CHAPTER V.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE VARIATION IN THE MEANING OF TERMS.

The connotation of names shifts not only by reason of gradual inattention to some of the common properties, which, if language were ruled by convention alone, would be in their entirety both the perpetual and the sole constituents of the connotation; but also from the incorporation in the connotation, in addition to these, and often, finally, to the exclusion of them altogether, of other circumstances at first only casually associated with it. These collateral associations are the cause why there are so few exact synonymes; and why the dictionary meaning, or Definition, is so bad a guide to its uses, as compared with its history, since the latter explains the law of the succession by showing the causes which determined the successive uses.

Two counter-movements are always going on in language. One is generalisation, by which words are ever losing part of their connotation, and becoming more general. This arises, partly from men, such as historians and travellers, using words, especially those expressing complicated mental and social facts strange to them, in a loose sense, in ignorance of the true connotation; partly, from known things multiplying faster than names for them; partly, also, from the wish to give people some notion of a new object by reference to a known thing resembling it however slightly. The other movement is specialisation; and by it words (even the same words which, as, e.g. pagan and villain, later get generalised in a new direction) are ever taking a fresh connotation, through their denotation being diminished. Specialisations often occur even in scientific nomenclature, a word which expressed general characters becoming confined to a specific substance in which these characters are predominant. So it is when any set of persons has to think of one species oftener than of any other contained in the genus: e.g. some sportsmen mean partridges by the term birds. But, as ideas of our pleasures and pains and their supposed causes, cling, most of all, by association to what they have been once connected with, the great source of specialisation is the addition of the ideas of agreeableness or painfulness, and approbation or censure, to the connotation. And hence arises the fallacy of question-begging names referred to later on.

It is the business of logicians not to ignore, for they cannot prevent, transformations of terms in common use, but to trace and embody them, and men's half unconscious reasons for them, in distinct definitions.



CHAPTER VI.

TERMINOLOGY AND NOMENCLATURE.

Not only must words have a fixed and knowable meaning; but also, no important meaning should be without its word: that is, there should be a name for everything which we have often to make assertions about. There should be, therefore, first, names suited to describe all the individual facts; secondly, a name for every important common property detected by comparing those facts; and, thirdly, a name for every kind.

First, it conduces to brevity and clearness to have separate names for the oft-recurring combinations of feelings; but, as these can be defined without reference back to the feelings themselves, it is enough for a descriptive terminology, if there be a name for every variety of elementary feeling, since none of these can be defined, or indicated to a person, except either by his having the sensation itself, or being referred through a known mark to his remembrance of it. The meaning of the name when given to a feeling is fixed, in the first instance, by convention, and must be associated immediately, not through the usage of ordinary language, with the feeling, so that it may at once recall the latter. But even among the elementary feelings, those purely mental, and also sensations, such as those from disease, the identity of which in different persons cannot be determined, cannot be exactly described. It is only the impressions on the outward senses, or those inward feelings connected uniformly with outward objects (and, consequently, sciences, such as botany, conversant with outward objects), which are susceptible of an exact descriptive language.

Secondly, there must also be a separate name for every important common property recognised through that comparison of observed instances which is preparatory to induction (including names for the classes which we artificially construct in virtue of those properties). For, although a definition would often convey the meaning, both time and space are saved, perspicuity promoted, and the attention excited and concentrated, by giving a brief and compact name to each of the new general conceptions, as Dr. Whewell calls them, that is, the new results of abstraction. Thenceforward the name nails down and clenches the unfamiliar combination of ideas, and suggests its own definition.

Thirdly, as, besides the artificial classes which are marked out from neighbouring classes by definite properties to be arrived at by abstraction, there are classes, viz. kinds, distinguished severally by an unknown multitude of independent properties (and about which classes therefore many assertions will be made), there must be a name for every kind. That is, besides a terminology, there must be a nomenclature, i.e. a collection of the names of all the lowest kinds, or infimae species. The Linnaean arrangements of plants and animals, and the French of chemistry, are nomenclatures. The peculiarity of a name which belongs to a nomenclature is, not that its meaning resides in its denotation instead of its connotation (for it resides in its connotation, like that of other concrete general names); but that, besides connoting certain attributes which its definition explains, it also connotes that these attributes are distinctive of a kind; and this fact its definition cannot explain.

A philosophical language, then, must possess, first, precision, and next (the subject of the present chapter), completeness. Some have argued that, in addition, names are fitted for the purposes of thought in proportion as they approximate to mere symbols in compactness, through meaninglessness, and capability of use as counters without reference to the various objects which, though utterly different, they may thus at different times equally well represent. Such are, indeed, the qualities enabling us to employ the figures of arithmetic and the symbols of algebra perfectly mechanically according to general technical rules. But, in the first place, in our direct inductions, at all events, depending as they do on our perception of the particulars of the agreement and difference of the phenomena, we could never dispense with a distinct mental image of the latter. Further, even in deduction, though a syllogism is conclusive from its mere form, if the terms are unambiguous, yet the practical validity of the reasoning depends on the hypothesis that no counteracting cause has interfered with the truth of the premisses. We can assure ourselves of this only by studying the phenomena at every step. For it is only in geometry and algebra that there is no danger from the Composition of Causes, or the superseding of one set of laws by another; and that, therefore, the propositions are categorically true. In sciences in general, then, the object should be, so far from keeping individualising peculiarities out of sight, to contrive the greatest possible obstacles to a merely mechanical use of language: we should carefully keep alive a consciousness of its meaning, by referring, by aid of derivation and the analogies between the ideas of the roots and the derivatives, to the origin of words; and as words, however philosophically constructed, are always tending, like coins, to have their inscription worn off, we should be ever stamping them afresh. This we shall effect, if we contemplate habitually, not the formulas which record the laws of the phenomena (for, if so, the formulas will themselves progressively lose their meaning), but the phenomena whence the laws were collected; and we must conceive these phenomena in the concrete, and clothe them in circumstances.



CHAPTER VII.

CLASSIFICATION, AS SUBSIDIARY TO INDUCTION.

Every name which connotes an attribute thereby divides, but only incidentally, all things, known and unknown, real and imagined, into two classes, viz. those which have, and those which have not the attribute. But sometimes the naming itself is but the secondary and subsidiary, and the classification, the primary object. The general problem of such classification is, to provide that things shall be thought of in such groups, and the groups in such an order, as will best promote the remembrance and ascertainment of their laws. Its subjects are real things exclusively, but all real things, since, to place one object in a group, we ought to know the divisions of nature at large.

Any property may be the basis for a classification; but those best suited are properties which are causes, or, next, as the cause of a class's chief peculiarities seldom serves as its diagnostic, any effect which is a sure mark both of the cause and of the other effects. Only a classification so grounded is scientific; the same also is not technical or artificial, but natural, and emphatically natural (as compared with classifications in an inferior degree also natural, which are based on properties important with reference to the reasoner's special practical objects), when the classification is based on those properties which would most impress one who knew all the properties, but was not interested particularly in any one. Further, it is a great recommendation of a classification, that it groups together things of like general aspect; but this is not a sine qua non: a group may be natural even if based on very unobvious properties, provided these are marks of many other properties, though certainly then there should be also some more obvious property to act as a mark of the unobvious ones which form the real basis.

As the first principle of natural classification is that the classes must be so formed that the objects composing each may have as many properties in common as possible to serve as predicates, all kinds should have places among the natural groups, since the common properties of kinds, and, therefore, the general assertions that can be made about them, are innumerable. But kinds are too few to make up the whole of a classification: other classes also may be eminently natural, though marked out from each other only by a definite number of properties. Of neither sort of natural groups is Dr. Whewell's theory strictly true, viz. that every natural group is not determined by definition, that is, by definite characters which can be expressed in words, but is fixed by Type. He explains that a type is an example of any class, for instance, a species of a genus, which possesses all the characters and properties of the genus in a marked way; that round this type-species are grouped all the other species, which, though deviating from it in various directions and degrees, yet are of closer affinity to it than to the centre of any other group; and that this is the reason why propositions about natural groups so often state matters as being true not in all cases, but only in most. Now, there is a truth, but only a partial truth, in this doctrine. It is this: in forming natural groups, species which want certain of the class-characters, some one, and others another, are classed with those (the majority) that have them all, because they are more like (that is, in fact, have more of the common characters of) that particular group than of any other. On account of the feeling of vagueness hence engendered, we certainly, in deciding if an object belong to the group, do generally (and must, when the classification is made expressly with a view to a special inductive enquiry) refer mentally, not as a substitute for, but in illustration of the definition of the group, to some standard specimen which has all the characters well developed. But not the less, therefore, are all natural, equally with all artificial, groups framed with distinct reference to certain definite characters. In the case of kinds, a few characters are chosen as marks of the rest. In the case of other natural groups, the formation of the larger groups, into which we collect the infimae species, is suggested indeed by resemblance to types (since we form each such larger group round a selected kind which serves as its exemplar); but the group itself, when formed, is determined by definite characters.

Class names should by the mode of their construction help those who have learnt about the thing, to remember it, and those who have not learnt, now to learn, by being merely told the name. This is best effected, in the case of kinds, when the word indicates by its very formation the properties it connotes. But this is seldom possible. For, though a kind-name connotes not all the kind-properties, but some only which serve as sure marks of the rest, even these have been found too many to be included conveniently in a name (except in Elementary Chemistry, where every compound substance has one distinctive index-property, viz. the chemical composition). A subsidiary resource is to point out the kind's nearest natural affinities. For instance, in the binary Nomenclature of Botany and of Zoology, the name of every species consists of the name of the natural group next above, with a word added expressive of some quality in the nature or mode of discovery, or what not, of the particular species itself. By this device (obtaining at present only in Botany and Zoology), as well is the expression, in the name, of many of the kind's characters secured, as the use of names economised, and the memory relieved. Except for some such plan, what hope of naming the 60,000 known species of Plants?



CHAPTER VIII.

CLASSIFICATION BY SERIES.

The object of Classification generally is to bring our ideas of objects into the order best fitted for prosecuting inductive enquiries into the laws of the phenomena generally. But a Classification which aims at facilitating an inductive enquiry into the laws of some special phenomenon, must be based on that phenomenon itself. The requisites of such a classification are, first, the bringing into one class all kinds of things which exhibit the phenomenon; next, the arranging them in a series, according to the degrees in which they exhibit it. Such a classification has been largely applied in Comparative Anatomy and Physiology (and these alone), since there has been found a recognisable difference in the degree in which animals possess one main phenomenon, viz. Animal Life.

This arrangement of the instances, whence the law is to be collected, in a series, is that which is always implied in and is a condition of any application of the method, viz. that of Concomitant Variations, which must be used when conjoined circumstances cannot easily be separated by experiment. But sometimes (and it is so in Zoology) the law of the subject of the special enquiry (e.g. Animal Life) has such influence over the general character of the objects, that all other differences among them seem mere modifications of it; and then the classification required for the special purpose becomes the determining principle of the classification of the same objects for general purposes.

To recognise the identity of phenomena which thus differ only in degree, we must assume a type-species. This will be that kind which has the class-properties in their greatest intensity (and, therefore, most easily studied with all their effects); and we must conceive the other varieties as instances of degeneracy from that type.

The divisions of the series must be determined by the principles of natural grouping in general (that is, in effect, by natural affinity); in subordination, however, to the principle of a natural series; that is, in the same group must not be placed things which ought to occupy different points of the general scale.

Zoology affords the only complete example of the true principles of rational classification, whether as to the formation of groups or of series. Yet the same principles are applicable to all cases (to art and business as well as science) where the various parts of a wide subject have to be brought into mental co-ordination.



BOOK V.

FALLACIES.



CHAPTER I.

FALLACIES IN GENERAL.

The habit of reasoning well is the only complete safeguard against reasoning ill, that is, against drawing conclusions with insufficient evidence, a practice which the various contradictory opinions, particularly about the phenomena relating to Man, show to be even now common, and that too among the most enlightened. But, to be able to explain an error is a necessary condition of seeing the truth; for, 'Contrariorum eadem est Scientia.' Consequently, a work on Logic must classify Fallacies, that is, the varieties of Apparent Evidence; for they can be classified, though not in respect of their negative quality of being either not evidence at all, or inconclusive, yet in respect of the positive property they have of appearing to be evidence.

As Logic has been here treated as embracing the whole reasoning process, so it must notice the fallacies incident to any part of it (not to Ratiocination merely), whether arising from faulty Induction, or from faulty Ratiocination, or from dispensing wholly with either or both of them. It does not treat of errors from negligence, or from inexpertness in using right methods, nor does it treat of errors from moral causes, viz. Indifference to truth, or Bias by our wishes or our fears; for the moral causes are but the remote and predisposing, not the exciting causes of opinions; and therefore inferences from them, since they must always involve the intellectual operation of admitting insufficient evidence as sufficient, really come under a classification of the things which wrongly appear evidence to the understanding.

Fallacies may be arranged, with reference either to the cause which makes them (erroneously) appear evidence, or to the particular kind of evidence they simulate. The following classification is grounded on both these considerations jointly.



CHAPTER II.

CLASSIFICATION OF FALLACIES.

The business of Logic is, not to enumerate false opinions, but to enquire what property in the facts led to them, that is, what peculiarity of relation between two facts made us suppose them habitually conjoined or disjoined, and thus regard the presence or absence of the one as evidence of that of the other. For every such property in the facts, or our mode of considering them, there is a corresponding class of Fallacies.

As the supposed habitual connexion or repugnance of two facts may be admitted, either as a self-evident and axiomatic truth, or as itself an inference, the first great division is into Fallacies of Simple Inspection or a priori Fallacies, and Fallacies, of Inference. But there is also an intermediate class. For, sometimes an inference is erroneous through our not conceiving what our premisses precisely are, and from our therefore substituting new premisses for the old, or a new conclusion for the one we undertook to prove; and this is called the Fallacy of Confusion. Under this head, indeed, of Fallacies of Confusion, might strictly be brought almost any fallacy, though falling also under some other head: for, some of the links in an argument, especially if sophistical, are sure to be suppressed; and, it being left doubtful which is the proposition to be supplied, we can seldom tell with certainty under which class the fallacy absolutely comes. It is, however, convenient to reserve the name Fallacy of Confusion for cases where Confusion is the sole cause of the error.

Cases, then, where there is more or less ground for the error in the nature of the apparent evidence itself, the evidence being assumed to be of a certain sort, and a false conclusion being drawn from it, may be classed as Fallacies of Inference. According as the apparent evidence consists of particular facts, or of foregone generalisations, we call the errors Fallacies of Induction or of Deduction. Each of these classes, again, may be subdivided into two species, according as the apparent evidence is either false, or, though true, inconclusive. Such subdivisions of the Fallacy of Induction are respectively called, in the former case, Fallacies of Observation (including cases where the facts are not directly observed, but inferred), and, in the latter, Fallacies of Generalisation. Among Fallacies of Deduction, those which proceed on false premisses have no specific name, for they must fall under one of the other heads of Fallacies; but those, the premisses of which, though true, do not support the conclusion, compose a subdivision, which may be specified as Fallacies of Ratiocination.



CHAPTER III.

FALLACIES OF SIMPLE INSPECTION; OR, A PRIORI FALLACIES.

There must be some a priori knowledge, some propositions to be received without proof; for there cannot be a chain suspended from nothing. What these are is disputed, one school recognising as ultimate premisses only the facts of our subjective consciousness, e.g. Sensations, while Ontologists hold that the mind intuitively, and not through experience, recognises as realities other existences, e.g. Substances, which are suggested by, though not inferrible from, those facts of consciousness. But, as both schools, in fact, allow that the mind infers the reality from the idea of a thing, and that it may do this unduly, there results a class of Fallacies resting on the tacit assumption that the objects in nature have the same order as our ideas of them. Hence not only arose the vulgar belief that facts which make us think of an event are omens foreboding (e.g. lucky or unlucky names), or even causing its occurrence; but even men of science both did and do fall into this Fallacy. The following dogmas express the different forms of this error:—

1. [Greek: a]. Things which we cannot help thinking of together must coexist; thus Descartes held that, because existence is involved (though really only by the thinker himself) in the idea of a geometrical figure, a thing like the idea must exist. [Greek: b]. Whatever is inconceivable is false. The latter proposition has been defended by drawing a distinction between the principle, and its possibly wrong application to facts, e.g. to Antipodes; but how can we ever know that it has been rightly applied? Coleridge, again, has distinguished between the unimaginable, which he thinks may possibly be true, and the inconceivable, which he thinks cannot be; but Antipodes were imaginable at the same period when they were inconceivable. In fact, as even to Newton it seemed inconceivable, that a thing should act where it is not (e.g. that the sun should act upon the earth without the medium of an ether), simply because his mind was not familiar with the idea, so it may be with our incapability (if not, indeed, resulting merely from our limited faculties) of conceiving, e.g. that matter cannot think; that space is infinite; that ex nihilo nihil fit. Leibnitz's tenet that all natural phenomena must be explicable a priori, and the further assumption by some that Nature always acts by the simplest, i.e. by the most easily conceivable means (and that, therefore, e.g. the heavenly bodies have a circular movement), exhibit vividly this Fallacy of Simple Inspection.

2. Whatever can be thought of apart, or has a separate name, exists apart as a separate entity, e.g. Nature, Time, qualities, as e.g. Whiteness, and, worst of all, the Substantiae Secundae. Mysticism is this habit of ascribing objective existence to the subjective creations of the mind, and reasoning from them to the things themselves.

3. A fact must follow a certain law, because we see no reason for its deviating from it in one way rather than in another. This, which is the same as the Principle of the Sufficient Reason, has been used to prove the Law of Inertia (the very point to be proved, viz. that only external force can be a sufficient reason for motion in a particular direction, being assumed), and also the First Law of Motion, the argument being, in the latter case, that a moving body, if it do not continue of itself to move uniformly in a straight line, must deviate right or left, and that there is no reason for its going one way more than the other: to which the answer is, that, apart from experience, we could not know whether or not there were a reason. Geometers often fall into this Fallacy.

4. The differences in nature must correspond to our received distinctions (in names and classifications). Thus, the Greeks thought that, by determining the meanings of words, they ascertained facts. Aristotle usually starts with 'We say thus or thus.' So, with the Doctrine of Contrarieties, in which the Pythagoreans and others assumed that oppositions in language imply similar ones in nature. Hence, too, the ancient belief in the essential difference between the laws of things terrestrial and things celestial, and in man's incapability of imitating nature's works. Bacon's error (which vitiates his inductive system) was analogous, in looking (either through his eagerness for practical results, or a lingering belief that causes were the sole object of philosophy) for the cause of given effects rather than the effects of a given cause. Hence sprang his tacit assumption (and that in enquiries into the causes of a thing's sensible qualities, where it was especially fatal), that in all cases, e.g. of heat or cold, the forma, or set of conditions, is one thing. A similar notion, viz. that each property of gold, as of other things, has its one forma, produced the belief in Alchemy.

5. The conditions of a phenomenon often do resemble the phenomenon itself, e.g. in cases of Motion, Contagion, Feelings; but it is a Fallacy to suppose that they must or probably will. By this fancied law men guided their conjectures. Thus, the Doctrine of Signatures was, that substances showed their uses as medicines by external resemblance, either to their supposed effect, or to the disease. So, the Cartesians, and even Leibnitz, argued, that nothing physical but previous motion could account for motion, explaining the human body's voluntary motions by Nervous Vibrations or by Animal Spirits. Hence, too, the inference that there is a correspondence between the physical qualities of the cause, and like or like-named ones, either of the phenomenon (e.g. between sharp particles and a sharp taste), or of its effects (e.g. between the redness of Mars, and fire and slaughter as results of that planet's influence). In metaphysics, the Epicureans' doctrine of species sensibiles, and the moderns' of perception through ideas, arose from this fallacy (combined with another, viz. that a thing cannot act where it is not). Again, the conditions of a thing are sometimes spoken of even as though they were the thing itself. Thus, in the Novum Organon, heat (i.e. really the conditions of the feeling of it) is called a kind of motion; and Darwin, in his Zoonomia, after describing idea as a kind of notion of external things, defines it as a motion of the fibres. Cousin says: 'Tout ce qui est vrai de l'effet est vrai de la cause,' though, the reverse might be true; and Coleridge affirms, as an evident truth, that mind and matter, as having no common property, cannot act on each other. The same fallacy led Leibnitz to his pre-established harmony, and Malebranche to his occasional causes. So, Cicero argues that mental pleasures, if arising from the bodily, could not, as they do, exceed their cause; and Descartes, that the Efficient Cause must have all the perfections of the effect. Conversely Descartes, too, and persons who assail, e.g. the Principle of Population by reference to Divine benevolence (thus implying that, because God is perfect, therefore what they think perfection must obtain in nature), assume that effects must resemble their causes.



CHAPTER IV.

FALLACIES OF OBSERVATION.

A fallacy of Observation (the first of the three fallacies of Proof) may be either negative or positive.

1. The former, which is called Non-observation, is a case, not of a positive mis-estimate of evidence, or of the proper faculties (whether the senses or reason) not having been employed, but simply of the non-employment of any of the faculties. It arises ([Greek: a]) from neglect of instances. Sometimes this is when there is a stronger motive to remember the instances on the one side, and the observers have neglected the principle of the Elimination of Chance. Hence (the mind, as Bacon says, being more moved by affirmative than by negative instances) the belief in predictions, e.g. about the weather, because they occasionally turn out correct; and the credit of the proverb, that 'Fortune favours fools,' since the cases of a wise man's success through luck are forgotten in his more numerous successes through genius. But a preconceived opinion is the chief cause why opposing instances are overlooked. Hence originate the errors about physical facts (e.g. of Copernicus's foes, and friends, too, about the falling stone), and a fortiori, on moral, social, and religious subjects, where yet stronger feelings are involved.

The fallacy of Non-observation may occur ([Greek: b]) from neglect, not of the material instances wholly, but of some material facts in them, e.g. in cases of cures by quack remedies (such as Kenelm Digby's 'sympathetic powder'), of some attendant fact (as exclusion of air from a wound, rest, regimen, and the like) which really worked the cure. Sometimes the neglected fact is one ascertainable, not by the senses, but by reasoning, which has been overlooked. Thus, Cousin's argument that, if the sole end of punishment were to prevent crime by intimidating intending criminals, the punishment of the innocent, indiscriminately with the guilty, would have the same effect, ignores the fact that the innocent would then be equally intimidated, and so the punishment would be of no use as an example to criminals. So, in Political Economy, where the effects of a cause often consist of two sets of phenomena, the one obvious, the other deeper under the surface, and exactly contrary, the latter is often neglected. This was why the rapidly spent capital of the prodigal was supposed formerly to employ more labour than the invested savings of the parsimonious, and the purchase of native goods to encourage native industry more than the purchase of foreign.

2. The error in Mal-observation, which is the positive kind of Mis-observation, is not the overlooking facts, but the seeing them wrong. It arises from mistaking what is in fact inference (as much must be, whenever we try to observe or to describe) for perception, which is infallible evidence of what is really perceived. The Anti-Copernicans, when they appealed to common sense, made this mistake. So do untrained persons generally in describing facts, especially natural phenomena (e.g. apothecaries and nurses in stating symptoms), and that, too, in proportion to their ignorance. We might expect this, since usually the actual perceptions of the senses (e.g. the colour and extension) are not of interest, except as marks whence to draw inferences about something else (e.g. about the body, to which these qualities belong). Painters, therefore, to know what the sensation actually was, have to go through a special training. But this confusion of inference with perception is still more likely in highly abstract subjects; and, consequently, in these, mere, and often false inferences, have continually been regarded as intuitive judgments.



CHAPTER V.

FALLACIES OF GENERALISATION.

This class includes whatever errors of generalisation are not mere blunders, but arise from some wrong general conception of the inductive process. Only a few kinds can be noted. 1. Under this Fallacy come generalisations which cannot be established by experience, e.g. inferences from the order in the Solar System to other and unknown parts of the universe; and also, except when a particular effect would contradict either the laws of number and extension, or the universal law of causality, all inferences from the fact that we have never known of a particular effect to its impossibility. 2. Those generalisations also are fallacious which resolve, either, as in early Greece, all things into one element, or, as often in modern times, impressions on the senses, differing in quality, and not merely in degree, into the same; e.g. heat, light, and (through vibrations) sensation, into motion; mental, into nervous states; and vital phenomena, into mechanical or chemical processes. In these theories, one fact has its laws applied to another. It may possibly be a condition of that other; but even then the mode in which the new fact is actually produced would have to be explained by its own law, and not by that of the condition. 3. Again, generalisations got by Simple Enumeration, fall under this Fallacy. That sort of Induction 'precario concludit,' says Bacon, 'et periculo exponitur ab instantia contradictoria, ... ex his tantummodo quae praesto sunt pronuncians.' The ancients used it; and in questions relating to man and society, it is still employed by practical men. By it men arrived at the various examples of the formula, Whatsoever has never been (e.g. a State without artificial distinctions of rank; negroes as civilised as the white race) will never be; which, being inductions without elimination, could at most form the ground only of the lowest empirical laws. Higher empirical laws can be got, when a phenomenon presents (as no negation can) a series of regular gradations, since something may then be inferred from the observed as to the unobservable terms of the series. Such is the law of man's necessary progression, in contradiction to the above formula. But even this better generalisation is similarly, though not as grossly, fallacious as the preceding, when, though not itself a cause, but only a summary expression for the general result of all the causes, it is accepted as the law of human changes, past and even future. So, empirical generalisations, from present to past time, and from the character of one nation to that of another, are similarly fallacious when employed as causal laws. 4. This Fallacy occurs, not only when an empirical is confounded with a causal law, but when causation is inferred improperly. The mistake sometimes lies in inferring a posteriori that one fact must be the cause of another (e.g. the National Debt, or some special institution, of England's prosperity), because of their casual conjunction; at other times, in assuming a priori that one of several coexisting agents is the sole cause, and then deducing the effects from it exclusively. The latter is properly False Theory. It has been exemplified in medicine by the tracing of all diseases by one school, to viscidity of the blood, by another, to the presence of some acid or alkali, and, in politics, by the assumption that some special form of government or society is absolutely good. 5. In False Analogies (which fall under this Fallacy) there is no pretence of a conclusive induction. The argument from Analogy is the inferring, in the absence of evidence either way, that an object resembles a second object in one point, because it is seen to resemble it in another point, which either is not known to be connected with the first by causation (as, that the planets must be inhabited because they obey the same astronomical laws with the earth, which is), or which is known to be, not, indeed, its cause or its effect, but either one of a set of conditions, which together are its cause, or an occasional effect of its cause. Now, persons (usually from poverty, not from luxuriance, of imagination) often overrate the weight of true analogies; but the fallacy specially consists in inferring resemblance in one point from resemblance in another, when the evidence is not only not in favour of, but even positively against the connection of the two by way of causation. It is so in the argument in favour of absolutism, on the ground of its resemblance to paternal government in the one point of irresponsibility, as though the assumed benefits of paternal rule flowed from this quality. Similarly fallacious are the inferences, through analogies, from the liability to decay of bodies natural to that of bodies politic; from the supposed need of a primum mobile in nature to that of an irresponsible power in a state; and from the effects of a decrease of a country's corn to the effects of a decrease of its gold (the utility of which, but not of corn, depends on its value, and its value on its scarcity). Such, also, were the Pythagorean inferences that there is a music of the spheres, because the intervals between the planets have the same proportion as the divisions of the monochord; and, again, that the movements of the stars as being divine must be regular, because so are those even of orderly men. So, Aristotle and other ancients supposed perfection to obtain in all natural facts, because it appeared to exist in some; and so, the Stoics tried to prove the equality of all crimes by reference to various similes and metaphors (as, that the man held half an inch below the surface will be drowned as certainly as the man at the bottom of the sea; and that want of skill is shown as much in steering a straw-laden boat as a treasure galleon on to the rocks). But, in fact, the connection by causation between the known and the inferred resemblance, which is assumed by these metaphors, is the very thing which they are brought to prove. The real use of such cases of analogy as metaphors is that they serve, not as an argument, but as an assertion that one exists. Though they cannot prove, they sometimes suggest the proof, and point to a case in which the same grounds for a conclusion have been found adequate. Such are d'Alembert's classification of successful politicians as either eagles or serpents; and the statement, as an argument for education, that, in waste land weeds will spring up; and such is not Bacon's inference from the levity of floating straw to the worthlessness of the extant scientific works of the ancients.

The great source of fallacious generalisation is bad classification, by which things with no, or no important, common properties, are grouped together. Worst is it, when a word which commonly signifies some definite fact is applied to other facts only slightly similar. Bacon (who has himself thus erred in his enquiries into heat) specifies, as examples of this, the various applications (got, by unscientific abstraction, from the original sense) of the word 'wet,' to flame, air, dust, and glass, as well as to water. The application by Plato, Aristotle, and other ancients, of the terms Generation, Corruption, and [Greek: kinesis] to many heterogeneous phenomena, with a mixture of the ideas belonging to them severally, caused many perplexities, which may be noticed under Fallacies of Confusion.



CHAPTER VI.

FALLACIES OF RATIOCINATION.

These fallacies (to which the name Fallacy is commonly applied exclusively) would generally be detected if the arguments were set out formally; and the value of the syllogistic rules is, that they force the reasoner to be aware what it is that he is really asserting. The frequent errors in processes such as Conversion and Opposition, which are in appearance, though not in reality, inferences from premisses, may for convenience be here referred to. Such are the simple conversion of an universal affirmative; the corresponding error in a hypothetical proposition of inferring the truth of the antecedent from that of the consequent; and the confusing of a contrary with a contradictory, which amounts, in practice, to mistaking the reverse of wrong for right. But fallacies of Ratiocination properly lie in syllogisms. They commonly resolve themselves, when in a single syllogism, into the having more than three terms, whether covertly, as through an undistributed middle, or an illicit process, or avowedly. But the most dangerous and the commonest of these fallacies arise in a chain of argument from changing the premisses. One of the obscurer forms of this is the fallacy a dicto secundum quid (i.e. with a qualification, or condition, expressed, or, more usually, understood) ad dictum simpliciter. Thus, the Mercantile Theory was in favour of prohibiting all trade which tends to carry out more money than it brings in, on the ground that money is riches, though it is so only if the money can be freely spent. Such, too, was the argument (used to support the doctrine that tithes fall on the landlord) that, because now the rent of tithe-free land exceeds that of tithed land, the rent from the latter would be increased by the abolition of all tithes. There was a similar fallacy in the use of the maxim, that individuals are the best judges of their pecuniary interests, against Mr. Wakefield's scheme for concentrating settlers. Cases in which the condition of time is dropped, fall under this same particular fallacy, as, when the maxim that prices always find their level, is construed as meaning that they are always at their level. It is the same with the reasoning (especially in political and social subjects), upon principles, which are true in the absence of all modifying causes, as though no such causes could exist. Other analogous fallacies are those a dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid (the converse of the preceding), and a dicto secundum quid ad dictum secundum alterum quid.



CHAPTER VII.

FALLACIES OF CONFUSION.

Under this head come all fallacies which arise, not so much from a false estimate of the probative force of known evidence, as from an indistinct conception what the evidence is.

1. Thus, where there is an ambiguous middle, or a term used in different senses in the premisses and in the conclusion, the argument proceeds as though there were evidence to the point, when, in fact, there is none. This error does not occur much in direct inductions, since the things themselves are there present to the senses or memory; but chiefly, in Ratiocination, where we are deciphering our own or others' notes. The ambiguity arises very often from assuming that a word corresponds precisely in meaning with the root itself (e.g. representative), or with cognate words from the same root, called paronymous words (as, artful, with art). Other examples of ambiguities are; 'Money,' which, meaning both the currency and also capital seeking investment, is often thought to be scarce in the former sense, because scarce in the latter; 'Influence of Property,' which, signifying equally the influence of respect for the power for good, and of fear of the power for evil, which is possessed by the rich, is represented as being assailed under its former form when attacked really only under the latter; 'Theory,' which, because applied popularly to the accounting for an effect apart from facts, is ridiculed, even when expressing, as it properly does, the result of philosophical induction from experience; 'The Church,' which refers (as in the question of the inviolability of Church property) sometimes to the clergy alone, sometimes to all its members; 'Good,' in the Stoic argument that virtue, as alone good (in the Stoic sense), must therefore include freedom and beauty, because these are good (in the popular sense). So, the meaning of 'I' shifts from the laws of my nature to my will, in Descartes' a priori argument for the being of a God, viz. that there must be an external archetype whence I got the conception, for if I (i.e. the laws of my nature) made it, I (i.e. my will, and not, as it should consistently be, the laws of my nature) could unmake it; but I (i.e. my will) cannot. In the Free-Will controversy, 'I' is used ambiguously for volitions, actions, and mental dispositions, and 'Necessity' both for Certainty and for Compulsion. From the application of 'same,' 'one,' 'identical,' which primarily refer to a single object, to several objects because similar, grew up (for the purpose of accounting for the supposed oneness in things said to have the same nature or qualities) both the Platonic Ideas, and also the Substantial Forms and Second Substances of the Aristotelians, even though the latter did see the distinction between things differing both specie and numero, and those differing numero only. And thence, too, sprang Berkeley's proof of the existence of a Universal Mind from the supposed need of such a Being to harbour, in the interval, the idea, which, one and the same (really, only two similar ideas), a man's mind has entertained at two distinct times. The difficulty in Achilles and the Tortoise arises from the use of infinity, or, for ever, in the premisses, to signify a finite time which is infinitely divisible, and, in the conclusion, to signify an infinite time. Thus, again, 'right' is used to express, both what others have no right to stop a man from doing, and also what it is not against his own duty to do; both what people are entitled to expect from, and also what they may enforce from others. The Fallacy of Composition and Division, i.e. the use of the same term in a syllogism, at one time in a collective, at another in a distributive sense, is one of the Fallacies of Ambiguous Terms. Examples of it are the arguments, that great men (collectively) could be dispensed with, because the place of any particular great man might have been supplied (i.e., in fact, by some other great man); and, that a high prize in a lottery may be reasonably expected (by a certain individual, viz. oneself), because a high prize is commonly gained (by some one or other).

2. In Petitio Principii, the premisses are not even verbally sufficient for the conclusion, since one premiss is either clearly the same as the conclusion, or actually proved from it, or not susceptible of any other proof. Men commonly fall into it, through believing that the premiss was verified, though they have forgotten how. But the variety, termed Reasoning in a Circle, implies a conscious attempt to prove two propositions reciprocally from each other. This formal proof is not often attempted, except under the pressure of controversy; but, from mistaking mutual coherency for truth, propositions, which cannot be proved except from each other, are often admitted, when expressed in different language, without other proof. Frequently a proposition is presented in abstract terms as a proof of the same in concrete, as, in Moliere's parody, 'L'opium endormit parcequ'il a une vertu soporifique.' So, some qualities of a thing selected arbitrarily are termed its nature or essence, and then reasoned from as though not able to be counteracted by any of the rest. 'Question-begging appellatives,' particularly, are cases of Petitio Principii, e.g. the styling any reform an innovation, which it really is, only that innovation conveys, besides its dictionary meaning, a covert sense of something extreme. Thus, in Cicero's De Finibus, 'Cupiditas,' which usually implies vice, is used to express certain desires the moral character of which is the point in question. Again, the infinite divisibility of matter was assumed by the argument which was used to prove it, viz. that the least portion of matter must have both an upper and an under surface (which, as every other Fallacy of Confusion, when cleared up, appears as a fallacy of a different sort, under shelter of which, as indeed in ratiocinative fallacies generally, the mere verbal juggle at first escapes detection). Such, again, was Euler's argument, that minus multiplied by minus gives plus, because it could not give the same as minus multiplied by plus, which gives minus. So, some ethical writers begin by assuming, that certain general sentiments are the natural sentiments of mankind, and thence argue that any which differ are morbid and unnatural. Thus, lastly, Hobbes and Rousseau rested the existence of government and law on a supposed social compact, and not on men's perception of the interests of society, which, however, could be the only ground for their abiding by such compact if a fact.

3. In Ignoratio Elenchi, or, the Fallacy of Irrelevant Conclusion, the error lies not either in mistaking the import of the premisses, or in forgetting what they are, but in mistaking what is the conclusion to be proved. Sometimes, a particular is substituted for the universal as the proposition needing proof, and sometimes, a proposition with different terms. Under this fallacy come the cases, not only of proving what was not denied, but of disproving what was not asserted; e.g. the argument used against Malthus (whose own position was, that population increases only in so far as not kept down by prudence, or by poverty and disease), that, at times, population has been nearly stationary; or again, that, in some country or other, population and comfort are increasing together, Malthus himself having asserted that this might be so, if capital has increased. Similarly, even Reid, Stewart, and Brown (not merely Dr. Johnson) urged that Berkeley ought, if consistent, to have run his head against a post, as though the non-recognition of an occult cause of sensations implies disbelief in any fixed order among them.



BOOK VI.

ON THE LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES.



CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

Many complex problems have been resolved through the use of the Scientific Methods, and thus only. The most complex of all problems are the problems relating to Man himself; and of them those concerned with the Mind and Society have never been scientifically resolved. They can be rescued from empiricism, if at all, only by being submitted to some of the methods already characterised as applicable to science in general. Which of these methods must be selected, and why; what are the causes of previous failures; and what degree of success now is possible or probable, will be considered in this book, when a preliminary objection (based on the theory of free will), that men's actions are not, like other natural events, subject to invariable laws, has been first removed.



CHAPTER II.

LIBERTY AND NECESSITY.

The theory of free will, viz. that the will is determined by itself, and not by antecedents, was invented as being more in accordance with the dignity of human nature and our consciousness of freedom, than philosophical necessity. The latter doctrine, in laying down simply that our volitions and actions are invariable consequents of our antecedent states of mind, and that, given our motives, character, and disposition, other men could predict our conduct as certainly as any physical event, states indeed nothing which is in itself either contradicted by our consciousness, or degrading; yet the doctrine of causation, as applied to volition, is supposed, from the natural tendency of the mind to imagine falsely that a mysterious constraint is exercised by any antecedent over the consequent, to imply some state of dependence which our consciousness does contradict. Moreover, the erroneous notion that something more than uniformity of order and capability of being predicted is meant, has been favoured by the use of the ambiguous term necessity (which, it is true, commonly implies irresistibleness), to signify simply that the given cause will be followed by the effect subject to all possibilities of counteraction by other causes. Most necessarians have been themselves deceived by the expression: they are apt to be partially fatalists as to their own actions, with a weaker spirit of self-culture than the believers in free-will, and to fail to see that the fact of their character being formed for them, that is, by their circumstances, including their own organisation, is consistent with its being formed by themselves, as intermediate agents, moulding it in any particular way which they may wish. The belief that the wishing is excited by external causes, e.g. by education, casual aspirations, and experience of ills resulting from our previous character, can be of no practical harm, and does not conflict with our feeling of moral freedom, that is, of power, if we wish, to modify or conquer our own character.

The ambiguity of the word motive has also caused confusion. A motive, when used to signify that which determines the will, means not always or only the anticipation of a pleasure or a pain, but often the desire of the action itself. The action having finally become by association in itself desirable, we may get the habit of willing it (that is, get a purpose) without reference to its being pleasurable. We are then said to have a confirmed character.



CHAPTER III.

THERE IS, OR MAY BE, A SCIENCE OF HUMAN NATURE.

Any facts may be a subject of science, if they follow one another according to constant laws; and this, whether, although the ultimate laws are known, yet, of the derivative laws on which a phenomenon directly depends, either none, as in Meteorology, or, as in Tidology, only the laws of the greater causes on which the chief part of a phenomenon directly depends, have been ascertained, and not those of all the minor modifying causes; or, as in Astronomy (which is therefore called an exact science), both the ultimate laws are known, and also the derivative laws as well of the greater as of all the minor causes. The science of Human Nature cannot be exact, the causes of human conduct being only approximately known. Hence it is impossible to predict with scientific accuracy any one man's acts, resulting as they do partly from his circumstances, which, in the future, cannot be precisely foreseen, and, partly, from his character, which can never be exactly calculated, because the causes which have determined it are sure, in the aggregate, not to be entirely like those which have determined any other man's. But approximate generalisations, though only probably true as to the acts and characters of individuals, will be certainly true as to those of masses, whose conduct is determined by general causes chiefly; and they are therefore sufficient for political and social science. They must, however, be connected deductively with the universal laws of human nature on which they rest, or they will be only low empirical laws. This is the text of the next two chapters.



CHAPTER IV.

THE LAWS OF MIND.

By the laws of mind (i.e. as considered in this treatise, the laws of mental phenomena) are meant the laws according to which one state of mind is produced by another. If M. Comte and others be right in saying that, in like manner with the mental phenomena called sensations, all the other states of mind have for their proximate causes nervous states, there would be no original laws of mind, and Psychology would be a mere branch of Physiology. But at present, this tenet is not proved, however highly probable; and, at all events, the characteristics of those nervous states are quite unknown; consequently the uniformities of succession among the mental phenomena, which undoubtedly do exist, and which are not proved to result from more general laws, must be considered as the subject of a distinct science called Psychology. We can ascertain only by experiment the simple laws of Mind, such as—1. That a state of consciousness can be reproduced in the absence of the cause which first excited it (i.e. that every mental impression has its idea), and—2. That these secondary mental states themselves are produced according to the three laws of ideas. But the complex laws are got from these simple laws, according either to the Composition of Causes, when the complex idea is said to consist of the Simple Ideas, or to chemical combination, when it is said to be generated by them. Hartley and Mr. James Mill indeed hold all the mental phenomena to be generated by chemical combination from simple ideas of sensation, however unlike to the alleged results; but even though they had proved their theory, employing the Method of Difference, and not only the Method of Agreement (which latter itself they have used only partially), we should still have to study the complex ideas themselves inductively, before we could ascertain their sequences.

The analytical enquiry (neglected alike by the German metaphysical school, and by M. Comte) into the general laws of mind, will show that the mental differences of individuals are not ultimate facts, but may be referred generally to their particular mental history, their education and circumstances, but sometimes also to organic differences influencing the mental phenomena, not directly, but through the medium of the psychological causes of the latter. Men's animal instincts, however, are probably, equally with the mere sensations, connected directly with physical conditions of the brain and nerves. Whether or not there be any direct relation between organic causes and any other mental phenomena, Physiology is likely in time to show; but at least Phrenology does not embody the principles of the relation.



CHAPTER V.

ETHOLOGY, OR THE SCIENCE OF THE FORMATION OF CHARACTER.

Till the Empirical laws of Mind, i.e. the truths of common experience, are explained by being resolved into the causal laws (the subject of the last chapter), they are mere approximate generalisations which cannot be safely applied beyond the limits in which they were collected by observation. But this does not prove aught against the universality and simplicity of the ultimate mental laws; for the same is the case with the empirical laws even in astronomy, where each effect results from but few causes; a fortiori, therefore, will it be so in regard to man's character, which is influenced by each of his circumstances, which differ in the case of each nation, generation, and individual. But though mankind have not one universal character, yet there exist universal laws of the formation of character. These universal laws cannot be discovered experimentally, i.e. either by artificial experiment, since we can seldom vary the experiment sufficiently, and exclude all but known circumstances, or by observation, since, even in the most favourable instances for the latter, viz. National acts, only the Method of Agreement can be applied. Observation has its uses in relation to this subject; but only as verification of the results arrived at by the Deductive Method. The Deductive Method must be employed to obtain the laws of the formation of character. They are got by supposing any given circumstances, and then considering how these will, according to the general laws of mind, influence the formation of character. So, contrary to Bacon's rule, laid down wrongly as universal, for the discovery of principles, the highest generalisations must be first ascertained by the experimental science of Psychology; and then will come what is in fact a system of corollaries from the latter science, viz. Ethology, i.e. (as dealing only with tendencies) the exact science of human character, or of education both national and individual, and which has for its principles the middle principles (axiomata media) of mental science. It does not yet, but it will soon, exist as a science. Its object must be to determine, from the general laws of mind, combined with man's general position in the universe, what circumstances will aid or check the growth of good or bad qualities, so that the Art of Education will be merely the transformation of these middle principles into precepts and their adaptation to the special cases. But at every step these middle principles, got by deduction, must be verified a posteriori by empirical laws, and by specific experience respecting the assumed circumstances.



CHAPTER VI.

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE SOCIAL SCIENCE.

Political and social phenomena have been thought too complex for scientific treatment. Practitioners hitherto have been the only students; and so, as in medicine, before the rise of Physiology and Natural History, experimenta fructifera, and not lucifera, have been sought. The scheme of such a science has even been thought quackery, through the vain attempts of some theorists to frame universal precepts, as though their failure (arising from the variety of human circumstances) proved that the phenomena do not conform to universal laws. Social phenomena, however, being phenomena of human nature in masses, must, as human nature is itself subject to fixed laws, obey fixed laws resulting from the fixed laws of human nature. The number and changefulness of the data (unlike those of Astronomy) will prevent our ever predicting the far future of society. But, when general laws have been ascertained, an application of them to the individual circumstances of a given age and country will show us the causes and tendencies of, and the means of modifying, its actual condition. A consideration of two methods, erroneously used for this science, viz. the Experimental or Chemical, and the Abstract or Geometrical, will introduce us to the true one.



CHAPTER VII.

THE CHEMICAL, OR EXPERIMENTAL, METHOD IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCE.

The followers of this method do not recognise the laws of social phenomena as merely a composition of the laws of individual human nature. They demand specific experience in all cases; and they attempt to make effects, which depend on the greatest possible complication of causes, the subject of induction by observation and experiment. The attempt must fail; for, we can neither get by experiment appropriate artificial instances, nor, by observation, spontaneous instances (from history), with the circumstances enough varied for a true induction. Neither the direct nor the indirect Method of Difference can be applied, for we cannot find either two single instances differing in nothing but the presence or absence of a given circumstance (the direct), or two classes respectively agreeing in nothing but the presence of a circumstance on one side and its absence on the other (the indirect). Then, again, the Method of Agreement is of small value, because social phenomena admit the widest plurality of causes; and so also is that of Concomitant Variations, on account of the mutual action of the coexisting elements of society being such that what affects one affects all. The Method of Residues is better suited to social enquiries than the other three. But it is not a method of pure observation and experiment. It presupposes that we know, by previous deduction from principles of human nature, the causes of part of the effect. But if thus part of the truths are, why may not all be, ascertained by Deduction, and the experimental argument be confined to the verifying of the deductions?



CHAPTER VIII.

THE GEOMETRICAL, OR ABSTRACT, METHOD.

The Methods of Elementary Chemistry are applied to social phenomena from carelessness as to, or ignorance of, any of the higher physical sciences: the Geometrical Method, from the belief that Geometry, that is, a science of coexistent, not successive facts, where there are no conflicting forces, is, and that the now deductive physical sciences of Causation, where there are conflicting forces, are not, the type of deductive science. Thus, it seems to have been supposed by many philosophers, that each social phenomenon results from only one force, one single property of human nature. For instance, Hobbes assumed (eking out his assumption by the fiction of an original contract), that government is founded on fear. Even the scientific Bentham School based a general theory on one premiss, viz. that men's actions are always determined by their interests, meaning probably thereby, that the bulk of the conduct of any succession, or of the majority of any body of men, is determined by their private or worldly interests. They inferred thence, that those rulers alone will govern according to the interest of the governed, whose selfish interests are identified with it (forgetting that, apart from the philanthropy and sense of duty of many, the conduct of all rulers must be influenced by the habits of mind, both of the whole community, and also of their own class in it, and by the maxims of their predecessors). Lastly, they laid down that this sense of identity of interest with the governed is producible only by responsibility (whereas the personal interest of rulers often prompts them to acts, e.g. for the suppression of anarchy, which are also for the interest of the governed). In fact, this school was pleading for parliamentary reform, and saw truly, that it is against the selfish interests of rulers that constitutional checks are needed, and that, in modern Europe, a feeling in the governors of identity of interest, when not active enough, can be roused only by responsibility to the governed. Their mistake was, that they based on just these few premisses a general theory of government, in forgetfulness that such should proceed by deduction from the whole of the laws of human nature, since each effect is an aggregate result of many causes operating now through the same ones, now through different ones, of these laws.



CHAPTER IX.

THE PHYSICAL, OR CONCRETE DEDUCTIVE, METHOD.

The complexity in social effects arises from the number, not of the laws, but of the data. Therefore, Sociology, i.e. Social Science, must use the Concrete Deductive Method, compounding with one another the laws of all the causes on which any one effect depends, and inferring its law from them all. As in the easiest case to which the Method of Deduction applies, so in this, the most difficult, the conclusions of ratiocination must be verified by collation with the concrete phenomena, or, if possible, with their empirical laws; and then the only effect of an increase in the complication of the subject will be a tendency to a disturbance, and sometimes even to an inversion (which, indeed, M. Comte thinks inseparable from all Sociological enquiries) in the order of the two processes, obliging us, first, to conjecture the conclusions by specific experience, and then verify them by a priori reasonings showing their connection with the principles of human nature.

Sociology is a system not of positive predictions, but of tendencies. Of tendencies themselves, not many can be laid down as true of all societies alike. Even in the case of any single feature of society, the consensus which exists in the body politic, as in the body natural, makes it uncertain whether a cause with a special tendency in one age or country will have quite the same in another. General propositions, therefore, in this deductive science, as, to be true, they must be hypothetical, and state the operation of a given cause in given circumstances, so, to be of any utility, should be limited to those classes of facts, which, though influenced by all sociological agents, are yet influenced immediately by a few only, certain fixed combinations of which are likely to recur often. Thus, Political Economy, taking the one psychological law that men prefer a greater gain to a smaller, and ignoring every other motive, except what are perpetually adverse principles to this, viz. men's aversion to labour and desire of present costly pleasures, assumes, in enquiring what acts this desire of gain will produce, that, within the department of human affairs, where it is actually the main end, it is the sole end. Yet its general propositions are of great practical use, even though it thus provisionally overlooks as well miscellaneous concurrent causes (with some exceptions, as e.g. the principle of population), as also the fact of the non-existence elsewhere of the conditions of any one particular country (e.g. the peculiarly British mode of distribution of the produce of industry among three classes). Another hypothetical or abstract science, which can be carved out of Sociology, is the as yet unexplored Political Ethology, i.e. the theory of the causes which determine a people's, or age's, type of character, which collective character, besides being the most interesting phenomenon in the particular state of society, is the main cause of the social state which follows, and moulds entirely customs and laws. The neglect of national diversities sometimes (as e.g. the assumption by our political economists, that in commercial populations everywhere, equally as in Great Britain and America, all motives yield to the desire of gain) vitiates only the practical application of a proposition; but when the national character is mixed up at every step with the phenomena (as is the case in questions respecting the tendencies of forms of government), the phenomena cannot properly be insulated in a separate branch of Sociology.

As in Ethology and other deductive sciences, so in Statistics and History there are empirical laws. The immediate causes of social facts are often not open to direct observation; and the deductive science can determine only what causes produce a given effect, and not the frequency and quantities of them; in such cases, the empirical law of the causes (which, however, can be applied to new cases only if we know that the remoter causes, on which these latter causes depend, remain unchanged) must be found through that of the effects, the Deductive Science relying then for its data on indirect observation. But, in the separate branches of Sociology, we cannot obtain empirical laws by specific experience. It is so particularly (on account both of the number of the causes, and also the fewness of the instances to be compared with the one in point) when the effect of any one (e.g. Corn Laws) of many simultaneous social causes has to be determined. We can, however, in such cases, verify indirectly a theory as to the influence of a particular cause in given circumstances, by seeing if the same theory accounts for the existing state of actual social facts which that cause has a tendency to influence.



CHAPTER X.

THE INVERSE DEDUCTIVE, OR HISTORICAL, METHOD.

The general Science of Society, as contrasted with the branches, shows, not what effect will follow from a given cause under given circumstances, but what are the causes and characteristic phenomena of States of Society generally. A State of Society is the simultaneous state of all the chief social facts (e.g. employments, beliefs, laws). It is a condition of the whole organism; and, when analysed, it exhibits uniformities of coexistence between its different elements. But, as this correlation between the phenomena is itself a law resulting from the laws which regulate the succession between one state of society and another, the fundamental problem of Social Science is to find these latter laws. The form of this succession, by which (on account of the exceptionally constant reaction, in social facts, of the effects, i.e. human character, on their causes, i.e. human circumstances) one social state is ever in process of changing into a different one, is now allowed to be, not, as in the solar system, a cycle, but a progress (by which is not here necessarily meant improvement, whatever the fact may be). In France it has been thought, that a law of progress, to be found by an analysis of the course of history, would enable us to predict the whole future. But such a law would be empirical, and not true beyond its own facts; for the succession of mental and social states cannot have an independent law. Empirical laws must indeed be found; or a general Science of Society would be impossible: for, the character of any one generation is so much the result of the characters of all prior ones, that men could not compute so long a series from the elementary laws producing it. But the empirical laws, when found (as they can be, since the series of the effects as a whole is ever growing in uniformity), must be shown by deductions to be, if not the only possible, or even the most probable, at least possible, consequences of the laws of human nature.

The empirical laws of society are uniformities, either of coexistence, or of succession. The former are ascertained and verified by Social Statics (which is the theory of the consensus, i.e. the mutual actions and reactions, of contemporaneous social elements); the latter, by Social Dynamics (the theory of Society considered as in a state of progress). As to Social Statics—there is, M. Comte thinks, a perpetual reciprocity of influence between all aspects of the same organism, and to such an extent, that the condition of any one which we cannot directly observe can be estimated by that of another which we can. There is, he considers, such an interdependence, not only between the different sciences and arts among themselves, but between the sciences in general and the arts in general, even between the condition of different nations of the same age, and between a form of government and the civilisation of the period. Social Statics will ascertain for us the requisites of stable political union: it will enquire what special circumstances have always attended on such union, increasing and decreasing in proportion to its completeness; and will then verify these facts as requisites by deducing them from general laws of human nature. Thus, history indicates as such requisites and conditions of free political union: 1. A system of educational discipline checking man's tendency to anarchy; 2. Loyalty, i.e. a feeling of there being something, whether persons, institutions, or individual freedom and political and social equality, which is not to be, at least in practice, called in question; 3. That which the Roman Empire, notwithstanding all its tyranny, established, viz. a strong sense of common interest among fellow-citizens (a very different feeling, by the bye, to mere antipathy to foreigners).

Social Dynamics regards sequences. But the consensus in social facts prevents our tracing the leading facts in one generation to separate causes in a prior one. Therefore, we must find the law of the correspondence not only between the simultaneous states, but between the simultaneous changes of the elements of society. To find this law, which, when duly verified, will be the scientific derivative law of the development of humanity, we must combine the statical view of the phenomena with the dynamical. Fortunately, the state of mankind's speculative faculties and beliefs, being the prime agent of the social movement, furnishes a clue in the maze of social elements, since the order of human progression in all respects will mainly depend on the order of progression of this prime agent. That the other dispositions which aid in social progress (e.g. the desire for increased material comfort) owe their means of working to this (however relatively weak a propensity it may be) is a conclusion from the laws of human nature; and this conclusion is in accordance also with the course of history, in which internal social changes have ever been preceded by proportionate intellectual changes. To determine the law of the successive transformations of opinions all past time must be searched, since such changes appear definitely only at long intervals. M. Comte alone has followed out this conception of the Historical Method; and his generalisation, to the effect that speculation has, on all subjects, three successive stages, has high scientific value.

The Historical Method will trace the derivative laws of social order and progress. It will enable us both to predict the future, and (thus founding the noblest part of the Political Art) partly to shape it. At present, both the Science and the Art are in the rudiments; but they are progressing.



CHAPTER XI.

THE LOGIC OF PRACTICE, OR ART; INCLUDING MORALITY AND POLICY.

Practical Ethics, i.e. Morality, is an art; and therefore its Method must be that of Art in general. Now, Art from the major premiss, supplied by itself, viz. that the end is desirable, and from the theorem, lent by Science, of the combinations of circumstances by which the end can be reached, concludes that to secure this combination of circumstances is desirable; if it also appear practicable, it turns the theorem into a rule. Unless Science's report as to the circumstances is a full one, the rule may fail; and as, in any case, rules of conduct cannot comprise more than the ordinary conditions of the effect (or they would be too cumbrous for use), they must, at least in moral subjects, be considered, till confronted with the theorems, which are the reasons of them, provisional only. Practical maxims, therefore, till so confronted, are not universally true even for a given end, much less for conduct generally, and must not be used, as they are by the geometrical school, as ultimate premisses.

Any particular art consists of its rules, together with the theorems on which they depend; and Art in general consists of the truths of Science; only these must be arranged in the order most convenient, not, as in Science (which is an enquiry into the course of nature), for thought, but for practice. Intermediate scientific truths must be framed to serve as first principles of the various arts: and through them the end or purpose of an art will be connected with the means for realising the conditions of its attainment. The end itself, however, is defined by the art, not by the science. Each art has one first principle or major premiss which does not, as the propositions of Science, assert that a thing is or will be, but recommends it as what ought to be. A scientific theory, however complete, of the history and tendencies of society does not show us (without Teleology, i.e. the Doctrine of Ends) what are the preferable ends. Art itself has its Philosophia Prima, for ascertaining the standard of ends. There can be but one such standard or general principle to which all rules of practice should conform; for, if there were several, a higher yet would be needed, as umpire when they disagreed. In Morality the felt need of a standard has been sometimes supplied by the hypothesis of intuitive moral principles: but a standard would still be wanted for the other two branches of the Art of Life, viz. Prudence or Policy, and Taste; and their standard when found would serve for Morality as well. The true standard, or general principle, is, the promotion of the happiness of ALL sentient beings. This is not the sole end; for instance, ideal nobleness of will or conduct should be pursued in preference to the specific pursuit of happiness; but all ends whatsoever must be justified and should be controlled by it.

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