p. 211, 2nd ed.; Brandis, vol. i. pp. 118-9, 1st ed.; Preller, _Historia Philosophi Grco-Roman_, p. 10. "Schiefe Ansicht, durchaus zu verwerfen;" "augenscheinlich folgernd statt zu berichten;" "quibus vera sententia Thaletis plane detorquetur;"
are the expressions of these writers.) As for Anaximenes, he, even according to Cicero, maintained, not that air was the material out of which G.o.d made the world, but that the air was a G.o.d: "Anaximenes ara deum statuit:" or according to St.
Augustine, that it was the material out of which the G.o.ds were made; "non tamen ab ipsis [Diis] arem factum, sed ipsos ex are ortos credidit." Those who are not familiar with the metaphysical terminology of antiquity, must not be misled by finding it stated that Anaximenes attributed _????_ (translated _soul_, or _life_) to his universal element, the air. The Greek philosophers acknowledged several kinds of _????_, the nutritive, the sensitive, and the intellective.[28] Even the moderns with admitted correctness attribute life to plants. As far as we can make out the meaning of Anaximenes, he made choice of Air as the universal agent, on the ground that it is perpetually in motion, without any apparent cause external to itself: so that he conceived it as exercising spontaneous force, and as the principle of life and activity in all things, men and G.o.ds inclusive. If this be not representing it as the Efficient Cause, the dispute altogether has no meaning.
If either Anaximenes, or Thales, or any of their cotemporaries, had held the doctrine that _????_ was the Efficient Cause, that doctrine could not have been reputed, as it was throughout antiquity, to have originated with Anaxagoras. The testimony of Aristotle, in the first book of his Metaphysics, is perfectly decisive with respect to these early speculations. After enumerating four kinds of causes, or rather four different meanings of the word Cause, viz. the Essence of a thing, the Matter of it, the Origin of Motion (Efficient Cause), and the End or Final Cause, he proceeds to say, that most of the early philosophers recognised only the second kind of Cause, the Matter of a thing, _t?? ?? ???? e?de? ??a? ????sa? ????? e??a?
p??t??_. As his first example he specifies Thales, whom he describes as taking the lead in this view of the subject, _?
t?? t??a?t?? ??????? f???s?f?a?_, and goes on to Hippon, Anaximenes, Diogenes (of Apollonia), Hippasus of Metapontum, Herac.l.i.tus, and Empedocles. Anaxagoras, however, (he proceeds to say,) taught a different doctrine, as we know, and it is _alleged_ that Hermotimus of Clazomen taught it before him.
Anaxagoras represented, that even if these various theories of the universal material were true, there would be need of some other cause to account for the transformations of the material, since the material cannot originate its own changes: _?? ??? d?
t? ?e ?p??e?e??? a?t? p??e? eta???e?? ?a?t?; ???? d" ????
??te t? ????? ??te ? ?a???? a?t??? t?? eta???e?? ???te???
a?t??, ??d? p??e? t? ?? ????? ?????? ? d? ?a???? ??d????ta, ???" ?te??? t? t?? eta???? a?t???_, viz., the other kind of cause, _??e? ? ???? t?? ????se??_--an Efficient Cause.
Aristotle expresses great approbation of this doctrine (which he says made its author appear the only sober man among persons raving, _???? ??f?? ?f??? pa?" e??? ?????ta? t??? p??te???_); but while describing the influence which it exercised over subsequent speculation, he remarks that the philosophers against whom this, as he thinks, insuperable difficulty was urged, had not felt it to be any difficulty: _??d?? ?d?s?e???a?
?? ?a?t???_. It is surely unnecessary to say more in proof of the matter of fact which Dr. Tulloch and his reviewer deny.
Having pointed out what he thinks the error of these early speculators in not recognising the need of an efficient cause, Aristotle goes on to mention two other efficient causes to which they might have had recourse, instead of intelligence: _t???_, chance, and _t? a?t??t??_, spontaneity. He indeed puts these aside as not sufficiently worthy causes for the order in the universe, _??d" a? t? a?t??t? ?a? t? t??? t?s??t??
?p?t???a? p???a ?a??? e??e?_: but he does not reject them as incapable of producing any effect, but only as incapable of producing _that_ effect. He himself recognises _t???_ and _t?
a?t??t??_ as co-ordinate agents with Mind in producing the phenomena of the universe; the department allotted to them being composed of all the cla.s.ses of phenomena which are not supposed to follow any uniform law. By thus including Chance among efficient causes, Aristotle fell into an error which philosophy has now outgrown, but which is by no means so alien to the spirit even of modern speculation as it may at first sight appear. Up to quite a recent period philosophers went on ascribing, and many of them have not yet ceased to ascribe, a real existence to the results of abstraction. Chance could make out as good a t.i.tle to that dignity as many other of the mind"s abstract creations: it had had a name given to it, and why should it not be a reality? As for _t? a?t??t??_, it is recognised even yet as one of the modes of origination of phenomena, by all those thinkers who maintain what is called the Freedom of the Will. The same self-determining power which that doctrine attributes to volitions, was supposed by the ancients to be possessed also by some other natural phenomena: a circ.u.mstance which throws considerable light on more than one of the supposed invincible necessities of belief. I have introduced it here, because this belief of Aristotle, or rather of the Greek philosophers generally, is as fatal as the doctrines of Thales and the Ionic school, to the theory that the human mind is compelled by its const.i.tution to conceive volition as the origin of all force, and the efficient cause of all phenomena.[29]
With regard to the modern philosophers (Leibnitz and the Cartesians) whom I had cited as having maintained that the action of mind upon matter, so far from being the only conceivable origin of material phenomena, is itself inconceivable; the attempt to rebut this argument by a.s.serting that the mode, not the fact, of the action of mind on matter was represented as inconceivable, is an abuse of the privilege of writing confidently about authors without reading them: for any knowledge whatever of Leibnitz would have taught those who thus speak of him, that the inconceivability of the mode, and the impossibility of the thing, were in his mind convertible expressions. What was his famous Principle of the Sufficient Reason, the very corner stone of his philosophy, from which the Preestablished Harmony, the doctrine of Monads, and all the opinions most characteristic of Leibnitz, were corollaries? It was, that nothing exists, the existence of which is not capable of being proved and explained _ priori_; the proof and explanation in the case of contingent facts being derived from the nature of their causes; which could not be the causes unless there was something in their nature showing them to be capable of producing those particular effects. And this "something" which accounts for the production of physical effects, he was able to find in many physical causes, but could not find it in any finite minds, which therefore he unhesitatingly a.s.serted to be incapable of producing any physical effects whatever. "On ne saurait concevoir," he says, "une action rciproque de la matire et de l"intelligence l"une sur l"autre," and there is therefore (he contends) no choice but between the Occasional Causes of the Cartesians, and his own Preestablished Harmony, according to which there is no more connexion between our volitions and our muscular actions than there is between two clocks which are wound up to strike at the same instant. But he felt no similar difficulty as to physical causes: and throughout his speculations, as in the pa.s.sage I have already cited respecting gravitation, he distinctly refuses to consider as part of the order of nature any fact which is not explicable from the nature of its physical cause.
With regard to the Cartesians (not Descartes; I did not make that mistake, though the reviewer of Dr. Tulloch"s Essay attributes it to me) I take a pa.s.sage almost at random from Malebranche, who is the best known of the Cartesians, and, though not the inventor of the system of Occasional Causes, is its princ.i.p.al expositor. In Part 2, chap. 3, of his Sixth Book, having first said that matter cannot have the power of moving itself, he proceeds to argue that neither can mind have the power of moving it. "Quand on examine l"ide que l"on a de tous les esprits finis, on ne voit point de liaison ncessaire entre leur volont et le mouvement de quelque corps que ce soit, on voit au contraire qu"il n"y en a point, et qu"il n"y en peut avoir;" (there is nothing in the idea of finite mind which can account for its causing the motion of a body;) "on doit aussi conclure, si on veut raisonner selon ses lumires, qu"il n"y a aucun esprit cr qui puisse remuer quelque corps que ce soit comme cause vritable ou princ.i.p.ale, de mme que l"on a dit qu"aucun corps ne se pouvait remuer soi-mme:" thus the idea of Mind is according to him as incompatible as the idea of Matter with the exercise of active force. But when, he continues, we consider not a created but a Divine Mind, the case is altered; for the idea of a Divine Mind includes omnipotence; and the idea of omnipotence does contain the idea of being able to move bodies. Thus it is the nature of omnipotence which renders the motion of bodies even by the divine mind credible or conceivable, while, so far as depended on the mere nature of mind, it would have been inconceivable and incredible. If Malebranche had not believed in an omnipotent being, he would have held all action of mind on body to be a demonstrated impossibility.[30]
A doctrine more precisely the reverse of the Volitional theory of causation cannot well be imagined. The volitional theory is, that we know by intuition or by direct experience the action of our own mental volitions on matter; that we may hence infer all other action upon matter to be that of volition, and might thus know, without any other evidence, that matter is under the government of a divine mind. Leibnitz and the Cartesians, on the contrary, maintain that our volitions do not and cannot act upon matter, and that it is only the existence of an all-governing Being, and that Being omnipotent, which can account for the sequence between our volitions and our bodily actions. When we consider that each of these two theories, which, as theories of causation, stand at the opposite extremes of possible divergence from one another, invokes not only as its evidence, but as its sole evidence, the absolute inconceivability of any theory but itself, we are enabled to measure the worth of this kind of evidence; and when we find the Volitional theory entirely built upon the a.s.sertion that by our mental const.i.tution we are compelled to recognise our volitions as efficient causes, and then find other thinkers maintaining that we know that they are not, and cannot be such causes, and cannot conceive them to be so, I think we have a right to say, that this supposed law of our mental const.i.tution does not exist.
Dr. Tulloch (pp. 45-7) thinks it a sufficient answer to this, that Leibnitz and the Cartesians were Theists, and believed the will of G.o.d to be an efficient cause. Doubtless they did, and the Cartesians even believed, though Leibnitz did not, that it is the only such cause. Dr. Tulloch mistakes the nature of the question. I was not writing on Theism, as Dr. Tulloch is, but against a particular theory of causation, which if it be unfounded, can give no effective support to Theism or to anything else. I found it a.s.serted that volition is the only efficient cause, on the ground that no other efficient cause is conceivable. To this a.s.sertion I oppose the instances of Leibnitz and of the Cartesians, who affirmed with equal positiveness that volition as an efficient cause is itself not conceivable, and that omnipotence, which renders all things conceivable, can alone take away the impossibility. This I thought, and think, a conclusive answer to the argument on which this theory of causation avowedly depends. But I certainly did not imagine that Theism was bound up with that theory; nor expected to be charged with denying Leibnitz and the Cartesians to be Theists because I denied that they held the theory.
CHAPTER VI.
ON THE COMPOSITION OF CAUSES.
1. To complete the general notion of causation on which the rules of experimental inquiry into the laws of nature must be founded, one distinction still remains to be pointed out: a distinction so radical, and of so much importance, as to require a chapter to itself.
The preceding discussions have rendered us familiar with the case in which several agents, or causes, concur as conditions to the production of an effect: a case, in truth, almost universal, there being very few effects to the production of which no more than one agent contributes.
Suppose, then, that two different agents, operating jointly, are followed, under a certain set of collateral conditions, by a given effect. If either of these agents, instead of being joined with the other, had operated alone, under the same set of conditions in all other respects, some effect would probably have followed; which would have been different from the joint effect of the two, and more or less dissimilar to it. Now, if we happen to know what would be the effect of each cause when acting separately from the other, we are often able to arrive deductively, or _ priori_, at a correct prediction of what will arise from their conjunct agency. To enable us to do this, it is only necessary that the same law which expresses the effect of each cause acting by itself, shall also correctly express the part due to that cause, of the effect which follows from the two together. This condition is realized in the extensive and important cla.s.s of phenomena commonly called mechanical, namely the phenomena of the communication of motion (or of pressure, which is tendency to motion) from one body to another.
In this important cla.s.s of cases of causation, one cause never, properly speaking, defeats or frustrates another; both have their full effect.
If a body is propelled in two directions by two forces, one tending to drive it to the north and the other to the east, it is caused to move in a given time exactly as far in both directions as the two forces would separately have carried it; and is left precisely where it would have arrived if it had been acted upon first by one of the two forces, and afterwards by the other. This law of nature is called, in dynamics, the principle of the Composition of Forces: and in imitation of that well-chosen expression, I shall give the name of the Composition of Causes to the principle which is exemplified in all cases in which the joint effect of several causes is identical with the sum of their separate effects.
This principle, however, by no means prevails in all departments of the field of nature. The chemical combination of two substances produces, as is well known, a third substance with properties entirely different from those of either of the two substances separately, or both of them taken together. Not a trace of the properties of hydrogen or of oxygen is observable in those of their compound, water. The taste of sugar of lead is not the sum of the tastes of its component elements, acetic acid and lead or its oxide; nor is the colour of blue vitriol a mixture of the colours of sulphuric acid and copper. This explains why mechanics is a deductive or demonstrative science, and chemistry not. In the one, we can compute the effects of all combinations of causes, whether real or hypothetical, from the laws which we know to govern those causes when acting separately; because they continue to observe the same laws when in combination which they observed when separate: whatever would have happened in consequence of each cause taken by itself, happens when they are together, and we have only to cast up the results. Not so in the phenomena which are the peculiar subject of the science of chemistry.
There, most of the uniformities to which the causes conformed when separate, cease altogether when they are conjoined; and we are not, at least in the present state of our knowledge, able to foresee what result will follow from any new combination, until we have tried the specific experiment.
If this be true of chemical combinations, it is still more true of those far more complex combinations of elements which const.i.tute organized bodies; and in which those extraordinary new uniformities arise, which are called the laws of life. All organized bodies are composed of parts similar to those composing inorganic nature, and which have even themselves existed in an inorganic state; but the phenomena of life, which result from the juxtaposition of those parts in a certain manner, bear no a.n.a.logy to any of the effects which would be produced by the action of the component substances considered as mere physical agents.
To whatever degree we might imagine our knowledge of the properties of the several ingredients of a living body to be extended and perfected, it is certain that no mere summing up of the separate actions of those elements will ever amount to the action of the living body itself. The tongue, for instance, is, like all other parts of the animal frame, composed of gelatine, fibrin, and other products of the chemistry of digestion, but from no knowledge of the properties of those substances could we ever predict that it could taste, unless gelatine or fibrin could themselves taste; for no elementary fact can be in the conclusion, which was not in the premises.
There are thus two different modes of the conjunct action of causes; from which arise two modes of conflict, or mutual interference, between laws of nature. Suppose, at a given point of time and s.p.a.ce, two or more causes, which, if they acted separately, would produce effects contrary, or at least conflicting with each other; one of them tending to undo, wholly or partially, what the other tends to do. Thus, the expansive force of the gases generated by the ignition of gunpowder tends to project a bullet towards the sky, while its gravity tends to make it fall to the ground. A stream running into a reservoir at one end tends to fill it higher and higher, while a drain at the other extremity tends to empty it. Now, in such cases as these, even if the two causes which are in joint action exactly annul one another, still the laws of both are fulfilled; the effect is the same as if the drain had been open for half an hour first,[31] and the stream had flowed in for as long afterwards. Each agent produced the same amount of effect as if it had acted separately, though the contrary effect which was taking place during the same time obliterated it as fast as it was produced. Here then are two causes, producing by their joint operation an effect which at first seems quite dissimilar to those which they produce separately, but which on examination proves to be really the sum of those separate effects. It will be noticed that we here enlarge the idea of the sum of two effects, so as to include what is commonly called their difference, but which is in reality the result of the addition of opposites; a conception to which mankind are indebted for that admirable extension of the algebraical calculus, which has so vastly increased its powers as an instrument of discovery, by introducing into its reasonings (with the sign of subtraction prefixed, and under the name of Negative Quant.i.ties) every description whatever of positive phenomena, provided they are of such a quality in reference to those previously introduced, that to add the one is equivalent to subtracting an equal quant.i.ty of the other.
There is, then, one mode of the mutual interference of laws of nature, in which, even when the concurrent causes annihilate each other"s effects, each exerts its full efficacy according to its own law, its law as a separate agent. But in the other description of cases, the agencies which are brought together cease entirely, and a totally different set of phenomena arise: as in the experiment of two liquids which, when mixed in certain proportions, instantly become, not a larger amount of liquid, but a solid ma.s.s.
2. This difference between the case in which the joint effect of causes is the sum of their separate effects, and the case in which it is heterogeneous to them; between laws which work together without alteration, and laws which, when called upon to work together, cease and give place to others; is one of the fundamental distinctions in nature.
The former case, that of the Composition of Causes, is the general one; the other is always special and exceptional. There are no objects which do not, as to some of their phenomena, obey the principle of the Composition of Causes; none that have not some laws which are rigidly fulfilled in every combination into which the objects enter. The weight of a body, for instance, is a property which it retains in all the combinations in which it is placed. The weight of a chemical compound, or of an organized body, is equal to the sum of the weights of the elements which compose it. The weight either of the elements or of the compound will vary, if they be carried farther from their centre of attraction, or brought nearer to it; but whatever affects the one affects the other. They always remain precisely equal. So again, the component parts of a vegetable or animal substance do not lose their mechanical and chemical properties as separate agents, when, by a peculiar mode of juxtaposition, they, as an aggregate whole, acquire physiological or vital properties in addition. Those bodies continue, as before, to obey mechanical and chemical laws, in so far as the operation of those laws is not counteracted by the new laws which govern them as organized beings. When, in short, a concurrence of causes takes place which calls into action new laws bearing no a.n.a.logy to any that we can trace in the separate operation of the causes, the new laws, while they supersede one portion of the previous laws, may coexist with another portion, and may even compound the effect of those previous laws with their own.
Again, laws which were themselves generated in the second mode, may generate others in the first. Though there are laws which, like those of chemistry and physiology, owe their existence to a breach of the principle of Composition of Causes, it does not follow that these peculiar, or as they might be termed, _heteropathic_ laws, are not capable of composition with one another. The causes which by one combination have had their laws altered, may carry their new laws with them unaltered into their ulterior combinations. And hence there is no reason to despair of ultimately raising chemistry and physiology to the condition of deductive sciences; for though it is impossible to deduce all chemical and physiological truths from the laws or properties of simple substances or elementary agents, they may possibly be deducible from laws which commence when these elementary agents are brought together into some moderate number of not very complex combinations. The Laws of Life will never be deducible from the mere laws of the ingredients, but the prodigiously complex Facts of Life may all be deducible from comparatively simple laws of life; which laws (depending indeed on combinations, but on comparatively simple combinations, of antecedents) may, in more complex circ.u.mstances, be strictly compounded with one another, and with the physical and chemical laws of the ingredients. The details of the vital phenomena, even now, afford innumerable exemplifications of the Composition of Causes; and in proportion as these phenomena are more accurately studied, there appears more reason to believe that the same laws which operate in the simpler combinations of circ.u.mstances do, in fact, continue to be observed in the more complex. This will be found equally true in the phenomena of mind; and even in social and political phenomena, the results of the laws of mind. It is in the case of chemical phenomena that the least progress has yet been made in bringing the special laws under general ones from which they may be deduced; but there are even in chemistry many circ.u.mstances to encourage the hope that such general laws will hereafter be discovered. The different actions of a chemical compound will never, undoubtedly, be found to be the sums of the actions of its separate elements; but there may exist, between the properties of the compound and those of its elements, some constant relation, which, if discoverable by a sufficient induction, would enable us to foresee the sort of compound which will result from a new combination before we have actually tried it, and to judge of what sort of elements some new substance is compounded before we have a.n.a.lysed it. The law of definite proportions, first discovered in its full generality by Dalton, is a complete solution of this problem in one, though but a secondary aspect, that of quant.i.ty: and in respect to quality, we have already some partial generalizations sufficient to indicate the possibility of ultimately proceeding farther. We can predicate some common properties of the kind of compounds which result from the combination, in each of the small number of possible proportions, of any acid whatever with any base. We have also the curious law, discovered by Berthollet, that two soluble salts mutually decompose one another whenever the new combinations which result produce an insoluble compound, or one less soluble than the two former. Another uniformity is that called the law of isomorphism; the ident.i.ty of the crystalline forms of substances which possess in common certain peculiarities of chemical composition.
Thus it appears that even heteropathic laws, such laws of combined agency as are not compounded of the laws of the separate agencies, are yet, at least in some cases, derived from them according to a fixed principle. There may, therefore, be laws of the generation of laws from others dissimilar to them; and in chemistry, these undiscovered laws of the dependence of the properties of the compound on the properties of its elements, may, together with the laws of the elements themselves, furnish the premises by which the science is perhaps destined one day to be rendered deductive.
It would seem, therefore, that there is no cla.s.s of phenomena in which the Composition of Causes does not obtain: that as a general rule, causes in combination produce exactly the same effects as when acting singly: but that this rule, though general, is not universal: that in some instances, at some particular points in the transition from separate to united action, the laws change, and an entirely new set of effects are either added to, or take the place of, those which arise from the separate agency of the same causes: the laws of these new effects being again susceptible of composition, to an indefinite extent, like the laws which they superseded.
3. That effects are proportional to their causes is laid down by some writers as an axiom in the theory of causation; and great use is sometimes made of this principle in reasonings respecting the laws of nature, though it is inc.u.mbered with many difficulties and apparent exceptions, which much ingenuity has been expended in showing not to be real ones. This proposition, in so far as it is true, enters as a particular case into the general principle of the Composition of Causes; the causes compounded being, in this instance, h.o.m.ogeneous; in which case, if in any, their joint effect might be expected to be identical with the sum of their separate effects. If a force equal to one hundred weight will raise a certain body along an inclined plane, a force equal to two hundred weight will raise two bodies exactly similar, and thus the effect is proportional to the cause. But does not a force equal to two hundred weight actually contain in itself two forces each equal to one hundred weight, which, if employed apart, would separately raise the two bodies in question? The fact, therefore, that when exerted jointly they raise both bodies at once, results from the Composition of Causes, and is a mere instance of the general fact that mechanical forces are subject to the law of Composition. And so in every other case which can be supposed. For the doctrine of the proportionality of effects to their causes cannot of course be applicable to cases in which the augmentation of the cause alters the _kind_ of effect; that is, in which the surplus quant.i.ty superadded to the cause does not become compounded with it, but the two together generate an altogether new phenomenon. Suppose that the application of a certain quant.i.ty of heat to a body merely increases its bulk, that a double quant.i.ty melts it, and a triple quant.i.ty decomposes it: these three effects being heterogeneous, no ratio, whether corresponding or not to that of the quant.i.ties of heat applied, can be established between them. Thus the supposed axiom of the proportionality of effects to their causes fails at the precise point where the principle of the Composition of Causes also fails; viz., where the concurrence of causes is such as to determine a change in the properties of the body generally, and render it subject to new laws, more or less dissimilar to those to which it conformed in its previous state. The recognition, therefore, of any such law of proportionality, is superseded by the more comprehensive principle, in which as much of it as is true is implicitly a.s.serted.
The general remarks on causation, which seemed necessary as an introduction to the theory of the inductive process, may here terminate.
That process is essentially an inquiry into cases of causation. All the uniformities which exist in the succession of phenomena, and most of the uniformities in their coexistence, are either, as we have seen, themselves laws of causation, or consequences resulting from, and corollaries capable of being deduced from, such laws. If we could determine what causes are correctly a.s.signed to what effects, and what effects to what causes, we should be virtually acquainted with the whole course of nature. All those uniformities which are mere results of causation, might then be explained and accounted for; and every individual fact or event might be predicted, provided we had the requisite data, that is, the requisite knowledge of the circ.u.mstances which, in the particular instance, preceded it.
To ascertain, therefore, what are the laws of causation which exist in nature; to determine the effect of every cause, and the causes of all effects,--is the main business of Induction; and to point out how this is done is the chief object of Inductive Logic.
CHAPTER VII.
OF OBSERVATION AND EXPERIMENT.
1. It results from the preceding exposition, that the process of ascertaining what consequents, in nature, are invariably connected with what antecedents, or in other words what phenomena are related to each other as causes and effects, is in some sort a process of a.n.a.lysis. That every fact which begins to exist has a cause, and that this cause must be found somewhere among the facts which immediately preceded the occurrence, may be taken for certain. The whole of the present facts are the infallible result of all past facts, and more immediately of all the facts which existed at the moment previous. Here, then, is a great sequence, which we know to be uniform. If the whole prior state of the entire universe could again recur, it would again be followed by the present state. The question is, how to resolve this complex uniformity into the simpler uniformities which compose it, and a.s.sign to each portion of the vast antecedent the portion of the consequent which is attendant on it.
This operation, which we have called a.n.a.lytical, inasmuch as it is the resolution of a complex whole into the component elements, is more than a merely mental a.n.a.lysis. No mere contemplation of the phenomena, and part.i.tion of them by the intellect alone, will of itself accomplish the end we have now in view. Nevertheless, such a mental part.i.tion is an indispensable first step. The order of nature, as perceived at a first glance, presents at every instant a chaos followed by another chaos. We must decompose each chaos into single facts. We must learn to see in the chaotic antecedent a mult.i.tude of distinct antecedents, in the chaotic consequent a mult.i.tude of distinct consequents. This, supposing it done, will not of itself tell us on which of the antecedents each consequent is invariably attendant. To determine that point, we must endeavour to effect a separation of the facts from one another, not in our minds only, but in nature. The mental a.n.a.lysis, however, must take place first. And every one knows that in the mode of performing it, one intellect differs immensely from another. It is the essence of the act of observing; for the observer is not he who merely sees the thing which is before his eyes, but he who sees what parts that thing is composed of. To do this well is a rare talent. One person, from inattention, or attending only in the wrong place, overlooks half of what he sees: another sets down much more than he sees, confounding it with what he imagines, or with what he infers; another takes note of the _kind_ of all the circ.u.mstances, but being inexpert in estimating their degree, leaves the quant.i.ty of each vague and uncertain; another sees indeed the whole, but makes such an awkward division of it into parts, throwing things into one ma.s.s which require to be separated, and separating others which might more conveniently be considered as one, that the result is much the same, sometimes even worse, than if no a.n.a.lysis had been attempted at all. It would be possible to point out what qualities of mind, and modes of mental culture, fit a person for being a good observer: that, however, is a question not of Logic, but of the Theory of Education, in the most enlarged sense of the term. There is not properly an Art of Observing. There may be rules for observing. But these, like rules for inventing, are properly instructions for the preparation of one"s own mind; for putting it into the state in which it will be most fitted to observe, or most likely to invent. They are, therefore, essentially rules of self-education, which is a different thing from Logic. They do not teach how to do the thing, but how to make ourselves capable of doing it. They are an art of strengthening the limbs, not an art of using them.
The extent and minuteness of observation which may be requisite, and the degree of decomposition to which it may be necessary to carry the mental a.n.a.lysis, depend on the particular purpose in view. To ascertain the state of the whole universe at any particular moment is impossible, but would also be useless. In making chemical experiments, we do not think it necessary to note the position of the planets; because experience has shown, as a very superficial experience is sufficient to show, that in such cases that circ.u.mstance is not material to the result: and, accordingly, in the ages when men believed in the occult influences of the heavenly bodies, it might have been unphilosophical to omit ascertaining the precise condition of those bodies at the moment of the experiment. As to the degree of minuteness of the mental subdivision; if we were obliged to break down what we observe into its very simplest elements, that is, literally into single facts, it would be difficult to say where we should find them: we can hardly ever affirm that our divisions of any kind have reached the ultimate unit. But this too is fortunately unnecessary. The only object of the mental separation is to suggest the requisite physical separation, so that we may either accomplish it ourselves, or seek for it in nature; and we have done enough when we have carried the subdivision as far as the point at which we are able to see what observations or experiments we require. It is only essential, at whatever point our mental decomposition of facts may for the present have stopped, that we should hold ourselves ready and able to carry it farther as occasion requires, and should not allow the freedom of our discriminating faculty to be imprisoned by the swathes and bands of ordinary cla.s.sification; as was the case with all early speculative inquirers, not excepting the Greeks, to whom it seldom occurred that what was called by one abstract name might, in reality, be several phenomena, or that there was a possibility of decomposing the facts of the universe into any elements but those which ordinary language already recognised.
2. The different antecedents and consequents, being, then, supposed to be, so far as the case requires, ascertained and discriminated from one another; we are to inquire which is connected with which. In every instance which comes under our observation, there are many antecedents and many consequents. If those antecedents could not be severed from one another except in thought, or if those consequents never were found apart, it would be impossible for us to distinguish (_ posteriori_ at least) the real laws, or to a.s.sign to any cause its effect, or to any effect its cause. To do so, we must be able to meet with some of the antecedents apart from the rest, and observe what follows from them; or some of the consequents, and observe by what they are preceded. We must, in short, follow the Baconian rule of _varying the circ.u.mstances_. This is, indeed, only the first rule of physical inquiry, and not, as some have thought, the sole rule; but it is the foundation of all the rest.
For the purpose of varying the circ.u.mstances, we may have recourse (according to a distinction commonly made) either to observation or to experiment; we may either _find_ an instance in nature, suited to our purposes, or, by an artificial arrangement of circ.u.mstances, _make_ one.
The value of the instance depends on what it is in itself, not on the mode in which it is obtained: its employment for the purposes of induction depends on the same principles in the one case and in the other; as the uses of money are the same whether it is inherited or acquired. There is, in short, no difference in kind, no real logical distinction, between the two processes of investigation. There are, however, practical distinctions to which it is of considerable importance to advert.
3. The first and most obvious distinction between Observation and Experiment is, that the latter is an immense extension of the former. It not only enables us to produce a much greater number of variations in the circ.u.mstances than nature spontaneously offers, but also, in thousands of cases, to produce the precise _sort_ of variation which we are in want of for discovering the law of the phenomenon; a service which nature, being constructed on a quite different scheme from that of facilitating our studies, is seldom so friendly as to bestow upon us.
For example, in order to ascertain what principle in the atmosphere enables it to sustain life, the variation we require is that a living animal should be immersed in each component element of the atmosphere separately. But nature does not supply either oxygen or azote in a separate state. We are indebted to artificial experiment for our knowledge that it is the former, and not the latter, which supports respiration; and for our knowledge of the very existence of the two ingredients.
Thus far the advantage of experimentation over simple observation is universally recognised: all are aware that it enables us to obtain innumerable combinations of circ.u.mstances which are not to be found in nature, and so add to nature"s experiments a mult.i.tude of experiments of our own. But there is another superiority (or, as Bacon would have expressed it, another prerogative) of instances artificially obtained over spontaneous instances,--of our own experiments over even the same experiments when made by nature,--which is not of less importance, and which is far from being felt and acknowledged in the same degree.
When we can produce a phenomenon artificially, we can take it, as it were, home with us, and observe it in the midst of circ.u.mstances with which in all other respects we are accurately acquainted. If we desire to know what are the effects of the cause A, and are able to produce A by means at our disposal, we can generally determine at our own discretion, so far as is compatible with the nature of the phenomenon A, the whole of the circ.u.mstances which shall be present along with it: and thus, knowing exactly the simultaneous state of everything else which is within the reach of A"s influence, we have only to observe what alteration is made in that state by the presence of A.
For example, by the electric machine we can produce in the midst of known circ.u.mstances, the phenomena which nature exhibits on a grander scale in the form of lightning and thunder. Now let any one consider what amount of knowledge of the effects and laws of electric agency mankind could have obtained from the mere observation of thunder-storms, and compare it with that which they have gained, and may expect to gain, from electrical and galvanic experiments. This example is the more striking, now that we have reason to believe that electric action is of all natural phenomena (except heat) the most pervading and universal, which, therefore, it might antecedently have been supposed could stand least in need of artificial means of production to enable it to be studied; while the fact is so much the contrary, that without the electric machine, the Leyden jar, and the voltaic battery, we probably should never have suspected the existence of electricity as one of the great agents in nature; the few electric phenomena we should have known of would have continued to be regarded either as supernatural, or as a sort of anomalies and eccentricities in the order of the universe.
When we have succeeded in insulating the phenomenon which is the subject of inquiry, by placing it among known circ.u.mstances, we may produce further variations of circ.u.mstances to any extent, and of such kinds as we think best calculated to bring the laws of the phenomenon into a clear light. By introducing one well-defined circ.u.mstance after another into the experiment, we obtain a.s.surance of the manner in which the phenomenon behaves under an indefinite variety of possible circ.u.mstances. Thus, chemists, after having obtained some newly-discovered substance in a pure state, (that is, having made sure that there is nothing present which can interfere with and modify its agency,) introduce various other substances, one by one, to ascertain whether it will combine with them, or decompose them, and with what result; and also apply heat, or electricity, or pressure, to discover what will happen to the substance under each of these circ.u.mstances.