Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative, Volume II

It has been by no means an agreeable task to make these personal explanations; but it has seemed to me a task not to be avoided. Differing so profoundly as I do from M. Comte on all fundamental doctrines, save those which we inherit in common from the past; it has become needful to dissipate the impression that I agree with him – needful to show that a large part of what is currently known as “positive philosophy,” is not “positive philosophy” in the sense of being peculiarly M. Comte’s philosophy; and to show that beyond that portion of the so-called “positive philosophy” which is not peculiar to him, I dissent from it.

And now at the close, as at the outset, let me express my great regret that these explanations should have been called forth by the statements of a critic who has treated me so liberally. Nothing will, I fear, prevent the foregoing pages from appearing like a very ungracious response to M. Laugel’s sympathetically-written review. I can only hope that the gravity of the question at issue, in so far as it concerns myself, may be taken in mitigation, if not as a sufficient apology.

NOTE

The preceding pages originally formed the second portion of a pamphlet entitled The Classification of the Sciences: to which are added Reasons for dissenting from the Philosophy of M. Comte, which was first published in 1864. For some time past this pamphlet has been included in the third volume of my Essays, &c., and has been no longer accessible in a separate form. There has recently been diffused afresh, the misconception which originally led me to exhibit my entire rejection of those views of M. Comte, which essentially distinguish his system from other systems; and the motives which then prompted me to publish the reasons for this rejection, now prompt me to put them within the reach of all who care to inquire about the matter. The Appendix, presenting an outline of the leading propositions of the Synthetic Philosophy, will further aid the reader in forming a correct judgment.

Oct. 7, 1884.

APPENDIX A

Some fourteen or more years ago, an American friend requested me, with a view to a certain use which he named, to furnish him with a succinct statement of the cardinal principles developed in the successive works I had published and in those I was intending to publish. This statement I here reproduce. Having been written solely for an expository purpose, and without thought of M. Comte and his system, it will serve better than a statement now drawn up since it is not open to the suspicion of being adapted to the occasion. ¹⁸

“1. Throughout the universe in general and in detail, there is an unceasing redistribution of matter and motion.

“2. This redistribution constitutes evolution where there is a predominant integration of matter and dissipation of motion, and constitutes dissolution where there is a predominant absorption of motion and disintegration of matter.

“3. Evolution is simple when the process of integration, or the formation of a coherent aggregate, proceeds uncomplicated by other processes.

“4. Evolution is compound when, along with this primary change from an incoherent to a coherent state, there go on secondary changes due to differences in the circumstances of the different parts of the aggregate.

“5. These secondary changes constitute a transformation of the homogeneous into the heterogeneous – a transformation which, like the first, is exhibited in the universe as a whole and in all (or nearly all) its details: in the aggregate of stars and nebulae; in the planetary system; in the earth as an inorganic mass; in each organism, vegetal or animal (Von Baer’s law); in the aggregate of organisms throughout geologic time; in the mind; in society; in all products of social activity.

“6. The process of integration, acting locally as well as generally, combines with the process of differentiation to render this change not simply from homogeneity to heterogeneity, but from an indefinite homogeneity to a definite heterogeneity; and this trait of increasing definiteness, which accompanies the trait of increasing heterogeneity, is, like it, exhibited in the totality of things and in all its divisions and sub-divisions down to the minutest.

“7. Along with this redistribution of the matter composing any evolving aggregate, there goes on a redistribution of the retained motion of its components in relation to one another: this also becomes, step by step, more definitely heterogeneous.

“8. In the absence of a homogeneity that is infinite and absolute, that redistribution of which evolution is one phase, is inevitable. The causes which necessitate it are these: —

“9. The instability of the homogeneous, which is consequent upon the different exposures of the different parts of any limited aggregate to incident forces. The transformations hence resulting are complicated by —

“10. The multiplication of effects. Every mass and part of a mass on which a force falls, sub-divides and differentiates that force, which thereupon proceeds to work a variety of changes; and each of these becomes the parent of similarly-multiplying changes: the multiplication of them becoming greater in proportion as the aggregate becomes more heterogeneous. And these two causes of increasing differentiations are furthered by —

“11. Segregation, which is a process tending ever to separate unlike units and to bring together like units – so serving continually to sharpen, or make definite, differentiations otherwise caused.

“12. Equilibration is the final result of these transformations which an evolving aggregate undergoes. The changes go on until there is reached an equilibrium between the forces which all parts of the aggregate are exposed to and the forces these parts oppose to them. Equilibration may pass through a transition stage of balanced motions (as in a planetary system) or of balanced functions (as in a living body) on the way to ultimate equilibrium; but the state of rest in inorganic bodies, or death in organic bodies, is the necessary limit of the changes constituting evolution.

“13. Dissolution is the counter-change which sooner or later every evolved aggregate undergoes. Remaining exposed to surrounding forces that are unequilibrated, each aggregate is ever liable to be dissipated by the increase, gradual or sudden, of its contained motion; and its dissipation, quickly undergone by bodies lately animate and slowly undergone by inanimate masses, remains to be undergone at an indefinitely remote period by each planetary and stellar mass, which, since an indefinitely distant period in the past, has been slowly evolving: the cycle of its transformations being thus completed.

“14. This rhythm of evolution and dissolution, completing itself during short periods in small aggregates, and in the vast aggregates distributed through space completing itself in periods which are immeasurable by human thought, is, so far as we can see, universal and eternal – each alternating phase of the process predominating now in this region of space and now in that, as local conditions determine.

“15. All these phenomena, from their great features down to their minutest details, are necessary results of the persistence of force, under its forms of matter and motion. Given these as distributed through space, and their quantities being unchangeable, either by increase or decrease, there inevitably result the continuous redistributions distinguishable as evolution and dissolution, as well as all those special traits above enumerated.

“16. That which persists unchanging in quantity but ever changing in form, under these sensible appearances which the universe presents to us, transcends human knowledge and conception – is an unknown and unknowable power, which we are obliged to recognize as without limit in space and without beginning or end in time.”

These successive paragraphs set forth in the most abstract way, that process of transformation going on throughout the Cosmos as a whole, and in each larger or smaller portion of it. In First Principles the statements contained in these paragraphs are elaborated, explained, and illustrated; and in subsequent volumes of the series, the purpose has been to interpret the several great groups of phenomena, Astronomical, Geological (both postponed), Biological, Psychological, Sociological, and Ethical, in conformity with these general laws of Evolution which First Principles enunciates.

If it can be shown that any one of the above propositions has been adopted from, or has been suggested by, the Positive Philosophy, there will be evidence that the Synthetic Philosophy is to that extent indebted to it. Or if there can be quoted any expressed conviction of M. Comte, that the factors producing changes of all kinds, inorganic and organic, co-operate everywhere throughout the Cosmos in the same general way, and everywhere work metamorphoses having the same essential traits, a much more decided indebtedness may reasonably be supposed.

So far as I know it, however, the Positive Philosophy contains none of the special ideas above enumerated, nor any of the more general ideas they involve.

APPENDIX B

On pp. 119 and 120 , I have pointed out that the followers of M. Comte, swayed by the spirit of discipleship, habitually ascribe to him a great deal which was the common inheritance of the scientific world before he wrote, and to which he himself laid no claim. Kindred remarks have since been made by others, both in England and in France – the one by Mr. Mill, and the other by M. Fouillée. Mr. Mill says: —

“The foundation of M. Comte’s philosophy is thus in no way peculiar to him, but the general property of the age, however far as yet from being universally accepted even by thoughtful minds. The philosophy called Positive is not a recent invention of M. Comte, but a simple adherence to the traditions of all the great scientific minds whose discoveries have made the human race what it is. M. Comte has never presented it in any other light. But he has made the doctrine his own by his manner of treating it.” – Auguste Comte and Positivism , pp. 8, 9.

In his Histoire de la Philosophie , 1875, M. Alfred Fouillée writes: —

“Saint-Simon voulut successivement organiser la société à l’aide de la science (prétention d’où sortit le positivisme) puis à l’aide de l’industrie, et enfin à l’aide d’une religion nouvelle, capable de ‘forcer chacun de ses membres à suivre le précepte de l’amour du prochain.’” – p. 428.

“Les doctrines sociales de Saint-Simon, jointes au naturalisme de Cabanis et de Broussais, donnèrent naissance au ‘positivisme’ d’Auguste Comte. Ce dernier, comme Saint-Simon, voit dans la science sociale ou ‘sociologie’ le terme et le but de toutes les recherches scientifiques.” – p. 422.

“A cette méthode Auguste Comte ajouta des vues historiques, qu’il croyait entièrement originales, sur les trois états par où passe nécessairement selon lui la connaissance humaine: état théologique, état métaphysique, et état scientifique. Le germe de cette théorie était déjà dans Turgot.” – p. 424.

“En somme, Auguste Comte a eu le mérite d’insister sur les méthodes qui conviennent aux sciences de la nature; mais il faut avouer que ces méthodes étaient connues bien avant lui.” – p. 425.

ON LAWS IN GENERAL, AND THE ORDER OF THEIR DISCOVERY

[ The following was contained in the first edition of First Principles. I omitted it from the re-organized second edition, because it did not form an essential part of the new structure. As it is referred to in the foregoing pages, and as its general argument is germane to the contents of those pages, I have thought well to insert it here. Moreover, though I hope eventually to incorporate it in that division of the Principles of Sociology which treats of Intellectual Progress, yet as it must be long before it can thus re-appear in its permanent place, and as, should I not get so far in the execution of my undertaking, it may never thus re-appear at all, it seems proper to make it more accessible than it is at present. The first and last sections, which served to link it into the argument of the work to which it originally belonged, are omitted. The rest has been carefully revised, and in some parts considerably altered.]

The recognition of Law being the recognition of uniformity of relations among phenomena, it follows that the order in which different groups of phenomena are reduced to law, must depend on the frequency with which the uniform relations they severally display are distinctly experienced. At any given stage of progress, those uniformities will be best known with which men’s minds have been oftenest and most strongly impressed. In proportion partly to the number of times a relation has been presented to consciousness (not merely to the senses), and in proportion partly to the vividness with which the terms of the relation have been cognized, will be the degree in which the constancy of connexion is perceived.

The succession in which relations are generalized being thus determined, there result certain derivative principles to which this succession must more immediately and obviously conform. The first is the directness with which personal welfare is affected. While, among surrounding things, many do not appreciably influence us in any way, some produce pleasures and some pains, in various degrees; and manifestly, those things of which the actions on the organism for good or evil are most decided, will, cæteris paribus, be those of which the laws of action are earliest observed. Second comes the conspicuousness of one or both phenomena between which a relation is to be perceived. On every side are phenomena so concealed as to be detected only by close observation; others not obtrusive enough to attract notice; others which moderately solicit the attention; others so imposing or vivid as to force themselves on consciousness; and, supposing conditions to be the same, these last will of course be among the first to have their relations generalized. In the third place, we have the absolute frequency with which the relations occur. There are coexistences and sequences of all degrees of commonness, from those which are ever present to those which are extremely rare; and manifestly, the rare coexistences and sequences, as well as the sequences which are very long in taking place, will not be reduced to law so soon as those which are familiar and rapid. Fourthly has to be added the relative frequency of occurrence. Many events and appearances are limited to certain times or certain places, or both; and, as a relation which does not exist within the environment of an observer cannot be perceived by him, however common it may be elsewhere or in another age, we have to take account of the surrounding physical circumstances, as well as of the state of society, of the arts, and of the sciences – all of which affect the frequency with which certain groups of facts are observable. The fifth corollary to be noticed is, that the succession in which different classes of relations are reduced to law, depends in part on their simplicity. Phenomena presenting great composition of causes or conditions, have their essential relations so masked, that it requires accumulated experiences to impress upon consciousness the true connexions of antecedents and consequents they involve. Hence, other things equal, the progress of generalization will be from the simple to the complex; and this it is which M. Comte has wrongly asserted to be the sole regulative principle of the progress. Sixth comes the degree of concreteness, or absence of abstractness. Concrete relations are the earliest acquisitions. Such analyses of them as separate the essential connexions from their disguising accompaniments, necessarily come later. The analyses of the connexions, always more or less compound, into their elements then becomes possible. And so on continually, until the highest and most abstract truths have been reached.

These, then, are the several derivative principles. The frequency and vividness with which uniform relations are repeated in conscious experience, determining the recognition of their uniformity, and this frequency and vividness depending on the above conditions, it follows that the order in which different classes of facts are generalized, must depend on the extent to which the above conditions are fulfilled in each class. Let us mark how the facts harmonize with this conclusion: taking first a few that elucidate the general truth, and afterwards some that exemplify the special truths which we here see follow from it.

The relations earliest known as uniformities, are those subsisting among the common properties of matter – tangibility, visibility, cohesion, weight, etc. We have no trace of a time when the resistance offered by an object was regarded as caused by the will of the object; or when the pressure of a body on the hand holding it, was ascribed to the agency of a living being. And accordingly, these are the relations of which we are oftenest conscious: being, as they are, objectively frequent, conspicuous, simple, concrete, and of immediate personal concern.

Similarly with the ordinary phenomena of motion. The fall of a mass on the withdrawal of its support, is a sequence which directly affects bodily welfare, is conspicuous, simple, concrete, and very often repeated. Hence it is one of the uniformities recognized before the dawn of tradition. We know of no era when ordinary movements due to terrestrial gravitation were attributed to volition. Only when the relation is obscured, as where the withdrawal of a support is not obvious, or, as in the case of an aërolite, where the antecedent of the descent is unperceived, do we find the conception of personal agency. On the other hand, motions of intrinsically the same order as that of a falling stone – those of the heavenly bodies – long remain ungeneralized; and until their uniformity is seen, and indeed for a long time after, are construed as results of will. This difference is clearly not dependent on comparative complexity or abstractness, since the motion of a planet in an ellipse of slight eccentricity, is as simple and concrete a phenomenon as the motion of a projected arrow in an ellipse of extreme eccentricity indistinguishable from a parabola. But the antecedents are not conspicuous; the sequences are of long duration; and they are not often repeated. And that these are the causes of their slow reduction to law, we see in the fact that they are severally generalized in the order of their frequency and conspicuousness – the moon’s monthly cycle, the sun’s annual change, the periods of the inferior planets, the periods of the superior planets.

While astronomical sequences were still ascribed to volition, certain terrestrial sequences of a different kind, but some of them equally without complication, were interpreted in like manner. The solidification of water at a low temperature, is a phenomenon that is simple, concrete, and of much personal concern. But it is neither so frequent as those which we see are earliest generalized, nor is the presence of the antecedent so manifest. Though in all but tropical climates, mid-winter displays the relation between cold and freezing with tolerable constancy; yet, during the spring and autumn, the occasional appearance of ice in the mornings has no very obvious connexion with coldness of the weather. Sensation being so inaccurate a measure, it is not possible for the savage to experience the definite relation between a temperature of 32° and the congealing of water; and hence the long continued belief in personal agency. Similarly, but still more clearly, with the winds. The absence of regularity and the inconspicuousness of the antecedents, allowed the mythological explanation to survive for a great period.

During the era in which the uniformity of many quite simple inorganic relations was still unrecognized, certain organic relations, intrinsically very complex and special, were generalized. The constant coexistence of feathers and a beak, of four legs with an internal bony framework, are facts which were, and are, familiar to every savage. Did a savage find a bird with teeth, or a mammal clothed with feathers, he would be as much surprised as an instructed naturalist. Now these uniformities of organic structure thus early perceived, are of exactly the same kind as those more numerous ones later established by biology. The constant coexistence of mammary glands with two occipital condyles to the skull, of vertebræ with teeth lodged in sockets, of frontal horns with the habit of rumination, are generalizations as purely empirical as those known to the aboriginal hunter. The botanist cannot in the least understand the complex relation between papilionaceous flowers and seeds borne in flattened pods: he knows these and like connexions simply in the same way that the barbarian knows the connexions between particular leaves and particular kinds of wood. But the fact that sundry of the uniform relations which chiefly make up the organic sciences, were very early recognized, is due to the high degrees of vividness and frequency with which they were presented to consciousness. Though the connexion between the sounds characteristic of a certain bird, and the possession of edible flesh, is extremely involved, yet the two terms of the relation are conspicuous, often recur in experience, and a knowledge of their connexion has a direct bearing on personal welfare. Meanwhile innumerable relations of the same order, which are displayed with even greater frequency by surrounding plants and animals, remain for thousands of years unrecognized, if they are unobtrusive or of no apparent moment.

When, passing from this primitive stage to a more advanced stage, we trace the discovery of those less familiar uniformities which mainly constitute what is distinguished as Science, we find the succession in which knowledge of them is reached, to be still determined in the same manner. This will become obvious on contemplating separately the influence of each derivative condition.

How relations that have immediate bearings on the maintenance of life, are, other things equal, fixed in the mind before those which have no immediate bearings, the history of Science abundantly illustrates. The habits of existing uncivilized races, who fix times by moons and barter so many of one article for so many of another, show us that conceptions of equality and number, which are the germs of mathematical science, were developed under the immediate pressure of personal wants; and it can scarcely be doubted that those laws of numerical relations which are embodied in the rules of arithmetic, were first brought to light through the practice of mercantile exchange. Similarly with geometry. The derivation of the word shows us that it originally included only certain methods of partitioning ground and laying out buildings. The properties of the scales and the lever, involving the first principle in mechanics, were early generalized under the stimulus of commercial and architectural needs. To fix the times of religious festivals and agricultural operations, were the motives which led to the establishment of the simpler astronomic periods. Such small knowledge of chemical relations as was involved in ancient metallurgy, was manifestly obtained in seeking how to improve tools and weapons. In the alchemy of later times, we see how greatly an intense hope of private benefit contributed to the disclosure of a certain class of uniformities. Nor is our own age barren of illustrations. “Here,” says Humboldt, when in Guiana, “as in many parts in Europe, the sciences are thought worthy to occupy the mind, only so far as they confer some immediate and practical benefit on society.” “How is it possible to believe,” said a missionary to him, “that you have left your country to come to be devoured by mosquitoes on this river, and to measure lands that are not your own?” Our coasts furnish like instances. Every sea-side naturalist knows how great is the contempt with which fishermen regard the collection of objects for the microscope or aquarium. Their incredulity as to the possible value of such things is so great, that they can scarcely be induced even by bribes to preserve the refuse of their nets. Nay, we need not go for evidence beyond daily table-talk. The demand for “practical science” – for a knowledge that can be brought to bear on the business of life – joined to the ridicule commonly vented on scientific pursuits having no obvious uses, suffice to show that the order in which laws are discovered greatly depends on the directness with which knowledge of them affects our welfare.

That, when all other conditions are the same, obtrusive relations will be generalized before unobtrusive ones, is so nearly a truism that examples appear almost superfluous. If it be admitted that by the aboriginal man, as by the child, the co-existent properties of large surrounding objects are noticed before those of minute objects, and that the external relations which bodies present are generalized before their internal relations, it must be admitted that in subsequent stages of progress, the comparative conspicuousness of relations has greatly affected the order in which they were recognized as uniform. Hence it happened that after the establishment of those very manifest sequences constituting a lunation, and those less manifest ones marking a year, and those still less manifest ones marking the planetary periods, astronomy occupied itself with such inconspicuous sequences as those displayed in the repeating cycle of lunar eclipses, and those which suggested the theory of epicycles and eccentrics; while modern astronomy deals with still more inconspicuous sequences, some of which, as the planetary rotations, are nevertheless the simplest which the heavens present. In physics, the early use of canoes implied an empirical knowledge of certain hydrostatic relations that are intrinsically more complex than sundry static relations not empirically known; but these hydrostatic relations were thrust upon observation. Or, if we compare the solution of the problem of specific gravity by Archimedes with the discovery of atmospheric pressure by Torricelli (the two involving mechanical relations of the same class), we perceive that the much earlier occurrence of the first than the last was determined, neither by a difference in their bearings on personal welfare, nor by a difference in the frequency with which illustrations of them came under observation, nor by relative simplicity; but by the greater obtrusiveness of the connexion between antecedent and consequent in the one case than in the other. Among miscellaneous illustrations, it may be pointed out that the connexions between lightning and thunder, and between rain and clouds, were recognized long before others of the same order, simply because they thrust themselves on the attention. Or the long-delayed discovery of the microscopic forms of life, with all the phenomena they present, may be named as very clearly showing how certain groups of relations not ordinarily perceptible, though in other respects like long-familiar relations, have to wait until changed conditions render them perceptible. But, without further details, it needs only to consider the inquiries which now occupy the electrician, the chemist, the physiologist, to see that science has advanced, and is advancing, from the more conspicuous phenomena to the less conspicuous ones.

How the degree of absolute frequency of a relation affects the recognition of its uniformity, we see in contrasting certain biological facts. The connexion between death and bodily injury, constantly displayed not only in men but in all inferior creatures, came to be recognized as an instance of natural causation while yet deaths from diseases or from some of them continued to be thought supernatural. Among diseases themselves, it is observable that unusual ones were regarded as of demoniacal origin during ages when the more frequent were ascribed to ordinary causes: a truth paralleled among our own peasantry, who by the use of charms show a lingering superstition with respect to rare disorders, which they do not show with respect to common ones, such as colds. Passing to physical illustrations, we may note that within the historic period whirlpools were accounted for by the agency of water-spirits; but we do not find that within the same period the disappearance of water on exposure either to the sun or to artificial heat was interpreted in an analogous way: though a more marvellous occurrence, and a more complex one, its great frequency led to the early recognition of it as a natural uniformity. Rainbows and comets do not differ much in conspicuousness, and a rainbow is intrinsically the more involved phenomenon; but chiefly because of their far greater commonness, rainbows were perceived to have a direct dependence on sun and rain while yet comets were regarded as signs of divine wrath.

That races living inland must long have remained ignorant of the daily and monthly sequences of the tides, and that tropical races could not early have comprehended the phenomena of northern winters, are extreme illustrations of the influence which relative frequency has on the recognition of uniformities. Animals which, where they are indigenous, call forth no surprise by their structures or habits, because these are so familiar, when taken to countries where they have never been seen, are looked at with an astonishment approaching to awe – are even thought supernatural: a fact which will suggest numerous others that show how the localization of phenomena shares in controlling the order in which they are reduced to law. Not only however does their localization in space affect the progression, but also their localization in time. Facts which are rarely if ever manifested in one era, are rendered very frequent in another, simply through the changes wrought by civilization. The lever, of which the properties are illustrated in the use of sticks and weapons, is vaguely understood by every savage – on applying it in a certain way he rightly anticipates certain effects; but the wheel-and-axle, pulley, and screw, cannot have their powers either empirically or rationally known till the advance of the arts has more or less familiarized them. Through those various means of exploration which we have inherited and added to, we have become acquainted with a vast range of chemical relations that were relatively non-existent to the primitive man. To highly-developed industries we owe both the substances and the appliances that have disclosed to us countless uniformities which our ancestors had no opportunity of seeing. These and like instances, show that the accumulated materials, and processes, and products, which characterize the environments of complex societies, greatly increase the accessibility of various classes of relations; and by thus multiplying the experiences of them, or making them relatively frequent, facilitate the generalization of them. Moreover, various classes of phenomena presented by society itself, as for instance those which political economy formulates, become relatively frequent, and therefore recognizable, in advanced social states; while in less advanced ones they are either too rarely displayed to have their relations perceived, or, as in the least advanced ones, are not displayed at all.