronomical phenomena of the universe
as one single fact under different points of view. But this _fact_
involves the idea of _force_, that is, of _cause_. And that this idea
is not a mere modification of the ideas of time and space, we have
shown: if it were so, how could it lead to the axiom that attraction
is mutual, an indispensable part of the Newtonian theory? M. Comte
says[251] that we do not know what attraction is, since we can only
define it by identical phrases: but this is just as true of space,
or time, or motion; and is in fact exactly the characteristic of a
fundamental idea. We do not obtain such ideas from definitions, but we
possess them not the less truly because we cannot define them.
That M. Comte's hypothesis is historically false, is obvious by such
examples as I have mentioned. Metaphysical discussions have been
essential steps in the progress of each science. If we arbitrarily
reject all these portions of scientific history as useless trifling,
belonging to the first rude attempts at knowledge, we shall not only
distort the progress of things, but pervert the plainest facts. Of
this we have an example in M. Comte's account of Kepler's mechanical
speculations. We have seen, in the History of Physical Astronomy, that
Kepler's second law, (that the planets describe areas about the sun
proportional to the times,) was proved by him, by means of calculations
founded on the observations of Tycho; but that the mechanical reason
of it was not assigned till a later period, when it appeared as the
first proposition of Newton's _Principia_. It is plain from the
writings of Kepler, that it was impossible for him to show how this
law resulted from the forces which were in action; since the forces
which he considered were not those tending to the centre, which really
determine the property in question, but forces exerted by the sun _in
the direction of the planet's motion_, without which forces Kepler
conceived that the motion could not go on. In short, the state of
mechanical science in Kepler's time was such that no demonstration of
the law could be given. The terms in which such a demonstration must
be expressed had not at that time acquired a precise significance; and
it was in virtue of many subsequent _metaphysical_ discussions (as M.
Comte would term them) that these terms became capable of expressing
sound mechanical reasoning. Kepler did indeed pretend to assign what
he called a "physical proof" of his law, depending upon this, that the
sun's force is less at greater distances; a condition which does not
at all influence the result. Thus Kepler's reason for his law proves
nothing but the confusion of thought in which he was involved on such
subjects. Yet M. Comte assigns to Kepler the credit of having proved
this law by sound mechanical reasoning, as well as established it as
a matter of fact[252]. "This discovery by Kepler," he adds, "is the
more remarkable, inasmuch as it occurred before the science of dynamics
had really been created by Galileo." We may remark that inasmuch as M.
Comte perceived this incongruity in the facts as he stated them, it is
the more remarkable that he did not examine them more carefully.
3. _Causes in Physics._--The condemnation of the inquiry into causes
which is conveyed in M. Comte's notion of the three stages of Science,
he again expresses more in detail, in stating[253] what he calls his
_Fundamental theory of hypotheses_. This "theory" is, that we may
employ hypotheses in our natural philosophy, but these hypotheses
must always be such as admit of a positive verification. We must have
no suppositions concerning the agents by which effects are produced.
All such suppositions have an anti-scientific character, and can only
impede the real progress of physics. There can be no use in the ethers
and imaginary fluids to which some persons refer the phenomena of heat,
light, electricity and magnetism. And in agreement with this doctrine,
M. Comte in his account[254] of the Science of Optics, condemns, as
utterly unphilosophical and absurd, both the theory of emission and
that of undulation.
To this we reply, that theory of one kind or other is indispensable
to the expression of the phenomena; and that when the laws are
expressed, and apparently explained, by means of a theory, to forbid
us to inquire whether it be really true or false, is a pedantic and
capricious limitation of our knowledge, to which the intellect of man
neither can nor should submit. If any one holds the adoption of one or
other of these theories to be indifferent, let him express the _laws
of phenomena_ of diffraction in terms of the theory of emission[255].
If any one rejects the doctrine of undulation, let him point out some
other way of connecting double refraction with polarization. And
surely no man of science will contend that the beautiful branch of
science which refers to that connexion is not a portion of our positive
knowledge.
M. Comte's contempt for the speculations of the undulationists seems
to have prevented his acquainting himself with their reasonings, and
even with the laws of phenomena on which they have reasoned, although
these form by far the most striking and beautiful addition which
Science has received in modern times. He adduces, as an insuperable
objection to the undulatory theory, a difficulty which is fully
removed by calculation in every work on the subject:--the existence
of shadow[256]. He barely mentions the subject of diffraction, and
Young's law of interferences;--speaks of Fresnel as having applied this
principle to the phenomena of coloured rings, "on which the ingenious
labours of Newton left much to desire;" as if Fresnel's labours on
this subject had been the supplement of those of Newton: and after
regretting that "this principle of interferences has not yet been
distinctly disentangled from chemical conceptions on the nature of
light," concludes his chapter. He does not even mention the phenomena
of dipolarization, of circular and elliptical polarization, or of the
optical properties of crystals; discoveries of laws of phenomena quite
as remarkable as any which can be mentioned.
M. Comte's favourite example of physical research is Thermotics, and
especially Fourier's researches with regard to heat. It is shown[257]
in the History of Thermotics, that the general phenomena of radiation
required the assumption of a fluid to express them; as appears in the
_theory of exchanges_[258]. And the explanation of the principal laws
of radiation, which Fourier gives, depends upon the conception of
material molecular radiation. The _flux_ of caloric, of which Fourier
speaks, cannot be conceived otherwise than as implying a material
flow. M. Comte apologizes[259] for this expression, as too figurative,
and says that it merely indicates a _fact_. But what is the flow of a
current of fluid except a fact? And is it not evident that without such
expressions, and the ideas corresponding to them, Fourier could neither
have conveyed nor conceived his theory?
In concluding this discussion it must be recollected, that though
it is a most narrow and untenable rule to say that we will admit no
agency of ethers and fluids into philosophy; yet the reality of such
agents is only to be held in the way, and to the extent, which the laws
of phenomena indicate. It is not only allowable, but inevitable to
assume, as the vehicle of heat and light, a medium possessing some of
the properties of more familiar kinds of matter. But the idea of such
a medium, which we possess, and on which we cannot but reason, can be
fully developed only by an assiduous study of the cases in which it is
applicable. It may be, that as science advances, all our knowledge may
converge to one general and single aspect of the universe. We abandon
and reject this hope, if we refuse to admit those ideas which must
be our stepping-stones in advancing to such a point: and we no less
frustrate such an expectation, if we allow ourselves to imagine that
from our present position we can stride at once to the summit.
4. _Causes in other Sciences._--But if it is, in the sciences just
mentioned, impracticable to reduce our knowledge to laws of phenomena
alone, without referring to causes, media, and other agencies; how much
more plainly is it impossible to confine our thoughts to phenomena,
and to laws of succession and resemblance, in other sciences, as
chemistry, physiology, and geology? Who shall forbid us, or why should
we be forbidden, to inquire whether chemical and galvanic forces are
identical; whether irritability is a peculiar vital power; whether
geological causes have been uniform or paroxysmal? To exclude such
inquiries, would be to secure ourselves from the poison of error by
abstaining from the banquet of truth:--it would be to attempt to feed
our minds with the meagre diet of space and number, because we may find
too delightful a relish in such matters as cause and end, symmetry and
affinity, organization and development.
Thus M. Comte's arrangement of the progress of science as successively
metaphysical and positive, is contrary to history in fact, and contrary
to sound philosophy in principle. Nor is there any better foundation
for his statement that theological views are to be found only in the
rude infantine condition of human knowledge, and vanish as science
advances. Even in material sciences this is not the case. We have
shown in the chapter on Final Causes, that physiologists have been
directed in their remarks by the conviction of a purpose in every
part of the structure of animals; and that this idea, which had its
rise _after_ the first observations, has gone on constantly gaining
strength and clearness, so that it is now the basis of a large portion
of the science. We have seen, too, in the Book on the palætiological
sciences, that the researches of that class do by no means lead us to
reject an origin of the series of events, nor to suppose this origin
to be included in the series of natural laws. Science has not at all
shown any reason for denying either the creation or the purpose of the
universe.
This is true of those aspects of the universe which have become the
subjects of rigorous science: but how small a portion of the whole do
they form! Especially how minute a proportion does our knowledge bear
to our ignorance, if we admit into science, as M. Comte advises, only
the laws of phenomena! Even in the best explored fields of science, how
few such laws do we know! Meteorology, climate, terrestrial magnetism,
the colours and other properties of bodies, the conditions of musical
and articulate sound, and a thousand other facts of physics, are not
defined by any known laws. In physiology we may readily convince
ourselves how little we know of laws, since we can hardly study one
species without discovering some unguessed property, or apply the
microscope without seeing some new structure in the best known organs.
And when we go on to social and moral and political matters, we may
well doubt whether any one single rigorous rule of phenomena has ever
been stated, although on such subjects man's ideas have been busily
and eagerly working ever since his origin. What a wanton and baseless
assumption it would be, then, to reject those suggestions of a Governor
of the universe which we derive from man's moral and spiritual nature,
and from the institutions of society, because we fancy we see in the
small field of our existing "positive knowledge" a tendency to exclude
"theological views!" Because we can explain the motion of the stars by
a general Law which seems to imply no hyperphysical agency, and can
trace a few more limited laws in other properties of matter, we are
exhorted to reject convictions irresistibly suggested to us by our
bodies and our souls, by history and antiquities, by conscience and
human law.
5. _M. Comte's practical philosophy._--It is not merely as a
speculative doctrine that M. Comte urges the necessity of our thus
following the guidance of "positive philosophy." The fevered and
revolutionary condition of human society at present arises, according
to him[260], from the simultaneous employment of three kinds of
philosophy radically incompatible;--theological, metaphysical, and
positive philosophy. The remedy for the evil is to reject the two
former, and to refer everything to that positive philosophy, of which
the destined triumph cannot be doubtful. In like manner, our European
education[261], still essentially theological, metaphysical, and
literary, must be replaced by a _positive_ education, suited to the
spirit of our epoch.
With these practical consequences of M. Comte's philosophy we are not
here concerned: but the notice of them may serve to show how entirely
the rejection of the theological view pervades his system; and how
closely this rejection is connected with the principles which lead
him also to reject the fundamental ideas of the sciences as we have
presented them.
6. _M. Comte on Hypotheses._--In the detail of M. Comte's work, I do
not find any peculiar or novel remarks on the induction by which the
sciences are formed; except we may notice, as such, his permission of
hypotheses to the inquirer, already referred to. "There can only be,"
he says[262], "two general modes fitted to reveal to us, in a direct
and entirely rational manner, the true law of any phenomenon;--either
the immediate analysis of this phenomenon, or its exact and evident
relation to some more extended law, previously established;--in a word,
_induction_, or _deduction_. But both these ways would certainly be
insufficient, even with regard to the simplest phenomenon, in the eyes
of any one who fully comprehends the essential difficulties of the
intimate study of nature, if we did not often begin by anticipating
the result, and making a provisory supposition, at first essentially
conjectural, even with respect to some of the notions which constitute
the final object of inquiry. Hence the introduction, which is strictly
indispensable, of hypotheses in natural philosophy." We have already
seen that the "permissio intellectus" had been noticed as a requisite
step in discovery, as long before as the time of Bacon.
7. _M. Comte's Classification of Sciences._--I do not think it
necessary to examine in detail M. Comte's views of the philosophy of
the different sciences; but it may illustrate the object of the present
work, to make a remark upon his attempt to establish a distinction
between physical and chemical science. This distinction he makes to
consist in three points[263];--that Physics considers general and
Chemistry special properties;--that Physics considers masses and
Chemistry molecules;--that in Physics the mode of arrangement of
the molecules remains constant, while in Chemistry this arrangement
is necessarily altered. M. Comte however allows that these lines
of distinction are vague and insecure; for, among many others,
magnetism, a special property, belongs to physics, and breaks down
his first criterion; and molecular attractions are a constant subject
of speculation in physics, so that the second distinction cannot be
insisted on. To which we may add that the greater portion of chemistry
does not attend at all to the arrangement of the molecules, so that
the third character is quite erroneous. The real distinction of
these branches of science is, as we have seen, the fundamental ideas
which they employ. Physics deals with relations of space, time, and
number, media, and scales of qualities, according to intensity and
other differences; while chemistry has for its subject elements and
attractions as shown in composition; and polarity, though in different
senses, belongs to both. The failure of this attempt of M. Comte at
distinguishing these provinces of science by their objects, may be
looked upon as an illustration of the impossibility of establishing a
philosophy of the sciences on any other ground than the ideas which
they involve.
We have thus traced to its extreme point, so far as the nature
of science is concerned, one of those two antagonistic opinions,
of which the struggle began in the outset of philosophy, and has
continued during the whole of her progress;--namely, the opinions
which respectively make our sensations and our ideas the origin of our
knowledge. The former, if it be consistent with itself, must consider
all knowledge of causes as impossible, since no sensation can give us
the idea of cause. And when this opinion is applied to science, it
reduces it to the mere investigation of laws of phenomena, according
to relations of space, time, and number. I purposely abstain, as far
as possible, from the consideration of the other consequences, not
strictly belonging to the physical sciences, which were drawn from
the doctrine that all our ideas are only transformed sensations. The
materialism, the atheism, the sensualist morality, the anarchical
polity, which some of the disciples of the Sensational School erected
upon the fundamental dogmas of their sect, do not belong to our
present subject, and are matters too weighty to be treated of as mere
accessories.
* * * * *
The above Remarks were written before I had seen the third volume of M.
Comte's work, or the subsequent volumes. But I do not find, in anything
which those volumes contain, any ground for altering what I have
written. Indeed they are occupied altogether with subjects which do not
come within the field of my present speculations.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 247: i. p. 14.]
[Footnote 248: i. p. 7.]
[Footnote 249: _Hist. Ind. Sc._ b. xi. c. vii.]
[Footnote 250: P. 15.]
[Footnote 251: P. 16.]
[Footnote 252: M. Comte's statement is so entirely at variance with the
fact that I must quote it here. (_Phil. Pos._ vol. i. p. 705.)
"Le second théorème général de dynamique consiste dans le célèbre et
important _principe des aires_, dont le première idée est due à Kepler,
qui découvrit et démontra forte simplement cette propriété pour le cas
du mouvement d'une molecule unique, ou en d'autres terms, d'un corps
dont tous les points se meuvent identiquement. Kepler établit, par les
considérations les plus élémentaires, qui si la force accélératrice
totale dont une molecule est animée tend constamment vers un point
fixé, le rayon vecteur du mobile décrit autour de ce point des aires
égales en temps egaux, de telle sorte que l'aire décrite au bout d'un
temps quelconque croît proportionellement à ce temps. Il fit voir en
outre que réciproquement, si une semblable relation a été vérifiée
dans le mouvement d'un corps par rapport à un certain point, c'est une
preuve suffisante de l'action sur le corps d'un force dirigée sans
cesse vers ce point."
There is not a trace of the above propositions in the work _De Stellâ
Martis_, which contains Kepler's discovery of his law, nor, I am
convinced, in any other of Kepler's works. He is everywhere constant to
his conceptions of the _magnetic_ virtue residing in the sun, by means
of which the sun, revolving on his axis, carries the planets round with
him. M. Comte's statement so exactly expresses _Newton's_ propositions,
that one is led to suspect some extraordinary mistake, by which what
should have been said of the one was transferred to the other.]
[Footnote 253: Vol. ii. p. 433.]
[Footnote 254: Vol. ii. 640.]
[Footnote 255: I venture to offer this problem;--to express the
_laws of the phenomena_ of diffraction without the hypothesis of
undulations;--as a challenge to any one who holds such hypothesis to be
unphilosophical.]
[Footnote 256: ii. p. 641.]
[Footnote 257: ii. p. 673.]
[Footnote 258: _Hist. Ind. Sc._ ii. 489, b. x. c. i.]
[Footnote 259: ii. p. 561.]
[Footnote 260: i. 50.]
[Footnote 261: i. 41.]
[Footnote 262: ii. 433.]
[Footnote 263: _Phil. Pos._ ii. 392-398.]