IMAGE EVALUATION 
 TEST TARGET (MT-3) 
 
 
 A 
 
 {./ 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 A 
 
 & 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 1.0 
 
 I.I 
 
 1.25 
 
 ^il llllltt 
 
 6" 
 
 IIIM 
 
 2.0 
 
 1.8 
 
 U ill 1.6 
 
 ^ 
 
 <^ 
 
 //y. 
 
 /: 
 
 
 
 y 
 
 '^ 
 
 Photographic 
 
 Sciences 
 
 Corporation 
 
 23 WEST MAIN STREET 
 
 WEBSTER, NY. 14580 
 
 (716) 872-4503 
 
 ,\ 
 
 ;v 
 
 ^<i 
 
 V 
 
 •sj 
 
 :\ 
 
 \ 
 
 >% 
 
 
 6^ 
 
CIHM/ICMH 
 
 Microfiche 
 
 Series. 
 
 CIHM/ICMH 
 Collection de 
 microfiches. 
 
 Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions / Institut Canadian de microrcproductions histcriques 
 
Technical and Bibliographic Notes/Notes techniques et bibiiographiques 
 
 The Institute has attempted to obtain the best 
 original copy available for filming. Features of this 
 copy which may be bibliographically unique, 
 which may alter any of the images in the 
 reproduction, or which may significantly change 
 the usual method of filming, are checlced below. 
 
 ^ 
 
 Coloured covers/ 
 Couverture de couleur 
 
 r~~| Covers damaged/ 
 
 D 
 
 Couverture endommag6e 
 
 Covers restored and/or laminated/ 
 Couverture restaur6e et/ou pelliculde 
 
 I I Cover title missing/ 
 
 Le titre de couverture manque 
 
 □ Coloured maps/ 
 Cartes gdographiques en couieur 
 
 D 
 
 Coloured inic (i.e. other than blue or black)/ 
 Encre de couleur (i.e. autre que bleue ou noire) 
 
 I I Coloured plates and/or illustrations/ 
 
 
 D 
 
 D 
 
 Planches et/ou illustrations en couleur 
 
 Bound with other material/ 
 Reli6 avec d'autres documents 
 
 Tight binding may cause shaduws or distortion 
 along interior margin/ 
 
 La reliure serrde peut causer de I'ombre ou de la 
 distortion le long de la marge int^rieure 
 
 Blank leaves added during restoration may 
 appear within the text. Whenever possible, these 
 have been omitted from filming/ 
 II se peut que certaines pages blanches ajout^es 
 lors d'une restauration apparaissent dans le texte, 
 mais, lorsque cela 6tait possible, ces pages n'ont 
 pas 6t6 filmdes. 
 
 Additional comments./ 
 Commentaires suppl^mentaires: 
 
 L'Institut a microfilm^ le meilleur exemplaire 
 qu'il lui a 6t6 possible de se procurer. Les details 
 de cet exemplaire qui sont peut-dtre uniques du 
 point de vue bibliographique. qui peuvent modifier 
 une image reproduite, ou qui peuvent exiger une 
 modification dans la mdthode normale de filmage 
 sont indiqu6s ci-dessous. 
 
 I I Coloured pages/ 
 
 Pages de couleur 
 
 Pages damaged/ 
 Pages endommag6es 
 
 Pages restored and/oi 
 
 Pages restaurdes et/ou pelliculdes 
 
 Pages discoloured, stained or foxei 
 Pages d6colordes, tachetdes ou piqudes 
 
 I — I Pages damaged/ 
 
 I — I Pages restored and/or laminated/ 
 
 I — I Pages discoloured, stained or foxed/ 
 
 l~~| Pages detached/ 
 I I Pages ddtachdes 
 
 r'"VShowthrough/ 
 I J_l Transparence 
 
 j I Quality of print varies/ 
 
 D 
 
 Quality indgale de I'impression 
 
 Includes supplementary material/ 
 Comprend du matdriel supplementaire 
 
 Only edition available/ 
 Seule Edition disponible 
 
 Pages wholly or partially obscured by errata 
 slips, tissues, etc., have btan refilmed to 
 ensure the best possible Lnage/ 
 Les pages totalement ou partiellement 
 obscurcies par un feuillet d'errata, une pelure, 
 etc., ont 6t6 filmdes d nouveau de fapon d 
 obtenir la meilleure image possible. 
 
 This item is filmed at the reduction ratio checked below/ 
 
 Ce document est filrn^ au taux de reduction indiqud ci-dessous. 
 
 10X 14X 18X 22X 
 
 ■J 
 
 26X 
 
 30X 
 
 12X 
 
 16X 
 
 20X 
 
 24X 
 
 28X 
 
 32X 
 
The copy filmed here has been reproduced thanks 
 to the generosity of: 
 
 National Library of Canada 
 
 L'exemplaire film6 fut reproduit grftce d la 
 g6n6rosit6 de: 
 
 Bibliothdque nationale du Canada 
 
 The images appearing here are the best quality 
 possible considering the condition and legibility 
 of the original copy and in keeping with the 
 filming contract specifications. 
 
 Les images suivantes ont 6t6 reproduites avec le 
 plus grand soin, compte tenu de la condition et 
 de la nettet6 de l'exemplaire film6, et en 
 conformity avec les conditions du contrat de 
 filmage. 
 
 Original copies in printed paper covers are filmed 
 beginning with the front cover and ending on 
 the last page with a printed or illustrated impres- 
 sion, or the back cover when appropriate. All 
 other original copies are filmed beginning on the 
 first page with a printed or illustrated impres- 
 sion, and ending on the last page with a .printed 
 or illustrated impression. 
 
 Les exemplaires originaux dont la couverture en 
 papier est imprimis sont fiimis en commen9ant 
 par le premier plat et en terminant soit par la 
 dernidre page qui comporte une empreinte 
 d'impression ou d'illustration, soit par le second 
 plat, selon le cas. Tous les autres exemplaires 
 originaux sont filmis en commenpant par la 
 premidre page qui comporte une empreinte 
 d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par 
 la dernidre page qui comporte une telle 
 empreinte. 
 
 The last recorded frame on each microfiche 
 shall contain the symbol —^> (meaning "CON- 
 TINUED"), or the symbol V (meaning "END"), 
 whichever applies. 
 
 Un des symboles suivants apparaftra sur la 
 dernidre image de cheque microfiche, selon le 
 cas: le symbols -^ signifie "A SUIVRE", le 
 symbols V signifie "FIN". 
 
 Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at 
 different reduction ratios. Those too large to be 
 entirely included in one exposure are filmed 
 beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to 
 right and top to bottom, as many frames as 
 required. The following diagrams illustrate the 
 method: 
 
 Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre 
 fiimis d des taux de reduction diffirents. 
 Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre 
 reproduit en un seul clich6, il est film6 d partir 
 de Tangle supdrieur gauche, de gauche d droite, 
 et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre 
 d'images ndcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants 
 illustrent la mithode. 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
/ 
 
 /^ 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 3. 
 
 T 
 
 JOHN STUART MILl, 
 
 A8 CONTAINED IN 
 EXTRACTS PROM HIS OWN WRITINGS. 
 
 SELECTED BY 
 
 JOHN WATSON, LL.D., 
 
 PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPUY IN THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF queen's college. 
 
 KINGSTON: 
 
 WM. BAILIE, PRINTER, 
 1891. 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF JOHN STUART MILL. 
 
 -o- 
 
 LOGIC— BOOK II. 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 OF DEMONSTRATION AND NECESSARY TRUTHS, 
 
 § 1. If, as laid down in the two preceding chapters, the foun- 
 dation of all sciences, even deductive or demonstrative sciences, 
 is Induction; if every step in the ratiocinations even of geometry 
 is an act of induction; and if a train of reasoning is but bringing 
 many inductions to bear upon the same subject of inquiry, and 
 drawing a case within one induction by means of another; 
 wherein lies the peculiar certainty always ascribed to the sciences 
 which are entirely, or almost entirely, deductive? Why are they 
 called the Exact Sciences? Why are mathematical certainty, 
 and the evidence of demonstration, common phrases to express 
 the very highest degree of assurance attainable by reason? Why 
 are mathematics by almost all philosophers, and (by many) even 
 those branches cL natural philosophy which, through the medium 
 of mathematics, have been converted into deductive sciences, 
 considered to be independent of the evidence of experience and 
 observation, and characterized as systems of Necessary Truth? 
 
 The answer I conceive to be, that this character of necessity, 
 ascribed to the truths of mathematics, and even (with some res- 
 ervations to be hereafter made) the peculiar certainty attributed 
 to them, is an illusion; in order to sustain which, it is necessary 
 to suppose that those truths relate to, and express the properties 
 of, purely imaginary objects. It is acknowledged that the con- 
 clusions of geometry are deduced, partly at least, from the so- 
 called Def nitions, and that those definitions are assumed to be 
 correct descriptions, as far as they go, of the objects with which 
 geometry is conversant. Now we have pointed out that, from a 
 definition as such, no proposition, unless it be one concerning the 
 meaning of a word, can ever follow; and that what apparently 
 
follows from a definition, follows in reality from an impliefl as- 
 sumption that their exists a real thing conformable thereto. This 
 assumption, in the case of the definitions of geometry, is false: 
 there exist no real things exactly conformable to the definitions. 
 There exist no points without magnitude; no lines without 
 breadth, nor perfectly straight; no circles with all their radii ex- 
 actly equal, nor squares with all their angles perfectly right. It 
 will perhaps be said that the assumption does not extend to the 
 actual, but only to the possible, existence of such things. I 
 answer that, according to any test we have of possibility, they 
 are not even possible. Their existence, so far as we can form 
 any judgment, would seem to be inconsistent with the physical 
 constitution of our planet at least, if not of the universe. To get 
 rid of this diflflculty, and at the same time to save the credit of 
 the supposed systems of necessary truth, it is customary to say 
 that the points, lines, circles, and squares which are the subject 
 of geometry, exist in our conceptions merely, and are part of our 
 minds; which minds, by working on their own materials, con- 
 struct an a priori science, the evidence of which is purely mental, 
 and has nothing whatever to do with outward experience. By 
 howsoever high authorities this doctrine may have been sanc- 
 tioned, it appears to me psychologically incorrect. The points, 
 lines, circles, and squares, which any one has in his mind, are 
 (I apprehend) simply copies of the points, lines, circles, and 
 squares which he has known in his experience. A line as defined 
 by geometers is wholly inconceivable. We can reason about a 
 line as if it had no breadth; because we have a power, which is 
 the foundation of all the control we can exercise over the opera- 
 tions of our minds; the power, when a perception is present to 
 our senses, or a conception to our intellects, of attending to a part 
 only of that perception or conception, instead of the whole. But 
 we cannot conceive a line without breadth; we can form no mental 
 picture of such a line; all the lines which we have in our minds 
 are lines possessing breadth. It any one doubts this, we may 
 refer him to his own experience, I much question if any one 
 who fancies that he can conceive what is called a mathematical 
 line, thinks so from the evidence of his consciousness: I suspect 
 
nplierl as- 
 
 •eto. This 
 is false: 
 
 'finitions. 
 without 
 
 radii e.\- 
 
 '^Sht. It 
 to the 
 iings. I 
 
 ^y. they 
 in form 
 ^^lysical 
 To get 
 ■edit of 
 
 to say 
 '"bject 
 
 of our 
 3, con- 
 lental, 
 • By 
 sanc- 
 oints, 
 i, are 
 
 and 
 Sned 
 "t a 
 h is 
 era- 
 t to 
 >art 
 But 
 tal 
 ids 
 ay 
 
 ae 
 al 
 
 3t 
 
 it is rather because he supposes that unless such a conception 
 were possible, mathematics could not exist as a science: a sup- 
 position which there will be no difficulty in showing to be entirely 
 groundless. 
 
 Since then neither in nature, nor in the human mind, do there 
 exist any objects exactly corresponding to the definitions of ge- 
 ometry, while yet that science cannot be supposed to be conver- 
 sant about non-entities; nothing remains but to consider geometry 
 as conversant witli such lines, angles, and figures as really exist; 
 and the definit.ons, as they are called, must be regarded as some of 
 our first and mt.st obvious generalizations concerning those nat- 
 ural objects. The correctness of those generalizations, as gener- 
 alizations, is without a flaw: the equality of all the radii of a 
 circle is true of all circles, so far as it is true of any one: but it 
 is not exactly true of any circle: it is only nearly true, so nearly 
 that no error of any importance in practice will be incurred by 
 feigning it to be exactly true. When we have occasion to extend 
 these inductions, or their consequences, to cases in which the 
 error would be appreciable — to lines of perceptible breadth or 
 thickness, parallels which deviate sensibly from equidistance, 
 and the like — we correct our conclusions, by combining with them 
 a fresh set of propositions relating to the aberration; just as we 
 also take in propositions relating to the physical or chemical pro - 
 perties of the material, if those properties happen to introduce 
 any modification in^o the result, which they easily may, even 
 with respect to figure and magnitude, as in the case, for instance, 
 of expansion by heat. So long, however, as their exists no prac- 
 tical necessity for attending to any of the properties of the 
 object, except its geometrical properties, or to any of the 
 natural irregularities in those, it is convenient to neglect the 
 consideration of the other properties and of the irregularities, 
 and to reason as if these did not exist: accordingly, we formally 
 announce, in the definitions, that we intend to proceed on this 
 plan. But it is an error to suppose, because we resolve to confine 
 our attention to a certain number of the properties of an object, 
 that we therefore conceive, or have an idea of, the object, de- 
 nuded of its other properties. We are thinking, all the time, of 
 
precisely such objects as we have seen and touched, and with all 
 the properties which naturally belong to them; but for scientific 
 convenience, we feign thera to be divested of all properties, ex- 
 cept those which are material to our purpose, and in regard to 
 which we design to consider them. 
 
 The peculiar accuracy, supposed to be characteristic of the 
 first principles of geometry, thus appears to be fictitious. The 
 assertions on which the reasonings of the science are founded, do 
 not, any more than in other sciences, exactly correspond with the 
 fact; but we svppose that they do so, for the sake of tracing the 
 consequences which follow from the supposition. The opinion of 
 Dugald Stewart respecting the foundations of geometry, is, I con- 
 ceive, substantially correct; that it is built upon hypotheses; that 
 it owes to this alone the peculiar certainty supposed to distinguish 
 it; and that in any science whatever, by reasoning from a set of 
 hypotheses, we may obtain a body of conclusions as certain as 
 those of geometry, that is, as strictly in accordance with the 
 hypotheses, and as irresistibly compelling assent, on condition 
 that those hypotheses are true 
 
 When, therefore, it is affirmed that the conclusions of geometry 
 are necessary truths, the necessity consists in reality only in this, 
 that they necessarily follow from the suppositions from which 
 they are deduced. These suppositions are so far from being 
 necessary, that they are not even true; they purposely depart, 
 more or less widely, from the truth. The Only sense in which 
 necessity can be ascribed to the conclusions of any scientific in- 
 vestigation, is that of necessarily following from some assump- 
 tion, which, by the conditions of the inquiry, is not to be ques- 
 tioned. In this relation of course, the derivative truths of every 
 deductive science must stand to the inductions, or assumptions, 
 on which the science is founded, and which, whether true or un- 
 true, certain or doubtful in themselves, are always supposed cer- 
 tain for the purposes of the particular science. And therefore the 
 conclusions of all deductive sciences were said „by the ancients 
 to be necessary propositions. We have observed already that to 
 be predicated necessarily was characteristic of the predicable 
 Proprium, and that a proprium was any property of a thing 
 
d with ali 
 
 scientific 
 rties, ex- 
 
 ■eg-ard to 
 
 c of tLe 
 IS. Tjje 
 oded, do 
 ^ith the 
 
 ^og the 
 nion of 
 > I con- 
 s; that 
 n^uish 
 
 set of 
 din as 
 h the 
 dition 
 
 netry 
 
 this, 
 
 hich 
 
 eing 
 
 )art, 
 
 lich 
 
 in- 
 np- 
 les- 
 
 IS, 
 
 n- 
 r- 
 
 le 
 
 ^s 
 
 
 
 which could be deduced from its esscDce, that is, from the pro- 
 perties included in its definition. 
 
 § 2. The important doctrine of Dugald Stewart, which I have 
 endeavored to enforce, has been contested by Dr. Whewell, both 
 in the dissertation appended to his excellent Mechanical Euclid, 
 and in his more recent elaborate work on the PhiloHophy of the 
 Inductive Sciences ; in which last he also replies to an article in 
 the Edinburgh Review, (ascribed to a writer of great scientific 
 eminence) in which Stewart's opinion was defended against his 
 former strictures. The supposed refutation of Stewart consists 
 in proving against him (as has also been done in this work) that 
 the premisses of geometry are not definitions, but assumptions of 
 the real existence of things corresponding to those definitions. 
 This, however, is doing little for Dr. Whewell* s purpose; for it 
 is these very assumptions which are asserted to be hypotheses, 
 and which he, if he denies that geometry is founded on hypo- 
 theses, must show to be absolute truths. All he does, how- 
 ever, is to observe, that they at any rate are not arbitrary hypo- 
 theses; that we should not be at liberty to substitute other hypo- 
 theses for them; that not only " a definition, to be admissible, 
 must necessarily refer to and agree with some conception which 
 we can distinctly frame in our thoughts," but that the straight 
 lines, for instance, which we define, must be "those by wliich 
 angles are contained, those by which triangles are bounded, those 
 of which parallelism may be predicated, and the like." * And 
 this is true; but this has never been contradicted. Those who say 
 that the premisses of geometry are hypotheses, are not bound to 
 maintain them to be hypotheses which have no relation whatever 
 to fact. Since an hypothesis framed for the purpose of scientific 
 inquiry must relate to something which has real existence, (for 
 there can be no science respecting non-entities,) it follows that 
 any hypothesis we make respecting an object, to facilitate our 
 study of it, must not involve anything which is distinctly false, 
 and repugnant to its real nature: we must not ascribe to the thing 
 any property which it has not; our liberty extends only to sup- 
 
 *Mechanieal Euclid, pp. 149, et seqq. 
 
8 
 
 pressing some of those which it has, under the indispensable ob- 
 ligation of restoring them whenever, and in as far as, their pres- 
 ence or absence would make any material difference in the truth 
 of our conclusions. Of this nature, accordingly, are the first 
 principles involved in the definitions of geometry. In their pos- 
 itive part they are observed facts; it is only in their negative part 
 that they are hypothetical. That the hypotheses should be of 
 this particular character, is, however, no further necesnary, than 
 inasmuch as no others could enable us to deduce conclusions 
 which, with due corrections, would be true of real objects, and 
 in fact when our aim is only to illustrate truths and not to inves- 
 tigate them, we are not under any such restriction. We might 
 suppose an imaginary animal, and work out by deduction, from 
 the known laws of physiology, its natural history; or an imagin- 
 ary commonwealth, and from the elements composing it, might 
 argue what would be its fate. And the conclusions which we 
 might thus draw from purely arbitrary hypotheses, might form 
 a highly useful intellectual exercise: but as they could only teach 
 us what icould be the properties of objects which do not really 
 exist, they would not constitute any addition to our knowledge: 
 while on the contra^'y, if the hypothesis merely divests a real 
 object of some portion of its properties, without clothing it in 
 false ones, the conclusions will always express, under known lia- 
 bility to correction, actual truth. 
 
 § 3. But although Dr. Whewell has not shaken Stewart's doc- 
 trine as to the hypothetical character of that portion of the first 
 principles of geometry which are involved in the so-called defini- 
 tions, he has, I conceive, greatly the advantage of Stewart on an- 
 other important point in the theory of geometrical reasoning; the 
 necessity of admitting, among those first principles, axioms as well 
 as definitions. Some of the axioms of Euclid might, no doubt, be 
 exhibited in the form of definitions, or might be deduced, by reason- 
 ing, from propositions similar to what are socalled. Thus if instead 
 of the axiom, Magnitudes which can be made to coincide are equal, 
 we introduce a definition, " Equal magnitudes are those which 
 may be so applied to one another as to coincide;" the three axioms 
 which follow, (Magnitudes which are equal to the same are equal 
 
"isable ob- 
 their pres- 
 1 the truth 
 ' the first 
 their pos- 
 ■alive part 
 uld be of 
 ^^ry, than 
 >nclusions 
 
 t'Cts. EDd 
 
 to inves- 
 Ve might 
 ion, from 
 » imagin- 
 if, might 
 hich we 
 M form 
 iJy teach 
 3t really 
 )wledge; 
 8 a real 
 ag it in 
 ma Ha- 
 t's doc- 
 he first 
 defini- 
 onau- 
 ig; the 
 18 well 
 ibt, be 
 eason- 
 istead 
 Jqual, 
 vhich 
 cioms 
 equal 
 
 9 
 
 to one another — If equals arc addcc^ to equals the sums are equal 
 — If equals are taken from equals th ; remainders are equal,) may 
 be proved by an inuiginary superposition, resembling that by 
 whicli the fourth proposition of the first book of Euclid is demon- 
 strated. But although these and several others may be struck 
 out of the list of first principles, because thougn not requiring 
 demonstration, they ar<: susceptible of it; there will be found in 
 the list of axioms two or three fundamental truths, not capable of 
 being demonstrated: among which must be reckoned the proposi- 
 tion that two straight lines cannot inclose a .space, (o- its equivalent, 
 straight lines which coincide in two points coincide altogether.) and 
 some property of parallel lines, other than that \" hicrh constitutes 
 their definition: the most suitable, perhaps, being inat selected by 
 Professor Play fair: "Two straight lines which intersect each other 
 cannot both of them be parallel to a third sf i.^jht line." 
 
 The ax'oT> '., as well those which are iiidemonst able as those 
 which admit of beini'- dcmonstra'aMl. differ from tb.L other class 
 of liindamental principles which are involved in the definitions, 
 in this, that they are true without any mixture \>i hypothesis. 
 That things which are equal to the same thing are e(]ual to one 
 another, is as true of the lines and figures in nature, as it would 
 be of the imaginary ones assumed in the definitions. In this res- 
 pect, however, mathematics are only on a par with most other 
 sciences. In almost all sciences there are some general propo- 
 sitions which are exactly true, while the greiter part are only 
 more or less distant approximations to the truth. Thus in me- 
 chanics, the first law of motion (the continuance of a movement 
 once impressed, until stopped or slackened by some resisting 
 force) is true without qualification or error. The rotation of the 
 earth in twenty-four hours, of the same length as in our time, 
 has gone on since the first accurate observations, without the 
 increase or diminution of one second in all that period. These 
 are inductions which require no fiction to make them be received 
 as accurately true: but along with them there are others, as for 
 instance the propositions respecting the figure of the earth, which 
 are but approximations to the truth; and in order to use them for 
 the further advancement of our knowledge, we must feign that 
 
r 
 
 10 
 
 they are exactly true, though they really want something of 
 being so. 
 
 § 4. It remaijs to inquire, what is the ground of our belief in 
 axioms — what is the evidence on which they rest? I answer, they 
 are experimental truths; generalizations from observation. The 
 proposition, Two straight lines cannot inclose a space — or in other 
 words, Two straight lines which have once met do not meet again, 
 but continue to diverge — is an induction from the evidence of 
 our senses. 
 
 This opinion runs counter to a scientific prejudice of long 
 standing and great strength, and there is probably no one propo- 
 sition enunciated in this work for which a more unfavourable re- 
 ception is to be expected. It is, however, no new opinion; and 
 even if it were so, would be entitled to be judged, not by its 
 novelty, but by the strength of the arguments by which it can be 
 supported. I consider it very fortunate that so eminent a cham- 
 pion of the contrary opinion as Dr. Whewell, has recently found 
 occasion for a most elaborate treatment of the whole theory of 
 axioms, in attempting to construct the philosophy of the mathe- 
 matical and physical sciences on the basis of the doctrine against 
 which I now contend. Whoever is anxious that a discussion 
 should go to the bottom of the subject, must rejoice to see the 
 opposite side of the question worthily represented. If what is 
 said by Dr. Whewell, in support of an opinion which he has made 
 the foundation of a systematic work, can be shown not to be con- 
 clusive, enough will have been done without going further to seek 
 stronger arguments and a more powerful adversary. 
 
 It is not necessary to show that the truths which we call axioms 
 are originally suggested by observation, and that we should never 
 have known that two straight lines cannot inclose a space if we 
 had never seen a straight line: thus much being admitted by Dr. 
 Whewell, and by all, in recent times, who have taken his view 
 of the subject. But they contend, that it is not experience which 
 proves Wxe axiom; but that its truth is perceived <i pnon", by the 
 constitution of the mind itself, from the first moment when the 
 meaning of the proposition is apprehended; and without any ne- 
 cessity for verifying it by repeated trials, as is requisite in the case 
 of truths really ascertained by observation. 
 
 
omethiD^ of f 
 
 >ur belief in 
 inswer, they 
 ation. The 
 -or in other 
 meet again, 
 evidence of 
 
 ice of long 
 
 one propo- 
 '"ourable re- 
 ^inion; and 
 not by its 
 *h it can be 
 nt a cham- 
 ntly found 
 
 theory of 
 he mathe- 
 ine against 
 discussion 
 to see the 
 f what is 
 has made 
 to be con- 
 erto seek 
 
 til axioms 
 uld never 
 ice if we 
 !d by Dr. 
 his view 
 2e which 
 '', by the 
 s^hen the 
 any ne- 
 the case 
 
 
 11 
 
 They cannot, however, but allow that the truth of the axiom, Two 
 straight lines cannot inclose a space, even if evident independently 
 of experience, is also evident from experience. Whether the axiom 
 needs confirmation or not, it receives confirmation in almost every 
 instant of our lives; since we cannot look at any two straight lines 
 which intersect one another, without seeing that from that point 
 they continue to diverge more and more. Experimental proof 
 crowds in upon us in such endless profusion, and without one in- 
 stance in which there can be even a suspicion of an exception to 
 the rule, that we should soon have a stronger ground for believing 
 the axiom, even as an experimental truth, than we have for almost 
 any of the general truths which we confessedly learn from the 
 evidence of our senses. Independently of d priori evidence, we 
 should certainly believe it with an intensity of conviction far 
 greater than we accord to any ordinary physical truth: and this 
 too at a time of life much earlier than that from which we date 
 almost any part of our acquired knowledge, and much too early 
 to admit of our retaining any recollection of the history of our 
 intellectual operations at that period. Where then is the neces- 
 sity for assuming that our recognition of these truths has a differ- 
 ent origin from the rest of our knowledge, when its existence is 
 perfectly accounted for by supposing its origin to be the same? 
 when the causes which produce belief in all other instances, exist 
 in this instance, and in a degree of strength as much superior to 
 what exists in other cases, as the intensity of the belief itself is 
 superior? The burden of proof lies on the advocates of the con- 
 trary opinion: it is for them to point out some fact, inconsistent 
 with the supposition that this part of our kowledge of nature is 
 derived from the same sources as every other part. 
 
 This, for instance, they would be able to do, if they could 
 prove chronologically that we had the conviction (at least prac- 
 tically) so early in infancy as to be anterior to those impressions 
 on the senses, upon which, on the other theory, the conviction 
 is founded. This, however, cannot be proved: the point being 
 too far back to be within the reach of memory, and too obscure 
 for external observation. The advocates of the d priori theory 
 are obliged to have recourse to other arguments. These are 
 
12 
 
 reducible to two, which I shall endeavour to state as clearly and 
 as forcibly as possible. 
 
 § 5. In the first place it is said, that if our assent to the propo- 
 sition that two straight lines cannot inclose a space, were derived 
 from the senses, we could only be convinced of its truth by actual 
 trial, that is, by seeing or feeling the straight lines; whereas in 
 fact it is seen to be true by merely thinking oi them. That a 
 stone thrown into water goes to the bottom, may be perceived by 
 our senses, but mere thinking of a stone thrown into the water 
 would never have led us to that conclusion: not so, however, with 
 ihe a::iom8 relating to straight lines: if I could be made to con- 
 ceive what a straight line is, without having seen one, I should 
 at once recognize that two such lines cannot inclose a space. In- 
 tuition is "imaginary looking;"* but experience must be real 
 looking: if we see a property of straight lines to be true by 
 merely fancying ourselves to be looking at them, the ground of 
 OUT belief cannot be the senses, or experience; it must be some- 
 thing mental. 
 
 To this argument it might be added in the case of this particu- 
 lar axiom, (for the assertion would not be true of all axioms,) that 
 the evidence of it from actual ocular inspection, is not only un- 
 necessary, but unattainable. What says the axiom? That two 
 straight lines cunnot inclose a space; that after having once inter- 
 sected, if they are prolonged to infinity they do not meet, but 
 continue to diverge from one another. How can this, in any 
 single case, be proved by actual observation? We may follow 
 the lines to any distance we please; but we cannot follow them 
 to infinity: for aught our senses can testify, they may, imme- 
 diately beyond the farthest point to which we have traced them, 
 begin to approach, and at last meet. Unless, therefore, we had 
 some other proof of the impossibility than observation affords us, 
 we should have no ground for believing the axiom at all. 
 
 To these arguments, which I trust I cannot be accused of un- 
 derstating, a satisfactory answer will, I conceive, be found, if 
 we advert to one of the characteristic properties of geometrical 
 
 * Whewell's Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, i. 130. 
 
13 
 
 te as clearly and 
 
 Dt to the propo- 
 ce, were derived 
 
 truth by actual 
 aes; whereas in 
 
 them. That a 
 be perceived by 
 
 into the water 
 , however, with 
 e made to con- 
 1 one, I should 
 ^e a space. In- 
 I must be real 
 
 to be true by 
 
 the ground of 
 must be some- 
 
 )f this particu- 
 1 axioms,) that 
 s not only un- 
 ^? That two 
 ng once inter- 
 not meet, but 
 n this, in any 
 e may follow 
 follow them 
 may, imme- 
 traced them, 
 fore, we had 
 on affords us, 
 at all. 
 
 3cused of un- 
 be found, if 
 geometrical 
 
 \ 
 
 , i. 130. 
 
 forms — their capacity of being painted in the imagination with 
 a distinctness equal to reality: in other words, the exact resem- 
 blance of our ideas of form to the sensations which suggest them. 
 This, in the first place, enables us to make (at least with a little 
 practice) mental pictures of all possible combinations of lines and 
 angles, which resemble the realities quite as well as any which 
 we could make on paper; and in the next place, makes those 
 pictures just as fit subjects of geometrical experimentation as the 
 realities themselves; inasmuch as pictures, if sufficiently accu- 
 rate, exhibit of course all the properties which would be mani- 
 fested by the realities at one given instant, and on simple inspec- 
 tion : and in geometry we are concerned only with such properties, 
 and not with that which pictures could not exhibit, the mutual 
 action of bodies one upon another. The foundations of geometry 
 would therefore be laid in direct experience, even if the experi- 
 ments (which in this case consist merely in attentive contempla- 
 tion) were practiced solely upon what we call our ideas, that is, 
 upon the diagrams in our minds, and not upon outward objects. 
 For in all systems of experimentation we take some objects to 
 serve as representatives of all which resemble them; and in the 
 present case the conditions which qualify a real object to be the 
 representative of its class, are completely fulfilled by an object 
 existing only in our fancy. Without denying, therefore, the 
 possibility of satisfying ourselves that two straight lines cannot 
 enclose a space, by merely thinking of straight lines without 
 actually looking at them; I contend, that we do not believe this 
 truth on the ground of the imaginary intuition simply, but 
 because we know that the imaginary lines exactly resemble real 
 ones, and that we may conclude from them to real ones with 
 quite as much certainty as we could conclude from one real line 
 to another. The conclusion, theicfore, is still an induction from 
 observation. And we should not be authorized to substitute ob- 
 servation of the image in our mind, for observation of the reality, 
 if we had not learnt by long-continued experience that the 
 properties of the reality are faithfully represented in the image; 
 just as we should be scientifically warranted in describing an 
 animal which we had never seen, from a picture made of it with 
 
f 
 
 I ! 
 
 I I 
 I I 
 
 ! I 
 
 14 
 
 a daguerreotype; but not until we had learnt by ample expeHence, 
 that observation of such a picture is precisely equivalent to obser- 
 vation of the original. 
 
 These considerations also remove the objection arising from 
 the impossibility of ocularly following the lines in their pro- 
 longation to infinity. For though, in order actually to see that 
 two given lines never meet, it would be necessary to follow them 
 to infinity: yet without doing so we may know that if they 
 ever do meet, or if, after diverging from one another, they be- 
 gin again to approach, this must take place not at an infinite, 
 but at a finite distance. Supposing, therefore, such to be the 
 case, we can transport ourselves thither in imagination, and can 
 frame a mental image of the appearance which one or both of 
 the lines must present at that point, which we may rely on as 
 being precisely similar to the reality. Now, whether we fix our 
 contemplation upon this imaginary picture, or call to mind the 
 generalizations we have had occasion to make from former ocular 
 observation, we learn by the evidence of experience, that a line 
 which, after diverging from another straight line, begins to ap- 
 proach to it, produces the impression on our senses which we 
 describe by the expression, " a bent line," not by the expression, 
 "a straight line." 
 
 § 6. The first of the two arguments in support of the theory 
 that axioms are d priori truths, having, I think, been sutiiciently 
 answered; I proceed to the second, which is usually the most re- 
 lied on. Axioms (it is asserted) are conceived by us not only as 
 true, but as universally and necessarily true. Now, experience 
 cannot possibly give to any proposition this character. I may 
 have seen snow a hundred times, and may have seen that it was 
 white, but this cannot give me entire assurance even that all snow 
 is white; much less that snow must be white. "However many 
 instances we may have observed of the truth of a proposition, 
 there is nothing to assure us that the next case shall not be an ex- 
 ception to the rule. If it be strictly true that every ruminant 
 animal yet known has cloven hoofs, we still cannot be sure that 
 some creature will not hereafter be discovered which has the first 
 of these attributes, without having the other Experience 
 
 
 I ; 
 
16 
 
 ample expeHence, 
 [uivalent to obser- 
 
 tion arising from 
 nes in their pro- 
 itually to see that | 
 iry to follow them 
 aow that if they 
 another, they be- 
 ot at an infinite, 
 I, such to be the 
 jination, and can | 
 h one or both of 
 I may rely on as 
 lether we fix our 
 call to mind the 
 om former ocular 
 ence, that a line 
 »e, begins to ap- 
 jenses which we 
 y the expression, 
 
 >rt of the theory 
 been sufiiciently 
 illy the most re- 
 y us not only as 
 ow, experience 
 aracter. I may 
 seen that it was 
 en that all snow 
 However many 
 a proposition, 
 all not be an ex- 
 very ruminant 
 ot be sure that 
 ch has the first 
 Experience 
 
 i 
 
 must always consist of a limited number of observations; and, 
 however numerous these may be, they can show nothing with re- 
 gard to the infinite number of cases in which the experiment has 
 not been made." Besides, axioms are not only universal, they 
 are also necessary. Now " experience cannot offer the smallest 
 ground for the necessity of a proposition. She can observe and 
 record what has happened; but she cannot find, in any case, or 
 in any accumulation of cases, any reason for what vnist happen. 
 She may see objects side by side; but she cannot see a reason why 
 they must ever be side by side. She finds certain events to occur 
 in succession; but the succession supplies, in its occurrence, no 
 reason for its recurrence. She contemplates external objects; but 
 she cannot" detect any internal bond, which indissolubly connects 
 the future with the past, the possible with the real. To learn a 
 proposition by experience, and to see it to be necessarily true, are 
 two altogether different processes of thought." * And Dr. Whe- 
 well adds, "If any one does not clearly comprehend this distinc- 
 tion of necessary and contingent truths, he will not be able to go 
 along with us in our researches into the foundations of human 
 knowledge; nor, indeed, to pursue with success any speculation 
 on the subject." f 
 
 In the following passage, we are told what the distinction is, 
 the non-recognition of which incurs this denunciation. "Neces- 
 sary truths are those in which we not only learn that the propo- 
 sition is true, but see that it must he true; in which the negation 
 of the truth is not only false, but impossible; in which we can- 
 not, even by an effort of imagination, or in a supposition, con- 
 ceive the reverse of that which is asserted. That there are such 
 truths cannot be doubted. We may take, for example, all rela- 
 tions of number. Three and Two, added together, make Five. 
 We cannot conceive it to be otherwise. We cannot, by any freak 
 of thought, imagine Three and Two to make Seven." % 
 
 Although Dr. Whewell has naturally and properly employed a 
 variety of phrases to bring his meaning more forcibly home, he 
 
 * Phil. Ind. 8c. i. 59-61. 
 
 X Ibid. 54, 55. 
 
 t Ibid. 57. 
 
T 
 
 16 
 
 will, I presume, allow that they are all equivalent; and that what 
 he means by a necessary truth, would be sufficiently defined, a 
 proposition the negation of which is not only false but inconceiv- 
 able. I am unable to find in any of his expressions, turn them 
 what way you will, a meaning beyond this, and I do not believe 
 he would contend that they mean anything more. 
 
 This, therefore, is the principle asserted: that propositions, the 
 negation of which is inconceivable, or in other words, which we 
 cannot figure to ourselves as being false, must rest on evidence of 
 a higher and more cogent description than any which experience 
 can afford. And we have next to consider whether there is any 
 ground for this assertion. 
 
 Now I cannot but wonder that so much stress should be laid 
 on the circumfjtance of incon-^eivableness, when there is such 
 ample experience to show, that our capacity or incapacity of con- 
 ceiving a thing has very little to do with the possibility of the 
 thing in itself; but is in truth very much an affair of accident, 
 and depends on the past history and habits of ou' own minds. 
 There is no more generally acknowledged fact in human nature, 
 than the extreme difficulty at first felt in conceiving anything as 
 possible, which is in contradiction to long established and familiar 
 experience; or even to old familiar habits of thought. And 
 this difficulty is a necessary result of the fundamental laws of the 
 human mind. When we have often seen and thought of two 
 things together, and have never in any one instance either seen 
 or thought of them separately, there is by the primary law of 
 association an increasing difficulty, which may in the end become 
 insuperable, of conceiving the two things apart. This is most of 
 all conspicuous in uneducated persons, who are in general utterly 
 unable to separate any two ideas which have once become firmly 
 associated in their minds; and if persons of cultivated intellect 
 have any advantage ou the point, it is only because, having seen 
 and heard and read more, and being more accustomed to exercise 
 their imagination, they have experienced their sensations and 
 thoughts in more varied combinations, and have been prevented 
 from forming many of these inseparable associations. But this 
 advantage has necessarily its limits. The most practised intellect 
 
 aginai 
 
17 
 
 I that what 
 ' defined, a 
 t inconceiv- 
 turn them 
 not believe 
 
 sitions, the 
 , which we 
 3vidence of 
 experience 
 lere is any 
 
 Id be laid 
 •e is such 
 ty of con- 
 ity of the 
 
 accident, 
 7n minds, 
 m nature, 
 ything as 
 d familiar 
 :ht. And 
 iws of the 
 It of two 
 ther seen 
 y law of 
 d become 
 s most of 
 al utterly 
 ne firmly 
 intellect 
 ing seen 
 
 exercise 
 ons and 
 revented 
 But this 
 
 intellect 
 
 is not exempt from the universal laws of our conceptive faculty. 
 If daily habit presents to any one for a long period two facts in 
 combination, and if he i? not led during that period either by ac- 
 cident or by his voluntary mental operations to think of them 
 apart, he will probably in time become incapable of doing so even 
 by the strongest effort; and the supposition that the two facts can 
 be separated in nature, will at last present itself to his mind with 
 all the characters of an inconceivable phenomenon. There are 
 remarkable instances of this in the history of science: instances 
 in which the most instructed men rejected as impossible, because 
 inconceivable, things which their posterity, by earlier practice 
 and longer perseverance in the attempt, found it quite easy to 
 conceive, and which everybody now knows to be true. There 
 was a time when men of the most cultivated intellects, and the 
 most emancipated from the dominion of early prejudice, could 
 not credit the existence of antipodes; were unable to conceive, in 
 opposition to old association, the force of gravity acting upwards 
 instead of downwards. The Cartesians long rejected the New- 
 tonian doctrine of the gravitation of all bodies towards one an- 
 other, on the faith of a general proposition, the leverse of which 
 seemed to them to be inconceivable — the proposition that a body 
 cannot act where it is not. All the cumbrous machinery of im- 
 aginary vortices, assumed without the smallest particle of evi- 
 dence, appeared to these philosophers a more rational mode of 
 explaining the heavenly motions, than one which involved what 
 seemed to them so great an absurdity. And they no doubt found 
 it as impossible to conceive that a body should act upon the earth, 
 at the distance of the sun or moon, as we find it to conceive an 
 end to space or time, or two straight line^ enclosing a Bpace. 
 Newton himself had not been able to realize the conception, or 
 we should not have had his hypothesis of a subtle ether, the oc- 
 cult cause of gravitation; and his writings prove, that although he 
 deemed the particular nature of the intermediate agency a matter 
 of conjecture, the necessity of some such agency appeared to him 
 indubitable. It would seem that even now the majority of sci- 
 entific men have not completely got over this very difllculty ; for 
 though they have at last learnt to conceive the sun attracting 
 
18 
 
 the earth without any intervening fluid, they cannot yet conceive 
 the sun illuminating the earth without some such medium. 
 
 If, then, it be so natural to the human mind, even in a high 
 state of culture, to be incapable of conceiving, and on that ground 
 to believe impossible, what is afterwards not only found to be 
 conceivable but proved to be true; what wonder if in cases where 
 the association is still older, more confirmed, and more familiar, 
 and in which nothing ever occurs to shake our conviction, or even 
 suggest to us any conception at variance with the association, 
 the acquired incapacity should continue, and be mistaken for a 
 natural incapacity? It is true, our experience of the varieties in 
 nature enables us, within certain limits, to conceivei)ther varieties 
 analogous to them. We can conceive the sun oift&ioon falling; 
 for although we never saw them fall, nor ever perhaps imagined 
 them falling, we have seen so many other things fall, that we have 
 innumerable familiar analogies to assist the conception; which, 
 after all, we should probably have some difficulty in framing, were 
 we not well accustomed to see the sun and moon move, (or appear to 
 move,) so that we are only called upon to conceive a slight change 
 in the direction of motion, a circumstance familiar to our experi- 
 ence. But when experience affords no model on which to shape 
 the new conception, how is it possible for us to form it? How, 
 for example, can we imagine an end to space or time? We never 
 saw any object without something beyond it, nor experienced any 
 feeling without something following it. When, therefore, we at- 
 tempt to conceive the last point of space, we have the idea irre- 
 sistably raised of other points beyond it. When we try to im- 
 agine the last instant of time, we cannot help conceiving another 
 instant after it. Nor is there any necessity to assume, as is done 
 by a modern school of metaphysicians, a peculiar fundamental 
 law of the mind to account for the feeling of infinity inherent in 
 our conceptions of space and time; that apparent infinity is suf- 
 ficiently accounted for by simpler and universally acknowledged 
 laws. 
 
 Now, in the case of a geometrical axiom, such, for example, as 
 that two straight lines cannot inclose a space, — a truth which is 
 testified to us by our very earliest impressions of the external 
 
yet conceive 
 jdium. 
 
 sn in a high 
 1 that ground 
 found to be 
 I cases where 
 ore familiar, 
 tion, or even 
 association, 
 istalcen for a 
 3 varieties in 
 her varieties 
 aoon falling; 
 ps imagined 
 ;hat we have 
 tion; which, 
 aming, were 
 (or appear to 
 ight change 
 our experi- 
 ich to shape 
 it? How, 
 We never 
 rienced any 
 ore, we at- 
 le idea irre- 
 try to im- 
 ng another 
 as is done 
 indamental 
 inherent in 
 nity is suf- 
 nowledged 
 
 xample, as 
 h which is 
 external 
 
 19 
 
 world, — how is it possible (whether those external impressions be 
 or be not the ground of our belief) that the reverse of the propo- 
 sition could be otherwise than inconceivable to us? What an- 
 alogy have we, what similar order of facts in any other branch 
 of our experience, to facilitate to us the conception of two straight 
 lines inclosing a space? Nor is even this all. I have already 
 called attention to the peculiar property of our impressions of 
 form, that the ideas or mental images exactly resemble their pro- 
 totypes, and adequately represent them for the purposes of sci- 
 entific observation. From this, and from the intuitive character 
 of the observation, which in this case reduces itself to simple in- 
 spection, we cannot so much as call up in our imagination two 
 straight lines, in order to attempt to conceive them inclosing a 
 space, without by that very act repeating the scientific experi- 
 ment which establishes the contrary. Will it really be contended 
 that the inconceivableness of the thing, in such circumstances, 
 proves anything against the experimental origin of the conviction? 
 Is it not clear that in whichever mode our belief in the propo- 
 sition may have originated, the impossibility of our conceiving 
 the negative of it must, on either hypothesis, be the same? As, 
 then. Dr. Whewell exhorts those who have any difficulty in re- 
 cognising the distinction held by him between necessary and con- 
 tingent truths, to study geometry, — a condition which I can 
 assure him I have conscientiously fulfilled, — I, in return, with 
 equal confidence, exhort those who agree with him, to study the 
 elementary laws of association; being convinced that nothing 
 more is requisite than a moderate familiarity with those laws, to 
 dispel the illusion which ascribes a peculiar necessity to our 
 earliest inductions from experience, and measures the possibility 
 of things in themselves, by the human capacity of conceiving 
 them. 
 
 I hope to be pardoned for adding, that Dr. Whewell himself 
 has both confirmed by his testimony the effect of habitual asso- 
 ciation in giving to an experimental truth the appearance of a 
 necessary one, and afforded a striking instance of that remark- 
 able law in his own person. In his Philosophy of the Inductive 
 Sciences he continually asserts, that propositions which not only 
 
so 
 
 are not Belf -evident, but which we know to have been discovered 
 gradually, and by great efforts of genius and patience, have, when 
 once established, appeared so self-evident that, but for historical 
 proof, it would have been impossible to conceive that they had 
 not been recognised from the first by all persons in a sound state 
 of their faculties. "We now despise those who, in the Coperni- 
 can controversy, could not conceive the apparent motion of the 
 sun on the heliocentric hypothesis; or those who, in opposition 
 to Galileo, thought that a uniform forcd might be that which 
 generated a velocity proportional to the space; or those who held 
 there was something absurd in Newton's doctrine of the different 
 refrangibility of differently coloured rays; or those who imagined 
 that when elements combine, their sensible qualities must be 
 manifest in the compound; or those who were reluctant to give 
 up the distinction of vegetables into herbs, shrubs, and trees. We 
 cannot he?p thinking that racn must have been singularly dull of 
 comprehenb'on to find a difficulty in admitting what is to us so 
 plain and simple. We have a latent persuasion that we in their 
 place should have been wiser and more clearsighted; that we 
 should have taken the right side, and given our assent at once to 
 the truth. Yet in reality such a persuasion is a mere delusion. 
 The persons who, in such instances as the above, were on the 
 losing side, were very far in most cases from being persons more 
 prejudiced, or stupid, or narrow-minded, than the greater part 
 of mankind now are; and the cause for which they fought was 
 far from being a manifestly bad one, till it had been so decided 
 by the result of the war So complete has been the vic- 
 tory of truth in most of these instances, that at present we can 
 hardly imagine the struggle to have been necessary. The very 
 essence of these triumphs is, that they lead us to regard the views we 
 reject as not only false hut inconceivable."* 
 
 This last proposition is precisely what I contend for; and I ask 
 no more, in order to overthrow the whole theory of its author on 
 the nature of the evidence of axioms. For what is that theory? 
 That the truth of axioms cannot have been learnt from experience, 
 
 becaus 
 says, 
 though 
 only c< 
 were i 
 justify 
 be righ 
 and as 
 After i 
 dental 
 on the 
 can he 
 no oth 
 does s 
 mark a 
 he has 
 his rei 
 the at( 
 Wit 
 one ca 
 from ( 
 ture. 
 longin 
 to add 
 only "^ 
 of the 
 
 so. n 
 
 move 
 acted 
 found 
 oppos 
 taugt 
 at las 
 was f 
 speed 
 
 
 * Phil. Ind. 8c. ii. 174. 
 
discovered 
 ave, when 
 ' historical 
 t they had 
 ound state 
 e Coperni- 
 ion of the 
 opposition 
 hat which 
 ! who held 
 e diflferent 
 > imagined 
 i must be 
 nt to give 
 trees. We 
 rly dull of 
 is to us so 
 e in their 
 ; that we 
 at once to 
 delusion, 
 jre on the 
 sons more 
 eater part 
 light was 
 10 decided 
 n the vic- 
 it we can 
 The very 
 \e mews we 
 
 and I ask 
 luthor on 
 -t theory? 
 cperience, 
 
 
 31 
 
 because their falsity is inconceivable. But Dr. Whewell himself 
 says, that we are continually led by the natural progress of 
 thought, to regard as inconceivable what our forefatiiers not 
 only conceived but believed, nay even (he might have added) 
 were unable to conceive the contrary of. He cannot intend to 
 justify this mode of thought: he cannot mean to say, that we can 
 be right in regarding as inconceivable what others have conceived, 
 and as self-evident what to others did not appear evident at all. 
 After so complete an admission that i;>conceivablene8s is an acci- 
 dental thing, not inherent in the phenoii.>^non itself , but dependent 
 on the mental history of the person v/hu tries to conceive it, how 
 can he ever call upon us to reject a proposition as impossible on 
 no other ground than its inconceivableness? Yet he not only 
 does so, but has unintentionally afforded some of the most re- 
 markable examples which can be cited of the very illusion which 
 he has himself so clearly pointed out. I select as specimens, 
 his remarks on the evidence of the three laws of motion, and of 
 the atomic theory. ' 
 
 With respect to the laws of motion, Dr. Whewell says: "No 
 one can doubt that, in historical fact, these laws were collected 
 from experience. That such is the case, is no matter of conjec- 
 ture. We know the time, the persons, the circumstances, be- 
 longing to each step of each discovery." * After this testimony, 
 to adduce evidence of the fact would be superfluous. And not 
 only were these laws by no means intuitively evident, but some 
 of them were originally paradoxes. The first law was especially 
 so. That a body, once in motion, would continue for ever to 
 move in the same direction with undiminished velocity unless 
 acted upon by some new force, was a propo.sition which mankind 
 found for a long time the greatest difficulty in crediting. It stood 
 opposed to apparent experience of the most familiar kind, which 
 taught that it was the nature of motion to abate gradually, and 
 at last terminate of itself. Yet when once the contrary doctrine 
 was firmly established, mathematicians, as Dr. Whewell observes, 
 speedily began to believe that laws, thus contradictory to first 
 
 *PhU. Ind. Sc. i. 238. 
 
 a 
 
22 
 
 appeatances, and which, even after full proof had been obtained, 
 it had required generations to render familiar to the minds of the 
 Bcientiflc world, were under "a demonstrable necessity, compel- 
 ling them to be such as they are and no other; " and he himself, 
 though not venturing "absolutely to pronounce" that all these 
 laws " can be rigorously traced to an absolute necessity in the 
 nature of things," * does actually thinic in that manner of the law 
 Just mentioned; of which he says: "Though the discovery of the 
 first law of motion was made, historically speaking, by means of 
 experiment, we have now attained a point of view in which we 
 see that it might have been certainly known to be true, indepen- 
 dently of experience." f Can there be a more striking exemplifi- 
 cation than is here afforded, of the effect of association which we 
 have described? Philosophers, for generations, have the most 
 extraordinary difficulty in putting certain ideas together; they at 
 last succeed in doing so; and after a sufficient repetition of the 
 process, they first fancy a natural bond between the ideas, then 
 experience a growing difficulty, which at last, by the continuation 
 of the same progress, becomes an impossibility, of severing them 
 from one another. If such be the progress of an experimental 
 conviction of which the date is of yesterday, and which is in op- 
 position to first appearances, how must it fare with those which 
 are conformable to appearances familiar from the first dawn of 
 intelligence, and of the conclusiveness of which, from the earliest 
 records of human thought, no sceptic h&:\ suggested even a mo- 
 mentary doubt? 
 
 The other instance which I shall quote is a truly astonishing 
 one, and may be called the reductio ad absurdum of the theory of 
 inconceivableness. Speaking of the laws of chemical compo- 
 sition. Dr. Whewell says: % "That they could never have been 
 clearly understood, and therefore never firmly established, with- 
 out laborious and exact experiments, is certain; but yet we 
 may venture to say, that being once known, they possess an evi- 
 dence beyond that of mere experiment. For how, in fact, can toe 
 conceive combinations, otherwise than as definite in kind and quality f 
 
 
 !fwe 
 ther i 
 ave a 
 here 
 res, V 
 bible 
 of bod 
 capabl 
 propos 
 a work 
 cannot 
 binatio 
 kind y^ 
 That 
 assert 
 elemen 
 by din 
 of whi 
 in his 
 constai 
 conceit 
 of the 
 more ii 
 
 *PhU, Ind. 8e. i. 287. f Ibid. 218. X Ibid. 884, 886. 
 
28 
 
 in obtained, 
 ninds of the 
 Ity, compel- 
 he himself, 
 at all these 
 isity in the 
 rof the law 
 jvery of the 
 )y means of 
 I which we 
 le, indepen- 
 f exemplifl- 
 n which we 
 e the most 
 ler; they at 
 tion of the 
 ideas, then 
 )ntinuation 
 ering them 
 perimental 
 ch is in op- 
 lose which 
 t dawn of 
 the earliest 
 ven a mo- 
 
 tstonishing 
 3 theory of 
 ;al compo- 
 have been 
 hed, with- 
 it yet we 
 ess an evi- 
 dct, can toe 
 id quality? 
 
 f we were to suppose each element ready to combine with any 
 ther indifferently, and indifferently in any quantity, we should 
 ave a world in which all would be confusion and indcflnituness. 
 here would be no fixed kind of bodies; salts, and stones, and 
 res, would approach to and graduate into each other by insen- 
 Hible degrees. Instead of this, we know that the world consists 
 of bodies distinguishable from each other by definite differences, 
 capable of being classified and named, and of having general 
 propositions asserted concerning them. And as toe cannot conceive 
 a world in which this should not be the case, it would appear that we 
 cannot conceive a state of things in which the laws of the com- 
 bination of elements should not be of that definite and measured 
 kind which we have above asserted. 
 
 That a philosopher of Dr. Whewell's eminence should gravely 
 assert that we cannot conceive a world in which the simple 
 elements would combine in other than definite proportions; that 
 by dint of meditating on a scientific truth, the original discoverer 
 of which was still living, he should have rendered the association 
 in his own mind between the idea of combination and that of 
 constant proportions so familiar and intimate as to be unable to 
 conceive the one fact without the other; is so signal an instance 
 of the mental law for which I am contending, that one word 
 more in illustration must be superfluous. 
 
 ,885. 
 
 B 
 
34 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 
 
 § 1. In the examination which formed the subject of the last 
 chapter, into thn nature of the evidence of those deductive sci- 
 ences which are c^. »nonly represented to be systems of necessary 
 truth, we have been led to the following conclusions. The re- 
 sults of those sciences are indeed necessary, in the sense of neces- 
 sarily following from certain first principles, commonly called 
 axioms and definitions; of being certainly true if those axioms 
 and definitions are so. But their claim to the character of neces- 
 sity in any sense beyond this, as implying an evidence independ- 
 ent of and superior to observation and experience, must depend 
 on ihc previous establishment of such a claim in favour of the 
 definition? and axioms themselves. With regard to axioms, we 
 found that, considered as experimental truths, they rest on su- 
 perabundant and obvious e\ idence. We inquired, whether, since 
 this is the case, it be necessary to suppose any other evidence of 
 those truths than experimental evidence, any other origin for our 
 belief of them than an experimental origin. We decided, that 
 the burden of proof lies with those who maintain the affirmative, 
 and we examined, at considerable length, such arguments as they 
 have produced. The examination having led to the rejection of 
 those arguments, we have thought ourselves warranted in con- 
 cluding that axioms are but a class, the highest class, of induc- 
 tions from experience; the simplest and easiest cases of general- 
 ization from the facts furnished to us by our senses or by our in- 
 ternal consciousness. 
 
 While the axioms of demonstrative sciences thus appeared to 
 be experimental truths, the definitions, as they are incorrectly 
 called, in those sciences, were found by us to be generalizations 
 from experience which are not even, accurately speaking, truths; 
 being propositions in which, while we assert of some kind of ob- 
 ject, some property or properties which observation shows to be- 
 long to it. we at the same time deny that it possesses any other 
 
 Ipropl 
 1 dual I 
 
 I proPI 
 mere 
 
 the 
 
 influl 
 
 jour{ 
 
 Fi 
 
25 
 
 't of the last 
 eductive sci- 
 of necessary 
 »8- The re- 
 »se of neces- 
 'ODly called 
 »08e axijtns 
 er of neces- 
 B independ- 
 ust depend 
 'Our of the 
 ixioms, we 
 rest on su- 
 tler, since 
 vidence of 
 :in for our 
 'ded, that 
 Rrmative, 
 ts as they 
 lection of 
 ^ in con- 
 of induc- 
 geneia/- 
 r our in- 
 eared to 
 orrectJy 
 izations 
 truths; 
 I of ob- 
 i to be- 
 ' other 
 
 [properties, although in truth other properties do in every indivi- 
 dual instance accompany, and in almost all instances modify, the 
 [property thus exclusively predicated. The denial, therefore, is a 
 mere fiction, or supposition, made for the purpose of excluding 
 the consideration of those modifying circumstances, when their 
 influence '- of too trifling amount to be worth considering, or ad- 
 journing it, when important, to a more convenient moment. 
 
 From tLese considerations it would appear that Deductive or 
 Demonstrative Sciences are all, witho it exception. Inductive 
 Sciences; that their evidence is that of experience; but that they 
 are also, in virtue of the peculiar character of one indispensable 
 portion of the general formulae according to which their induc- 
 tions are made, Hypothetical Sciences. Their conclusions are 
 only true on certain suppositions, which are, or ought to be, ap- 
 proximations to the truth, but are seldom, if ever, exactly true; 
 «nd to this hypothetical character is to be ascribed the peculiar 
 certainty, which is supposed to be inherent in demonstration. 
 
 What we have now asserted, however, cannot be received as 
 universally true of Deductive or Demonstrative Sciences, until 
 verified by being applied to the most remarkable of all those 
 sci"nces, that of Numbers; the theory of the Calculus; Arithmetic 
 and Algebra. It is harder to believe of the doctrines of this 
 science than of any other, either that they are not truths d priori, 
 but experimental truths, or that their peculiar certainty is owing 
 to their being not absolute but only conditional truths. This, 
 therefore, is a case which merits examination apart; and the 
 more so, because on this subject we have a double set of doctrines 
 to contend with; that of the d priori philosophers on one side; 
 and on the other, a theory the most opposite to theirs, which was 
 at one time very generally received, and is still far from being 
 altogether exploded among metaphysicians. 
 
 § 2. This theory attempts to solve the difficulty apparently in- 
 herent in the case, by representing the propositions of the science 
 of numbers as merely verbal, and its processes as simple trans- 
 formations of language, substitutions of one expression for an- 
 other. The proposition, Two and one are equal to three, accord- 
 ing to these writers, is not a truth, is not the assertion of a really 
 existing fact, but a definition of the word three; a statement that 
 
26 
 
 mankind have agreed to use the name three as a sign exactly 
 equivalent to two and one; to call by the former name whatever 
 is called by the other more clumsy phrase. According to this 
 doctrine, the longest process in algebra is but a succession of 
 changes in terminology, by which equivalent expressions are sub- 
 stituted one for another; a series of translations of the same fact, 
 from one into another language; though how, after such a series 
 of translations, the fact itself comes out changed, (as when we 
 demonstrate a new geometrical theorem by algebra,) they have 
 not explained; and it is a difficulty which is fatal to their theory. 
 It must be acknowledged that there are peculiarities in the pro- 
 cesses of arithmetic and algebra which render the theory in ques- 
 tion very plausible, and have not unnaturally made those sciences 
 the stronghold of Nominalism. The doctrine that we can discover 
 facts, detect the hidden processes of nature, by an artful manipu- 
 lation of language, is so contrary to common sense, that a person 
 must have made some advances in philosophy to believe it; men 
 fly to so paradoxical a belief to avoid, as they think, some even 
 greater difficulty, which the vulgar do not see. What has led 
 many to believe that reasoning is a mere verbal process, is, that 
 no other theory seemed reconcilable with the nature of the Science 
 of Numbers. For we do not carry any ideas along with us when 
 we use the symbols of arithmetic or of algebra. In a geometrical 
 demonstration we have a mental diagram, if not one on paper; 
 AB, AC are present to our imagination as lines, intersecting other 
 lines, forming an angle with one another, and the like; but not 
 80 a and b. These may represent lines or any other magnitudes, 
 but those magnitudes are never thought of; nothing is realized in 
 our imagination but a and h. The ideas which, on the particular 
 occasion, they happen to represent, are banished from the mind 
 during every intermediate part of the process, between the begin- 
 ning, when the premisses are translated from things into signs, 
 and the end, when the conclusion is translated back from signs 
 into things. Nothing, then, being in the reasoner's mind but the 
 symbols, what can seem more inadmissible than to contend that 
 the reasoning process has to do with anything more? We seem 
 to have come to one of Bacon's Prerogative Instances; an experi- 
 luentnm cruets on the nature of reasoning itself. 
 
 
27 
 
 exactly 
 whatever 
 
 to this 
 
 ssion of 
 are eub- 
 me fact, 
 
 a series 
 hen we 
 2y have 
 
 theory, 
 the pro- 
 in ques- 
 sciences 
 discover 
 nanipu- 
 
 person 
 it; men 
 ae even 
 has led 
 is, that 
 Science 
 IS when 
 metrical 
 
 paper; 
 ag other 
 i)ut not 
 litudes, 
 ilized in 
 rticular 
 le mind 
 ; begin- 
 o signs, 
 n signs 
 but the 
 nd that 
 ''e seem 
 experi- 
 
 Nevertheless, it will appear on consideration, that this appar- 
 ently so decisive instance is no instance at all; that there is in 
 every step of an arithmetical or algebraical calculation a real in- 
 duction, a real inference of facts from facts; and that what dis- 
 guises the induction is simply its comprehensive nature, and the 
 consequent extreme generality of the language. All numbers 
 must be numbers of something: there are no such things as num- 
 bers in" the abstract. Ten must mean ten bodies, or ten sounds, 
 or ten beatings of the pulse. But though numbers must be num- 
 bers of something, they may be numbers of anything. Propo- 
 sitions, therefore, concerning numbers, have the remarkable pe- 
 culiarity that they are propositions concerning all things what- 
 ever; all objects, all existences of every kind, known to our ex- 
 perience. All things possess quantity; consist of parts wiiich 
 can be numbered; and in that character possess all the proper- 
 ties which are called properties of numbers. That half of four ia 
 two, must be true whatever the word four represents, whether 
 four men, four miles, or four pounds weight. We need only con- 
 ceive a thing divided into four equal parts, (and all things maybe 
 conceived as so divided,) to be able to predicate of it every pro- 
 perty of the number four, that is, every arithmetical proposition 
 in which the number four stands on one side of the equation. 
 Algebra extends the generalization still farther: every number 
 represents that particular number of all things without distinc- 
 tion, but every algebraical symbol does more, it represents all 
 numbers without distinction. As soon as we conceive a thing 
 divided into equal parts, without knowing into what number of 
 parts, we may call it a or x, and apply to it, without danger of 
 error, every algebraical formula in the books. The proposition, 
 2(a + 6) = 2a -I- 26, is a truth coextensive with all nature. Since 
 then algebraical truths are true of all things whatever, and not, 
 like those of geometry, true of lines only or angles only, it is no 
 wonder that the symbols should not excite in our minds ideas of 
 any things in particular. When we demonstrate the forty-seventh 
 proposition of Euclid, it is not necessary that the words should 
 raise in us an image of all right-angled triangles, but only of 
 some one right-angled triangle : so in algebra we need not, under 
 
r 
 
 28 
 
 the symbol a, picture to ourselves all things whatever, but only 
 eome one thing; why not, then, the letter itself? The mere writ- 
 ten characters, a, b, x, y, z, serve as well for representatives of 
 Things in general, as any more complex and apparently more 
 concrete conception. That we are conscious of them however in 
 their character of things, and not of mere signs, is evident from 
 the fact that our whole process of reasoning is carried on by pre- 
 dicating of them the properties of things. In resolving an 
 algebraic equation, by what rules do we proceed? By applying 
 at each step to a, b, and x, the proposition that equals added to 
 equals make equals; that equals taken from equals leave equals; 
 and other propositions founded on these two. These are not 
 properties of language, or of signs as such, but of magnitudes, 
 which is as much as to say, of all things. The inferences, there- 
 fore, which are successively drawn, are inferences concerning 
 Things, not symbols; although as any Things whatever will serve 
 the turn, there is no necessity for keeping the idea of the Thing 
 at all distinct, and consequently the process of thought may, in 
 this case, be allowed without danger to do what all processes of 
 thought, when they have been performed often, will do if per- 
 mitted, namely, to become entirely mechanical. Hence the gen- 
 eral language of algebra comes to be used familiarly without 
 exciting ideas, as all other general language is prone to do from 
 mere habit, though in no other case than this can it be done with 
 complete safety. But when we look back to see from whence 
 the probative force of the process is derived, we find that at every 
 eingle step, unless we suppose ourselves to be thinking and talk- 
 ing of the things, and not the mere symbols, the evidence fails. 
 
 There is another circumstance, which, still more than that 
 which we have now mentioned, gives plausibility to the notion 
 that the propositions of arithmetic and algebra are merely verbal. 
 This is, that when considered as propositions respecting Things, 
 they all have the appearance of being identical propositions. 
 The assertion. Two and one are equal to three, considered as an 
 assertion respecting objects, as for instance " Two pebbles and 
 one pebble are equal to three pebbles," does not affirm equality 
 o-etween two collections of pebbles, but absolute identity. It 
 
29 
 
 affirms that if we put one pebble to two pebbles, those very 
 pebbles are three. The objects, therefore, being the very same, 
 and the mere assertion that "objects are themselves" being in- 
 significant, it seems but natural to consider the proposition. Two 
 and one are equal to three, as asserting mere identity of significa- 
 tion between the two names. 
 
 This, however, though it looks so plausible, will not bear ex- 
 amination. The expression "two pebbles and one pebble," and 
 the expression "three pebbles," stand indeed for the same aggre- 
 gation of objects, but they by no means stand for the same phys- 
 ical fact. They are names of the same objects, but of those ob- 
 jects in two different states: though they rf^note the same things, 
 their w/motation is different. Three pebbles in two separate 
 parcels, and three pebbles in one parcel, do not make the same 
 impression on our senses; and the assertion that the very same 
 pebbles may by an alteration of place and arrangement be made 
 to produce either the one se* "' sensations or the other, though a 
 very familiar proposition, is not an identical one. It is a truth 
 known to us by early and constant experience: an inductive 
 truth; and such truths are the foundation of the science of Num- 
 ber. The fundamental truths of that science all rest on the evi- 
 dence of .sense; they are proved by showing to our eyes and our 
 fingers that any given number of objects, ten balls for example, 
 may by separation and re-arrangement exhibit to our senses all 
 the different sets of numbers the sum of which is equal to ten. 
 All the improved methods of teaching arithmetic to children pro- 
 ceed on a knowledge of this fact. All who wish to carry the 
 child' s mind along with them in learning arithmetic; all who wish 
 to teach numbers, and not mere ciphers — now teach it through 
 the evidence of the senses, in the manner we have described. 
 
 We may, if we please, call the proposition "Three is two and 
 one," a definition of the number three, and assert that arithmetic, 
 as it has been asserted that geometry, is a science founded on 
 definitions. But they are definitions in the geometrical sense, 
 not the logical; asserting not the meaning of a term only, but 
 along with it an observed matter of fact. The proposition, "A 
 circle is a figure bounded by a line which has all its points equally 
 
80 
 
 M ,K 
 
 distant from a point within it," is called the definition of a circle; 
 but the proposition from which so many consequences follow, 
 and which is really a first principle in geometry, is, that figures 
 answering to this description exist. And thus we may call, 
 "Three is two and one," a definition of three; but the calcula- 
 tions which depend on that proposition do not follow from the 
 definition itself, but from an arithmetical theorem presupposed in 
 in it, namely, that collections of objects exist, which, while they 
 impress the senses thus, o^o^ may be separated into two partSf 
 
 thus, o o o . This proposition being granted, we term all such 
 parcels Threes, after which the enunciation of the above-men- 
 tioned physical fact will serve also for a definition of the word 
 Three. 
 
 The Science of Number is thus no exception to the conclusion 
 we previously arrived at, that the processes even of deductive 
 sciences are altogether inductive, and that their first principles 
 are generalizations from experience. It remains to be examined 
 whether this science resembles geometry in the further circum- 
 stance, that some of its inductions are not exactly true; and that 
 the peculiar certainty ascribed to it, on account of which its pro- 
 positions are called Necessary Truths, is fictitious and hypothet- 
 ical, being true in no other sense than that those propositions 
 necessarily follow from the hypothesis of the truth of premisses 
 which are avowedly mere approximations to truth. 
 
 § 3. The inductions of arithmetic are of two sorts: first, those 
 which we have just expounded, such as One and one are two, Two 
 and one are three, &c., which may be called the definitions of 
 the various numbers, in the improper or geometrical sense of the 
 word Definition; and secondly, the two following axioms; The 
 sums of equals are equal. The differences of equals are equal. 
 These two are suflBcient; for the corresponding propositions re- 
 specting unequals may be proved from these, by a reductio ad 
 absurdum. 
 
 These axioms, and likewise the so-called definitions, are, as al- 
 ready shown, results of induction; true of all objects whatever, 
 and, as it may seem, exactly true, without the hypothetical as- 
 sumption of unqualified truth where an approximation to it is all 
 
\ 
 
 n of a circle; 
 nces follow, 
 that figures 
 2 may call, 
 the calcula- 
 te from the 
 supposed in 
 while they 
 
 two parts, 
 rm all such 
 ibove-men- 
 f the word 
 
 conclusion 
 
 deductive 
 
 principles 
 
 examined 
 
 er circum- 
 
 ; and that 
 
 h its pro- 
 
 hypothet- 
 
 ^positions 
 
 premisses 
 
 rst, those 
 wo. Two 
 litions of 
 se of the 
 ms; The 
 re equal, 
 tions re- 
 luctto ad 
 
 *e, as al- 
 
 hatever, 
 
 tical as- 
 
 it is all 
 
 81 
 
 that exists. The conclusions, therefore, it will naturally be in- 
 ferred, are exactly true, and the science of number is an exception 
 to other demonstrative sciences in this, that the absolute certainty 
 which is predicable of its demonstrations is independent of all 
 hypothesis. 
 
 On more accurate investigation, however, it will be found that, 
 even in this case, there is one hypothetical element in the ratio- 
 cinalion. In all propositions concerning numbers, a condition is 
 implied, without which none of them would be true; and that 
 condition is an assumption which may be false. The condition 
 is, that 1=-1; that all the numbers are numbers of the same or of 
 equal units. Let this be doubtful, and not one of the propositions 
 of arithmetic will hold true. How can we know that one pound and 
 one pound make two pounds, if one of the pounds may be troy, and 
 the other avoirdupois? They may not make two pounds of either, 
 or of any weight. How can we know that a forty-horse power is 
 always equal to itself, unless we assume that all horses are of equal 
 strength? It is certain that 1 is always equal in number to 1; 
 and where the mere number of objects, or of the parts of an ob- 
 ject, without supposing them to be equivalent in any other re- 
 spect, is all that is material, the conclusions of arithmetic, so far 
 as they go to that alone, are true without mixture of hypothesis. 
 There are a few such cases; as, for instance, an inquiry into the 
 amount of the population of any country. It is indifferent to 
 that inquiry whether they are grown people or children, strong 
 or weak, tall or short; the only thing we want to ascertain is 
 their number. But whenever, from equality or inequality of num- 
 ber, equality or inequality in any other respect is to be inferred, 
 arithmetic carried into such inquiries becomes as hypothetical a 
 science as geometry. All units must be assumed to be equal in 
 that other respect; and this is never practically true, for one ac- 
 tual pound weight is not exactly equal to another, nor one 
 mile's length to another; a nicer balance, or more accurate mea- 
 suring instruments, would always detect some difference. 
 
 What is commonly called mathematical certainty, therefore, 
 which comprises the twofold conception of unconditional truth 
 and perfect accuracy, is not an attribute of all mathematical 
 
32 
 
 ,1 1 
 ■> i 
 
 truths, but of those only which relate to pure Number, as dis- 
 tinguished from Quantity in the more enlarged sense; and only 
 80 long as we abstain from supposing that the numbers are a pre- 
 cise index to actual quantities. The certainty usually ascribed to 
 the conclusions of geometry, and even to those of mechanics, is 
 nothing whatever but certainty of inference. We can have full 
 assurance of particular results under particular suppositions, but 
 we cannot have the same assurance that these suppositions are 
 accurately true, nor that they include all the data which may ex- 
 ercise an influence over the result in any given instance. 
 
 § 4. It appears, therefore, that the method of all Deductive 
 Sciences is hypothetical. They proceed by tracing the conse- 
 quences of certain assumptions; leaving for separate consideration 
 whether the assumptions are true or not, and if not exactly true, 
 whether they are a sufficiently near approximation to the truth. 
 The reason is obvious. Since it is only in questions of pure 
 number that the assumptions are exactly true, and even there, 
 only so long as no conclusions except purely numerical ones are 
 to be founded on them; it must, in all other cases of deductive 
 investigation, form part of the inquiry, to determine how much 
 the assumptions want of being exactly true in the case in hand. 
 This is generally a matter of observation, to be repeated in every 
 fresh case; or if it has to be settled by argument instead of obser- 
 vation, may require in every different case different evidence, 
 and present every degree of difficulty from the lowest to the 
 highest. But the other part of the process — viz., to determine 
 what else may be concluded if we find, and in proportion as we 
 find, the assumptions to be true — may be performed once for all, 
 and the results held ready to be employed as the occasions turn 
 up for use. We thus do all beforehand that can be so done, and 
 leave the least possible work to be performed when cases arise 
 and press for a decision. This inquiry into the inferences which 
 can be drawn from assumptions, is what properly constitutes 
 Demonstrative Science. 
 
 It 18 of course quite as practicable to arrive at new conclusions 
 from facts assumed, as from facts observed; from fictitious, as 
 from real, inductions. Deduction, as we have seen, consists of a 
 
33 
 
 series of inferences in this form— « is a mark of 6, b of c, e of d, 
 therefore a is a mark of d, which last may be a truth inaccessible 
 to direct observation. In like manner it is allowable to say, Sup- 
 I pose that a were a mark of b, b of c, and c of d, a would be a 
 mark of d, which last conclusion was not thought of by those 
 who laid down the premisses. A system of propositions as com- 
 plicated as geometry might be deduced from assumptions which 
 are false; as was done by Ptolemy, Descartes, and others, in their 
 attempts to explain synthetically the phenomena of the solar sys- 
 tem on the supposition that the apparent motions of the heavenly 
 bodies were the real motions, or were produced in some way more 
 or less dififerent from the true one. Sometimes the same thing is 
 knowingly done, for the purpose of showing the falsity of the 
 assumption; which is called a reductio ad absurdum. In such 
 cases, the reasoning is as follows: a is a mark of b, and b of e; 
 now if c were also a mark of d, a would be a mark of d ; but d 
 is known to be a mark of the absence of a ; consequently a would 
 he a mark of its own absence, which is a contradiction; therefore 
 c is not a mark of d. 
 
 % 5. It has even been held by some writers, that all ratiocina- 
 tion rests in the last resort on a reductio ad absurdum ; since the 
 way to enforce assent to it, in case of obscurity, would be to show 
 that if the conclusion be denied we must deny some one at least 
 of the premisses, which, as they are all supposed true, would be 
 a contradiction. And in accordance with this, many have though t 
 the peculiar nature of the evidence of ratiocination consisted in 
 the impossibility of admitting the premisses and rejecting the 
 conclusion without a contradiction in terms. This theory, how- 
 ever, is inadmissible as an explanation of the grounds on which 
 ratiocination itself rests. If any one denies the conclusion not- 
 withstanding his admission of the premisses, he is not involved in 
 any direct and express contradiction until he is compelled to deny 
 some premiss; and he can only be forced to do this by a reductio 
 ad absurdum, that is, by another ratiocination: now, if he denies 
 the validity of the reasoning process itself, he can no more be 
 forced to assent to the second syllogism than to the first. In 
 truth, therefore, no one is ever forced to a contradiction in terms : 
 
84 
 
 he can only be forced to a contradiction (or rather an infringe- 
 ment) of the fundamental maxim of ratiocination, namely, that 
 whatever has a mark, has what it is a mark of; or, (in the case 
 of universal propositions,) that whatever is a mark of anything, 
 is a mark of whatever else that thing is a mark of. For in the 
 case of every correct argument, as soon as thrown into the s3ilo- 
 gistic form, it is evident without the aid of any other syllogism, 
 that he who, admitting the premisses, fails to draw the conclu- 
 sion, does not conform to the above axiom. 
 
 Without attaching exaggerated importance to the distinction 
 now drawn, I think it enables us io characterize in a more accur- 
 ate manner than is usually done, the nature of demonstrative 
 evidence and of logical necessity. That is necessary, from which 
 to withhold assent would be to violate the above axiom. And 
 since the axiom can only be violated by assenting to premisses 
 and rejecting a legitimate conclusion from them, nothing is neces- 
 sary, except the connexion between a conclusion and premisses; 
 of which doctrine, the whole of this and the preceding chapter 
 are submitted as the proof. 
 
 ii 
 
85 
 
 EXAMINATION OF HAMILTON. 
 
 o 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE P1III.080PUY OF THE CONDITIONED. 
 
 We cannot conclude anything to be impossible, because its pos- 
 Bibility is inconceivable to us; for two reasons. First, what seems 
 to us inconceivable, and, so far as we are personally concerned, 
 may really be so, usually owes its inconceivability only to a strong 
 association. When, in a prolonged experience, we have often 
 had a particular sensation or mental impression, and never with- 
 out a certain other sensation or impression immediately accom- 
 panying it, there grows up so firm an adhesion between our ideas 
 of the two, that we are unable to think of the former without 
 thinking the latter in close combination with it. And unless 
 other parts of our experience afford us some analogy to aid in 
 disentangling the two ideas, our incapacity of imagining the one 
 fact without the other grows, or is prone to grow, into a belief 
 that the one cannot exist without the other. This is the law of 
 Inseparable Association, an element of our nature of which few 
 have realized to themselves the full power. It was for the first 
 time largely applied to the explanation of the more complicated 
 mental phtenomena by Mr. James Mill; and is, in an especial 
 manner, the key to the phsenomenon of inconceivability. As that 
 phenomenon only exists because our powers of conception are 
 determined by our limited experience, Inconceivables are inces- 
 santly becoming Conceivables as our experience becomes en- 
 larged. There is no need to go farther for an example than the 
 case of Antipodes. This physical fact was, to the early specula- 
 tors, inconceivable: not, of course, the fact of persons in that 
 position; this the mind could easily represent to itself; but the 
 possibility that being in that position, and not being nailed on, 
 nor having any glutinous substance attached to their feet, they 
 could help falling off. Here was an inseparable, though, as it 
 proved to be, not an indissoluble association, which while it con- 
 
T7^= 
 
 % 
 
 i I 
 
 
 36 
 
 tinned made a real fact what Is called Inconceivable; and because 
 Inconceivable, it was unhesitatingly believed to be impossible. 
 Inconceivabilities of similar character have, at many periods, 
 obstructed the reception of new scientific truths: the Newtonian 
 Bystem had to contend against several of them; and we are not 
 warranted in assigning a different origin and character to those 
 which still subsist, because the experience that would be capable 
 of removing them has not occurred. If anything which is now 
 inconceivable by us were shown to us as a fact, we should soon 
 find ourselves able to conceive it. We should even be in danger of 
 going over to the opposite error, and believing that the negation 
 of it is inconceivable. There are many cases in the history of 
 science (I have dilated on some of laem in another work) where 
 something which had once been inconceivable, and which people 
 had with great difficulty learnt to conceive, becoming itself fixed 
 in the bonds of an inseparable association, scientific men came to 
 think that it alone was conceivable, and that the conflicting hy- 
 pothesis which all mankind had believed, and which a vast 
 majority were probably believing still, was inconceivable. In 
 Dr. Whewell's writings on the Inductive Sciences, this transition 
 of thought is not only exemplified, but defended. Inconceivabil- 
 ity is thus a purely "subjective thing, arising from the mental 
 antecedents of the individual mind, or from those of the human 
 mind generally at a particular period, and cannot give us any 
 insight into the possibilities of Nature. 
 
 But secondly, were it granted that inconceivability is not solely 
 the consequence of limited experience, but that some incapacities 
 of conceiving are inherent in the mind, and inseparable from it, 
 this would not entitle us to inf t. that what we are thus incapable 
 of conceiving, cannot exist. Such an inference would only be 
 warrantable, if we could know i priori that we mu^t have been 
 created capable of conceivmg whatever is capable of existing; 
 that the universe of thought and that of reality, the Microcosm 
 and the Macrocosm (as they once were called) must have been 
 framed in complete correspondence with one another. That this 
 is really the case has been laid down expressly in some systems 
 of philosophy, by implication in more, and is the foundation 
 
and berHuac 
 impossible, 
 iny periods, 
 Newtonian 
 we are not 
 3ter to those 
 d be capable 
 hich is now 
 iiihotdd soon 
 in danger of 
 he negation 
 e history of 
 vork) where 
 ?hich people 
 ? itself fixed 
 Tien came to 
 itlicting hy- 
 bich a vast 
 eivable. In 
 is transition 
 conceivabil- 
 the mental 
 ' the human 
 jive us any 
 
 is not solely 
 incapacities 
 ble from it, 
 IS incapable 
 uld only be 
 t have been 
 )f existing; 
 I Microcosm 
 ; have been 
 That this 
 nae systems 
 foundation 
 
 87 
 
 (among others) of the systems of Schelling and Ilcgcl: but an 
 assumption more destitute of evidence could Scarcely be made, 
 nor can one easily imagine any evidence that could prove it, un- 
 less it were revealed from above. 
 
 What is inconceivable, then, cannot therefore be inferred to be 
 false. But le* us vary the terms of the proposition, and express it 
 thus: what is inconceivable, 1 not therefore incredible. We have 
 now a statement, which may mean either exactly the same as the 
 other, or more. It may mean only that our inability to conceive 
 a thing, does not entitle us to deny its possibility, nor its exist- 
 ence. Or it may mean, that a thing's being inconceivable to us 
 is no reason against our believing, and legitimately believing, 
 that it actually is. This is a very diflferent proposition from the 
 preceding. Sir W. Hamilton, as we have said, goes this leiigth. 
 It is now necessary to enter more minutely than at first seemed 
 needful, into the meaning of "inconceivable;" which, like 
 almoit all the metaphysical terms we are forced to make use of. 
 is weighed down with ambiguities 
 
 The first meaning of Inconceivable is, that of which the mind can- 
 not form to itself any representation : either (as in the case of Nou- 
 mena) because no attributes are given out of which a representation 
 could 1be framed, or because the attributes given are incompatible 
 with one another — are «uch as the mind cannot put together in a 
 single image. Of this last case numerous instances present them- 
 selves to the most cursory glance. The fundamental one is that 
 of a simple contradiction. We cannot represent anything to our- 
 selves as at once being something, and not being it; as at once 
 having, and not having, a given attribute. The following are 
 other examples. We cannot represent to ourselves time or space 
 as having an end. We cannot represent to ourselves two and two 
 as making five; nor two straight lines as encU)sing a space. We 
 cannot represent to ourselves a round square; or a body all black, 
 and at the same time all white. 
 
 These things are literally inconceivable to us, our minds and our 
 experience being what they are. Whether they would be incon- 
 ceivable if our minds were the same but our experience different, 
 is open to discussion. A distinction may be made, which, I 
 
 ■ij 
 
 />■•« 
 
38 
 
 iMip 
 
 think, will be found pertinent to tlie question. That the same 
 thing should at once be and not be — that identically the same 
 statement should be both true and false — is not only inconceivable 
 to us, but we cannot conceive that it could be made conceivable. 
 We cannot attach sufficient meaning to the proposit.'on, to be able 
 to represent to ourselves the supposition of a different experience 
 on thia matter. We cannot therefore even entertain the question, 
 whether the incompatibility is in the original structure of our 
 minds, or is only put there by our experience. The case is other- 
 wise in all the other examples of inconceivability. Our incapacity 
 of conceiving the same thing as A and not A, may be primordial: 
 but our inability to conceive A without B, is because A, by ex- 
 perience or teaching, has become inseparably associated with B: 
 and our inability to conceive A with C, is, because, by experience 
 or teaching, A has become inseparably associated with some 
 mental representation which includes the negation of C. Thus 
 all inconceivabilities may be reduced to inseparable association, 
 combined with the original inconceivability of a direct contradic- 
 tion. All the cases which I have cited as instances of inconceiv- 
 ability, and which are the strongest I could have chosen, may be 
 resolved in this manner. We cannot conceive a round square, not 
 merely because no such object has ever presented itself in our 
 experience, for that would not be enough. Neither, for anything 
 we know, are the two ideas in themselves incompatible. To con- 
 ceive a round square, or to conceive a body all black and yet all 
 white, would only be to conceive two different sensations as pro- 
 duced in us simultaneously by the same object; a conception 
 familiar to our experience; and we should probably be as well able 
 to conceive a round square as a hard square, or a heavy square, 
 if it were not that, in our uniform experience, at the instant when 
 a thing begins to be round it ceases to be square, so that the 
 beginning of the one impression is inseparably associated with 
 the departure or cessation of the other. Thus our inability 
 to form a conception always arises from our being compelled 
 to form another contradictory to it. We cannot conceive time 
 or space as having an end, because the idea of any portion what- 
 ever of time or space is inseparably associated with the idea 
 
 I i 
 
 'i 
 
39 
 
 of a time or space beyond it. We cannot conceive two and 
 two as five, because an inseparable association compels us to con- 
 ceive it as four; and it cannot be conceived as both, because four 
 and five, like round and square, are so related in our experience, 
 that each is associated with the cessation, or removal, of the 
 other. We cannot conceive two straight lines as enclosing a space, 
 because inclosing a space means approaching and meeting a second 
 time; and the mental image of two straight lines which have once 
 met, is inseparably associated with the representation of them as 
 diverging. Thus it is not wholly without ground that the notion 
 of a round square, and the assertion that two and two make five, 
 or that two straight lines can enclose a space, are said, in com- 
 mon and even in scientific parlance, to involve a contradiction. 
 The statement is not logicaly correct, for contradiction is only 
 between a positive representation and its negative. But the im- 
 possibility of uniting contradictory conceptions in the same re- 
 presentation, is the real ground of the inconceivability in these 
 cases. And we should probably have no diflBculty in putting to- 
 gether the two ideas supposed to be incompatible, if our experi- 
 ence had not first inseparably associated one of them with the 
 contradictory of the other. 
 
 ^,. 
 
 
40 
 
 ! I 
 
 i 
 
 LOGIC— BOOK III. 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OF INDUCTIONS IMPROPEKLY SO CALLED. 
 
 § 1. Induction is that operation of the mind, by which we in- 
 fer that what we know to be true in a particuhir case or cases, 
 will be true in all cases which resemble the former in certain as- 
 signable respects. In other words, Induction is the process by 
 which we conclude that what is true of certain individuals of a 
 class is true of the whole class, or that what is true at certain times 
 will be true in similar circumstances at all times. 
 
 This definition excludes from the meaning of the term Induc- 
 tion, various logical operations, to which it is not unusual to ap- 
 ply that name. 
 
 Induction, as above defined, is a process of inference; it pro- 
 ceeds from the known to the unknown; and any operation in- 
 volving no inference, any process in which what seems the con- 
 clusion is no wider than the premisses from which it is drawn^ 
 does not fall within the meaning of the term. Yet in the common 
 books of Logic we find this laid down as the most perfect, indeed 
 the only quite perfect, form of induction. In those books, every 
 process which sets out from a less general and terminates in a more 
 general expression, — which admits of being stated in the form, 
 "This and that A are B, therefore every A is B," — is called an 
 induction, whether anything be really concluded or not; and the 
 induction is asserted to be not perfect, unless every single indivi- 
 dual of the class A is included in the antecedent, or premiss: that 
 is, unless what we aftirm of the class has already been ascertained 
 to be true of every individual in it, so that the nominal conclusion 
 is not really a conclusion, but a mere reassertion of the premisses. 
 If we were to say. All the planets shine by the sun's light, from 
 observation of each separate planet, or All the Apostles were 
 Jews, because this is true of Peter, Paul, John, and every other 
 apostle, — these, and such as these, would, in the phraseology in 
 question, be called perfect, and the only perfect, Inductions. 
 
41 
 
 ». 
 
 s^hich we in- 
 ase or cases, 
 in certain as- 
 e process by 
 viduals of a 
 certain times 
 
 term Indue- 
 lusual to ap- 
 
 ence; it pro- 
 operation in- 
 sms the con- 
 it is drawn 
 
 » 
 
 the common 
 
 rfect, indeed 
 
 jooks, every 
 
 tes in a more 
 
 the form, 
 
 is called an 
 
 lot; and the 
 
 ngle indivi- 
 
 emiss: that 
 
 ascertained 
 
 conclusion 
 
 premisses. 
 
 light, from 
 
 ostles were 
 
 every other 
 
 aseology in 
 
 Inductions. 
 
 This, however, is a totally diflFerent kind of induction from ours; 
 it is no inference from facts known to facts unknown, but a mere 
 short-hand registration of the facts known. The two simulated 
 arguments which we have quoted, are not generalizations; the 
 propositions purporting to be conclusions from them, are not 
 really general propositions. A general proposition is one in which 
 the predicate is affirmed or denied of an unlimited number of in- 
 dividuals; namely, all, whether few or many, existing or capable 
 of existing, which possess the properties connoted by the subject 
 of the proposition. "All men are mortal" does not mean all 
 now living, but all men past, present, and to come. When the 
 signification of the term is limited so as to render it a name not 
 for any and every individual falling under a certain general de- 
 scription, but only for each of a number of individuals designated 
 as such, and as it were counted off individually, the proposition, 
 though it may be general in its language, is no general propo- 
 sition, but merely that number of singular propositions, written 
 in an abridged character. The operation may be very useful, as 
 most forms of abridged notation are; but it is no part of the in- 
 vestigation of truth, though often bearing an important part in 
 the preparation of the materials for that investigation. 
 
 j; 2. A second process which requires to be distinguished from 
 Induction, is one to which mathematicians sometimes give that 
 name: and which so far resembles induction properly so called, 
 that the propositions it leads to are really general propositions. 
 For example, when we have proved, with respect to the circle, 
 that a straight line cannot meet it in more than two points, and 
 when the same thing has been successively proved of the ellipse, 
 the parabola, and the hyperbola, it may be laid down as an uni- 
 versal property of the sections of the cone. In this example there 
 is no induction, because there is no inference: the conclusion is 
 a mere summing up of what was asserted in the various proposi- 
 tions from which it is drawn. A case somewhat, though not 
 altogether, similar, is the proof of a geometrical theorem by 
 means of a diagram. Whether the diagram be on paper or only 
 in the imagination, the demonstration (as formerly observed) 
 
42 
 
 does not prove directly the general theorem; it proves only that 
 the conclusion, which the theorem asserts generally, is true of 
 the particular triangle or circle exhibited in the diagram; but 
 since we perceive that in the same way in which we have proved 
 it of that circle, it might also be proved of any other circle, we 
 gather up into one general expression all the singular propositions 
 susceptible of being thus proved, and embody them in n univer- 
 sal proposition. Having shown that the three angles of the tri- 
 angle ABC are together equal to two right angles, we conclude 
 that this is true of every other triangle, not because it is true of 
 ABC, but for the same reason which proved it to be true of A B C. 
 If this were to be called Induction, an appropriate name for it 
 would be. Induction by parity of reasoning. But the term can- 
 not properly belong to it; the characteristic quality of Induction 
 is wanting, since the truth obtained, though really general, is not 
 believed on the evidence of particular instances. We do not con- 
 clude that all triangles have the property because some triangles 
 have, but from the ulterior demonstrative evidence which was 
 the ground of our conviction in the particular instances. 
 
 There are nevertheless, in mathematics, some examples of so- 
 called induction, in which the conclusion does bear the appearance 
 of a generalization grounded on some of the particular cases 
 included in it. A mathematician, when he has calculated a suf- 
 ficient number of the terms of an algebraical or arithmetical 
 series to have ascertained what is called the law of the series, 
 does not hesitate to fill up any number of the succeeding terms 
 without repeating the calculations But I apprehend he only 
 does so when it is apparent from d priori considerations (which 
 might be exhibited in the form of demonstration) that the mode 
 of formation of the subsequent terms, each from that which pre- 
 ceded it, must be similar to the formation of the terms which 
 have been already calculated. And when the attempt has been 
 hazarded, without the sanction of such general considerations, 
 there are instances on record in which it has led to false results. 
 
 It is said that Newton discovered the binomial theorem by in- 
 duction; by raising a binomial successively to a certain number 
 of powers, and comparing those powers with one another until he 
 
 det 
 sta 
 the 
 lik 
 
 ('01 
 
 CCS 
 
 sou 
 
 th( 
 
 mu 
 
 at 
 
 ap 
 
 anc 
 
 is { 
 
 pre 
 
 of] 
 
 pro 
 
 the 
 
 of I 
 
 inf( 
 
 tiou 
 of! 
 l)ec 
 elal 
 our 
 mei 
 tior 
 S 
 par 
 wei 
 is a 
 obt 
 con 
 tog 
 lam 
 wh 
 and 
 
•ves only that 
 illy, is true of 
 diagram; but 
 re have proved 
 ther circle, we 
 ir propositions 
 1 in n un ivor- 
 ies of the tri- 
 , we conclude 
 ise it is true of 
 true of ABC. 
 te name for it 
 the term can- 
 y of Induction 
 general, is not 
 Ve do not con- 
 jome triangles 
 ice which was 
 inces. 
 
 am pies of so- 
 he appearance 
 irticular cases 
 culated a suf- 
 • arithmetical 
 of the series, 
 needing terms 
 lend he only 
 itions (which 
 hat the mode 
 at which pro- 
 terms which 
 mpt has been 
 )nsiderations, 
 'alse results, 
 eorem by in 
 rtain number 
 other until ho 
 
 43 
 
 detected the relation in which the algebraic formula of each power 
 stands to the exponent of that power, and to the two terms of 
 the binomial. The fact is not improbable: but a mathematician 
 like Newton, who seemed to arrive per saltum at principles and 
 conclusions that ordinary mathematicians only reached by a suc- 
 cession of steps, certainly could not have performed the compari- 
 son in question without being led by it to the d priori ground of 
 the law; since any one who understands sufficiently the nature of 
 multiplication to venture upon multiplying several lines of symbols 
 at one operation, cannot but perceive that in raising a binomial to 
 a power, the coefficients must depend on the laws of permutation 
 and combination: and as soon as this is recognized, the theorem 
 is demonstrated. Indeed, when once it was seen that the law 
 prevailed in a few of the lower powers, its identity with the law 
 of permutation would at once suggest the considerations which 
 prove it to obtain universally. Even, therefore, such cases aa 
 those, are but examples of what I have called induction by parity 
 of reasoning, that is, not really induction, because not involving 
 inference of a general proposition from particular instances. 
 
 ^ 3. There remains a third improper use of the term Induc- 
 tion, which it is of real importance to clear up, because the theory 
 of induction has been, in no ordinary degree, confused by it, and 
 l)ecause the confusion is exemplified in the most recent and most 
 elaborate treatise on the inductive philosophy which exists in 
 our language. The error in question is that of confounding a 
 mere description of a set of observed phenomena, with an induc- 
 tion from them. 
 
 Suppose that a phenomenon consists of parts, and that these 
 parts are only capable of being observed separately, and as it 
 were piecemeal. When the observations have been made, there 
 is a convenience (amounting for many purposes to a necessity) in 
 obtaining a representation of the phenomenon as a whole, by 
 combining, or as we may say, piecing these detached fragments 
 together. A navigator sailing in the midst of the ocean discovers 
 land: he cannot at first, or by any one observation, determine 
 whether it is a continent or an island; but he coasts along it, 
 and after a few days finds himself to have sailed completely round 
 
44 
 
 it: he then pronounces it an island. Now there was no particular 
 time or place of observation at which he could rerceive that this 
 land was entirely surrounded by water: he ascertained the fact 
 by a succession of partial observations, and then selected a gen- 
 eral expression which summed up in two or three words the 
 whole of what he so observed. But is there anything of the 
 nature of an induction in this process? Did he infer anything 
 that had not been observer, from something else which had? 
 Certainly not. He had observed the whole of what the propo- 
 sition asserts. That the land in question is an island, is not an 
 inference from the partial facts which the navigator saw in the 
 course of his circumnavigation; it is the facts themselves; it is a 
 summary of those facts; the description of a complex fact, to 
 which tho » irapler ones are as the parts of a whole. 
 
 Newt ■' « i' I conceive, no difference in kind between this 
 simple opfcralion, and that by which Kepler ascertained the na- 
 ture o* t^e planetary orbits: and Kepler's operation, all at least 
 that was cLfu "tei. lio in it, was not more an inductive act than 
 that of our supposed navijator. 
 
 The object of Kepler was to determine the real path described 
 by each of the planets, or let us say by the planet Mars, (for it 
 was of that body that he first established two of the three great 
 astronomical truths which bear his name.) To do this there was 
 no other mode than that of direct observation: and all which 
 observation could do was to ascertain a great number of the suc- 
 cessive places of the planet; or rather, of its apparent places. 
 That the planet occupied successively all these positions, or at all 
 events, positions which produced the same impressions on the eye. 
 and that it passed from one of these to another insensibly, and 
 without any apparent breach of continuity; thus much the senses, 
 with the aid of the proper instruments, could ascertain. What 
 Kepler did more than this, was to find what sort of a curve these 
 different points would make; supposing them to be all joined to- 
 gether. He expressed the whole series of the observed places of 
 Mars by what Dr. Whewell calls the general conception of an 
 ellipse. This operation was far from being as easy as that of the 
 navigator who expressed the series of his observations on sue- 
 
45 
 
 ccssive points of the coast by the general conception of an island. 
 But it is the very same sort of operation; and if the one is not an 
 induction but a description, this must also be true of the other. 
 
 To avoid misapprehension, we must remark that Kepler, in 
 one respect, performed a real act of induction; namely, in con- 
 cluding that because the observed places of Mars were correctly 
 represented by points in an imaginary ellipse, therefore Mars 
 would continue to revolve in that same ellipse; and even in con- 
 cluding that the position of the planet during the time which in- 
 tervened between two observations, must have coincided with 
 the intermediate points of the curve. But this really inductive 
 operation requires to be carefully distinguished from the mere act 
 of bringing the facts actually observed under a general descrip- 
 tion. So distinct are these two operations, that the one might 
 have been performed without the other. Men might and did 
 make correct inductions concerning the heavenly motions, before 
 they had obtained correct general descriptions of them. It was 
 known that the planets always moved in the same paths, long 
 before it had been ascertained that those paths were ellipses. 
 Astronomers early remarked that the same set of apparent po- 
 sitions returned periodically. When they obtained a new descrip- 
 tion of the phenomenon, they did not necessarily make any fur- 
 ther induction, nor (which is the true test of a new general truth) 
 add anything to the power of prediction which they already 
 possessed. 
 
 § 4. The descriptive operation which enables a number of de- 
 tails to be summed up in a single proposition, Dr. Whewell. by an 
 aptly chosen expression, has termed the Colligation of Facts.* 
 In most of his observations concerning that mental process I fully 
 agree, and would gladly transfer all that portion of his book into 
 my own pages. I only think him mistaken in setting up this 
 kind of operation, which according to the old and received mean- 
 ing of the term, is not induction at all, as the type of induction 
 generally; and laying down, throughout his work, as principles 
 of induction, the principles of mere colligation. 
 
 * Phil. Ind. Sc. ii. 213, 214. 
 
;H!l|i 
 
 46 
 
 Dr. Whewell maintains that the general proposition which 
 binds together the particular facts, and makes them, as it were, 
 one fact, is not the mere sum of those facts, but something more, 
 since there is introduced a conception of the mind, which did not 
 exist in the facts themselves. "The particular facts," says he,* 
 " are not merely brought together, but there is a new element 
 added to the combination by the very act of thought by which 
 they are combined When the Greeks, after long observ- 
 ing the motions of the planets, saw that these motions might be 
 rightly considered as produced by the motion of one wheel revol- 
 ving in the inside of another wheel, these wheels were creations 
 of their minds, added to the facts which they perceived by sense. 
 And even if the wheels were no longer supposed to be material, 
 but were reduced to mere geometrical spheres or circles, they were 
 not the less products of the mind alone, — something additional 
 to the facts observed. The same is the case in all other discov- 
 eries. The facts are known, but they are insulated and uncon- 
 nected, till the discoverer supplies from his own store a principle 
 of connexion. The pearls are there, but they will not hang to- 
 gether till some one provides the string." 
 
 That a conception of the mind is introduced is indeed undeni- 
 able, and I willingly concede, that to hit upon the right concep- 
 tion is often a far more difficult and more meritorious achieve- 
 ment, than to prove its applicability when obtained. But a con- 
 ception implies, and corresponds to, something conceived; and 
 though the conception itself is not in the facts, but in our mind, 
 it must be a conception of something which really is in the facts, 
 some property which they actually possess, and which they would 
 manifest to our senses, if our senses were able to take cognizance 
 of them. If, for instance, the planet left behind it in space a 
 visible track, and if the observer were in a fixed position at such 
 a distance above the plane of the orbit as would enable him to see 
 the whole of it at once, he would see it to be an ellipse; and if 
 gifted with appropriate instruments, and powers of locomotion, 
 he could prove it to be such by measuring its different dimensions. 
 
 * Phil. Ind. 8c. ii. 213, 214. 
 
47 
 
 These things are indeed impossible to us, but not impossible in 
 themselves; if they were so, Kepler's law could not be true. 
 
 Subject to the indispensable condition which has just been 
 stated, I cannot perceive that the part which conceptions have in 
 the operation of studying facts, has ever been overlooked or un- 
 dervalued. No one ever disputed that in order to reason about 
 anything we must have a conception of it; or that when we in- 
 clude a multitude of things under a general expression, there is 
 implied in the expression a conception of something common to 
 those things. But it by no means follows that the conception is 
 necessarily pre-existent, or constructed by the mindout of itsown 
 materials. If the facts are rightly classed under the conception, 
 it is because there is in the facts themselves something of which 
 the conception is itself a copy; and which if we cannot directly 
 perceive, it is because of the limited power of our organs, and 
 not because the thing itself is not there. The conception itself 
 is often obtained by abstraction from the very facts which, in 
 Dr. Whewell's language, it is afterwards called in to connect. This 
 he himself admits, when he observes (which he does on several 
 occasions) how great a service would be rendered to the science 
 of physiology by the philosopher "who should establish a pre- 
 cise, tenable, and consistent conception of life."* Sucha concep- 
 tion can only be abstracted from the phenomena of life itself; from 
 the very facts which it is put in requisition to connect. In other 
 cases (no doubt) instead of collecting the conception from the very 
 phenomena which we are attempting to colligate, we select it 
 from among those which have been previously collected by ab- 
 straction from other facts. In the instance of Kepler's laws, the 
 latter was the case. The facts being out of the reach of being 
 observed, in any such manner as would have enabled the senses 
 to identify directly the path of the planet, the conception requisite 
 for framing a general description of that path could not be col- 
 lected by abstraction from the observations themselves; the mind 
 had to supply hypothetically, from among the conceptions it had 
 obtained from other portions of its experience, some one which 
 
 i 
 
 » Phil Ind. Sc. ii. 173. 
 
r 
 
 48 
 
 mm 
 
 m 
 
 91 
 
 I 
 
 : 
 
 I 
 I 
 
 would correctly represent the series of the observed facts. It had 
 to frame a supposition respecting the general course of the phe- 
 nomenon, and ask itself, If this be the general description, what 
 what will the details be? and then compare these with the details 
 actually observed. If they agreed, the hypothesis would serve 
 for a description of the phenomenon: if not, it was necessarily 
 abandoned, and another tried. It is such a case as this which 
 gives rise to the doctrine that the mind, in framing the descrip- 
 tions, adds something of its own which it does not find in the 
 facts. 
 
 Yet it is a fact surely, that the planet does describe an ellipse; 
 and a fact which we could see, if we had ade(iuate visual organs 
 and a suitable position. Not having these advantages, but 
 possessing the conception of an ellipse, or (to express the mean- 
 ing in less technical language) knowing what an ellipse was, 
 Kepler tried whether the observed places of the planet were con- 
 sistent with such a path. He found they were so; and he, con- 
 sequently, asserted as a fact that the planet moved in an ellipse. 
 But this fact, which Kepler did not add to, but found in, the mo- 
 tions of the planet, namely, that it occupied in succession the 
 various points in the circumference of a given ellipse, was the 
 very fact, the separate parts of which had been separately ob- 
 served; it was the sum of the different observations. 
 
 Having stated this fundamental difference between my opinion 
 and that of Dr. Whewell, I must add. that his account of the 
 manner in which a conception is selected, suitable to express the 
 f.ncts, appears to me perfectly just. The experience of all thinkers 
 will, I believe, testify that the process is tentative; that it consists 
 of a succession of guesses; many being rejected, until one at last 
 occurs fit to be chosen. We know from Kepler himself that be- 
 fore hitting upon the " conception " of an ellipse, he tried nine- 
 teen other imaginary paths, which, finding them inconsistent 
 with the observations, he was obliged to reject. But as Dr. Whe- 
 well truly says, the successful hypothesis, though a guess, ought 
 generally to be called, not a lucky, but a skilful guess. The 
 guesses which serve to give mental unity and wholeness to a chaos 
 of scattered particulars, are accidents which rarely occur to any 
 
3t find in the 
 
 49 
 
 minds but those abounding in knowledge and disciplined in in- 
 tellectual combinations. 
 
 How far this tentative method, so indispensable as a means to 
 the colligation of facts for purposes of description, admits of ap- 
 plication to Indtiction itself, and what functions belong to it in that 
 department, will be considered in the chapter of the present Book 
 which relates to Ilypothese . On the present occasion we have 
 chiefly to distinguish this process of Colligation from Induction 
 properly so called: and that the distincMon may be made clearer, 
 it is well to advert to a curious and interesting remark, which is 
 as strikingly true of the former operation, as it appears to me un- 
 equivocally false of the latter. 
 
 In diflFerent stages of the progress of knowledge, philosophers 
 have employed, for the colligation of the same order of facts, dif- 
 ferent conceptions. The early rude observations of the heavenly 
 bodies, in which minute precision was neither attained nor sought, 
 presented nothing inconsistent with the representation of the path 
 of a planet as an exact circle, having the earth for its centre. As 
 observations increased in accuracy, and facts were disclosed which 
 wore not reconcilcable with this simple supposition; for the colli- 
 gation of those additional facts, the suppositon was varied; and 
 varied again and again as facts became more numerous and pre- 
 cise. The earth was removed from the centre to some other point 
 within the circle; the planet was supposed to revolve in a smaller 
 circle called an epicycle, round an imaginary point which revolved 
 in a circle round the earth: in proportion as observation elicited 
 fresh facts contradictory to these representations, other epicycles 
 and other eccentrics were added, producing additional complica- 
 tion; until at last Kepler swept all these circles away, and sub- 
 stituted the conception of an exact ellipse. Even this is found 
 not to represent with complete correctness the accurate observe 
 tions of the present day, which disclose many slight deviatio.i^ 
 from an orbit exactly elliptical. Now Dr. Whewell has remarked 
 that these successive general expressions, though apparently so 
 conflicting, were all correct: they all answered the purpose of 
 colligation: they all enabled the mind to represent to itself with 
 facility, and by a simultaneous glance, the whole body of factg 
 
 
 J,; '.' 
 
 f '■■ 
 
50 
 
 at that time ascertained; each in its turn served as a correct 1 
 description of the phenonicna, so far as the senses had up to that 
 time taken cognizance of them. If a necessity afterw.^-ds arose 
 for discarding one of these general descriptions of the planet's or- 
 bit, and framing a different imaginary line, by which to express 
 the series of observed positions, it wrs because a number of 
 facts had now been added, which it was necessary to conK-...c; 
 with the old facts into one general description. But this did not 
 affect the correctness of the former expression, considered as a 
 general statement of the only facts which it wa.s intended to re- 
 present. And so true is this, that, as is well remarked by M. 
 Comte, these ancient generalizations, even the rudest and most 
 imperfect of them, that of uniform movement in a circle, are so 
 far from being entirely false, that they are even now habitually 
 employed by astronomers when only a rough approximation to 
 correctness is required. "L'astronomie moderne, en dMruisant 
 sans retour les hypothi^ses primitives, envisag^es comme lois 
 r^elles du monde, a soigneusement maintenu leur valeur po8iti"o 
 et perraanente, la propri6t6 de repr^senter commod^ment les p' 
 nomSnes quand il s'agit d'une premiere 6bauche. Nos ressou: 
 h cet 6gard sont m6me bien plus etendues, precis6ment d cause 
 que nous ne no\ faisons aucune illusion sur la r^alite des hy- 
 pothO'ses; ce qui nous permet d' employer sans scru pule, en chaquc 
 cas, celle que nous jugeons la plus avantageuse."* 
 
 Dr. Whewell's remark, therefore, is philosophically correct. 
 Successive expressions for the colligation of observed facts, or, in 
 other words, successive descriptions of a phenomenon as a whole, 
 which has been observed only in parts, may, though conflicting, 
 be all correct as far as they go. But it would surely be absurd to 
 assert this of conflcting inductions. 
 
 The scientific study of facts may be undertaken for three dif- 
 ferent purposes: the simple description of the facts; their explan- 
 ation; or their prediction: meaning by prediction, the determina- 
 tion of the conditions under which similar facts may be expected 
 again to occur. To the first of these three operations the name 
 
 *Cour8 de Philoaophie Positive, vol. ii., p. 202. 
 
51 
 
 of Induction does not properly belong: to the other two it does. 
 Now, Dr. WhcwcH's observation is true of the first alone. Con- 
 jsidered ns a mere description, the circular theory of the heavenly 
 motions represents perfectly well their general features; and by 
 I adding epicycles without limit, those motions, even as now known 
 to us. might be expressed with any degree of accuracy that might 
 I be required. The elliptical theory, aa a mere description, would 
 have great advantage in point of sinjplicity, and in the consequent 
 [facility of conceiving it and reasoning about it: but it would not 
 really be more true than the other. DifTirent descriptions, there- 
 fore, may be all true: but not, surely, different explanations. 
 The doctrine that the heavenly bodies moved by a virtue inherent 
 in their celestial nature; the doctrine that they were moved by 
 impact, (which led to the hypothesis of vortices as the only im- 
 pelling force capable of whirling bodies in circles,) and the New- 
 tonian doctrine, that they are moved by the composition of a 
 centripetal with an original projectile force; all tb se are explan- 
 ations, collected by real induction from supposed parallel cases; 
 and they were all successively received by philosophers, as scien- 
 tific truths on the subject of the heavenly bodies. Can it be said 
 of these, as was said of the different descriptions, that they are all 
 true as far as they go? Is it not clear that one only can be true 
 in any degree, and the other two must be altogether false? So 
 much for explanations: let us now compare different predictions: 
 the first, that eclipses will occur whenever one planet or satellite 
 is so situated as to cast its shadow upon another; the second, 
 that they will occur whenever some great calamity is impending 
 over mankind. Do these two doctrines only differ in the degree 
 of their truth, as expressing real facts with unequal degrees of 
 accuracy? Assuredly the one is true, and the other absolutely 
 false. 
 
 Dr. Whewell, in his reply, contests the distinction here drawn, 
 and maintains, that not only different descriptions, but different 
 explanations of a phenomenon, may all be true. Of the three 
 theories respecting the motions of the heavenly bodies, he says: 
 "Undoubtedly all these explanations may be true and consistent 
 with each other, and would be so if each had been followed out 
 
 H 
 
 I," ■. 
 
52 
 
 80 as to shew in what manner it could be made consistent with 
 the facts. And this was, in reality, in a great measure done. 
 The doctrine that the heavenly bodies were moved by vortices 
 was successively modified, so that it came to coincide in its re- 
 sults with the doctrine of an inverse quadratic centripetal force 
 
 When this point was reached, the vorte.x was merely a 
 
 machinery, well or ill devised, for producing such a centripetal 
 force, and therefore did not contradict the doctrine of a centri- 
 petal force. Newton himself does not appear to have been averse 
 to explaining gravity by impulse. So little is it true that if one 
 theory be true the other must be false. The attempt to explain 
 gravity by the impulse of streams of particles flowing through 
 the universe in all directions, which I have mentioned in the Phil- 
 osophy, is so far from being inconsistent with the Newtonian 
 theory, that it is founded entirely upon it. And even with regard 
 to the doctrine, that the heavenly bodies move by an inherent 
 virtue; if this doctrine had been maintained in any such way that 
 it was brought to agree with the facts, the inherent virtue must 
 have had its laws determined; and then it would have been found 
 that the virtue had a reference to the central body; and so, the 
 * inherent virtue ' must have coincided in its effect with the New- 
 tonian force; and then, the two explanations would agree, except 
 so far as the word ' inherent' was concerned. And if such a part 
 of an earlier theory as this word inherent indicates, is found to be 
 untenable, it is of course rejected in the transition to later and 
 more exact theories, in Inductions of this kind, as well as in what 
 Mr. Mill calls Descriptions. There is, therefore, still no validity 
 discoverable in the distinction which Mr. Mill attempts to draw 
 between descriptions like Kepler's law of elliptical orbits, and 
 other examples of induction." 
 
 If the doctrine of vortices had meant, not that vortices eijisted, 
 but only that the planets moved in the same manner as if they 
 had been whirled by vortices; if the hypothesis had been merely 
 a mode of representing the facts, not an attempt to account for 
 them; if, in short, iJ had been only a Description; it would, no 
 doubt, have been reconcileable with the Newtonian theory. The 
 vortices, however, were not a mere aid to conceiving the motions 
 
 \ 
 
53 
 
 of the planets, but a supposed physical agent, actively impelling 
 them; a material fact, which migitit be true or not true, but could 
 not be both true and not true. According to Descartes' theory it 
 was true, according to Newton's it was not true. Dr. Whewell 
 probably means that since the phrases, centripetal and projectile 
 force, do not declare the nature but only the direction of the 
 forces, the Newtonian theory does not absolutely contradict any 
 hypothesis which may be framed respecting the mode of their 
 production. The Newtonian theory, regarded as a mere descrip- 
 tion of the planetary motions, does not; but the Newtonian theory 
 as an explanation of them does. For in what does the explana- 
 tion consist? In ascribing those motions to a general law which 
 obtains between all particles of matter, and in identifying this 
 with the law by which bodies fall to the ground; a kind of motion 
 which the vortices did not, and as it was rectilineal, could not, 
 explain. The one explanation, therefore, absolutely excludes the 
 other. Either the planets are not moved by vortices, or they do 
 not move by the law by which heavy bodies fall. It is impossible 
 that both opinions can be true. As well might it be said that 
 there is no contradiction between the assertions, that a man died 
 because somebody killed him, and that he died a natural death. 
 
 So, again, the theory that the planets move by a virtue inherent 
 in their celestial nature, is incompatible with either of the two 
 others; either that of their being moved by vortices, or that which 
 regards them as moving by a property which they have in com- 
 mon with the earth and all terrestrial bodies. Dr. Whewell says, 
 that the theory of an inherent virtue agrees with Newton's when 
 th3 word inherent is left out, which of course it would be (he 
 says) if "found to be untenable." But leave that out, and where 
 is the theory? The word inherent in the theory. When that is 
 omitted, there remains nothing except that the heavenly bodies 
 move by "a virtue," i. e. by a power of some sort. 
 
 If Dr. Whewell is not yet satisfied, any other subject will serve 
 equally well to test his doctrine. lie will hardly say that there 
 is no contradiction between the emission theory and the undulat- 
 ory theory of light; or that there can be both one and two elec- 
 tricities; or that the hypothesis of the production of the higher 
 
m 
 
 54 
 
 organic forms by development from the lower, and the suppo- 
 sition of separate and successive acts of creation, are quite recon- 
 cileable; or that the theory that volcanoes are fed from a central 
 fire, and the doctrines which ascribe them to chemical action at a 
 comparatively small depth below the earth's surface, are consis- 
 tent with one another, and all true as far as they go. 
 
 If different explanations of the same fact cannot both be true, 
 still less, surely, can different predictions. Dr. Whewell quarrels 
 (on what ground it is not necessary to consider) with the example 
 I had chosen on this point, and thinks an objection to an illustra- 
 tion a sufficient answer to a theory. Examples not liable to his 
 objection are easily found, if the proposition that conflicting pre- 
 dictions cannot both be true, can be made clearer by any examples. 
 Suppose the phenomenon to be a newly-discovered comet, and 
 that one astronomer predicts its return once in every 300 years — 
 another, once in every 400: can they both be right? When Col- 
 umbus predicted that by sailing constantly westward he should 
 in time return to the point from which he set out, while others 
 asserted that he could never do so except by turning back, were 
 both he and his opponents true prophets? Were the predictions 
 which foretold the wonders of railways and steamships, and those 
 which averred that the Atlantic could never be crossed by steam 
 navigation, nor a railway train propelled ten miles an hour, both 
 (in Dr. Whewell's words) "true and consistent with one an- 
 other"? 
 
 Dr. Whewell sees no distinction between holding contradictory 
 opinions on a question of fact, and merely employing different 
 analogies to facilitate the conception of the same fact. The case 
 of different Inductions belongs to the former class, that of differ- 
 ent Descriptions to the latter. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OK THE GROUND OF INDUCTION. 
 
 § I. Induction properly so called, as distinguished from those 
 mental operations, sometimes though improperly designated by 
 
65 
 
 the name, which I have attempted in the preceding chapter to 
 characterize, may, then, be summarily defined as Generalization 
 from Experience. It consists in inferring from some individual 
 instances in which a phenomenon is observed to occur, that it 
 occurs in all instances of a certain class: namely, in all which 
 resemble the former, in what are regarded as the material circum- 
 stances. 
 
 In what way the material circumstances are to be distinguished 
 from those which are immaterial, or why some of the circum- 
 stances are material and others not so, we are not yet ready to 
 point out. We must first observe, that there is a principle im- 
 plied in the very statement of what Induction is; an assumption 
 with regard to the course of nature and the order of the universe: 
 namely, that there are such things in nature as parallel cases; 
 that what happens once, will, under a suflBcient degree of simi- 
 ilarity of circumstances, happen again, and not only again, but 
 as often as the same circumstances recur. This, I say, is an as- 
 sumption, involved in every case of induction. And, if we con- 
 sult the actual course of nature, we find that the assumption is 
 warranted. The universe, we find, is so constituted, that what- 
 ever is true in any one case, is true in all cases of a certain de- 
 scription; the only difficulty is, to find what description. 
 
 This universal fact, which is our warrant for all inferences 
 from experience, has been described by different philosophers in 
 different forms of language: that the course of nature is uniform: 
 that tLe universe is governed by general laws; and the like. One 
 of the most usual of these modes of expression, but also one of 
 the most inadequate, is that whir'>' has been brought into familiar 
 use by the metaphysicians of the school of Reid and Stewart. 
 The disposition of the human mind to generalize from experi- 
 ence, — a propensity considered by these philosophers as an instinct 
 of our nature, — they usually describe under some such name as 
 "our intuitive conviction that the future will resemble the past." 
 Now it has been well pointed out, that (whether the tendency be 
 or not an original and ultimate element of our nature). Time, in 
 its modifications of past, present, and future, has no concern 
 either with the belief itself, or with the grounds of it. We be- 
 
 - ^ 
 
w !;•■!; 
 
 56 
 
 lieve that fire will burn to-morrow, because it burned to-day and 
 yesterday; but we believe, on precisely the same grounds, that it 
 burned before we were born, and that it burns this very day in 
 Cochin-China. It is not from the past to the future, as past and 
 future, that we infer, but from the known to the unknown; from 
 facts observed to facts unobserved; from what we have perceived, 
 or been directly conscious of, to what has not come within our 
 experience. In this last predicament is the whole region of the 
 future; but also the vastly greater portion of the present and of 
 the past. 
 
 Whatever be the most proper mode of expressing it, the propo- 
 sition that the course of nature is uniform, is the fundamental 
 principle, or general axiom, of Induction. It would yet be a 
 great error to offer this large generalization as any explanation 
 of the inductive process. On the contrary, I hold it to be itself 
 an instance of induction, and induction by no means of the most 
 obvious kind. Far from being the first induction we make, it is 
 one of the last, or at all events one of those which are latest in 
 attaining strict philosophical accuracy. As a general maxim, in- 
 deed, it has scarcely entered into the minds of any but philoso- 
 phers; nor even by them, as we shall have many opportunities of 
 remarking, have its extent and limits been always very justly 
 conceived. The truth is, that this great generalization is itself 
 founded on i)rior generalizations. The obscurer laws of nature 
 were discovered by means of it, but the more obvious ones must 
 have been understood and assented to as general truths before it 
 was ever heard of. We should never have thought of afilrming 
 that all phenomena take place according to general laws, if we 
 had not first arrived, in the case of a great multitude of phenom- 
 ena, at some knowledge of the laws themselves; which could be 
 done no otherwise than by induction. In what sense, then, can 
 a principle, which is so far from being our earliest induction, be 
 regarded as our warrant for all the others? In the only sense, in 
 which (as we have already seen) the general propositions which 
 we place at the head of our reasonings when we throw them into 
 syllogisms, ever really contribute to their validity. As Archbishop 
 Whately remarks, every induction is a syllogism with the major 
 
57 
 
 premiss suppressed; or (as I prefer expressing it) every induction 
 I nm} be thrown into the form of a syllogism, by supplying a ma- 
 jor premiss. If this be actually done, the principle which we are 
 now considering, that of the uniformity of the course of nature, 
 will appear as the ultimate major premiss of all inductions, and 
 will, therefore, stand to all inductions in the relation in which, 
 as has been shown at so much length, the major proposition of a 
 syllogism always stands to the conclusion; not contributing at all 
 to i)rove it, but being a necessary condition of its being proved; 
 since no conclusion is proved for which there cannot be found a 
 true major premiss. 
 
 The statement, that the uniformity of the course of nature is 
 the ultimate major premiss in all cases of induction, may be 
 thought to require some explanation. The immediate major 
 premiss in every inductive argument, it certainly is not. Of that, 
 Archbishop Whateley's musl be held to be the correct account. 
 The Induction, "John Peter, &c., are mortal, therefore all man- 
 kind are mortal," may, as he justly says, be thrown into a syllo- 
 uism by prefixing as a major permiss (what is at any rate a neces- 
 sary (.onditiou of the validity of the argument) namely, that what 
 is true of John, Peter, &c., is true of all mankind. But how 
 come we by this major permiss? It is not self-evident; nay, in 
 all eases of unwarranted generalization, it is not true. How, 
 then, is it arrived at? Necessarily either by induction or ratio- 
 cination; and if by induction, the process, like all other induc- 
 tive arguments, may be thrown into the form of a syllogism. 
 Tliis previous .sjMlogism it is, therefore, necessary to construct. 
 Tliere is, in the long run, only one possible construction. The 
 real proof that what is true of John, Peter, «fec., is true of all 
 mankind, can only be, that a different supposition would be in- 
 consistent with the uniformity which we know to exist in the 
 course of nature. Whether there would be this inconsistency or 
 not, may be a matter of h)ng and delicate inquiry; but unless 
 there would, we have no sufficient ground for the major of the 
 iinluctive syllogism. It hence appears, that if we throw the 
 whole course of any inductive argument into a series of syllo 
 
 i I 
 
 '■■. 
 
 
 
58 
 
 gisms, we shall arrive by more or fewer steps at an ultimate syllo- 
 gism, which will have for its major premiss the principle, or 
 axiom, of the uniformity of the course of nature. 
 
 It was not to be expected that in the case of this axiom, any 
 more than of other axioms, there should be unanimity among 
 thinkers with respect to the grounds on which it is to be received 
 as true. I have already stated that I regard it as itself a gener- 
 alization from experience. Others hold it to be a principle 
 which, antecedently to any verification by experience, we are 
 compelled by the constitution of our thinking faculty to assume 
 as true. Having so recently, and at so much length, combated a 
 similar doctrine as applied to the axioms of mathematics, by ar- 
 guments which are in a great measure applicable to the present 
 case, I shall defer the more particular discussion of this contro- 
 verted point in regard to the fundamental axiom of induction, 
 until a more advanced period of our inquiry. At present it is 
 of more importance to understand thoroughly the import of the 
 axiom itself. For the proposition, that the course of nature is 
 uniform, possesses rather the brevity suitable to popular, than 
 the precision requisite in philosophical, language: its terms re- 
 quire to be explained, and a stricter than their ordinary signifi- 
 cation given to them, before the truth of the assertion can be 
 admitted. 
 
 § 2. Every person's consciousness assures him thut he does not 
 always expect uniformity in the course of events; he does not 
 always believe that the unknown will be similar to the known, 
 that the future will resemble the past. Nobody believes that the 
 succession of rain and fine weather will be the same in every 
 future year as in the present. Nobody expects to have the same 
 dreams repeated every night. On the contrary, everbody men- 
 tions it as something extraordinary, if the course of nature is 
 constant, and resembles itself, in these particulars. To look for 
 constancy where constancy is not to be expected, as for instance, 
 that a day which has once brought good fortune will always be 
 a fortunate day, is justly accounted superstition. 
 
 The course of nature, in truth, is not only uniform, it is also in- 
 
59 
 
 ^H 
 
 finitely various. Some phenomena are always seen to recur in 
 the ver}' same combinations in which we met wiih them at first; 
 oihcrs seem altogether capricious; while some, which we had 
 been accustomed to regard as bound down exclusively to a 
 particular set of combinations, we unexpectedly find detached 
 from some of the '3lements with which we had hitherto found 
 ihem conjoined, and united to others of quite a contrary descrip- 
 tion. To an inhabitant of Central Africa, tifty years ago, no fact 
 probably appeared to rest on more uniform experience than this, 
 that all human beings are black. To Europeans, not many years 
 ago, the proposition, All swans are white, appeared an equally 
 unequivocal instance of uniformity in the course of nature. Fur- 
 ther experience has proved to both that they were mistaken; but 
 they had to wail fifty centuries for this experience. During that 
 long time, mankind believed in an uniformity of the course of 
 nature where no such uniformity really existed. 
 
 According to the notion which the ancients entertained of in- 
 duction, the foregoing were cases of as legitimate inference as 
 any inductions whatever. In these two instances, in which, the 
 conclusion being false, the ground of inference must have been 
 insutticient, there was, nevertheless, as much ground for it as this 
 conception of induction admitted of. The induction of the an- 
 cients has been well described by Bacon, under the name of " In- 
 (luctio per enumerationem simpliceni, ubi non reperitur instantia 
 contradictoria." It consists in ascribing the character of general 
 truths to all propositions which are true in every instance that 
 we happen to know of. This is the kind of induction which is 
 natural to the mind when unaccustomed to scientific methods. 
 The tendency, which some call an instinct, and which others 
 account for by association, to infer the future from the past, the 
 known from the unknown, is simply a habit of expecting that 
 what has been found true once or several times, and never yet 
 found false, will be found true again. Whether the instances are 
 few or many, conclusive or inconclusive, '''>es not much affect 
 the matter: these are considerations which occur only on reflec- 
 tion: the unprompted tendency of the mind is to generalize its 
 experience, provided this points all in one direction; provided no 
 
5il 
 
 '!! 
 
 60 
 
 other experience of a conflicting character comes unsought. The 
 notion of seeking it, of experimenting for it, of interrogating na- 
 ture (to use Bacon's expression) is of much later growth. The 
 observation of nature, by uncultivated intellects, is purely passive: 
 they accept the facts which present themselves, without taking 
 the trouble of searching for more: it is a superior mind only 
 which asks itself what facts are needed to enable it to come to u 
 sure conclusion, and then looks out for these. 
 
 But though we have always a propensity to generalize from 
 unvarying experience, we are not always warranted in doing so. 
 Before we can be at liberty to conclude that something is uni 
 iversally true because we have never known an instance to the 
 contrary, we must have reason to believe that if there were in 
 nature any instances to the contrary, we should have known of 
 them. This assurance, in the great majority of cases, we cannot 
 have, or can have only in a very moderate degree. The possi- 
 bility of having it, is the foundation on which we shall see here- 
 after that induction by simple enumeration may in some remark- 
 able cases amount practically to proof. No such assurance, 
 however, can be had, on any of the ordinary subjects of scien- 
 tific inquiry. Popular notions are usually founded on induction 
 by simple enumeration; in science it carries us but a little way. 
 We are forced to begin with it; we must often rely on it provis- 
 ionally, in the absence of means of more searching investigation. 
 But, for the accurate study of nature, we require a surer and a 
 more potent instrument. 
 
 It was, above all, by pointing out the insufficiency of this rude 
 and loose conception of Induction, that Bacon merited the title so 
 generally awarded to him, of Founder of the Inductive philoso- 
 phy. The value of his own contributions to a more philosophical 
 theory of the subject has certainly been exaggerated. Although 
 (along with some fundamental errors) his writings contain, more 
 or less fully developed, several of the most important principles 
 of the Inductive Method, physical investigation has now far out- 
 grown the Baconian conception of Induction. Moral and political 
 inquiry, indeed, are as yet far behind that conception. The cur- 
 
01 
 
 rent and approved modes of reasoning on these subjects are still 
 of the same vicious description against which Bacon protested: 
 the method almost exclusively employed by those professing to 
 treat such matters inductively, is the very inductio per enumera- 
 tionem mnplicem which he condemns; and the experience which 
 we hear so confidently appealed to by all sects, parties, and inter- 
 ests, is still, in his own emphatic words, mera palpatio. 
 
 g 8. In order to a better understanding of the problem which 
 tlie logician must solve if he would establish a scientific theory of 
 Induction, let us compare a few cases of incorrect inductions with 
 others which are acknowledged to be legitimate. Some, we know, 
 which were believed for centuries to be correct, were nevertheless 
 incorrect. That all swans are white, cannot have been a good in- 
 duction, since the conclusion has turned out erroneous. The ex- 
 perience, however, on which the concbision rested was genuine. 
 From the earliest records, the testimony of the inhabitants of 
 the known world was unanimous on the point. The uniform ex- 
 perience, therefore, of the inhabitants of the known world, agree- 
 ing in a common result, without one known instance of deviation 
 from that result, is not always sufiicient to establish a general 
 conclusion. 
 
 But let us now turn to an instance apparently not very dissimi- 
 lar to this. Mankind were wrong, it seems, in concluding that 
 all swans wore white: are we also wrong, when we conclude 
 that all men's heads grow above their shoulders, and never 
 below, in spite of the conflicting testimony of the naturalist 
 Pliny? As there were black swans, though civilized people had 
 existed for three thousand years on the earth without meeting 
 with them, may there not also be " men whose heads do grow 
 beneath their shoulders," notwithstanding a rather less perfect 
 unanimity of negative testimony from observers? Most persons 
 would answer No; it was more credible that a bird should vary 
 in its coIo", than that men should vary in the relative position of 
 their principal organs. And there is no doubt that in so saying 
 they would be right: but to say why they are right, would be 
 impossible, without entering more deeply than is usually done, 
 into the true theory of Induction. 
 
H2 
 
 Again, there are cases in which wo reclton with the most un- 
 failing confidence upon uniformity, an(i other cases in which we 
 do not count upon it at all. In some wc feel complete assurance 
 that the future will resemble the past, the unknown be precisely 
 similar to the known. In others, however invariable may be the 
 result obtained from the instances which have been observed, we 
 draw from them no more than a very feeble presumption that the 
 like result will hold in all other cases. That a straight line is the 
 shortest distance between two points, we do not doubt to be true 
 even in the region of the fixed stars. When a chemist announces 
 the existence and properties of a newly-discovered substance, if 
 we confide in his accuracy, we feel assured that the conclusions 
 he has arrived at will hold universally, although the induction be 
 founded but on a single instance. We do not withhold our as- 
 sent, waiting for a repetition of the experiment; or if we do, it is 
 from a doubt whether the one experiment was properly made, 
 not whether if properly made it would be conclusive. Here, then, 
 is a general law of nature, inferred without hesitation from a 
 single instance; an universal proposition from a singular one. 
 Now mark another case, and contrast it with this. Not all the 
 instances which have been observed since the beginning of the 
 world, in support of the general proposition that all crows are 
 black, would be deemed a sufficient presumption of the truth of 
 the proposition, to outweigh the testimony of one unexceptionable 
 witness who should affirm that in some region of the earth not 
 fully explored, he had caught and examined a crow, and had 
 found it to be grey. 
 
 Why is a single instance, in some cases, sufficient for a com- 
 plete induction, while in others, myriads of concurring instances, 
 without a single exception known or presumed, go such a very 
 little way towards establishing an universal proposition? Who- 
 ever can answer this question knows more of the philosophy of 
 logic than the wisest of the ancients, and has solved the problem 
 of induction. 
 
 liir 
 
- 1 >V 
 
 r,a 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OF LAWS OF NATURE. 
 
 ^ 1. In the contemplation of tliat uniformity in the course of 
 niiturc, which is assumed in every inference from experience, 
 one of the first observations that pres»'nt themselves is, that the 
 uniformity in question is not properly uniformity, but uniform- 
 ities. The general rejufularity results from the co-existence of par- 
 tial regularities. The course of nature in general is constant, 
 because the course of each of the various phenomena that com- 
 pose it is so. A certain fact invariably occurs whenever certain 
 circumstances are present, and does not occur when they are 
 absent; the like is true of another fact; and so on. From these 
 separate threads of connexion between parts of the great whole 
 which we term nature, a general tissue of connexion unavoidably 
 weaves itself, by which the whole is held together. If A is al- 
 ways accompanied by D, B by E, and C by F, it follows that A B 
 is accompanied by D E, A C by D F, B C by E F, and finally A 
 B C by D E F; and thus the general character of regularity is 
 produced, which, along with and in the midst of infinite diver- 
 sity, pervades all nature. 
 
 The first point, therefore, to be noted in regard to what is called 
 the uniformity of the course of nature, is, that it is itself a com- 
 plex fact, compounded of all the separate uniformities which ex- 
 ist in respect to single phenomena. These various uniformities, 
 when ascertained by what is regarded as a sufficient induction, 
 we call in common parlance. Laws of Nature. Scientifically 
 speaking, that title is employed in a more restricted sense, to de- 
 signate the uniformities when reduced to their most simple ex- 
 pression. Thus in the illustration already employed, there were 
 seven uniformities; all of which, if considered sufficiently cer- 
 tain, would in the more lax application of the term, be called laws 
 of nature. But of the seven, three alone are properly distinct 
 and independent; these being pre-supposed, the others follow of 
 course: the three first, therefore, according to the stricter accep- 
 
 tm 
 
64 
 
 tatioD, are called laws of naturf, \\iv rcTnainder not; because tlioy 
 are in truth mere catten of the three first; virtually included in 
 them; said, therefore, to rrnult from them: whoever affirms those 
 three has already affirmed all the rest. 
 
 To substitute real examples for symbolical ones, the following 
 are three uniformities, or call them laws of nature: the law that 
 air has weight, the law that pressure on a fluid is propagated 
 equally in all directions, and the law that pressure in one direc- 
 tion, not opposed by equal pressure in the contrary direction, 
 produces motion, which does not cetise until equilibrium is re- 
 stored. From these three uniformities we should be able to pre- 
 dict another uniformity, namely, the rise of the mercury in the 
 Torricellian tube. This, in the stricter use of the phrase, is not 
 a law of nature. It is result of laws of nature. It is a case of 
 each and every one of the three laws; and is the only occurrence 
 by Which they could all be fulfilled. If the mercury were not 
 sustained in the barometer, and sustained at such a height that 
 the column of mercury were e(imd in weight to a column of the 
 atmosphere of the same diameter; here would be a case, either 
 of the air not pressing upon the surface of the mcrciiry with the 
 force which is called its weight, or of the downward pressure on 
 the mercury not being propagated equally in an upward direc- 
 tion, or of a body pressed in one direction and not in the direction 
 opposite, either not moving in the direction in which it is pressed, 
 or stopping before it had attained equilibrium. If we knew, 
 therefore, the three simple laws, but had never tried the Torri- 
 cellian experiment, we might dedticc its result from those laws. 
 The known weight of the air, combined with the position of the 
 apparatus, would bring the mercury within the first of the three 
 inductions; the first induction would bring it within the second, 
 and the second within the third, in the manner which we cham 
 terized in treating of Ratiocination. We should thus lo 
 
 know the more complex uniformity, independently o i i;iflc 
 experience, through our knowledge of the simpler on from 
 which it results; although, for reasons which will appear hert 
 after, verification by specific experience would still be desirable, 
 and might possibly be indispensable. 
 
05 
 
 Coniplcx Miilformitits which, like this, firo nuTc cases of sim- 
 pler ones, and hiive, therefore, been virtual?}' afflrmed in afflrni- 
 \nii those, may with i)ropriety be called lan'n, l)ut can scarcely, 
 in the strictness of scientific spc^ech, he termed Laws of Nature. 
 If is the custom in science, wherever regularity of any kind can 
 he traced, to call the general pr<)po.sltion which expresses the 
 nature of that regularity, a Itiir; as when, in mathematics, wc 
 speak of the law of decrease of the successive terms of a con- 
 verging series. But the expression, law of nature, has generally 
 been employed with a sort of tacit reference to tlie original sen.se 
 of the word ^a?r,* namely, the expression of the will of a .superior. 
 When, therefore, it appeared that any of the uniformities which 
 were ()])served in nature, woidd result spontaneously from certain 
 other uniformities, no separate act of creative will being supposed 
 necessary for the production of the derivative uniformities, these 
 liave not usually been spoken of as laws of nature. According to 
 another mode of expression, the question, AVhat are the laws of 
 nature? nniy be stated thus: — What are tlie fewest and simplest 
 assiuuptions, which being granted, tin; whole existing order of 
 nature would result? Another mode of stating it would be thus: 
 Wluit are the fewest general pro[)oslti()ns from which all the 
 uniformities which exist in the universe might be deductively 
 inferred? 
 
 Every great advance which marks an epoch in the progress of 
 science, has consisted in a step made towards the solution of this 
 problem. Even a simple colligation of inductions already made, 
 without any fresh extension of the inductive inference, is already 
 an advance in that direction. When Kepler expressed the regu- 
 larity which exists in the observed motions of the heavenly 
 bodies, by the three general propositions called his laws, he, in 
 so doing, pointed out three simple suppositions which, instead of 
 a much greater number, would suffice to construct the whole 
 scheme of the heavenly motions, so far as it was known up to 
 that time. A similar and still greater step was made when these 
 laws, which at first did not seem to be included in any more gen- 
 eral uths, were discovered to be cases of the three laws of mo- 
 tion, as obtaining among bodies which mutually tend toward* 
 
66 
 
 one another with a certain force, and have had a certain instan- 
 taneous impulse originally impressed upon them. After this 
 great discovery, Kepler's three propositions, though still called 
 laws, would hardly, by any person accustomed to use language 
 with percision, be termed laws of nature: that phrase would be 
 reserved for the simpler laws into which Newton is said to have 
 resolved them. 
 
 According to this language, every well-grounded inductive gen- 
 eralization is either a law of nature, or a result of laws of nature, 
 capable, if those laws are known, of being predicted from them. 
 And the problem of Inductive Logic may be summed up in two 
 questions: how to ascertain the laws of nature; and how. after 
 having ascertained them, to follow them into their results. On 
 the other hand, we must not stiffer ourselves to imagine that this 
 mode of statement amounts to a real analysis, or to anything but 
 a mere verbal transformation of the problem; for the expression. 
 Laws of Nature, metins nothing but the uniformities which exist 
 among natural phenomena (or, in other words, the results of in- 
 duction), when reduced to their simplest expression. It is, how- 
 ever, something, to have advanced so far, as to see that the study 
 of nature is the study of laws, not a law; oi 'iniformities, in the 
 plural number: that the different natural phenomena luive their 
 separate rules or modes of taking place, which, though much in- 
 termixed and entangled with one another, may, to a certain ex- 
 tent, be studied apart: that (to resume our former metaphor) the 
 regularity which e.xisfs in nature is a web composed of distinct 
 threads, and only to be understood by tracing eac'i of the threads 
 separitely; for which purpose it is often necessary to unravel 
 some portion of the web, and exhibit the fibres apart. The rules 
 of experimental inquiry are the contrivances for unravelling the 
 web. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 OP THE LAW OF UNIVERSAL CAUSATION. 
 
 § 1. The phenomena of nature exist in two distinct relations to 
 one another; that of simultaneity, and that of succession. Every 
 
67 
 
 phenomenon is related, in an uniform manner, to some phenom- 
 ( nil that coexist with it, and to some that have preceded or will 
 follow it. 
 
 Of the uniformities which exist among synchronous phenom- 
 ena, the most important, on every accotmt, are the laws of num- 
 lier; and next to them those of space, or in other words, of ex- 
 tension and figure. The laws of numher are common to synchro- 
 nous and successive phenomena. That two and two make four, 
 is eipially true whether the second two follow the first two or 
 accompany them. It is as true of days and years as of feet and 
 inches. The laws of extensi<m and figure, (in other words, the 
 theorems of geometry, from its lowest to its highest branches,) 
 are, on the contrary, laws of simultaneous phenomena only. The 
 various parts of space, and of the objects which are said to fill 
 space, coexist; and the imvarying laws which are the subject of 
 the science of geometry, are an expression of the mode of their 
 coexistence. 
 
 This is a class of laws, or in other words, of uniformities, for 
 the comprehension and proof of which it is not necessary to sup- 
 pose any lapse of time, any variety of facts or events succeeding 
 one another. If all the obj<'cts in the universe were unchange- 
 ably fixed, and had remained in that condition from eternity, the 
 propositions of geometry would still be true of those objects. All 
 things which possess extension, or in other words, which fill 
 space, are subject to geometrical laws. Possessing extension, 
 they possess figure; possessing figure, they must possess some 
 figure in particular, and have all the properties which geometry 
 assigns to that figure. If one body be a sphere and another a 
 cylinder, of equal height and diameter, the one will be exactly 
 two-thirds of the other, let the nature and (piality of the material 
 be what it will. Again, each body, and each point of a body, must 
 occupy some place or position among other bodies; and the po- 
 "^ition of two bodies relatively to each other, of whatever nature 
 the bodies be, may be unerringly inferred from the position of 
 each of them relatively to any third body. 
 
 In the laws of number, then, and in those of space, we recog- 
 nize, in the most unqualified manner, the rigorous universality of 
 
r»8 
 
 t 
 
 k 
 
 which we are in quest. Those laws have been in all ages the type 
 of certainty, the standard of comparison for all inferior degrees 
 of evidence. Their invariability is so perfect, that we are unable 
 even to conceive any exception to them; and philosophers have 
 been led, although (as I have endeavoured to show) erroneously, to 
 consider their evidence as lying not inexperience, but in the original 
 constitution of the intellect. If, therefore, from the laws of space 
 and number, we were able to deduce uniformities of any other 
 description, this would be conclusive evidence to us that those 
 other nniformities possessed the same degree of rigorous certainty. 
 But this we cannot do. From laws of space and number alone, 
 nothing can be deduced but laws of space and number. 
 
 Of all truths relating to phenomena, the most valuable to us are 
 those which relate to the order of their succession. On a know 
 ledge of these is founded every reasonable anticipation of future- 
 facts, and whatever power we possess of influencing those facts to 
 our advantage. Even the laws of geometry are chiefly of prac- 
 tical importance to us as being a portion of the premisses from 
 which the order of the successh)n of phenomena may be inferred. 
 Inasmuch as the motion of bodies, the action of forces, and the pro- 
 pagation of influences of all sorts, take place in certain lines and 
 over definite spaces, the property of those lines and spaces are an im- 
 portant part of the laws to which those phenomena are themselves 
 subject. Again, motions, forces or other influences, and times, 
 are numerable (piantities; and the properties of number are ap 
 plicable to them as to all other things. But though the laws of 
 nuniber and space are important elements in the ascertainment of 
 uniformities of succession, they can do nothing towards it when 
 taken by themselves. They can ot)ly be made instrumental to 
 that purpose when we combine with them additional premisses, 
 expressive of uniformities of su(,'cession already known. By 
 taking, for instance, as premisses these propositions, that bodies 
 acted upon ])y an instantaneous force move with uniform velocity 
 in straight lines; that bodies acted upon by a continuous force 
 move with accelerated velocity in straight lines; and that bodies 
 acted upon by two forces in diflferent directions move in the di 
 agonal of a parallelogram, whose sides represent the direction 
 
 l^ 
 m 
 
69 
 
 '■ 't^i 
 
 'Ive? 
 
 and qimntity of those forces; we may by combining these truths 
 with propositions relating to the properties of straight lines and 
 of parallelograms, (as that a triangle is half of a parallelogram of 
 the same base and altitude,) deducie another important uniformity 
 of succession, viz., that a body moving round a centre of force 
 describes areas proportional to tlie times. But unless there had 
 been laws of succession in our premisses, there could have been 
 no truths of succession in our conclusions, A similar remark 
 might be extended to every other class of phen»)mena really pe- 
 culiar; and, had it been attended to, would have prevented many 
 chimerical attempts at demonstrations of the indemonstrable, and 
 explanations which do not explain. 
 
 It is not, therefore, enough for us that the laws of space, which 
 are only laws of simultaneous phenomena, and the laws of num- 
 ber, which though true of successive phenomena do not relate to 
 their succession, possess the rigorous certainty and universality 
 of which we are in search. We must endeavour to find some law 
 of succession which has those Lame attributes, and is therefore 
 tit to be made the foundation of processes for discovering, and of 
 a test for verifying, all other uniformities of succession. This 
 fundamental law must resemble the truths of geometry in their 
 most remarkable peculiarity, that of never being, in any instance 
 whatever, defeated or suspended by any change of circumstances. 
 
 Now among all those uniformities in the succession of phenom- 
 ena, which common observation is sufficient to bring to light, 
 there are very few which have any, even apparent, pretensions 
 to this rigorous indefeasibility: and of those few, one on'y has 
 been found capable of con nletely sustaining it. In that one, 
 however, we recognize a law which is universal also in another 
 sense; it is coextensive with the entire field of successive phe- 
 nomena, all instances whatever of succession being examples of it. 
 This law is the Law of Causation. The truth, that every fact 
 which has a beginning has a cause, is coextensive with human 
 experience. 
 
 This generalization may appear to some minds not to amount 
 to much, since after all it as.serts only this: "it is a law, that every 
 event depends on some law." We must not, however, conclude 
 
70 
 
 that the generality of the principle is merely verbal; it will be found 
 on inspection to be no vague or unmeaning assertion, but a most 
 important and really fundamental truth. 
 
 § 2. The notion of Cause being the root of the whole theory of 
 Induction, it is indispensable that this idea should, at the very 
 outset of our inquiry, be, with the utmost practicable degree of 
 precision, lixed and determined. If, indeed, it were necessary 
 for the purpose of inductive logic that the strife should be quelled, 
 which has so long raged among the different schools of metaphy- 
 sicians, respecting the origin and analysis of our idea of causation ; 
 the promulgation, or at least the general reception, of a true theory 
 of induction, might be considered desperate, for a long time to 
 come. But the science of the Investigation of Truth by means 
 of Evidence, is happily independent of many of the controversies 
 which porplex the science of the ultimate constitution of the hu- 
 man mind, and is under no necessity of pushing the analysis of 
 mental phenomena to that extreme limit which alone ought to 
 satisfy a metaphysician. 
 
 I premise, then, tiiat when in the course of this iiuiuiry I speak 
 of the cause of any phenomenon, I do not mean a cause which is 
 not itself a |)hen(Huenon; I make no research into the iillimate, or 
 ontological cause of anything. To adopt a distinction familiar in 
 the writings of the Scotch metaphysicians, and especially of Reid. 
 the caiises with which I concern myself are not efficient, but phy- 
 ninil causes. They are causes in that sense alone, in which one 
 physical fact is said to be the cause of another. Of the efficient 
 causes of phenomena, or whetluT any such causes exist at all, I 
 am not called upon to give an opinion. The notion of causation 
 is deemed, by the schools of metaphysics most in vogue at the 
 present moment, to imply a mysterious and most powerful tie, 
 such as cannot, or at least does not, exist between any i)hysical 
 fact and that other physical fact on which it is invariably conse- 
 (pient, and which is popularly termed its cause: and thence is 
 deduced the supposed necessity of ascending higher, into the es- 
 sences and inherent constitution of things, to find the true cause, 
 the cause which is not only followed by. biit actually prodttren, 
 the effect No such necessity exists for the purposes of the 
 present imjuiry, nor will any such doctrine be found in the fol- 
 
71 
 
 lowing pages. But uellber will there be found anything incom- 
 patible with it. We are in no way concerned in the question. 
 The only notion of a cause, which the theory of induction re- 
 quires, is such a notion as can be gained from experience. The 
 Law of Causation, the recognition of which is the main pillar of 
 inductive science, is but the familiar truth, that invariability 
 »)f succession is found by observation to obtain between every 
 fact in nature and some other fact which has preceded it; inde- 
 pendently of all considerations respecting the ultimate mode of 
 production of phenomena, and of every other ({uestion regarding 
 the nature of "Things in themselves." 
 
 Between the phenomena, then, which exist at any instant, and 
 the phenomena which exist at the succeeding instant, there is an 
 invariable order of succession; and, as we said in speaking of the 
 general uniformity of the c(mrse of nature, this web is composed 
 of separate fibres; this collective order is made up of particular 
 sequences, obtaining invariably among the separate parts. To 
 certain facts, certain facts always do, and, as we believe, will con- 
 tinue to, succeed. The invariable antecedent is termed the cause; 
 the invariable consequent, the elTect. And the universality of 
 the law of causation consists in this, that every consequent is 
 conne(;ted in this manner w ith some particular antecedent, or set 
 of antecedents. Let the fact be what it may, if it has begun to 
 exist, it was preceded by some fact or facts, with which it is in- 
 variably connected. For every event there exists some combina- 
 tion of object:, or events, some given concurrence of circumstances, 
 positive and negative, the occurrence of which is always followed 
 by that phenomenon. We may not have foimd out what this 
 (•oncurrence of circumstances may be; but we never doubt that 
 there is such a one, and that it never occurs without having the 
 piienomenon in (juestion as its effect or consequence. On the 
 universality of this truth depends the possibility of reducing the 
 inductive process to rules. The undoubted assurance we have 
 that there is a law to be found if we only knew how to find it, 
 will be seen presently to be the source from which the canons of 
 the Inductive Logic derive their validity. 
 
72 
 
 r 
 
 § 3. It is seldom, if ever, between a consequent and a single 
 antecedent, that this invariable sequence subsists. It is usually 
 between a consequent and the sum of several antecedents; the 
 concurrence of all of them being recjuisite to produce, that is, to 
 be certain of being followed by, the consequent. In such cases 
 it is very common to single out one only of the antecedents under 
 the denomination of Cause, calling the otliers merely Conditions. 
 Thus, if a jierpon eats of a particular dish, and dies in consequence, 
 that is, would not have died if he had not eaten of it, people would 
 be apt to say that eating of that dish was the cause of his death. 
 There needs not, however, be an}' invariable connexion between 
 eating of the di.«jh and death; but there certainly is, among the 
 circumstances which took place, some combination or other on 
 which death is invariably consequent: as, for instance, the act of 
 eating of the dish, combined with a particular bodily constitution, 
 a particular state of present health, and perhaps even a certain 
 state of the atmosphere; the whole of wliich circumstances per- 
 haps constituted in this particuliir case the ronditiouH of the pho 
 nomenon, or in other words, the set of antecedents which deter 
 mined it, and but for which it would not have happened. Th<' 
 real Cause, is th(; whole of these antecedents; and we have, phil- 
 osophically speaking, no right to give the name of cause to one 
 of them, exclusively of the others. What, in the case we have 
 supposed, disguises the incorrectness of the expression, is this: 
 that the various conditions, except the single one of eating the 
 food, were not ere/ttn (that is, instantaneous changes, or succes- 
 sions of instantaneous changes) but .tfufeti, possessing more or less 
 of permanency; and might therefore have preceded the effect by 
 an indefinite length of duration, for want of the event which was 
 requisite to complete the required concurrence of conditions; 
 while as soon as that event, eating the food, occurs, no other 
 cause is waited for, but the effect begins immediately to take 
 place: and hence the appearance is jircsentcd of a more immediate 
 and close connexion between the effect and that one antecedent, 
 than between the effect and the remaining conditions. But 
 though we may think proper to give the name of cause to that 
 one condition, the fulfilment of which completes the tale, and 
 
78 
 
 brings about the effect without further delay; this condition hjis 
 really no closer relation to the effect than any of the other con- 
 ditions has. The production of the consequent rc(iuired that they 
 should all t'-vixt immediately previous, though not that they should 
 Jill bif/in to exist immediately previous. The statement of the 
 (•aus(! is incomplete, unless in some shape or other we introduce 
 all the conditions. A man takes mercury, goes out of doors, and 
 catcbcs cold. We say, perhaps, that the cause of his taking cold 
 was exposure to the air. It is clear, however, that his having 
 taken mercury may have been a necessary condition of his catch- 
 ing cold; and though it might consist with usage to say that the 
 cause of his attack was exposure to the air, to be accurate we 
 ought to say that the cause was <!xpo8ure to the air while under 
 the effect of mercury. 
 
 If we do not, when aiming at accuracy, enumerate all the con- 
 ditions, it is oidy be(;ause some of them will in most cases l)e un- 
 derstood without being expressed, or because for the purpose in 
 view they may without detriment be overlooked. For example, 
 when we say, the cause of a man's death was that his foot slip- 
 ped in climbing a ladder, we omit as a thing unnecessary to 
 he slated the circumstance of his weight, though (juite as indis- 
 pensable a condition of the effect which took place. When we 
 say that the assent of the crown to a bill makes it law, we mean 
 that the assent, being never given until all the other conditions 
 are fulfilled, makes up the sum of the conditions, though no one 
 MOW regards it as tlie principal one. When the decision of a 
 legislative assembly has been determined by the casting vote of 
 the chairman, we sometimes say that this one person was the 
 cause of all the effects which resulted from the enactment. Yet 
 we do not really suppose that his single vote contributed more to 
 the result than that of any other person who voted in the affirm- 
 ative; but, for the purpose we have in view, which is to insist on 
 his share of the responsibility, the part which any other person 
 had in the transaction is not material. 
 
 In all these instances the fact which was dignilicd by the name 
 of cause, was the one condition which came last into existence. 
 But it must nut be supposed that in the employment of the term 
 
74 
 
 * 
 
 ii 
 
 this or any other rule is always adhered to. Nothing can better 
 shew the absence of any scientiflc ground f«)r the distinction be- 
 tween the cause of a phenomenon and its conditions, than the capri- 
 cious manner in whicli we select from among the conditions that 
 which we choose to denominate the cause. However numerous the 
 conditions may be, there is hardly any of them which may not, 
 according to the purpose of our immediate discourse, obtain that 
 nominal pre-eminence. This will be seen by analysing the con- 
 ditions of some one familiar phenomenon. For example, a stone 
 thrown into water falls to the bottom. What are the conditions 
 of this event? In the first place there must be a stone, and water, 
 and the stone must be thrown into the water; but, these suppo- 
 sitions forming part of the enunciation of the phenomenon itself, to 
 include them also among the conditions would be a vicious tau- 
 tology, and this class of conditions, therefore, have never received 
 the name of cause from any but the schoolmen, by whom they 
 were called the material cause, canaa viaterialis. The next con- 
 dition is, there must be an earth: and accordingly it is often said, 
 that the fall of a stone is caused by the earth; or by a power 
 or property of the earth, or a force exerted by the earth, 
 all of wt h arc merely roundabout ways of saying that it 
 is caused by the earth; or, lastly, the earth's attraction; which 
 also is only a technical mode of saying that the earth causes 
 tlie motion, with the additional particularity that the motion is 
 tmcards the earth, Tvhich is not a character of the cause, but of 
 the eflFect. Let I's now pass to another condition. It is not 
 enough that the <,arth should exist; the body must be within that 
 distance from it, in which the earth's attraction preponderates 
 over that of any other body. Accordingly we may say, and the 
 expression would be confessedly correct, that the cause of the 
 stone's falling is its being within the sphere of the earth's attraction. 
 We proceed to a further condition. The stone is immersed in 
 water: it is therefore a condition of its reaching the ground, that its 
 flpecitic gravity exceed that of the surrounding fluid, or in other 
 words that it surpass in weight an equal volume of water. Ac- 
 cordingly any one would be acknowledged to speak correctly who 
 aaid, that the cause of the stone's going to to the bottom is its ex- 
 ceeding in specific gravity the fluid in which it is immersed. 
 
75 
 
 Thus we sec thai earl) and every condition of the phenomenon 
 may be taken in its turn, and, with ecjual pn)piiety in common 
 parlance, but with equal impropriety in scientific discourse, may 
 be spoken of as if it were the entire cause. Ami in practice that 
 particular condition is usually styled the cause, whose share in 
 the matter is superfl(;ially the most conspicuous, or whose re- 
 (juisiteness to the production of the effect we happen to be insist- 
 ing on at the moment. So great is the force of this last ct)nsider- 
 alion, that it sometimes induces us to give the name of cause even 
 to one of the negative conditions. We say, for example. The 
 army was surprised because the sentinel was off his post. But 
 since the sentinel's al)sence was not what created the enemy, or 
 put the soldiers asleep, how did it cause them to be surprised? 
 All that is really meant is, that the event would not have hap- 
 pened if he h'ld been at his duty. His being off his post was no 
 producing cause, but the mere absence of a preventing cause: 
 it was simply ecpnvalent to his non-e.\ist(!nce. From nothing, 
 from a mere negation, no consequences can proceed. All effects 
 are connected, by the law of causation, with some set of ponifiiie 
 conditiojis; negative; ones, it is true, being almost always reejuired 
 in addition. In otlier words, every fact or phenomenon which has 
 a beginning, invariably arises when some certain combination of 
 positive facts e.xist, provided certain other facts do not «.\ist. 
 
 There is, no «loubi, a tendency (which our first example, that 
 of death from taking a particular food, sufficiently illustrates) to 
 associate the idea of causation with the proximate antecedent 
 '•rr/if, rather than with any of the antecedent ufates, or permanent 
 facts, which may happen also to be conditions of the phenom- 
 enon; the reason being tiwit the event not only exists, but begins 
 to exist, immediately previous; while the other conditions may 
 have preexisted for an indefinite time. And this ten<lency shows 
 itself very visibly in the different logical fictions which are re- 
 sorted to, even by men of science, to avoid the necessity of giving 
 the name of cause to anything which had existed for an inde- 
 terminate length of time before the effect. Thus, rather than say 
 that the earth causes the fall of bodie-j, they ascribe it to a fore-' 
 exerted by the earth, or an attraction by the earth, abstractions 
 
76 
 
 r*' 
 
 wliUh tlu!}' can represent to themselves as exhausted by each 
 etlort, and therefore con sti tut hit? at each successive instant a 
 freslj fact, siriuillaneous with, or only immediately preceding!;, the 
 cfTect. Inasmuch as the coming? of the circumstance which com 
 pletes the asseml)la;?e of conditions, is a chanj^e or event, it 
 thence happens that an event is always tlie antecc^dent in closest 
 apparent proximity to the conse<iuent: and this may account for 
 the illusion whi(;h disposes us to look upon the proximate event 
 as standing more peculiarly in the position of a cause than any 
 of the antecedent states. Hut even this peculiarity, of being in 
 closer proximity to the effect than any other of its conditions, is, 
 as we have already seen, far from being necessary to the common 
 notion of a cause; with which notion, on the contrary, any one 
 of the conditions, either positive or negative, is found, on occa- 
 sion, (;ompletely to accord. 
 
 The cause, then, philosophically speaking, is the sum total of 
 the conditions, positive and negative, taken together; the whole 
 of the contingencies of every description, which being realized, 
 the consecpient invarial)ly follows. Tlie negative conditions, 
 however, of any phenomenon, a special enumeration of which 
 would generally be very prolix, may be all summed up under one 
 head, namely, the absence of preventing or counteracting caiises. 
 The convenience of this mode of expression is nuiinly grounded 
 on the fact, that the elTects of any cause in counteracting another 
 cause may in most cases be, with strict scientific exactness, re- 
 garded as a mere extension of its own jiroperand separate effects. 
 If gravity retards the upward motion of a projectile, and deflects 
 it into a parabolic trajectory, it produces, in so doing, the very 
 same kind of effect, and even (as mathematicians know) the same 
 quantity of effect, as it does in its ordinary operation of causing 
 the fall of bodies when simply deprived of their support. If an 
 alkaline solution mixed with an acid destroys its sourness, and 
 prevents it from reddening vegetable blues, it is because the 
 specific effect of the alkali is to combine with the acid, and form 
 a compound with totally different qualities. This property, which 
 causes of all descriptions possess, of preventing the effects of other 
 causes by virtue (for t,he most part) of the same laws, according 
 
 I II 
 
77 
 
 to which they produce their own, enables us, by establishing the 
 ixineral axiom that all causes are liable to be counteracted in their 
 I (TcctH by on*; another, to dispense with the consideration of nega- 
 tive conditions entirely, and limit the notion of cause to the 
 ;i^s(in])]age of the positive conditions of the phenomenon: one 
 negative condition invariably understood, and the same in all 
 instances (namely, the absence of all counteracting causes) being 
 Mjflicient, along with the sum of the positive conditions, to nuike 
 ii|) the whole set of circumstances on which the phenomenon is 
 (lej>endent. 
 
 >^ 4. Among the positive conditions, as we have seen that there 
 are some to which, in common parlance, the term cause is more 
 readily and frequently awarded, so there are others to which it 
 is, in ordinary circumstances, refused. In most cases of causation 
 a distinction is commonly drawn between something which acts, 
 and some other thing which is acted upon; between an agent and 
 a pah'ent. Both of these, it would be universally allowed, are 
 conditions of the phenomenon; but it would be thought absurd 
 to call the latter the cause, that title being reserved for the former. 
 The distinction, however, vanishes on examination, or rather is 
 found to be only verbal; arising from an incident of mere expres- 
 sion, namely, that the object said to be acted upon, and which is 
 considered as the scene in which the effect takes place, is com- 
 tnotdy included in the phrase by which the effect is spoken of, 
 so that if it were also reckoned as part of the cause, the seeming 
 incongruity would arise of its being supposed to cause itself. In 
 the instance which we have already had, of falling bodies, the 
 (luestion was thus put: — What is the cause which makes a stone 
 fall? and if the answer had been "the stone itself," the expression 
 would have been in apparent contradiction to the meaning of the 
 word cause. The stone, therefore, is conceived as the patient, and 
 the earth (or, according to the common and most unphilosophical 
 practice, some occult quality of the earth) is represented as the 
 agent, or cause. But that there is nothing fundamental in the dis- 
 tinction may be seen from this, that it is quite possible to conceive 
 the stone as causing its own fall, provided the language employed 
 be such as to save the mere verbal incongruity. We might say that 
 
78 
 
 the stone moves towards the earth by tlw profxTties of tl»c matter 
 composing it; and according to this mode of presenting the phe- 
 nomenon, the stone itself might witliout impropriety he called the 
 agent; although, to save the estahllshed doctrine of tlie inactivity 
 of the matter, men iisiially prefer here also to ascribe the elTecl 
 to an occult quality, and say that the cause is not the stone itself, 
 but tlie freight or graritation of the stone. 
 
 Those who have contended for a radical distinction between 
 agent and patient, have generally conceived the agent as that 
 which causes some state of, or some change in the state of, 
 another object which is called the patient. Hut a little retlectiou 
 will show that the license we assume of speaking of phenoniena 
 as tttaten of the various objects which take pari in them, (an arti 
 flee of which so much ase has been made by some philosophers, 
 Brown in piirticidar, for the apparent explanation of phenomena,^ 
 is simply a sort of logical Action, useful sometimes as one among 
 several modes of expression, but which should never be supposed 
 to be the statement of a scientitic truth, pjven those attributes of 
 an object which might seem with greatest propriety to he called 
 fitates of th(M)bject itself, its sensible (pialities, its color, hardness, 
 shape, and the like, are, in reality, (as no one has pointed out 
 more clearly than Brown himself,) phenomena of causation, in 
 which the substance is distinctly the agent, or producing catise. 
 the patient being our own organs, and those of other sentient 
 beings. What we call states of objects, are always secpiences into 
 whi(;h those the objects enter, generally as antecedents or causes; 
 and things are never more active than in the production of those; 
 phenomena in which they are said to be acted upon. Thus, in 
 the example of a stone falling to the earth, according to the 
 theory of gravitation the stone is as much an agent as the earth, 
 which not (miy attracts, but is itself attracted by, the stone. In 
 the case of a sensation produced in our organs, the laws of our or- 
 ganization, and even those of our minds, are as directly operative 
 in determining the effect produced, as the laws of the outward 
 object. Though we call prussic acid the agent of a person's 
 death, the whole of the vital and organic properties of the pa- 
 tient are as actively instrumental as the poison, in the chain of 
 
i9 
 
 (ilTects which so rjipidly terminateHhis sentient existcnro. In tho 
 process of e(hication, we nuiy call the teacher the agent, and tlio 
 scholar only the material acted upon; yet in truth all the facts 
 which pre-existed in tlie scholar's mind exert either co-operating 
 or counteracting agencies in relation to the teacher's efforts. It 
 is not light alone which is the agent in vision, ))Ut light coupled 
 with the active properties of the eye and brain, and with those 
 of the visible object. The distinction between agent and patient 
 is njerely verbal: patients are always agents; iit a great pr<»por- 
 tion, indeed, of all natural phenomena, they aresotosuch adegreu 
 as to react fortibly upon the causes which acted upon them: and 
 even when this is not the case, they contribute, in the same man- 
 ner as any of the other conditions, to the prodtictiou of the effect 
 of which they are vulgarly treated as the mere theatre. All the 
 positive conditions of a phenomenon arealike agents, alike active; 
 and in any expression of the cause which professes to be a com- 
 plete one, none of them can with reason be excluded, except such 
 as have already been implied in the words used for describing the 
 clTect; nor by including even these would there be incurred any 
 but a merely verbal inconsistency. 
 
 § 5. It now remains to advert to a distinction which is of flrsl- 
 rate importance both for clearing up the notion of cause, and for 
 obviating a very specious objection often made against the view 
 which we have taken of the subject. 
 
 When we detinc the cause of anything (in the only sense in 
 which the present inciuiry has any concern with causes) to be 
 "the antecedent which it invariably follows." we do not use 
 this phra.se as exactly synonymous with " the antece(ient which 
 it invariably han followed in our past experience." Such a mode 
 of conceiving causation would be liable to the objection very 
 plausibly urged by Dr. Reid, namely, that according to this doc- 
 trine night must be the cause of day, and day the cause of night; 
 since these phenomena have invariably succeeded one another 
 from the beginning of the world. But it is necessary to our using 
 the word cause, that we should believe not only that the antece- 
 dent always has been followed by the consequent, but that, as 
 long as the present constitution of things endures, it always will 
 
rl 
 
 80 
 
 be 80. And this would not be trie of day and night. We do not 
 believe that night will bo followed by day under all imaifinabk! 
 circumstances, but only that it will be so proriittd the sun rises 
 above the horizon. If the sun ceased to rise, which, for aui^lit 
 we know, may be perfectly compatible with the .a;eneral laws of 
 matter, night would be, or might be, eternal. On the other hand, 
 if the sun is above the horizon, his light not extinct, and iwt 
 opaque body between us and him, we believe flrmly that unless 
 a change takes place in the properties of matter, this combination 
 of antecedents will be followed by the consequent, day; that if 
 the combination of antecedents could be indefinitely prolonged, 
 it woidd be always day; and that if the same combination 
 had always existed, it woidd always have been day, quite 
 independently of night as a previous condition. Therefore is 
 it that we do not call night the cause, nor even a condition, 
 of day. The existence of the sun (or some such luminous body), 
 and there being no opaque medium i a straight line between 
 that body and the part of the earth where we are situated, are 
 the sole conditions; and the union of these, without the addition 
 of any supertluous circumstance, constitutes the cause. This is 
 what writers mean when they say that the notion of cause in- 
 volves the idea of necessit}'. If there be any meaning wliich c()n 
 fessedly belongs to the term necessity, it is vnronditio/iahn.sx. 
 That which is necessary, that which jnui^thv, means that which 
 will be, whatever supposition we may make in regard to all other 
 things. The succession of day and night evidently is not neces- 
 sary in this sense. It is conditional on the occurrence of other 
 antecedents. That which will be followed by a given consecjuent 
 when, and only when, some third circumstance also exists, is not 
 the cause, even though no case should have ever oc^urred in 
 which the phenomena took place without it. 
 
 Invariable sequence, therefore, is not synonymous with causa 
 tion, unless the sequence, besides being invariable, is uncondi 
 tional. There are sequences, as uniform in past experience as 
 any othv?rs whatever, which yet we do not regard ns cases of cans 
 ation, but as conjunctions in some sort accidental. Such, to an 
 accurate thinker, is that of day and night. The one might have 
 
SI 
 
 existed for any length of lime, and the other not have followed 
 the sooner for its existence; it follows only if certain other ante- 
 cedents exist; and where those antecedents existed, it would fol- 
 low in any case. No one, probably, ever called night the cause 
 of day; mankind must so soon have arrived at the very obvious 
 generalization, that the state of general illuminatou which we call 
 day would follow the presence of a sufficiently luminous body, 
 whether darkness had preceded it or not. 
 
 We may define, therefore, the cause of a phenomenon, to be 
 the antecedent, o; the concurrence of antecedents, on which it is 
 invariably and uhcotulitonuiUy consequent. Or if we adopt the 
 convenient modification of the meaning of the word cause, which 
 confines it to the assemblage of positive con<liti()us without the 
 negative, then instead of ** unc(»nditionally," we must say, •'sub- 
 ject to no other than negative (ujiiditl'>n8. " 
 
 It is evirlent. that from a limited number of unconditional se- 
 quences, there will result a much greater number of conditional 
 ones. Certain causes being given, that is, certain antecedenta 
 which arc unconditionally followed by certain consequents; the 
 mere co existence of these causes will give rise to an unlimited 
 number of additional uniformities. If two causes exist together, 
 the elTects of both will exi^t together; and if many causes co- 
 exist, these causes (by what we shall term heieafter. the inter- 
 mixture of their laws) will give rise to new effects, accompanying 
 tir succeeding one another in .some particular order, which order 
 will be invariable while the causes continue to cdcxist, l)ut no 
 longer. The motion of the earth in a given orbit round the sun, 
 is a series of changes which follow one another as antecedents 
 ano conse(pu'nts, and will continue to do so while the sun's at- 
 traction, and the force with which the earth tends to advance in 
 a direct line through space, continue to coexist in the samequan- 
 tities as at present. But vary either oi these causes, and th(^ un- 
 varying succession of motions wcmld cease to take place. The 
 series of the earth's motions, therefore, though a case of se(juence 
 invariable within the limits of human experience, is not a case of 
 causation. It is not unconditional. 
 
82 
 
 This distinction ])ctw(;en the relations of succession whicli so 
 far as we know are unconditional, and those relations, whether 
 of succession or of co-existence, which, like the earth's motions, 
 or the succession of day and night, depend on the existence or on 
 the co-existence of other antecedent facts — corresponds to the 
 great division which Dr. Whewell and other writers have made 
 of the field of science, into the investigation of what they term 
 the Laws of Phenomena, and the investigation of causes; a phra 
 fieology, as I con(;eive, not philosophically sustainable, inasmuch 
 as the ascertainment of causes, such causes as the human faculties 
 can ascertain, namely, causes which are themselves phenomena, 
 is, therefore, merely the ascertainment of other and more univer 
 sal Laws of Phenomena. Yet the distinction, however incorrectly 
 expressed, is not only real, but is one of the fundamental distinc 
 tions in science; indeed it is on this alone, as we shall hereafter 
 find, that the possibility rests of framing a rigorous Can n of In- 
 duction. 
 
 ^ 6. Does a cause always stand with its effect in the relation of 
 antecedent and ronsociuent? Do we not often say of two sini 
 ultaneous facts ihat they are cause and elfect — as when we say 
 that lire is the cause of warmth, the sun and moisture the cause 
 of veg#rtation, and the like? Since a cause does not necessarily 
 perish because its elTect has been produced, the two things do 
 very generally coexist; and there are some a|)pearaiu'es, and some 
 conmion expnssions. .seeming to imply not only that cau.ses may. 
 but tliHt they must, be contemporaneous with their effects 
 ^'t'HHiintr cauna ctxnat ti efftU'tuH, has been a «logma of the srh«)()Is; 
 tlie necessity for the continued existence of the cause in order to 
 the continuance of the effect, seems to have been once a generally 
 f*<;eived doctrine Kepler's numerous attempts to account fo! 
 the moti'ff»» of the heavenly bodies on mechanical principles, 
 were r^-fKl* red abortive by his always supposing that the force 
 whicli set tlH/wc bodies in motion nuist continue lo operate in 
 order to keep up the motion which it at first produced. Yet 
 th<'re were at >tll fiiuesmany familiar instances of the continuance 
 of effects, loiig iifter their causes had ceased. A coup dc soleil 
 gives tt person a brain fever: will the fever go off as soon as he 
 
83 
 
 is moved out of the siinsliine? A sword is run through his bo<ly: 
 must the sword remain in Ijisbody in order thut he may continue 
 dead? A ploughshare once made, remains a ploughshare, with- 
 (tiif any continuance of heating and hammering, and even after 
 the man who heated an<l hammered it has been gathered to his 
 fat.ers. On the other hand, the pressure which forces up the 
 mercury in an exhausted tube must be continued in order to sus- 
 liiin it in the tube. This (it may l)e replied) is because another 
 force is a(;ting without intermission, the force of gravity, which 
 would restore it to its level, unless coiuiterpoised by a force 
 ecpially constant. But again; a tight bandage causes pain, which 
 pain will sometimes go olf as soon as the bainlage is removed. 
 Tlie illumination which the sun dilfuses over the earth (x'uses 
 wilt the sun goes tJown. 
 
 There is. therefore, a distinction to bo drawn. The conditions 
 which are necessary for the tirst production of a phenomenon, 
 :?re occasionally also necessary for its continuance; but morecom- 
 Ti inly its contiiunince requires no condition except negative ores. 
 Most things, once produced, continue as they are, until soiU': tiling 
 changes or destroys them ; but some recpiirc the jjerinaneiit 
 [tresence of the agencies which produced them at tlrst. These 
 may. if we please, be considered as instantaneous phenomena, 
 recpiiring to be renewed at each instant by the cause by which 
 they were at first generated. Accordingly, tlie illumination of 
 ;iiiy given point of space has always been looked tipon as an in- 
 stantaneous fact, which p(!rishes and is perpetually renewed as 
 long as the necessary c(inditions subsist. If we adopt this 
 language we avoid (he ne(;essity of admit'ing that the contiiuiance 
 of the cause is ever re(iuired to maintain the effect. We may 
 say. it is not re(piired to maintain, but to reproduce the effect, or 
 else to coamteract some force tending to destroy it. And this 
 may be a convenient phraseology. But it is only a phraseology. 
 The fact remains, that in so'ue cases (though these are a minority) 
 the continuance of (he conditions which produced an effect is 
 necessary to the contiiuiance of the eff<'ct. 
 
 As to the ulterior ijuestion, whelho- it is strictly necessary that 
 the cause, or assemblage of conditions, should precede, by ever 
 
 0: 
 
84 
 
 fio short an instant, the protlurtion of the effect, (a (luestion raised 
 and argued with niueh ingenuity l»y a writer from whom I havi' 
 quoted,)! think the inquiry an unimportant one. There certainly 
 are cases in which the effect follows without any interval pereep- 
 tihle by our faculties; and when there is an interval, we cannot 
 tell hy how numy intermediate links in>perceptihle to us tliat in 
 terval may really he filled up. But even granting th an effect 
 may commence simultaneously with its cause, the view I have 
 taken of causation is in no way practically affected. Whether 
 the cause and its effect he necessarily sjiccessive or not, causation 
 is still the law of the succession of phenomena. Everything 
 which begins to exist must luive a (-ause; what does not begin to 
 exist docs not need a cause; what (i-tusation has to account for is 
 the origin of phenomena, and all the succensjons of plH^nomena 
 must be resolvable into causation. These are the axioms of our 
 doctrine. If these be granted, we can afford, though I see no ne 
 cessity for doing so, to drop the words antecedent and consequent 
 as applied to cause and effect. I have no objection to defin«' a 
 cause; the assend)lage of phenomena, which occurring, some other 
 phenomenon invariably commences, or has its origin. Whetlur 
 the effect coincides in i)oint of time with, or inunediately fol 
 lows, the hindmost of its conditions, is immaterial. At all events 
 it does not precede it; and when we are in d()ul)t, between two co 
 existent phenomena, which is cause and which effect, we rightly 
 deem the (piestion solved if we can ascertain which of them pre 
 ceded the other. 
 
 5^ 7. It continually happens that several different |>henomena. 
 which are not iij the slightest degree depentlent or conditional on 
 one another, are found all to dej)end, as the phrase is, on one and 
 the same agent; i\\ other words, (»ne and the same j)henonu'non i- 
 Keen to be followed by several sorts of effects (juile heterogeneous, 
 but which go on simultaneously one with another; provided, of 
 course, that all other conditions retiulslte for each of them also 
 exist. Thus, the sun produces the celestial motions, it produces 
 daylight, and it produces heat. The earth causes the fall of heav\ 
 bodies, and it also, in its capacity of an immense magnet. cause> 
 the phenomena of the magnetic needle, A crystal of galeiui 
 
 •11 
 
86 
 
 causes tbo sensations of hardness, of wei;?bt, of cubical form, of 
 grey color, and many others between wliicb we can trace no in- 
 terdependence. Tiie purpose to which tlie pliraseoloiry of Pro- 
 perties iind Powers is spt'cially iidaptcd, is tlu' expression of this 
 sort of cases. VVlien the same plieiiomenon is followed (either 
 subject or not to the presence of otiier conditions) l>y effects of 
 dillerent an«l dissimilar orders, it is usual to say that each differ- 
 ent sort of effect is produced by a different propt-rty of the cause. 
 Thus we distinguish the attractive or gravitative property of 
 the earlii, and its magnetic property; the gravitative. luininifer- 
 otis. and caloritic pro;"»rties of the sun; the colour, shape, weight, 
 and hardness of a crystal. These are njere phrases, which 
 explain nothing, and add nothing to our knowledge of the sub- 
 ject; but, consiilered as abstract nanu's denoting the connexion 
 between t^»e different effects produced and the object which pro- 
 duces tlu m, they are a very j)')werful instrument of al)ridgment, 
 and of that acceleration of the process of thought wliich abridg- 
 ment accomplishes. 
 
 This class of considerations leads toacoiu:epLion which we shall 
 tind to be of great importance in the interpretation of nature; that 
 of a Pernument C'atise. or original natural agent. There exist in 
 nature a number of permanent causes, which have subsisted ever 
 since the human race has been in existence, and for an indefinite 
 and probably enormous length ')f time previous. T!ie sun, the 
 earth, and planets, with their various coiittituents, air, water, and 
 the other distinguishable sid)stances. whether simple or compound, 
 of which nalun' is nnide u|i. are such Permanent Causes. These 
 have existed, and the etlecls or conse<iuences which they were 
 fitted to |»roduce have taken plat^', (as often as the other contli- 
 tions of the pro luction met,) from the v«'ry beginning of our ex- 
 perience. IJiU we can give no a<'count «)f the origin of ihe Per- 
 manent causes themselves. Why these particular milural 'kgents 
 existed originally and no others, or why they are commingle'l in 
 such ami such proportions, and distributed in such and such u 
 nuinner throughout space, is a question we cannot answer. More 
 than this; we can discover nothing regular in the distribution it 
 self; we can reduce it to no uniformity, to no law. There are no 
 
86 
 
 m 
 
 means by which, from the distribution of these causes or agents 
 in one part of space, we could conjecture whether a similar dis- 
 tribution prevails in another. The coexistence, therefore, of 
 Primeval Causes, ranks, to us, among merely ciisual concurrences: 
 and all those sequences or coexistences among the effects of sev- 
 eral such causes, which, though invarifibie while those causes 
 coexist, would, if the coexistence terminated, terminate along 
 with it, we do not class as cases of causation, or laws of nature: 
 we can only calculate on finding these 8e(iuences or coexistences 
 where we know, by direct evidence, that the natural agents on 
 the properties of which they ultimately depend, are distributed in 
 the requisite manner. These Permanent Causes are not always 
 objects; they are sometimes events, that is to say, periodical 
 cycles of events, that being the only moiie in which events can 
 possess the property of permanence. Not oidy, for instance, is 
 the earth itself a permanent cause, or primitive natural agent, but 
 the earth's rotation is so too: it is a cause which has produced, 
 from the earliest period (by the aid of other necessary conditions), 
 the succession of day ai.d night, the ebb iin«l flow of the sea, and 
 many other effects, while, as we can assign no cause (exc(!pt con- 
 jecturally) for the rotation itself, it is entitled to be raidied as u 
 primeval cause. It is, however, only the oriyin of the rotation 
 which is n»ysteri()us tons: once begun, its continuance is account- 
 ed for by the first law of motion (that of the permanence of 
 rectilinear motion once impressed) combined with the gravitation 
 of the parts of the earth towards one anotiier. 
 
 All pluMiomena without exception which begin to e\Ist, that is, 
 all except the prinii val caijses. are effects, either imme(Mate or 
 remote, of thos.e primitive facts, or of some combination of them. 
 There is no Thing produced, no ev»nt happening, in the known 
 universe, which is not connected by an uniformity, or invariable 
 Mt}uence, with some one or mo."t>f the phenomena which pre- 
 ceded it; insonmch that it will uappen again as often as those 
 phen«mieim occur again, »nd as a«) other phenomenon having the 
 chara(;ter of a coiniteraclinz cause shall coexist These antece- 
 dent phenomena, again, were coniifcted in a similar manner with 
 some that precedeci them; and st> (w, until we reach, as the 
 
87 
 
 ultimate step attainable by us, cither the properties of pome one 
 primeval cause, or the ccmjunction of several. The whole of the 
 phenomena of nature were therefore the necessary, or In other 
 words, the unconditional, consequences of some former colloca- 
 tion of the Permanent Causes. 
 
 The slate of the whole universe at any instant, we believe to 
 be the consequence of its state at the previous instant; insomuch 
 that one who knew all the agents which exist at the present mo- 
 ment, their collocation in space, and their properties, In other 
 words the laws of their agency, could predict the whole subse- 
 quent history of the universe, at least unless some new volition 
 of a power capable of controlling the universe should supervene. 
 And if any particular state of the entire universe could ever recur 
 a second time, all subsequent states would return too, and history 
 would, like a circulating decimal of many figures, periodically 
 repeat itself: — 
 
 Jam redit et virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna 
 
 Alter erit tiim Tiphys, et altera quee vehnt Argo 
 Delectos heroas; enmt quocpie altera bella, 
 Atque itcrum ad Troiam magnus mittetur Achilles. 
 
 And thotjgh things do not really revolve in this eternal round, the 
 whole series of events in the his^.ory of the universe, past and 
 future, is not the less capable, in its own nature, of being con- 
 structed d priori by any one whom we can suppose acquainted 
 with the original distribution of all natural agents, and with the 
 whole of iht'ir i)roperties, that is. tne laws of succession existing 
 between them and tbeir efferts: saving the more than human pow- 
 ers of combination and calculation which would be required, even 
 ill one possessing the data, for the actual performance of the task. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 OF OBSERVATION AND EXPERIMENT. 
 
 § 1. It results from the preceding exposition, that the process 
 of ascertaining what consequents, in nature, are invariably con- 
 ne(^ted with what antecedents, or in other words what phenom- 
 ena are related to each other as causes and effects, is in some sort 
 
88 
 
 a process of analysis. That every fact which begins to exist has 
 a cause, and that this cause must be found somewhere amon^ the 
 facts which immediately preceded the occurrence, may be talten 
 for certain. The wliole of the present facts are the infallible re- 
 sult of all past facts, and more immediately of all the facts which 
 existed at the moment previous. Here, then, is a great sequence, 
 which we know to be uniform. If the whole prior state of the 
 entire universe could again recur, it would again be followed by 
 the present state. The (piestion is, how to resolve this coinpl(!x 
 uniformity into the sinipler uniformities which compose it, and 
 assign to each portion of the vast antecedent the portion of the 
 consequent which is attendant on it. 
 
 This operation, which we have called analytical, inasmuch as 
 it is the res<»lution of a complex whole into the component ele 
 ments, is more than a merely mental analysis. No mere contem- 
 plation of the phenomena, and partition of them by the intellect 
 alone, will of itself accomplish the end we have now in view. 
 Nevertheless, such a mental partition is an indispensable first 
 step. The order of nature, as perceived at a tirst glance. prcNcuts 
 at every instant a chaos followed by another chaos. We must 
 decompose each chaos into single facts. We must learn to see in 
 the chaotic antecedents a multitude of distinct antecedents, in the 
 chaotic consequent a multitude of distinct consetiuents. This, 
 supposing it done, will not of itself tell us on which of the ante- 
 cedents each consequ(?ut is invariably attendant. To determine 
 that point, we must endeavour to effect a separation of the facts 
 from one another, not in our minds only, but in nature. The 
 mental analysis, however, must take place first. And every one 
 knows that in the mode of performing it, one intellect differs im- 
 mensely from another. It is the essein-c of the act of observing; 
 for the observer is not he who merely sees the thing which is be- 
 fore his eyes, but he who sees what parts that thing is composed 
 of. To do this well is a rare talent. One person, from inattention, 
 or attending only in the wrong place, overlooks half of what he 
 sees; another sets down much more than he sees, confounding it 
 with what he imagines, or with what he infers; an(»ther takes 
 note of the kind of all the circurastauces, but being inexpert in 
 
89 
 
 estimating their (Jcgree. leaves the quantity of each vagiie and 
 uncertain; another sees indeed the whole, but makes such ao 
 awkward division of it into parts, throwing things into one mass 
 which require to he separated, and separating others which might 
 more conveniently l)e consiticred as one, that the result is much the 
 the same, sometimes even worse, than if no analysis had been at- 
 tempted at all. It would be possible to point out what qualities 
 of mind, an<I modes of mental culture, tit a person for being a 
 •rood observer; that, however, is a question not of Logic, but of 
 the theory of Education, in the most enlarged sense of the term. 
 There is not properly an Art of Observing. There may be rules 
 for ol)serving. But these, like rules for inventing, are properly 
 instructions for the preparation of one'.s own mind; for putting 
 it into the state in which it will be most fitted to observe, or most 
 likely to invent. They are, therefore, essentially rules of self-ed- 
 ucation, which is a different thing from Logic. They do not 
 teach how to do the thing, but how to make ourselves capable 
 of doing it. They are an art of strengthening the limbs, not an 
 art of using them. 
 
 Tht' extent and niiiiutein'ss of observation which may be re- 
 fpiisite, and th«' degree of jlecomposition to which it may be ne- 
 cessary to carry the mental analysis, depend on the particular pur- 
 pose in view. To ascertain the state of the whole universe at any 
 particular moment is impossible, but woidd also be useless. In 
 making chemical experiments, we do not think it necessary tc 
 note the position of the planets; because expc^rience has shown, 
 as a very superficial experience is sufficient to show, that in such 
 cases that circumstance is not Material to the result: and, accord- 
 ingly, in the ages wlien men believed in the occult infltiences of 
 the heavenly bodies, it might have been un])hilosophi(*al to omit 
 ascertaining the precise condition of those bodies at the moment 
 of the experiment. As to the degree of minuteness of the mental 
 subdivision; if we were obliged to break down what we observe 
 into its very simplest elements, that is, literally into single facts, 
 it would be difficult to say where we should tlnd them: we can 
 hardly ever affirm that our divisions of any kind have reached the 
 idtimate unit. Bi\t this, too, is fortunately unnecessary. The 
 
11 
 
 90 
 
 only object of the mental sepiirtition is to HUggost the requisite 
 physical reparation, so that we may either accomplish it ourselves, 
 or seek for it in nature; and we have done enough when we have 
 carried the subdivision as far as the point at which we are able to 
 see what observations or experiments we retpjire. It is only 
 essential, at whatever point our mental decomposition of facts 
 may for the present have stopped, that we should hold ourselves 
 ready and able to curry it farther as occasion reiiuires, and should 
 not allow the freedom of our discriminating faculty to be inipris 
 oned by the swathes and bauds of ordinary classitlcation; as was 
 the case with all early speculative in(]uirers, not excepting the 
 (ilreelcs, to whom it hardly ever occurred that what was culled by 
 one abstract name might, in reality, be several phenomena, or that 
 there was a possibility of decompo.sing the facts of the universt- 
 into any elements but those which ordinary language already 
 recognized. 
 
 W 
 
 EXAMINATION OF HAMILTON. 
 
 CHAPTEU XI. 
 
 THE l*SYCnOI-0(JKAI. TIIKOUV OF THK UKLIKK IN AN 
 EXTKRNAL WOULD. 
 
 I proceed to state the case of those who hold that the belief in 
 an external world is not intuitive, but an ac(iuired product. 
 
 This theory |)ostulutes the following psychological truth'<, all 
 of which are proved by exi)erience. 
 
 It postulates, first, that the human mind is (Mipable of Expecta 
 tion. In other words, that after having had acltial sensations, wv 
 are capable of forming the conception of Possible sensations; 
 sensations which we are not feeling at the present moment, but 
 which we might feel, and should feel if certain conditions were 
 present, the nature of which conditions we have, in many cases, 
 learnt by experience. 
 
 It postulates, secondly, the laws of the Association of Ideas. 
 So far as we are here concerned, these laws are the following: 
 1st. Similar phenomena tend to be thought of together. 2nd. 
 Phenomena which have either been experienced or conceived in 
 close contiguity to one another, tei\d to be thought of together. 
 
91 
 
 The contiguity is of two kinds; simultaneity, and immediate suc- 
 cession. Facts which have been experienced or thought of sim- 
 jiltaneously, recall the thought of okie another. Of facts which 
 have he(!n experiencred or thought of in immediate succession, the 
 antecedent, or the thought of it recalls the thought of the conse- 
 (pient, hut not conversely. »Jrd. Associations produced by con- 
 tiguity become more certain and rapid by repetition. When two 
 phenomena have been very often experienced in conjunction, 
 and have not, in any single instance, occurred separately either 
 in experience or in thought, there is produced between them what 
 has been calletl Inseparable, or less correctly, Indi.ssoluble Asso- 
 (;iation; by which it is not meant that the association must inevit- 
 ably last to the end of life — that no subsecpient experience or 
 process of thought can possibly avail to dissolve it; but only that 
 as long as no such experience or process of thought has taken place, 
 the association is irresistible; it is impossible for us to think the 
 one thing disjoined from the other. 4th. When an association has 
 acquired this character of inseparability — when the bond between 
 the two ideas has \hh'u thus firndy riveted, not only does the idea 
 called up by association l)ecomc, in our con.sciousiiess, inseparable 
 from the idea which suggested it, but the facts or phetiomena an- 
 swering t«) those ideas, come at last to seem inseparable in exist- 
 ence: things which we are unable to conceive apart, appear incap- 
 able of existing apart; and the belief we have in their co-existence, 
 though really a product of experience, seems intuitive. Innum- 
 ('ral)le examples might be given of this law. One of the njost 
 familiar, as well as the most striking, is that of our acquired per- 
 ceptions of sight. Even those who, with Mr. Hailey. consider 
 th(> perception of distance by the eye as not acquired, but intui- 
 tive, admit that therearemany perceptions of sight which, though 
 instantaneous and unhesitating, are not intuitive. What we see 
 is a very minute fragment of what we think wo see. We see ar- 
 tiflcially that one thing is hard, another soft. We see artificially 
 that one thing is hot. another cold. We see artificially that what 
 we see is a book, or a stone, each of these being not merely an in- 
 ference, but a heap of inferences, from the signs which we see, 
 to things not visible. 
 

 IMAGE EVALUATION 
 TEST TARGET (MT-3) 
 
 7 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 /. 
 
 
 <l. "^f 
 
 i/.. 
 
 
 1.0 
 
 I.I 
 
 1.25 
 
 Mi. 
 
 M 
 
 IIIIU 
 
 ■ 40 
 
 |||M 
 
 M 
 
 u mil 1.6 
 
 V] 
 
 <? 
 
 /] 
 
 ^;. 
 
 'c^^ 
 
 
 
 y 
 
 /A 
 
 Photographic 
 
 Sciences 
 Corporation 
 
 23 WESr MAIN STREET 
 
 WEBSTER, NY. 14580 
 
 (716) 872-4503 
 
 ■XI 
 
^ 
 
 
92 
 
 1,9? 
 
 yii' 
 
 
 
 Ml* 
 
 m 
 
 r^'--' 
 Ki 
 
 Setting out from these premises, the Psychological Theory 
 maintains, that there are associations naturally and even neces- 
 sarily generated by the order of our sensations and of our remin- 
 iscences of sensation, which, supposing no intuition of an exter- 
 nal world to liave existed in consciousness, would inevitably 
 generate the belief, and would cause it to be regarded as an intui- 
 tion. 
 
 What is it we mean when we say that the object we perceive is 
 external to us, and not a part of our own thoughts? Wo mean, 
 that there is in our perceptions something which exists when we 
 are not thinking cf it; which existed before we had ever thought 
 of it, and would exist if we were annihilated; and further, that 
 there exist things which we never saw, touched, or otherwise per- 
 ceived, and things which never have been perceived by man. 
 This idea of something which is distinguished from our fleeting 
 impressions by vrhat, in Kantian language, is called Perdurability; 
 something wtroh is fixed and the same, while our impressions 
 vary; something which exists whether we are aware of it or not. 
 and which is always square (or of some other given figure) whethci 
 it appears to us square or round, constitutes altogether our idea 
 of external substance. Whoever can assign an origin to this com- 
 plex conception, has accounted for what we mean by the belief 
 hi matter. Now, all this, according to the Psychological Theory, 
 is but the form impressed by the known laws of association, upon 
 the conception or notion, obtained by experience, of Contingent 
 Sensations; by which are meant, sensations that are not in our 
 present consciousness, and perhaps never were in our conscious- 
 ness at all, but which, in virtue of the laws to which we have 
 learned by experience that our sensations are subject, we know 
 that we should have felt under given supposable circumstances, 
 and under these same circumstances, might still feel. 
 
 I see a piece of white paper on a table. I go into another room, 
 and though I have ceased to see it, I am persuaded that the paper 
 is still there. I no longer have the sensations which it gave me; 
 but I believe that when I again place myself in the circumstances 
 in which I had those sensations, that is, when I go again into the 
 room, I shall again have them; and further, that there has been 
 
93 
 
 no intervening moment at which this would not have been the 
 case. Owing to this law of my mind, my conception of the world 
 at any given instant consists, in only a small proportion, of pres- 
 ent sensations. Of these I may at the time have none at all, and 
 they are in any case a most insignificant portion of the whole 
 which I apprehend. The conception I form of the world existing 
 at any moment, comprises, along with the sensations I am feeling, 
 a countless variety of possibilities of sensation; namely, the 
 whole of those which past observation tells me that T could, un- 
 der any supposable circumstances, experience at this moment, to- 
 gether with an indefinite and illimitable multitude of others which 
 though I do not know that I could, yet it is possible that I might, 
 experience in circumstances not known to me. These various 
 possibilities are the important thing lo me in the world. My pres- 
 ent sensations are generally of little importance, and are more- 
 over fugitive: the possibilities, on the contrary, are permanent, 
 which is the character that mainly distinguishes our idea of Sub- 
 stance or Matter from our notion of sensation. These possibili- 
 ties, which are conditional certainties, need a special name to dis- 
 tinguish them from mere vague possibilities, which experience 
 gives no warrant for reckoning upon. Now, as soon as a distin- 
 guishing name is given, though it be only to the same thing re- 
 garded in a different aspect, one of the most familiar experiences 
 of our mental nature teaches us, that the different name comes to 
 be considered as the name of a different thing. 
 
 There is another important peculiarity of these certified or 
 guaranteed possibilities of sensation; namely, that they have re- 
 ference, not to single sensations, but to sensations joined together 
 in groups. When we think of anything as a material substance, 
 or body, we either have had, or we think that on some given sup- 
 position we should have, not some one sensation, but a great and 
 even an indefinite number and variety of sensations, generally 
 belonging to different senses, but so linked together, that the 
 presence of one announces the possible presence at the very same 
 instant of any or all of the rest. In our mind, therefore, not only 
 is this particular Possibility of sensation invested with the quality 
 of permanence when we are not actually feeling any of the sen- 
 
 uMi 
 

 04 
 
 sations at all; but when we are feeling some of them, the remain- 
 ing sensations of the group are conceived by us in the form of 
 Present Possibilities, which might be realized at the very mom- 
 ent. And as this happens in turn to all of them, the group as a 
 whole presents itself to the mind as permanent, in contrast not 
 solely with the temporariness of my bodily presence, but also 
 with the temporary character of each of the sensations composing 
 the group; in other words, as a kind of permanent substratum, 
 under a set of passing experiences or manifestations: which is 
 another leading character of our idea of substance or matter, as 
 distinguished from sensation. 
 
 Let us now take into consideration another of the general 
 characters of our experience, namely, that in addition to tixed 
 groups, we also recognize a fixed Order in our sensations; an Order 
 of succession, which, when ascertained by observation, gives 
 rise to the ideas of Cause and Effect, according to what I hold to 
 be the true theory of that relation, and is in any case the source 
 of all our knowledge what causes produce what effects. Now, of 
 what nature is this fixed order among our sensations? It is a 
 constancy of antecedence and sequence. But the constant antece- 
 dence and sequence do not generally exist between one actual sen- 
 sation and another. Very few such sequences are presented tons 
 by experience. In almost all the constant sequences which occur 
 in Nature, the antecedence and consequence do not obtain be- 
 tween sensations, but between the groups we have been speaking 
 about, of which a very small portion is actual sensation, the greater 
 part being permanent possibilities of sensation, evidenced to us 
 by a small and variable number of sensations actually present. 
 Hence, our ideas of causation, power, activity, do not become 
 connected in thought with our sensations as actual at all, save in 
 the few physiological cases where these figure by themselves as 
 the antecedents in some uniform sequence. Those ideas become 
 connected, not with sensations, but with groups of possibil- 
 ities of sensation. The sensations conceived do not, to our habit- 
 ual thoughts, present themselves as sensations actually expe- 
 rienced, inasmuch as not only any one or any number of them 
 may be supposed absent, but none of them need be present. We 
 
95 
 
 find that the modifications which are talking place more or less 
 rejffuhirjy in our possibilities of sensation, are mostly quite inde- 
 pendent of our consciousness, and of our presence or absence. 
 Whether we a.e asleep or awake, the fire goes out, and puts an 
 end to one particular possibility of warmth and light. Whether 
 we are present or absent, the corn ripens, and brings a new possi- 
 bility of food. Hence we speedily learn to think of Nature as made 
 up solely of these groups of possibilities, and the active force in 
 Nature as manifested in the modification of some of these by others. 
 The sensations, though the original foundation of the whole, 
 come to be looked upon as a sort of accident depending on us, 
 and the possibilities as much more real than the actual sensations, 
 nay, as the very realities of which these are only the representa- 
 tions, appearances, or effects. When this state of mind has been 
 arrived at, then, and from that time forward, we are never con- 
 scious of a present sensation without instantaneously referring it 
 to some one of the groups of pf;ssibilities into which a sensation 
 of that particular description enters; and if we do not yet know to 
 what group to refer it, we at least feel an irresistible conviction 
 that it must belong to some group or other; i.e. that its presence 
 proves the existence, here and now, of a great number and variety 
 of possibilities of sensation, without which it would not have been. 
 The whole set of sensations 8 j possible, form a permanent back- 
 ground to any one or more of them that are, at a given moment, 
 actual; and the possibilities are conceived as standing to the actual 
 sensations in the relation of a cause to its effects, or of canvas to 
 the figures painted on it, or of a root to the trunk, leaves and flow- 
 ers, or of a substratum to that which is spread over it, or, intrans- 
 cendental language, of Matter to Form. 
 
 When this point has been reached, the permanent Possibilities 
 in question have assumed such unlikeness of aspect, and such 
 difference of position relatively to us, from any sensations, that it 
 would be contrary to all w^e know of the constitution of human 
 nature that they should not be conceived as, and believed to be, 
 at least as different from sensations as sensations are from one 
 another. Their groundwork in sensation is forgotten, and they 
 are supposed to be something intrinsically distinct from it. We 
 
96 
 
 can withdraw ourselves from any of our (external) sensations, or 
 we can be withdrawn from them by some other agency. But 
 though the sensations cease, the possibilities remain in existence; 
 they are independent of our will, our presence, and everything 
 which belongs to us. We find, too, that they belong as much to 
 other human or sentient beings as to ourselves. We find other 
 people grounding their expectations and conduct upon the same 
 permanent possibilities on which we ground ours. But we do not 
 find them experiencing the same actual sensations. Other people 
 do not have our sensations exactly when and as we have them: 
 but they have our possibilities of sensation; whatever indicates a 
 present possibility of sensations to ourselves, indicates a present 
 possibility of similar sensations to them, except so far as their 
 organs of sensation may vary from the type of ours. This puts 
 the final seal to our conception of the groups of possibilities as 
 the fundamental reality in Nature. The permanent possibilities 
 are common to us and to our fellow-creatures; the actual sensa- 
 tions are not. That which other people become aware of when, 
 and on the same grounds as I do, seems more real to me than that 
 which they do not know of unless I tell them. The world of 
 Possible sensations succeeding one another according to laws, is 
 as much in other beings as it is in me; it has therefore an exist- 
 ence outside me; it is an External World. 
 
 Matter, then, may be defined, a Permanent Possibility of Sen- 
 sation. If I am asked, whether I believe in matter, I ask whether 
 the questioner accepts this definition of it. If he does, I believe 
 in matter: and so do all Berkeleians. In any other sense than 
 this, I do not. But I aflSrm with confidence, that this conception 
 of Matter includes the whole meaning attached to it by the com- 
 mon world, apart from philosophical, and sometimes from theo- 
 logical, theories. The reliance of mankind on the real existence 
 of visible and tangible objects, means reliance on the reality and 
 permanence of Possibilities of visual and tactual sennsations, 
 when no such sensations are actually experienced. We are war- 
 ranted in believing that this is the meaning of Matter in the 
 minds of many of its most esteemed metaphysical champions, 
 though they themselves would not admit as much; for example, 
 
0' 
 
 of Reid, Stewart, and Brown. For these three philosophers 
 alleged that all mankind, including Berkeley and Hume, really 
 believed in Matter, inasmueh as unless they did, they would not 
 have turned a;'.ide to save themselves from running against a post. 
 Xow, all which this manoeuvre really proved is, that they be- 
 lieved in Permanent Possibilities of Sensation. We have therefore 
 the sanction of these three eminent defenders of the existence of 
 matter, for affirming, that to believe in Permanent Possibilities 
 of Sen.sation, in believing in Matter. It is hardly necessary, after 
 such authorities, to mention Dr. Johnson, or any one else who 
 resorts to the nrginnentum bueulinum of knocking a stick against 
 the ground. Sir W. Hamilton, a far subtler thinker than any of 
 these, never reasons in this manner. He never supposes that a 
 disbeliever in what he means by Matter, ought in consistency to 
 act in any different mode from those who ' elieve in it. He knew 
 that the belief on which all the practical conseciuences depend, is 
 the belief in Permanent Possibilities of Sensation, and that if 
 nobody believed in a material universe in any other sense, life 
 would go on exactly as it now does. He, however, did believe in 
 more than this, but, I think, only because it had never occurred 
 to him that mere Possibilities of Sensation could, to our artiticial- 
 ized consciousness, present the character of objectivity which, as 
 we have now shown, they not only can, but unless the known 
 laws of the human mind were suspended, must necessarily, pre- 
 sent. 
 
 Perhaps it may be objected, that the very possibility of framing 
 such a notion of Matter as Sir W, Hamilton's — the capacity in 
 the human mind of imagining an external world which is any- 
 thing more than what the Psychological Theory makes it — 
 amounts to a dispi'oof of the theory. If (it may be said) we had 
 no revelation in consciousness, of a world which is not in some 
 way or other identified with sensation, we should be unable to 
 have the notion of such a world. If the only ideas we had of 
 external cbjects were ideas of our sensations, supplemented by 
 an acquired notion of permanent possibilities of sensation, we 
 must (it is thought) be incapable of conceiving, and therefore 
 still more incapable of fancying that we perceive, things which 
 
98 
 
 are not sensations at all. It being evident, however, that some 
 philosophers believe this, and it being maintainable that the mass 
 of mankind do so, the existence of a perdurable basis of sensa- 
 tions, distinct from sensations themselves, is proved, it might be 
 said, by the possibility of believing it. 
 
 Let me first restate what I apprehend the belief to be. We believe 
 that we perceive a something closely related to all our sensations, 
 but different from those which we are feeling at any particular 
 minute; and distinguished from sensations altogether, by being per- 
 manent and always the same, while these are fugitive, variable, 
 and alternately displace one another. But these attributes of the 
 object of perception are properties belonging to all the possibilities 
 of sensation which experience guarantees. The belief in such 
 permanent possibilities seems to me to inc'iude all that is essen- 
 tial or characteristic in the belief in substance. I believe that 
 Calcutta exists, though I do not perceive it, and that it would 
 still exist if every percipient inhabitant were suddenly to leave 
 the place, or be struck dead. But when I analyze the belief, all 
 I find in it is, that were these events to take place, the Permanent 
 Possibility of Sensation which I call Calcutta would still remain; 
 that if I were suddenly transported to the banks of the Hoogly, I 
 should still have the sensations which, if now present, would lead 
 me to affirm that Calcutta exists here and now. We may infer, 
 therefore, that both philosophers and the world at large, when 
 they think of matter, conceive it really as a Permanent Possibility 
 of Sensation. But the majority of philosophers fancy that it is 
 something more; and the world at large, though they have really, 
 as I conceive, nothing in their minds but a Permanent Possibility of 
 Sensation, would, if asked the question, undoubtedly agree with 
 the philosophers: and though this is sufficientlj' explained by the 
 tendency of the human mind to infer difference of things from 
 difference of names, I acknowledge the obligation of showing 
 how it can be possible to believe in an existence transcending all 
 possibilities of sensation, unless on the hypothesis that such an 
 existence actually is, and that we actually perceive it. 
 
 The explanation, however, is not difficult. It is an admitted 
 fact, that we are capable of all conceptions which can be formed 
 
99 
 
 by generalizln.Ef from the observed laws of our sensations. What- 
 ever rehition we find to exist between any one of our sensations 
 and somethini^ different from iV, that same relation we have no 
 difficulty in conceiving to exist between the sum of all our sensa- 
 tions and something different from them. The ditferences whi<'h 
 our consciousness recognizes between one sensation and another, 
 give us the general notion of difference, and inseparably associate 
 with every sensation we have, the feeling of its being different 
 from other things; and when once this association has been 
 formed, we c\n no longer conceive anything, withojit being al)le, 
 and even bein? compelled, to form also the conception of some- 
 thing different from it. This familiarity with the idea of some- 
 thing different from each thing we know, makes it natural and 
 easy to form the notion of something different from all things 
 that we know, collectively as well as individually. It is true we 
 can form no conception of what such a thing can be; our notion 
 of it is merely negative; but the idea of substance, apart from the 
 impressions it makes on our senses, is a merely negative one. 
 There is thus no psychological obstacle to our forming the notion 
 of a something which is neither a sensation nor a possibility of 
 sensation, even if our consciousness does not testify to it; and 
 nothing is more likely than that the Permanent Possibilities of 
 sensation, to which our consciousness does testify, should be con- 
 founded in our minds with this imaginary conception. All ex- 
 perience attests the strength of the tendency to mistake mental 
 abstractions, even negative ones, for substantive realities; and 
 the Permanent Possibilities of sensation which experience guar- 
 antees, are so extremely unlike in many of their properties to 
 actual sensations, that since we are capable of imagining some- 
 thing which transcends sensation, there is a great natural proba- 
 bility that we should suppose these to be it. 
 
 But this natural probability is converted into certainty, when 
 we take into consideration that universal law of our experience 
 which is termed the law of Causation, and which makes us un 
 able to conceive the beginning of anything without an antecedent 
 condition, or Cause. The case of Causation is one of the most 
 marked of all the cases in which we extend to the sum total of 
 
h 
 
 100 
 
 our consciousness, a notion derived from its parts. It is a stril^- 
 ing example of our power to conceive, and our tendency to hv- 
 lieve, that a relation which subsists between every individual 
 item of oiir experience and some other item, subsists also between 
 our experience as a whole, and something not within the si)herc 
 of experience. Hy this extension to the sum of all our experiences, 
 of the internal relations obtainini? between its several parts, weare 
 led to consider sensation itself— the aggregate whole of our sensa- 
 tions — as(Ierivin<; its oriurin from antecedent existences transcend 
 iu'j; sensation. That we should do this, is a conse(juen(:e of the 
 particular character of the uinform sequences, which ex|)erience 
 discloses to us among our sensations. As already remarked, the 
 constant antecedent of a sensation is seldom another sensation, or 
 set of sensations, actually felt. It is much oftener the existf nee of 
 a group of possibilities, not necessarily including any actual sensa- 
 tions, except such as are required to show that the possibilities 
 are really present. Nor are actual sensations indisi)ensable even 
 for this purpose; for the presence of the object (which is nothing 
 more than the immediate jiresence of the i)ossibilities) may be 
 made known to us by the very sensation which we refer to it as its 
 effect. Thus, the real antecedent of an effect — the only antece- 
 dent which, being invariable and unconditional, we consider to 
 be the cause — may be, not any sensation really felt, but solely the 
 presence, at that or the immediately preceding moment, of a 
 group of possi])ilities of sensation. Hence it is not with sensa- 
 tions as actually experienced, but with their Permatient Possibil- 
 ities, that the idea of Cause comes to be identified : and we, by 
 one and the same process, acquire the habit of regarding Sensa- 
 tion in general, like all our individual sensations, as an Effect, 
 and also that of conceiving as the causes of most of our individual 
 sensations, not other sensations, but general possibilities of sen- 
 sation. If all these considerations put together do not completely 
 explain and account for our conceiving these Possibilities as a 
 class of independent and substantive entities, I know not what 
 psychological analysis can be conclusive. 
 
 It may perhaps be said, that the preceding theory gives, indeed, 
 some account of the idea of Permanent Existence which forms 
 
HI 
 
 part of our conception of matter, but gives no cxplnnation of our 
 believing these perniunent objects to be external, or out of our- 
 selves I ai)prehen(l, on the contrary, that the very idea of any- 
 thing out of ourselves is derived solely from the knowledge 
 experience gives us of tin- Pt'rnuuient Possibilities. Our sensa- 
 tions we (tarry with u-^ wherever we go, and tliey never exist 
 where we are not; but when we change our place we do not carry 
 away with us the Pernument Possibilities of Sensation: they ic- 
 nnun until we return, or ari.-c and cease under conditions with 
 which our presence has in general nothing to do. Aiul more than 
 all — they are, and will be after we have ceased to feel, Pernuiiunt 
 Possibilities of sensation to other beings than ourselves. Thus 
 our actual sensations and the permanent possibilities of sensation, 
 stand out in obtrusive contrast to one another: and when the idea 
 of Cause has been acquired, and extended by generalization from 
 the parts of our experience to its aggregate whole, nothing can 
 be more natural than that the Pernument Possibilities should be 
 classed by us as existences generically distinct from our sensa- 
 tions, but of which oUr sensations are the effect. 
 
 The same theory which accounts for our ascribing to an aggre- 
 gate of possibilities of sen.->alion, a permanent existence which 
 our sensations themselves do not possess, and consequently a 
 greater reality than belongs to our sensations, also explains our 
 attributing greater objectivity to the Primary Qualities of bodies 
 than to the Secondary. For the sensations which correspond to 
 what are called the Primary Qualities (as soon at least as we come 
 to apprehend them by two senses, the eye as well as the touch) are 
 always present when any i)art of the group is so. But colours, 
 tastes, smells and the like, being, in comparison, fugacious, are not, 
 in the same degree, conceived as being always there, even when 
 nobody is present to perceive them. The sensations answering to 
 the Secondary Qualities are only occasional, those to the Primary, 
 constant. The Secondarj-, moreover, vary with different persons, 
 and with the temporary sensibility of our organs: the Primary, 
 when perceived at all, are, as far as we know, the same to all 
 persons and at all times. 
 
102 
 
 CIIAPTETl XIT. 
 
 THE rSYCHOLOOICAL TIIKOUY OP THK BEMKF IN MATTKU, 
 HOW FAU APrLHABLK TO MIND. 
 
 I now propose to exaniini; wlu'thcr the E.t^o, as a deliverance of 
 consciousness, stands on any tinner /j^round than tlie Non-ego; 
 whellier, at tlie first moment of our exj)erienc(', we already have 
 in our consciousness the conception of Self as a permanent exist- 
 ence; or whether it is formed subsecjuently, and admits of a sim- 
 ilar analysis to that which we have found that the notion of Not- 
 self is susceptible of. 
 
 It is evident, in the first place, that our knowledge of mind, 
 like that of matter, is entirely relative. We have no conception of 
 Mind itself, as distinguished from its conscious manifestations. 
 We neither know nor can imagine it, except as represented by the 
 succession of manifold feelings which metaphysicians call by the 
 name of States or Modifications of Mind. It is nevertheless true 
 that our notion of Mind, as well as of Matter, is the notion of a 
 permanent something, contrasted with the' perpetual flux of the 
 sensations and other feelings or mental states which we refer to 
 it; a something which we figure as remaining the same, while the 
 particular feelings through which it reveals its existence, change. 
 This attribute of Permanence, supposing that there were nothing 
 else to be considered, would admit of the same explanation when 
 predicated of Mind, as of Matter. The belief I entertain that my 
 mind exists, when it is not feeling, nor thinking, nor conscious of 
 its own existence, resolves itself into the belief of a Permanent 
 Possibility of these states. If I think of myself as in a dreamless 
 sleep, or in the sleep of death, and believe that I, or in other 
 words my mind, is or will be existing through these states, 
 though not in conscious feeling, the most scrupulous examination 
 of my belief will not detect in it any fact actually believed, ex- 
 cept that my capability of feeling is not, in that interval, per- 
 manently destroyed, and is suspended only because it does not 
 meet with the combination of outward circumstances which 
 would call it into action; the moment it did meet with that com- 
 bination it would revive, and remains, therefore, a Permanent 
 
 i 
 
103 
 
 PoHsibiliy. Tliuti fur, there seems no hindrance to our re^'ftrding 
 Mind Jis nothing ])iit tlie series v)f our sensations (to which must 
 now be added our internal feelir gs), as they actually occur, with 
 llie addition of inllnite possibihties of fcelin;; reciuirln^ for their 
 actual realization conditions which may or may not talie place, 
 but which as possibilities are always in cxi<-*ence, and many of 
 them present. 
 
 The Permanent Possibility of feelin;^. which forms my notion 
 of Myself, is distiniiuished, by important dilVerences, from the 
 Permanent Possibilities of sensation which form my notion of 
 what I call external objects. In the lirst place, each of these 
 last represents a small and perfectly definite part of the series 
 which, in its entireness, forms my conscious < \istcnce — a single 
 group of possible sensations, which experience tells me I might 
 expect to have under certain conditions; ns distinguish rnl from 
 mere vague and indefinite possibilities, Wi^ich are corsidered such 
 only l/t . . use they are not known to be impos;,!' ilities. My no- 
 tion of Myself, ou the contrary, includes all possibilites of sensa- 
 tion, definite or indefinite, certified by experience or not, which 
 I may imagine inserted in the series of my actual and ''onscious 
 states. In the secontl place, the Permanent Possibilities which I 
 call outward objects, are possibilities of sensation only, while the 
 series which I call Myself includes, along with and as called up 
 by these, thoughts, emotions, and volitions, and Ptimanent Pos- 
 sibilities of such. Besides that these states of mind are, to our 
 consciousness, geuerically distinct from the sensations of our out- 
 ward senses, they are further distinguished from them by not oc- 
 curring in groups, consisting of separate elements which coexist, 
 or may be made to coexist, with one another. Lastly (and this 
 difference is the most important of all) the Possibilities of Sensa- 
 tion which are called outward objects, are possibilities oi' it to 
 other beings as well as to me: but the particular series of feelings 
 which constitutes my own life, is confined to myself: no other 
 sentient being shares it with me. 
 
 In order to the further understanding of the bearings of this 
 theory of the Ego, it is advisable to consider it in its relation to 
 three questions, which may very naturally be asked with reference 
 
104 
 
 to it, and which often have been asked, and sometimes answered 
 very erroneously. If the theory is correct, and my Mind is but a 
 series of feelings, or, as it has been called, a thread ff conscious- 
 ness, however supplemented by ])elieved Possibilities of conscious- 
 ness which are not, though they might be, realized; if this is all 
 that Mind, or Myself, amounts to, what evidence have I (it is 
 asked) of the existence of my fellow-creatures? What evidence 
 of an hj'per-physical world, or, in one word, of God? and lastly, 
 what evidence of immortality? 
 
 Dr. Reid unhesitatingly answers, Xone. If the doctrine is true, 
 I am alone in the universe. 
 
 I hold this to be one of Reid's most palpable mistakes. What- 
 ever evidence to each of the three points there is on the ordinary 
 theory, exactly that same evidence is tiiere on this. 
 
 In the first place, as to my fellow-creatures. Rcid seems to 
 have imagined that if I myself am only a series of feelings, the 
 proposition that I have any fellow-creatures, or that there are any 
 Selves, except mine, is but words without a meaning. But this is 
 a misapprehension. All that 1 am compelled to admit if I receive 
 this theory, is that other people's Selves also are but a series of 
 feelings, like !ny own. Though my Mind, as I am capal)le of 
 conceiving it, be nothing but the succession of my feelings, and 
 though ]\Iind itself may be merely a possibility of feelings, there 
 is nothing in that doctrine to prevent my conceiving, and believ- 
 ing, that there are other successions of feelings besides those of 
 which T am conscious, and th-it these are as real as my own. The 
 belief is completely consistent with the metaph^'sical theory. Let 
 us now see whether the theory takes away the grounds of it. 
 
 What are those grounds? By what evidence do I know, or by 
 what considerations am I led to believe, that there exist other 
 sentient creatures; that the walking and speaking figures which 
 I see and hear, have sensations and thoughts, or, in other words, 
 possess Minds? The most strenuous Intuitionist does not include 
 this among the things that I know by direct intuition. I con- 
 clude it from certain things, which my experience of my own 
 states of feeling proves to me to be marks of it. These marks 
 are of two kinds, antecedent and subsequent; the previous con- 
 
105 
 
 ditions requisite for feeling, and the effects or consequences of it. 
 I conclude that other human beings have feelings like me, be- 
 cause, first, they have bodies like me, which I know, in my own 
 case, to be the antecedent condition of feelings; and because, 
 secondly, they exhibit the acts, and other outward signs, which 
 in my own case I know by experience to be caused by feelings. 
 I am conscious in myself of a series of facts connected by a 
 uniform sequence, of which the beginning is modifications of my 
 body, the middle is feelings, the end is outward demeanour. In 
 the case of other human beings I have the evidence of my senses 
 for the first and last links of the series, but not for the intermedi- 
 ate link. I find, however, that the sequence between the first 
 and last is as regular and constant in those other cases as it is in 
 mine. In my own case I know that the first link prodces the last 
 through the intermediate link, and could not produce it without. 
 Experience, therefore, obliges me to conclude that there must be 
 an intermediate link; which must either be the same in others as 
 in myself, or a different one: I must either believe them to be 
 alive, or to be automatons: and by believing them to be alive, 
 that is, by supposing the link to be of the same nature as in the 
 case of which I have experience, and which is in all other respects 
 similar, I bring other human beings, as phenomena, under the 
 same generalizations which I know by experience to be the true 
 theory of my own existence. And in doing so I conform to the 
 legitimate rules of experimental inquiry. The process is exactly 
 parallel to that by which Newton proved that the force which 
 keeps the planets in their orbits is identical with that by which 
 an apple falls to the ground. It was not incumbent on Newton 
 to prove the impossibility of its being any other force; he was 
 thought to have made out his point when he had simply shown, 
 that no other force need be supposed. We know the existence of 
 other beings by generalization from the knowledge of our own; 
 the generalization merely postulates that what experience shows 
 to be a mark of the existence of something within the sphere of 
 our consciousness, may be concluded to be a mark of the same 
 thing beyond that sphere. 
 This logical process loses none f its legitimacy on the suppo- 
 
106 
 
 m 
 
 sition that neither Mind nor Matter is anything but a permanent 
 possibility of feeling. Whatever sensation I have, I at once re- 
 fer it to one of the permanent groups of possibilities of sensation 
 which I call material objects. But among these groups I find 
 there is one (my own body) which is not only composed, like the 
 rest, of a mixed multitude of sensations and possibilities of sen- 
 sations, but is also connected, in a peculiar manner, with all my 
 gensations. Not only is this special group always present as an an- 
 tecedent condition of every sensation I have, but the other groups 
 are only enabled to convert their respective possibilities of sen- 
 sation into actual sensations, by means of some previous change 
 in that particular one. I look about me, and though there is only 
 one group (or body) which is connected with all my sensations in 
 this peculiar manner, I observe that there is a great multitude of 
 other bodies, closely resembling in their sensible properties (in 
 the sensations composing them as groups) this particular one, but 
 whose modifications do not call up, as those of my own body do, 
 a world of sensations In my consciousness. Since they do not do 
 so in my consciousness, I infer that they do it out of my con- 
 sciousness, and that to each of them belongs a world of conscious- 
 ness of its own, to which it stands in the same relation in which 
 what I call my own body stands to mine. And having made this 
 generalization, I find that all other facts within my reach agree 
 with it. Each oi these bodies exhibits to my senses a set of phe- 
 nomena (composed of acts and other Lianifestations) such as I 
 know, in my own case, to be effects of consciousness, and such 
 as might be looked for if each of the bodies has really in connec- 
 tion with it a world of consciousness. All this is as good and 
 genuine an inductive process on the theory we are discussing, as 
 it is on the common theory. Any objection to it in the one case 
 would be an equal objection in the other. I have stated the pos- 
 tulate required by the one theory: the common theory is in need 
 of the same. If I could not, from my personal knowledge of one 
 succession of feelings, infer the existence of other successions of 
 feelings, when manifested by the same outward signs, I could 
 just as little, from my personal knowledge of a single spiritual 
 substance, infer by generalization, when I find the same outward 
 indications, the existence of other spiritual substances. 
 
107 
 
 As the theory leaves the evidence of the existence of my foUow- 
 creatures exactly as it was before, so does it also with that of the 
 existence of God. Supposing me to believe that the Divine Mind 
 is simply the series of the Divine thoughts and feelings prolonged 
 through eternity, that would be, at any rate, believing God's ex- 
 istence to be as real as my own. And as for evidence, the argu- 
 ment of Paley's Natural Theology, or, for that matter, of his 
 Evidences of Christianity, would stand exactly where it does. 
 The Design argument is drawn from the analogy of human ex- 
 perience. From the relation which human works bear to human 
 thoughts and feelings, it infers a corresponding relation between 
 works, more or less similar but superhuman, and superhuman 
 thoughts and feelings. If it proves these, nobody but a meta- 
 physician needs care whether or not it proves a mysterious sub- 
 stratum for them. Again, the arguments for Revelation under- 
 take to prove by testimony, that within the sphere of human ex- 
 perience works were done requiring a greater than human power, 
 and words said requiring a greater than human wisdom. These 
 positions, and the evidences of them, neither lose nor gain any- 
 thing by our supposing that the wisdom only means wise thoughts 
 and volitions, and that the power means thoughts and volitions 
 followed by imposing phenomena. 
 
 As to Immortality, it is precisely as easy to conceive, that a 
 seccession of feelings, a thread of consciousness, may be prolonged 
 to eternity, as that a spiritual substance forever continues to ex- 
 ist: and any evidence which would prove the one, will prove the 
 other. Metaphysical theologians may lose the d priori argument 
 by which they have sometimes flattered themselves with having 
 proved that a spiritual substance, by the essential constitution 
 of its nature, cannot perish. But they had better drop this argu- 
 ment in any case. To do them justice, they seldom insist on it 
 now. 
 
 The theory, therefore, which resolves Mind into a series of 
 feelings, with a background of possibilities of feeling, can effect- 
 ually withstand the most invidious of the arguments directed 
 against it. But, groundless as are the extrinsic objections, the 
 theory lias intrinsic diiflculties which we have not yet set forth, 
 
108 
 
 and which it seems to me beyond the power of metaphysical an- 
 alysis to remove. Besides present feelings, and possibilities of 
 present feeling, there is another class of phenomena to be in- 
 cluded in an enumeration of the elements making up our concep- 
 tion of Mind. The thread of consciousness which composes the 
 mind's phenomenal life, consists not only of present sensations, 
 but likewise, in part, of memories and expectations. Now, what 
 are these? In themselves, they are present feelings, states of 
 present consciousness, and in that respect not distinguished from 
 sensations. They all, moreover, resemble some given sensations 
 or feelings, of which we have previously had experience. But 
 they are attended with the peculiarity, that each of them in- 
 volves a belief in more than its own present existence. A sen- 
 sation involves only this : but a remembrance of sensation, 
 even if not referred to any particular date, involves the sugges- 
 tion and belief that a sensation, of which it is a copy or repre- 
 sentation, actually existed in the past: and an expectation in- 
 volves the belief, more or less positive, that a sensation or other 
 feeling to which it directly refers, will exist in the future. Nor 
 can the phenomena involved in these two states of consciousness 
 be adequately expressed, without saying, that the belief they in- 
 clude is, that I myself formerly had, or that I myself, and no 
 other, shall hereafter have, the sensations remembered or ex- 
 pected. The fact believed is, that the sensations did actually 
 form, or will hereafter form, part of the self-same series of states, 
 or thread of consciousness, of which the remembrance or ex- 
 pectation of those sensations is the part now present. If, there- 
 fore, we speak of the Mind as a series of feelings, Me are obliged 
 to complete the statement by calling it a series of feelings which 
 is aware of itself as past and future; and we are reduced to the 
 alternative of believing that the Mind, or Ego, is something dif- 
 ferent from any series of feelings, or possibilities of them, or of 
 accepting the paradox, that something which ex hypothesi is but 
 a series of feelings, can be aware of itself as a series. 
 
 The truth is, that we are here face to face with that final in- 
 explicability, at which, as Sir W. Hamilton observes, we inevit- 
 ably arrive when we reach ultimate facts; and in general, one 
 
109 
 
 mode of statin;^ it only appears more incomprehensible than an- 
 other, because the whole of human language is accommodated to 
 the one, and is so incongruous with the other, that it cannot be 
 expressed in any terms which do not deny its truth. The real 
 stumbling block is perliaps not in any theory of the fact, but in 
 the fact itself. The true incomprehensibility perhaps is, that some- 
 thing which has ceased, or is not yet in existence, can still be in 
 a niiinner present: that a series of feelings, the infinitely greater 
 part of which is past or future, can be gathered up, as it were, 
 into a single present conception, accompanied by a belief of real- 
 ity. I think, by far the wisest thing we- can do, is to accept the 
 inexplicable fact, without any theory of how it takes place; and 
 when we are obliged to speak of it in terms which assume a 
 theory, to use them with a reservation as to their meaning. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 ON THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. 
 
 To be conscious of free-will, must mean, to be conscious, before 
 I have decided, that I am able to decide either way. Exception 
 may be taken in limine to the use of the word consciousness in 
 such an application. Consciousness tells me what I do or feel. 
 But what I am (ihlc to do, is not a subject of consciousness. 
 Consciousness is not prophetic; we are conscious of what is, not 
 of what will or can be. We never know that we are able to do a 
 thing, except from having done it, or something equal and simi- 
 lar to it. We should not know that we were capable of action at 
 all. if we had never acted. Having acted, we know, as far as 
 that experience reaches, how we are able to act; and this know- 
 ledge, when it has become familiar, is often confounded with, 
 and called by the name of, consciousness. But it does not derive 
 any increase of authority from being mis-named; its truth is not 
 supreme over, but depends on, experience. If our so-called con- 
 sciousness of what we are able to do is not borne out by experi- 
 ence, it is a delusion. It has no title to credence but as an inter- 
 pretation of experience, and if it is a false interpretation, it must 
 give way. 
 
no 
 
 But this conviction, whether termed consciousness or only be- 
 lief, that our will is free — what is it? Of what are we convinced? 
 I am told, that whether I decide to do or to abstain, I feel that 1 
 could have decided the other way. I ask my consciousness what I 
 do feel, and I find, indeed, that I feel (or am convinced) that I could 
 have chosen the other course if I had preferred it; but not that 1 
 could have chosen one course while I preferred the other. When I 
 say preferred, I of course include with the thing itself, all that ac- 
 companies it. I know that I can, because I know that I often do. 
 elect to do one thing, when I should have preferred another in it- 
 self, apart from its consequences, or from a moral law which it 
 violates. And this preference for a thing in itself, abstractedly 
 from its accompaniment.'^, is often loosely described as preference 
 for the thing. It is this unprecise mode of speech which makes it 
 not seem absurd to say that I act in opposition to my i)reference; 
 that I do one thing when I would rather do another; that my 
 conscience prevails over my desires — as if conscience were not it- 
 self a desire — the desire to do right. Take any altern tive: say, 
 to murder or not to murder. I am told, that if I elect to murder, 
 lam conscious that I could have elected to abstain: but ami 
 conscious that I could have abstained, if my aversion to the crime, 
 and my dread of its consequences, had been weaker than the tempt- 
 ation? If I elect to abstain: in what sense am I conscious that I 
 could have elected to commit the crime? Only if I had desired 
 to commit it with a desire stronger than my horror of murder; 
 not with one less strong. When we think of ourselves hypothet- 
 ically as having acted otherwise than we did, we always suppose 
 a difference in the antecedents: we picture ourselves as having 
 known something that we did not know, or not known something 
 that we did know; which is a difference in the external motives; or 
 as having desired something, or disliked something, more or less 
 than we did; which is a difference in the internal motives. 
 
 I therefore dispute altogether that we are conscious of being 
 able to act in opposition to the strongest present desire or aver- 
 sion. The difference between a bad and a good man is not that 
 the latter acts in opposition to his strongest desires: it is that his 
 desire to do right, and his aversion to doing wrong, are strong 
 
 
Ill 
 
 \0 
 
 enough to overcome, and in the case of perfect virtue, to silence, 
 any other desire or aversion which may conflict with them. It is 
 because this state of mind is possible to human nature, that hu- 
 man beings are capable of moral government: and moral education 
 consists in subjecting them to ihe discipline which has most ten- 
 dency to bring them into this state. The object of moral educa- 
 tion is to educate the will: but the will can only be educated 
 through the desires and aversions; by eradicating or weakening 
 such of them as are likeliest to lead to evil; exalting to the highest 
 pitch the desire of right conduct and the aversion to wrong; cul- 
 tivating all other desires and aversions of which the ordinary 
 operation is auxilliary to right, while discountenancing so im- 
 moderate an indulgence of them, as might render them too pow- 
 erful to be overcome by the moral sentiment, when they chance 
 to be in opposition to it. The other requisites are, a clear intel- 
 lectual standard of right and wrong, that moral desire and aver- 
 sion may act in the proper places, and such general mental habits 
 as shall prevent moral considerations from being forgotten or 
 overlooked, in cases to which they are rightly applicable. 
 
 Rejecting, then, the figment of a direct consciousness of the 
 freedom of the will, in other words, our ability to will in opposi- 
 tion to our strongest preference; it remains to consider whether, 
 as affirmed by Sir W. Hamilton, a freedom of this kind is im- 
 plied in what is called our consciousness of moral responsibility. 
 There must be something very plausible in this opinion, since it 
 is shared even by Necessitarians. Many of these — in particular 
 Mr. Owen and his followers — from a recognition of the fact that 
 volitions are effects of causes, have been led to deny human re- 
 sponsibility. I do not mean that they denied moral distinctions. 
 Few persons have had a stronger sense of right and wrong, or been 
 more devoted to the things they deemed right. What they de- 
 nied was the rightfulness of inflicting punishment. A man's ac- 
 tions, they said, are the result of his character, and he is not the 
 author of his own character. It is made for him, not by him. 
 There is no justice in punishing him for what he cannot help. 
 We should try to convince or persuade him that he had better 
 act in a different manner; and should educate all, especially the 
 
 I 
 
 i r 
 
 t! ? 
 
 m 
 
 It 
 
112 
 
 young, in the habits and dispositions which lead to well-doint;;; 
 though how this is to be effected without any use whatever of 
 punishment as a means of education, is a question they have 
 failed to resolve. The confusion of ideas, which makes the sub 
 jection of human volitions to the law of Causation seem inconsis- 
 tent with accountability, must thus be very natural to the human 
 mind; but this may be said of a thousand errors, and even of 
 some merely verbal fallacies. In the present case there is more 
 thataverbal fallacy, but verbal fallacies also contribute their part. 
 
 What is meant by moral responsibility? Responsibility means 
 punishment. When we are said to have the feeling of being 
 morally responsible for our actions, the idea of being punished for 
 them is uppermost in the speaker's mind. But the feeling of li- 
 ability to punishment is of two kinds. It may mean, expectation 
 that if we act in a certain manner, punishment will actually be 
 inflicted upon us, by our fellow-creatures or by a Supreme Pow- 
 er. Or it may only mean, being conscious that we shall deserve 
 that infliction. 
 
 The first of these cannot, in any correct meaning of the term, 
 be designated as a consciousness. If we believe that we shall 
 be punished for doing wrong, it is because the belief has been 
 taught to us by our parents and tutors, or by our religion, or is 
 generally held by those who surround us, or because we have 
 ourselves come to the conclusion by reasoning, or from the ex- 
 perience of life. This is not Consciousness. And, by whatever 
 name it is called, its evidence is not dependent on any theory of 
 the spontaueousness of volition. The punishment of guilt in an- 
 other world is believed with undoubting conviction by Turkish 
 fatalists, and by professed Christians who are not only Necessi- 
 tarians, but believe that the majority of mankind were divinely 
 predestined from all eternity to sin and to be punished for sin- 
 ning. It is not, therefore, the belief that we shall be made ac- 
 countable, which can be deemed to require or pre-suppose the 
 free-will hypothesis; it is the belief that we ought so to be; that 
 we are justly accountable; that guilt deserves punishment. It is 
 here that the main issue is joined between the two opinions. 
 
li:^ 
 
 In discussing it, tlicre is no need to postulate any theory re- 
 specting the nature or criterion of moral distinctions. It matters 
 not, for this purpose;, whether the right and wrong of actions de- 
 pends on the consequences they tend to produce, or on an inher- 
 ent quality of the actions themselves. It is indifferent whether 
 we are utilitarians or anti-utilitarians; whether our ethics rest on 
 intuition or on experience. It is sufficient if we believe that tliere 
 is a difference between right and wrong, and a natural reason for 
 preferring the former; that people in general, unless when they 
 expect personal benefit from a wrong, naturally and usually pre- 
 fer what they think to be right: whether because we are all de- 
 pencient for what makes existence tolerable, upon the right con- 
 duct of other people, while their wrong conduct is a standing 
 menace to our security, or for some more mystical and transcend- 
 ental reason. Whatever be the cause, we are entitled to assume 
 the fact; and its consequence is, that whoever cultivates a dis- 
 position to wrong, places his mind out of sympathy with the rest 
 of his fellow-creatures, and if they are aware of his disposition, 
 becomes a natural object of their active dislike. He not only for- 
 Teits the pleasure of their good will, and the benefit of their good 
 offices, except when compassion for the human being is stronger 
 than distaste towards the wrong-doer; but he also renders himself 
 liable to whatever they may think it necessary to do in order to 
 protect themselves against him; which may probably include 
 punishment, as such, and will certainly involve much that is 
 equivalent in its operation on himself. In this way he is certain 
 to be made accountable, at least to his fellow-creatures, through 
 the normal action of their natural sentiments. And it is well worth 
 consideration, whether the practical expectation of being thus 
 called to account, has not a great deal to do with the internal feel- 
 ing of being accountable; a feeling, assuredly, which is seldom 
 found existing in any strength in the absence of that practical ex- 
 pectation. It is not usually found that Oriental despots, who can- 
 not be called to account by anybody, have much consciousness of 
 being morally accountable. And (what is still more significant) in 
 societies in which caste or class distinctions are really strong — a 
 state so strange to us now, that we seldom realize it in its full 
 
 '-Ji 
 
114 
 
 force — it is a matter of daily experience that persons may show 
 the strongest sense of moral accountability as regards their equals, 
 who can make them accountable, and not the smallest vestige of 
 a similar feeling towards their inferiors who cannot. 
 
 Another fact which it is of importance to keep in view, is, that 
 the highest and strongest sense of the worth of goodness, and the 
 odiousness of its opposite, is perfectly compatible with even the 
 most exaggerated form of Fatalism. Suppose that there were 
 two peculiar breeds of human beings, — one of them so constituted 
 from the beginning, that however educated or treated, nothing 
 could prevent them from always feeling and acting so as to be a 
 blessing to all whom they approached; another, of such original 
 perversity of nature that neither education nor punishment could 
 inspire them with a feeling of duty, or prevent them from being 
 active in evil-doing. Neither of these races of human beings 
 would have free-will; yet the former would be honored as demi- 
 gods, while (.he latter would be regarded and treated as nox- 
 ious beasts; not punished perhaps, since punishment would have 
 no effect on them, and it might be thought wrong to indulge the 
 mere instinct of vengeance: but kept carefully at a distance, and 
 killed like other dangerous creatures when there was no other 
 convenient way of being rid of them. We thus see that even 
 under the utmost possible exaggeration of the doctrine of Neces- 
 sity, the distinction between moral good and evil in conduct 
 would not only subsist, but would stand out in a more marked 
 manner than now, when the good and the wicked, however un- 
 like, are still regarded as of one common nature. 
 
 But these considerations, though pertinent to the subject, do 
 not touch the root of the difficulty. The real question is one of 
 justice — the legitimacy of retribution, or punishment. On the 
 theory of Necessity (we are told) man cannot help acting as he 
 does; and it cannot be just that he should be punished for what 
 he cannot help. 
 
 Not if the expectation of punishment enables him to help it, 
 and is the only means by which he can be enabled to help it? 
 
 To say that he cannot help it, is true or fa.^e, according to the 
 qualification with which the assertion is accompanied. Supposing 
 
115 
 
 liim to hv of t\ vicious disposition, he cannot help doing the crim- 
 inal art, if he is allowed to believe that he will be ."-ble to commit 
 it unpunished. If, on the contrary, the impression Is strong In 
 his mind that a heavy punishment will follow, he can, and in 
 most cases, does, help it. 
 
 The question deemed to be so puzzling is, how punishment can 
 he justified, if men's actions are determined by motives, among 
 which motives punishment Is one. A more difllcult question 
 would be, how it can be justified If they are not so determined. 
 Punishment proceeds on the assurrption that the will is governed 
 by motives. If punishment had no power of acting on the will, 
 it would be illegitimate, however natural might be the Inclination 
 to inflict It. Just so far as the will is supposed free, that is, 
 capable of acting against motives, punishment is disappointed of 
 its object, and deprived of its justification. 
 
 There are two ends which, on the Necessitarian theory, are 
 sufficient to justify punishment: the benefit of the ofifender him- 
 self, and the protection of others. The first justifies it, because 
 to benefit » person cannot be to do him an injury. To punish 
 him for his own good, provided the Inflictor has any proper title 
 to constitute himself a judge, Is no more uujust than to admin- 
 ister medicine. As far. Indeed, as respects the criminal himself, 
 the theory of punishment is, that by counterbalancing the influ- 
 ence of present temptations or acquired bad habits. It restores the 
 mind to that normal preponderance of the love of light, which the 
 best moralists and theologians consider to constitute the true 
 definition of our freedom. In Its other aspect, punishment Is a 
 precaution taken by society In self-defence. To make this just, 
 the only condition required is, that the end which society is at- 
 tempting to enforce by punishment, should be a just one. Used 
 as a means of aggression by society on the just rights of the In- 
 dividual, punishment Is unjust. Used to protect the just rights 
 of others against unjust aggression by the offender, It Is just. If 
 it is possible to have just rights. It cannot be unjust to defend 
 them. Free-will or no free-will, it Is just to punish so far as Is 
 necessary for this purpose, exactly as It is just to put a wild beast 
 to death (without unnecessary suffering) for the same object. 
 
 / 
 
VI I 
 
 iir» 
 
 
 Now, tlio primitive consciousness we are siii*! to have, tluU we 
 are uct'ountahie for our actions, and that if we violate the rule of 
 ri<^hl we shall deserve punishment, I contend is nothing else than 
 our knowledge that punishment will be just; that by such c<mi- 
 duct we shall place ourselves in the jjosition in whicli our fellow- 
 creatures, or the Deity, or both, will naturally, and may justly, 
 inflict punishnuiiit upon us. By using the wonljiinffi/, I am not 
 assuming, in the explanation, the thing I profess to explain. As 
 before observed, I atn (entitled to postulate the reality, and the 
 knowledge and f(M Tng, of moral distinctions. These, it is both 
 evident metaphysically and notorious historically, are independent 
 of any theory concerning the will. We are supposed capable of 
 understanding that other people have rights, and all that follows 
 from this. The mind which possesses this idea, if capable of placing 
 itself at the point of view of another person, must recognize it as 
 jiist that others should protect themselves against any disposition 
 on his part to infringe their rights; and he will do so the more 
 readily, because he also has rights, and his rights continually re- 
 quire the same protection. This, I maintain, is our feeling of 
 accountability, in so far as it can be separated from the prospect 
 of being actually called to account. No one who understands the 
 power of the priuc pie of association, can doubt its sulllciency to 
 create out of these elements the whole of the feeling of which we 
 are conscious. To rebut this view of the case would require pos- 
 itive evidence; as, for example, if it could be proved that the feel- 
 ing of accountability precedes, in the order of development, all 
 experience of punishment. No such evidence has been produ(;ed, 
 or is producible. Owing to the limited accessibility to observa- 
 tion of the mental processes of infancy, direct proof can as little 
 be produced on the other side: but if there is an}' validity in Sir 
 W. Hamilton's Law of Parcimony, we ought not to assume any 
 mental phenomenon as an ultimate fact, which can be accounted 
 for by other known properties of our mental nature. 
 
 I ask any one who thinks that the justice of punishment is not 
 sufficiently vindicated by its being for the protection of just rights, 
 how he reconciles his sense of justice to the punishment of crimes 
 committed in obedience to a perverted conscience? Ravaillac, and 
 
117 
 
 '^M 
 
 Haltlmsar (ioriinl. did not rci^iird tlu'nisclvc.s as criminals, but as 
 heroic martyrs. If tlicy were justly put to death, the justice of 
 punishment has notliing to do with the state of mimi of the 
 olTeuder, further than as this may affect the eHicacy of [xinish- 
 tueiii as a m<'ans to its end. It is impossible to assert the justice 
 of punishment for crimes of fanaticism, on any other ^rouiui than 
 its necessity for tlw attainnu-nt of a just end. If that is not a 
 justitl<'alion, tliere is no justification. All other imaginary justitl 
 cations i)reak down in their application ti> this case. 
 
 If, indeed, punishment is iidlicted for any other reason than in 
 order to operate on the will; if its purpose be other than that of 
 improving the culprit himself, or securing the just rights of others 
 against unjust violation, tluin, I admit, the case is totally altered. 
 If any one thinks that there is justice in the infliction of purposeless 
 sulTcring; that there is a natural aftlnity between the two ideas of 
 of ginlt and punishment, which makes it intrinsically fitting that 
 wherever tliere has been guilt, pain should be inflicted by way of 
 retribution; I acknowledge that I can find no argument to justify 
 punishment inflicted on this principle. As a legitimate satisfac- 
 tion to feelings of indignation and resentment which are ou the 
 whole salutary and worthy of cultivation, I can in certain cases 
 admit it; but here it is still a means to an end. The merely retri- 
 butive view of piHHshment derives no justification from the doc 
 trine I support. But it derives (juite as little from the free-will 
 doctrine. Suppose it true that the will of a malefactor, when lie 
 committed an offence, was free, or in other words, that he acted 
 badly, not because he was of a ])ad disposition, but for no reason 
 in particular: it is not easy to deduce from this the conchision 
 that it is just to j)unish him. That his acts were beyond the 
 command of motives might be a good reason for keeping out of 
 his way, or placing him under bodily restraint; but no reason for 
 inflicting pain upon him, when that pain, by supposition, could 
 not operate as a deterring motive. 
 
 While the doctrine I advocate does not support the idea that 
 punishment in mere retaliation is justifiable, it at the same time 
 fully accounts for the general and natural sentiment of its being 
 so. From our earliest childhood, the ideas of doing wrong and 
 
118 
 
 of punishment are presented to our mind together, and the in 
 tense character of the impressions causes the association between 
 them to attain the highest degree of closeness and intimacy. Is 
 it strange, or unlike the usual processes of the human mind, that 
 in these circumstances we should retain the feeling, and forget 
 the reason on whici it is grounded? But why do I speak of for- 
 getting? In most cas> the reason has never, in our early educa- 
 tion, been presented to the mind. The only ideas presented have 
 been those of wrong and punishment, and an inseparable associ- 
 ation has been created between these directly, without the help 
 of any intervening idea. This is quite enough to make the spon- 
 taneous feelings of mankind regard punishment and a wrongdoer 
 as naturally fitted to each other — as a conjunction appropriate in 
 itself, independently of any consequences. Even Sir W. Hamil- 
 ton recognises as one of the common sources of error, that " the 
 associations of thought are mistaken for the connexions of ex- 
 istence." If this is true anywhere, it is truest of all in the asso- 
 ciations into which emotior.a enter. A strong feeling, directly 
 excited by an object, is felt (except when contradicted by the 
 feelings of other people) as its own sutticient justification — no 
 more requiring the support of a reason than the fact that ginger 
 is hot in the mouth; and it almost rec/uires a philosopher, to re- 
 cognize the need of a reason for his feelings, unless he has been 
 under the practical necessity of justifying them to persons by 
 ^vhoni they are not shared. 
 
 That a person holding what is called the Necessitarian doctrine 
 should on that account /ec? that it would be unjust to punish him 
 for his wrong actions, seems to me the veriest of chimeras. Yes, 
 if he really "could not help" acting as he did, that is, if his will 
 could not have helped it; if he was under physical constraint, or 
 under the action of such a violent motive that no fear of punish- 
 ment could have any effect; which, if capable of being ascertain- 
 ed, is a just ground of exemption, and is the reason why by the 
 laws of most countries people are not punished for what they 
 were compelled to do by immediate danger of death. But if the 
 criminal was in a state capable of being operated upon by the 
 fear of punishment, no metaphysical objection, I believe, will 
 
119 
 
 make him feel his punishment unjust. Neither will he feel that 
 because his act was the consequence of motives, operating upon 
 a certain mental disposition, it was not his own fault. For, first, 
 it was at all events his own defect or infirmity, for which the ex- 
 pectation of punishment is the appropriate cure. And secondly, 
 the v'ord fault, so far from being inapplicable, is the specific 
 name for the kind of defect or infirmity which he has displayed — 
 ins'jftlcient love of right and aversion to wrong. The weakness 
 of these feelings or their strength is ir every one's mind the stan- 
 dard of fault or merit, of degrees of fault and degrees of merit. 
 Whether we are judging of particular actions, or of the character 
 of a person, we are wholly guided by the indications afforded of 
 the energy of these influences. If the desire of right and aver- 
 sion to wrong have yielded to a small temptation, we judge them 
 to be weak, and our disapprobation is strong. If the temptation 
 to which they have yielded is so great that even strong feelings 
 of virtue might have succumbed to it, our moral reprobation is 
 less intense. If, again, the moral desires and aversions have pre- 
 vailed, but rot over a very strong force, we hold that the action 
 was good, but that there was little merit in it; and our estimate 
 of the merit rises, in exact proportion to the greatness of the ob- 
 stacle which the moral feeling proved strong enough to overcome. 
 
 UTILITARIANISM. 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 WHAT UTILITARIANISM IS. 
 
 The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, 
 or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right 
 in proportion au they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they 
 tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is in- 
 tended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, 
 and the privation of pleasure. To give a clear view of the moral 
 standard set up by the theory, much more requires to be said; in 
 particular, what things it includes in the ideas of pain and pleas- 
 ure; and to what extent this is left an open question. But these 
 
 Sis; 
 
 1. 
 

 120 
 
 supplementary explanations do not affoct the theory of life on 
 which this theory of morality is grounded — namely, that pleasure, 
 and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends; 
 and that all desirable things (which are as numerous in the utili- 
 tarian as in any oth-r scheme) are desirable either for the pleasure 
 inherent in themselves, or as means to the promotion of pleasure 
 and the prevention of pain. 
 
 Utilitarian writers in general have placed the superiority of 
 mental over bodily pleasures chiefly in the greater permanency, 
 safety, uncostliness, &c., of the former — that is, in their circum- 
 stantial advantages rather than in their intrinsic nature. And 
 on all these points utilitarians have full}' proved their case; but 
 they might have taken the other, and, as it may be called, higher 
 ground, with entire consistency. It is quite compatible with the 
 principle of utility to recognise the fact, that some kinds of plea- 
 sure are more desirable and more valuable than others. It would 
 be absurd that while, in estimating all other things, quality is 
 considered as well as quantity, tlie estimation of pleasures should 
 be supposed to depend on quantity alone. 
 
 If I am asked, what I mean by difTerence of quality in pleasures, 
 or what makes one pleasure more valuable than another, merely 
 as a pleasure, except its being greater in amount, there is but one 
 possible answer. Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all 
 or almost all who have experience of both give a decided prefer- 
 ence, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, 
 that is the more desirable pleasure. If one of the two is, by those 
 who are competently acquainted with both, placed so far above 
 the other that they prefer it, even though knowing it to be 
 attended with a greater amount of discontent, and would not re- 
 sign it for any quantity of the other pleasure which their nature 
 is capable of, we are justified in ascribing to the preferred enjoy- 
 ment a superiority in (puility, so far outweighing quantity as to 
 render it, in comparison, of small account. 
 
 Now it is an unquestionable fact that those who are equally 
 acquainted with, and equally capable of appreciating and enjoy- 
 ing, both, do give a most marked preference to the manner of 
 existence which employs their higher faculties. Few human 
 
121 
 
 creatures would consent to be changed info any of the lower 
 animals, for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast's pleas- 
 ures; no intelligent human being would consent to be a fool, no 
 instructed person would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling 
 and conscience would be selfish and base, even though they 
 should be persuaded that the fool, the dinice, or the rascal is 
 better satisfied with his lot than they are with theirs. They would 
 not resign what they possess more than he, for the most complete 
 satisfaction of all the desires which they have in common with 
 him. If they ever fancy they would, it is only in cases of unhap- 
 piness so extreme, that to escape from it they would exchange their 
 lot for almost any other, however undesirable in their own eyes. 
 A being of higher faculties requires more to make him happy, is 
 capable probably of more acute suffering, and is certainly acces- 
 sible to it at more points, than one of an inferior type; but in 
 spite of these liabilities, he can never really wish to sink into 
 what he feels to be a lower grade of existence. We may give 
 what explanation we please of this unwillingness; we may attrib- 
 ute it to pride, a name which is given indiscriminately to some of 
 the most and to some of the least estimable feelings of which man- 
 kind are capable; we may refer it to the love of liberty and 
 personal independence, an appeal to which was with the Stoics 
 one of the most effective means for the inculcation of it; to the 
 love of power, or to the love of excitement, both of which do 
 really enter into and contribute to it: but its most appropriate ap- 
 pellation is a sense of dignity, which all human beings possess in 
 one form or other, and in some, though by no means in exact, pro- 
 portion to their higher faculties, and which is so essential a part 
 of the happiness of those in whom it is strong, that nothing 
 which conflicts with it could be, otherwise than momentarily, an 
 object of desire to them. Whoever supposes that this preference 
 takes place at a sacrifice of happiness — that the superior being, 
 in anything like equal circumstances, is not happier than the in- 
 ferior — confounds the two very different ideas, of happiness, and 
 content. It is indisputable that the being whose capacities of 
 enjoyment are low, has the greatest chance of having them fully 
 satisfied; and a higly-endowed being will always feel that any 
 
 
m 
 
 122 
 
 happiness which he can look for, as the world is constituted, is 
 imperfect. But he can learn to bear its imperfections, if they 
 are at all bearable; and they will not make him envy the being 
 who is indeed unconscious of the imperfections, but only because 
 he feels not at all the good which those imperfections qualify. 
 It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; 
 better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the 
 fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is because they only 
 know their own side of the question. The other party to the 
 comparison knows both sides. 
 
 It may be objected that many who are capable of the higher 
 pleasures, occasionally, under the influence of temptation, post- 
 pone them to the lower. But this is quite compatible with a full 
 appreciation of the intrinsic superiority of the higher. Men 
 often, from infirmity of character, make their election for the 
 nearer good, though they know it to be the less valuable; and 
 this no less when the choice is between two bodily pleasures, 
 than when it is between bodily and mental. They pursue sen- 
 sual indulgences to the injury of health, though perfectly aware 
 that health is the greater good. It may be further objected, that 
 many who begin with youthful enthusiasm for everything noble, 
 as they advance in years sink into indolence and selfishness. But 
 I do not believe that those who undergo this very common 
 change, voluntarily choose the lower description of pleasures in 
 preference to the higher. I believe that before they devote them- 
 selves exclusively to the one, they have already become incapable 
 of the other. Capacity for the nobler feelings is in most natures, a 
 very tender plant, easily killed, not only by hostile influences, but 
 by mere want of sustenance; and in the majority of young persons 
 it speedily dies away if the occupations to which their position 
 in life has devoted them, and the society into which it has thrown 
 them, are not favourable to keeping that higher capacity in exer- 
 cise. Men lose their high aspirations as they lose their intellect- 
 tual tastes, because they have not time or opportunity for in- 
 dulging them; and they addict themselves to inferior pleasures, 
 not because they deliberately prefer them, but because they are 
 either the only ones to which they have access, or the only ones 
 
.».!.' 
 
 123 
 
 which they are any longer capa])le of enjoying. It may be ques- 
 tioned whether any one who has remained equally susceptible to 
 both classes of pleasures, ever knowingly and calmly preferred 
 the lower; though many, in all ages, have broken down in an in- 
 effectual attempt to combine both. 
 
 From this verdict of the only competent judges, I apprehend 
 there can be no appeal. On a question which is the best worth 
 having of two pleasures, or which of two modes of existence is 
 the most grateful to the feelings, apart from its moral attributes 
 and from its consequences, the judgment of those who are quali- 
 fied by knowledge of both, or, if they ditfer, that of the majority 
 among them, must be admitted as final. And there needs be the 
 less hesitation to accept this judgment respecting the quality of 
 pleasures, since there is no other tribunal to be referred to even 
 on the question of quantity. What means are there of determin- 
 ing which is the acutest of two pains, or the intensest of two 
 pleasurable sensations, -^ "lept the general suffrage of those who 
 are familiar with both? Neither pains nor pleasures are homo- 
 geneous, and pain is always heterogeneous with pleasure. What 
 is there to decide whether a particular pleasure is worth pur- 
 chasing at the cost of a particular pain, except the feelings and 
 judgment of the experienced? When, therefore, those feelings 
 and judgment declare the pleasures derived from the higher fac- 
 ulties to be preferable i7i kind, apart from the question of inten- 
 sity, to those of which the animal nature, disjoined from the 
 higher, faculties, is susceptible, they are entitled on this subject 
 to the same regard. 
 
 I have dwelt on this point as being a necessary part of a per- 
 fectly just conception of Utility or Happiness, considered as the 
 directive rule of human conduct. But it is by no means an indis- 
 pensable condition to the acceptance of the utilitarian standard; 
 for that standard is not the agent's own greatest happiness, but 
 the greatest amount of happiness altogether; and if it may pos- 
 sibly be doubted whether a noble character is always the happier 
 for its nobleness, there can be no doubt that it makes other people 
 happier, and that the world in general is immensely a gainer by 
 it. Utilitarianism, therefore, could only attain its end by the 
 
:;ti, 
 
 124 
 
 general cultivation of nobleness of character, even if each indi- 
 vidiial were only benefited by the nobleness of others, and his 
 own, so far as happiness is concerned, were a sheer deduction 
 from the benefit. But the bare enunciation of such an absurdity 
 as tliis last, renders refutation superfluous. 
 
 According to the Greatest Happiness Principle, as above e.\- 
 plained, the ultimate end, with reference to and for the sake of 
 which all other thinirs are desirable (whether we are considering 
 our own good or that of other people), is an existence exempt as 
 far as possible from pain, and as rich as possible in enjoyments, 
 both in point of quantity and quality; the test of (juality, and the 
 rule for measuring it against quantity, being the preference felt 
 by those who, in their opportunities of experience, to which must 
 be added their habits of self-consciousnesss and self-observation, 
 are best furnished with the means of comparison. This, being, 
 according to the utilitarian opinion, the end of human action, is 
 necessarily also the standard of morality; which may accordingly 
 be deflned, the rules and precepts for human conduct, by the ob- 
 servance of which an existence such as has been described might 
 be, to the greatest extent possible, secured to all mankind; and 
 not to them only, but, so far as the nature of things admits, to the 
 whole sentient creation. 
 
 Against this doctrine, however, arises another class of objectors, 
 who say, that happiness in any form, cannot be the rational pur- 
 pose of human life and action; because, in the first place, it is un- 
 attainable: and they contemptuously ask. What right hast thou to 
 be happy? a question which Mr. Carlyle clenches by the ad- 
 dition, What right, a short time ago, hadst thou even to he* 
 Next, they say, that men can do icithout happiness; that all noble 
 human beings have felt this, and could not have become noble 
 but by learning the lesson of Entsagen, or renunciation; which 
 lesson, thoroughly learnt and submitted to, they aflfirm to be the 
 beginning and necessary condition of all virtue. 
 
 The first of these objections would go to the root of the matter 
 were it well founded; for if no happiness is to be had at all by 
 human beings, the attainment of it cannot be the end of morality, 
 or of any rational conduct. Though, even in that case, some- 
 
 i-;)l 
 
mwi 
 
 125 
 
 thiiiij: might still he said for the utilitarian theory; since utility 
 includes not solely the pursuit of happiness, but the prevention 
 or mitiijjition of unhappiness; and if the former aim be chimeri- 
 cal, there will be all the greater scope and more imperative need 
 for the latter, so long at least as mankind think lit to live, and do 
 not take refuge in the sinuiltaneous act of suicide reconnnended 
 under certain conditions by Novalis. When, however, it is thus 
 positively asserted to be impossible that human life should be 
 happy, the assertion, if not something like a verbal (juibble, is at 
 least an exaggeration. If by happiness be meant a continuity of 
 highly pleasurable excitement, it is evident enough that this is 
 impossible. A state of exalted pleasure lasts only moments, or 
 in some cases, and with some intermissions, hours or days, and is 
 the occasional brilliant flash of enjoyment, not its pernninent and 
 steady flame. Of this the philosophers who have taught that 
 happiness is tlie end of life were as fully aware as those who 
 taunt them. The happiness which they meant was not a life of 
 rapture; but moments of such, in an existence made up of few 
 and transitory pains, many and various pleasures, with a decided 
 predominance of the active over the passive, and having as the 
 foundation of the whole, not to expect more from life than it is 
 capable of bestowing. A life thus composed, to those who have 
 been fortunate enough to obtain it, has always appeared worthy 
 of the name of happiness. And such an existence is even now 
 the lot of many, during some considerable portion of their lives. 
 The present wretched education, and wretched social arrange- 
 ments, are the only real hindrance to its being attainable by 
 almost all. 
 
 The objectors perhaps may doubt whether human ])eings, if 
 taught to consider happiness as the end of life, would be satisfied 
 with such a moderate share of it. But great numbers of man 
 kind have been satisfied with much less. The main constituents 
 of a satisfied life appear to be two, either of which by itself is 
 often found sufficient for the purpose: tranquillity, and excite- 
 ment. With much tranquillity, many find that they can be con- 
 tent with very little pleasure: with much excitement, many can 
 reconcile themselves to a considerable quantity of pain. There 
 
126 
 
 is assuredly no inherent impossibility in enabling even the mass of 
 mankind to unite both; since the two are so far from being in- 
 compatible that they are in natural alliance, the prolongation of 
 either being a preparation for, and exciting a wish for, the otlier. 
 It is only those in whom indolence amounts to a vice, that do not 
 desire excitement after an intervp.l of repose; it is only those In 
 whom the need of excitement is a disease, that feel the tranquil 
 lity whicli follows excitement dull and insipid, instead of pleasur- 
 able in direct proportion to the excitement which preceded it. 
 When people who are tolerably fortunate in their outward lot do 
 not find in life sufficient enjoyment to make it valuable to them, 
 the cause generally is, caring for nobody but themselves. To 
 those who have neither public nor private affections, the excite- 
 ments of life are much curtailed, and in any case dwindle in value 
 as the time approaches when all selfish interests must be termi- 
 nated by death: while those who leave after them objects of per- 
 sonal affection, and especially those who have also cultivated a 
 fellow-feeling with the collective iuterests of mankind, retain as 
 lively an interest in life on the eve of death as in the vigour of 
 youth and health. Next to selfishness, the principal cause which 
 makes life unsatisfactory, is want of mental cultivation. A cul- 
 tivated mind — I do not mean that of a philosopher, but any mind 
 to which the fountains of knowledge have been opened, and 
 which has been taught, in any tolerable degree, to exercise its 
 faculties — finds sources of inexhaustible interest in all that sur- 
 rounds it; in the objects of nature, the achievements of art, the 
 imagination of poetry, the incidents of history, the ways of man- 
 kind, past and present, and their prospects in the future. It is 
 possible, indeed, to become indifferent to all this, and that too 
 without having exhausted a thousandth part of it; but only when 
 oue has had from the beginning no moral or human interest in 
 these things, and has sought in them only the gratification of 
 curiosity. 
 
 And this leads to the true estimation of what is said by the ob- 
 jectors concerning the possibility, and the obligation, of learning 
 to do without happiness. Unquestionably it is possible to do 
 without happiness; it is done involuntarily by nineteen-twentieth** 
 
127 
 
 of mankind, even in those parts of our present world which are 
 least deep in barbarism; and it often has to be done voluntarily by 
 the hero or the martyr, for the sake of something which he prizes 
 more than his individual happiness. But this something, what 
 is it. unless the happiness of others, or some of the requisites of 
 happiness? It is noble to be capable of resigning entirely one's 
 own portion of happiness, or chances of it: but, after all, this 
 self-sacritice must be for some end; it is not its own end; and if 
 we are told that its end is not happiness, but virtue, which is 
 better than happiness, I ask, would the sacrifice be made if the 
 hero or martyr did not believe that it would earn for others im 
 munity from similar sacrltices? Would it be made, if he thought 
 that his renunciation of happiness for himself would produce no 
 fruit for any of his fellow-creatures, but to make their lot like his, 
 and place them also in the condition of persons who have re- 
 nounced happiness? All honour to those who can abnegate for 
 themselves the personal enjoyment of life, when by such renun- 
 ciation they contribute worthily to increase the amount of hap- 
 piness in the world; but he who does it, or professes to do it, for 
 any other purpose, is no more deserving of admiration than the 
 ascetic mounted on his pillar. He may be an inspiriting proof of 
 what men can do, but assuredly not an example of what they 
 nhould. 
 
 Though it is only in a very imperfect state of the world's ar- 
 rangements that any one can best serve the happiness of others 
 by the absolute sacrifice of his own, yet so long as the world is 
 in that imperfect state, I fully acknowledge that the readiness to 
 make such a sacrifice is the highest virtue which can be found in 
 man. I will add, that in this condition of the world, paradoxical 
 as the assertion may be, the conscious ability to do without 
 happiness gives the best prospect of realizing such happiness as 
 is attainable. For nothing except that consciousness can raise a 
 person above the chances of life, by making him feel that, let 
 fate and fortune do their worst, they have not power to subdue 
 him: which, once felt, frees him from excess of anxiety concern- 
 ing the evils of life, and enables him, like many a Stoic in the 
 worst times of the Roman Empire, to cultivate in tranquillity the 
 
 11 
 

 128 
 
 sources of Hatisfiictlon acressiblc to him, without concerning him 
 self about tlie uncertainty of their duration, any more than about 
 their inevitable end. 
 
 The (jl)jectors to utilitarianism cannot always be charged with 
 representing it in a dlscn'dita])le light. On the contrary, those 
 among tlu-m who entertain anything like a just idea of its disln- 
 t(^rested (character, sometimes find fault with its standard as being 
 too high for humanity. They say It Is exact. ng too much to re- 
 quire that people shall always act from the inducement of pro- 
 moting the general interests of society. Hut this is to nnstake 
 the very meaning of a standard of morals, and to confound the 
 rule of action with tli(^ motive of it. It is the business of ethics 
 to tell us what are our duties, or by what test we may know them; 
 but no system of ethics requires tluit the sole motive of all we do 
 shall ])e a feeling of duty; on the contrary, iilnety-nine hundredths 
 of all our actions are doiu; from other motives, and rightly so 
 done, if the rule of duty does not condemn them. It is the more 
 unjust to Utilitarianism that this pjirtlcidar misapprehension 
 shotdd be made a grouiul of objetMlon to It, inasnuich as utilitar- 
 ian moralists have gone beyond almost all others in aflirming that 
 the motive has nothing to do with the morality of the action, 
 though nuich with the worth of the agent. He who saves a fel- 
 low-creature from drowning does what is morally right, whether 
 his motive be duty, or the hope of being paid for his trouble: he 
 who betrays the friend that trusts him, is guilty of a crime, even 
 if his object be to serve another friend to whom he is under 
 greater obligations. 
 
 An opponent, whose intellectual and moral fairness it is a 
 pleasure to acknowledge (the Rev. J. Llewellyn Davies), has ob- 
 jected to this passage, saying, " Surely the rightness or wrongness 
 of saving a man from drowning does depend very much upon the 
 motive with which it is done. Suppose that a tyrant, when his 
 enemy jumped into the sea to escape from him, saved him from 
 drowning simply in order that he might inflict upon him more 
 exquisite tortures, would it tend to clearness to speak of that 
 rescue as ' a morally right action?' Or suppose again, according 
 to one of the stock illustrations of ethical inquiries, that a man 
 
129 
 
 bclriiyed a trust recoivod from a friend, because the discharge of 
 it would fatally injure that friend himself or some one belonging 
 to him, would utilitarianism compel one to call the betrayal 'a 
 crime ' as much as if it ha<l been done from the meanest motive? " 
 I sid)mit, that he who saves another from drowning in order to 
 kill him by torture afterwards, does not differ only in motive 
 from him who does the same thing from duty or benevolence; 
 the act itself is dilTen^nt. The rescue of tlu- nmn is, in the case 
 ■supposed, «)nly the necessary first step of an act far more atro- 
 cious than leaving him to drown would have been. Had Mr. 
 Davies said, "The rightness or wrongness of saving a man from 
 drowning does depend very much" — not upon the motive, but — 
 "upon i\m intention," no utilitarian would have differed from 
 him. Mr. Davies, by an oversight too common not to be quite 
 venial, has in this case confounded the very different ideas of 
 Motive and Intention. There is no point which utilitarian think- 
 ers (and Bentham pre-eminently) have taken more pains to illus- 
 trate than this. The morality of the action depends entirely upon 
 the intention — that is, upon what the agent wHIh to do. But the 
 motive, that is, the feeling which makes him will so to do, when 
 it makes no difference in the act, makes none in the morality: 
 though it makes a great difference in our moral estimation of the 
 agent, especially if it indicates a good or a bad habitual dispo- 
 itition — a bent of character from which useful, or from which 
 hurtful actions are likely to arise. 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 OF THE ULTIMATE SANCTION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY. 
 
 The question is often asked, and properly so, in regard lo any 
 supposed moral standard — What is its sanction? what are the 
 motives to obey it? or more specifically, what is thei source of its 
 obligation? whence does it derive its binding force? It is a neces- 
 sary part of moral philosophy to provide the answer to this ques- 
 tion; which, though frequently assuming the shape of an objection 
 to the utilitarian morality, as if it had some special applicability to 
 

 130 
 
 that above othcrw, really arises in re/^ard to all standards. The 
 difficulty has no peculiar application to the doctrine of utility, 
 l)ut is inherent in every attempt to analyse morality and reduce it 
 to principles; which, unless the principle is already in men's minds 
 invested with as much sacredness as any of its applications, 
 always seems to divest them of a part of their sanctity. 
 
 The principle of utility either has, or there is no reason why it 
 might not have, all the sanctions which belong to any other sys- 
 tem of morals. Those sanctions are either external or internal. 
 Of the external sanctions it is not necessary to speak at any length. 
 They are, the hope of favour and the fear of displeasure from our 
 fellow-creatures or from the Ruler of the Universe, along with 
 whatever we may have of .sympathy or affection for them, or of 
 love and awe of Hlin, inclining us to do his will independently of 
 seltish consequences. There is evidently no reason why all these 
 motives for observance should not attach themselves to the utili- 
 tarian morality, as completely and as powerfully as to any other. 
 Indeed, those of them which refer to our fellow-creatures are 
 sure to do so, in proportion to the amount of general intelligence; 
 for whether there be any other ground of moral obligation than 
 the general happiness or not, men do desire happiness; and how- 
 ever imperfect may be their own practice, they desire and com- 
 mend all conduct in others towards themselves, by which they 
 think their happiness is promoted. With regard to the religious 
 motive, if men believe, as most profess to do, in the goodness of 
 God, those who think that conduciveness to the general happiness 
 is the essence, or even only the criterion, of good, must necces- 
 sarily believe that it is also that which God approves. The whole 
 force therefore of external reward and punishment, whether 
 physical or moral, and whether pre needing from God or from our 
 fellow men, together with all ti)at the capacities of human nature 
 admit, of disinterested devotion to either, become available to 
 enforce the utilitarian morality, in proportion as that morality is 
 recognized; and the more powerfully, the more the appliances of 
 education and general cultivation are bent to the purpose. 
 
 So far as to external sanctions. The internal sanction of duty, 
 whatever our standard of duty may be, is one and the same— a 
 
131 
 
 feeling in our own mind; a pain, more or less intense, attendant 
 on violation of duty, which in properly-cnlfivated moral naturcH 
 rises, in the more serious cases, into shrinkinu: fnmi it as an im- 
 possibility. This feeling, when disinterested, and connecting it- 
 self with the pure idea of duty, and not with some particular form 
 of it, or with any ol the merely accessory circumstances, is the 
 essence of Conscience; though in that complex phenomenon as it 
 actually exists, the simple fact is in general all encrusted over 
 with collateral associations, derived from sympathy, from love, 
 and still more from fear; from all the forms of religious feeling; 
 from the recollections of childhood and of all our past life; from 
 self-esteem, desire of the esteem of others, and occasionally even 
 self-abasement. This extreme complication Is, I apprehend, the 
 origin of the sort of mystical character which, by a tendency of 
 the human mind of which there are many other examples, is apt 
 to be attributed to the idea of moral obligation, and which leads 
 people to believe that the idea cannot possibly attach itself to any 
 other objects than those which, by a supposed mysterious law. 
 are found in our present experience to excite it. Its binding 
 force, however, consists in the existence of a mass of feeling 
 which must be broken through in order to do what violates our 
 standard of right, and which, if we do nevertheless violate that 
 standard, will probably have to be encountered afterwards in the 
 form of remorse. Whatever theory we have of the nature or 
 origin of conscience, this is what essentially constitutes it. 
 
 The ultimate sanction, therefore, of all morality (external mo- 
 tives apart) being a subjective feeling in our own minds, I see 
 nothing embarassing to those whose standard is utility, in the 
 question, what is the sanction of that particular standard? We 
 may answer, the same as of all other moral standards — the con- 
 scientious feelings of mankind. Undoubtedly this sanction has 
 no binding efficacy on those who do not possess the feelings it 
 appeals to; but neither will these persons be more obedient to 
 any other moral principle than to the utilitarian one. On them 
 morality of any kind ha., no hold but through the external sanc- 
 tions. Meanwhile the feelings exist, a fact in human nature, the 
 reality of which, and the great power with which they are ca- 
 
132 
 
 pable of acting on those in whom they have been duly cultivated, 
 are proved by experience. No reason has ever been shown why 
 they may not be cultivated to as great intensity in connection 
 with the utilitarian, as with any other rule of morals. 
 
 It is not necessary, for the present purpose, to decide whether 
 the feeling of duty is innate or implanted. Assuming it to be in- 
 nate, it is an open question to what objects it naturally attaches 
 itself; for the philosophic supporters of that theory are now 
 agreed that the intuitive perception is of principles of morality, 
 and not of the details. If there be anything innate in the matter, 
 [ see no reason why the feeling which is innate should not l)e 
 that of regard to the i)leasures and pains of others. If there is 
 any principle of morals which is intuitively obligatory, I should 
 say it must be that. If so, the intuitive ethics would coincide 
 with the utilitarian, and there would be no further quarrel be- 
 tween them. Even as it is, the intuitive moralists, though they 
 believe that there are other intuitive moral obligations, do already 
 believe this to be one; for they unanimously hold that a large 
 portion of morality turns upon the consideration due to the in- 
 terests of our fellow -creatjires. Therefore, if the belief in the 
 transcendental origin of moral obligation gives any additional 
 efficacy to the internal sanction, it appears to me that the utili 
 tarian principle has already the benefit of it. 
 
 On the other hand, if, as is mj*^ own belief, the moral feelings 
 are not innate, but acquired, they are not for that reason the less 
 natural. It is natural to man to speak, to reason, to build cities, 
 to cultivate the ground, though these arc acquired faculties. The 
 moral feelings are not indeed a part of our nature, in the sense of 
 being in any perceptible degree present in all of us; but this unhap- 
 pily is a fact admitted by those who believe the most strenuously 
 in their transcendental origin. Like the other acquired capacities 
 at ^ e referred to, the moral faculty, if not a part of our nature, 
 is a natural outgrowth from it; capable, like them, in a certain 
 small degree, of springing up spontaneously ; and susceptible of 
 being brought by cultivation to a high degree of development. 
 Unhappily it is also susceptible, by a sufficient use of the external 
 sanctions and of the force of early impressions, of being cultivated 
 
133 
 
 in almost, any direction: so that there is hardly anything so absurd 
 or so mischievous that it may not, by means of tliese influences, 
 be made to act on the human mind with all the authority of con- 
 science. To doubt that the same potency might be given by the 
 same mean:-! to the principle of utility, even if it had no founda- 
 tion in human nature, would be Hying in the face of all expe- 
 rience. 
 
 But moral associations which are wliolly of artiflcial creation, 
 when intellectual ('ulture goes on, yield by degrees to the dissolv- 
 ing force of analysis: and if the feeling of duty, when associated 
 with utility, would appear e(iually arbitrary; if there were uo 
 leading department of our nature, no powerful class of senti- 
 ments, with which that association would harmonize, which 
 would make us feel it congenial, and incline us not only to foster 
 it in others (for v.'hich we have abunilant interested motives), but 
 also to cherish it in ourselves; if there were not, in short, a nat- 
 ural basis f)f sentiment for utilitarian morality, it might well hap- 
 pen that this association also, even after it had been implanted 
 by education, might be analysed away. 
 
 But there is this basis of powerfid natural sentiment; and this 
 it is which, when once the general happiness is recognised as the 
 ethical standard, will constitute the strength of the utilitarian 
 morality. This firm foundation is that of the social feelings of 
 mankind; the desire to be in unity with our fellow-creatures, 
 which is already a powerful principle in human nature, and hap- 
 pily one of those which tend to become stronger, even without 
 express inculcation, from the influences of advancing civilization. 
 The social state is at once so natural, so necessary, and so hab 
 itual to man, that, except in some unusual circumstances or by an 
 effort of voluntary abstraction, he never conceives himself other 
 wise tlmn as a member of a body; and this association is riveted 
 more and more, as mankind are further removed from the state 
 of savage independence, iir.y condition, therefore, which is es 
 sential to a state of society, becomes more and more an insepar 
 able part of every person's conception of the state of thing»i 
 V7hich he is born into, and which is the destiny of a human being. 
 Now, society between human beings, except in the relation of 
 
134 
 
 master and slave, is manifestly impossible on any other footinjtf 
 than that the interests of all are to be consulted. Society between 
 equals can only exist on the understanding that the interests of 
 all are to be regarded equally. And since in all states of civiliza- 
 tion, every person, except an absolute monarch, has equals, every 
 one is obliged to live on these terms with somebody; and in every 
 age some advance is made towards a state in which it will be im- 
 possible to live permanently on other terms with anybody. In 
 this way people grow up unable to conceive as possible to them a 
 a state of total disregard of other people's interests. They are 
 under a necessity of conceiving themselves as at least abstaining 
 from all the grosser injuries, and (if only for their own protection) 
 living in a state of constant protest against them. They are also 
 familiar with the fact of co-operating with others, and proposing 
 to themselves a collective, not an individual, interest, as the aim 
 (at least for the time being) of their actions. So long as they are 
 co-operating, their ends are identified with those of others; there 
 is at least a temporary feeling that the interests of others are their 
 own interests. Not only does all strengthening of social ties, and 
 all healthy growth of society, give to each individual a stronger 
 personal interest in practically consulting the welfare of pthers; 
 it also leads him to identify his feelinga more and more with their 
 good, or at least with an ever greater degree of practical consid- 
 eration for it. He comes, as though instinctively, to be conscious 
 of himself as a being who o/mj^av^; pays regard toothers. The 
 good of others becomes to him a thing naturally and necessarily 
 to be attended to, like any of the physical conditions of our ex- 
 istence. Now, whatever amount of this feeling a person has, be 
 is urged by the strongest motives both of interest and of sym- 
 pathy to demonstrate it, and to the utmost of his power encour- 
 age it in others; and even if he has none of it himself, he is as 
 greatly interested as any one else that others should have it. 
 Consequently, the smallest germs of the feeling are laid hold of 
 and nourished by the contagion of sympathy and the influences 
 of education; and a complete web of corroborative association is 
 woven round it, by the powerful agency of the external sanctions. 
 This mode of conceiving ourselves and human life, as civilization 
 
135 
 
 goes on, is felt to be more and more natural. Every step in po- 
 litical improvement renders it more so, by removing the sources 
 of opposition of interest, and levelling those inequalities of legal 
 privilege between individuals or classes, owing to which there 
 are large portions of mankind whose happiness it is still prac- 
 ticable to disregard. In an improving state of the human mind, 
 the influences are constantly on the increase, which tend to gen- 
 erate in each individual a feeling of unity Tvith all the rest; which 
 feeling, if perfect, would make him never tidnk of, or desire, any 
 beneficial condition for himself, in the benefits of which they are 
 not included. If we now suppose this feeling of unity to be taught 
 as a religion, and the whole force of education, of institutions, and 
 of opinion, directed as it once was in the case of religion, to make 
 every person grow up from infancy surrounded on all sides both 
 by the profession and by the practice of it, I think that no one, 
 who can realize this conception, will feel any misgiving about the 
 sufficiency of the ultimate sanction for the Happiness of morality. 
 To any ethical student who finds the realization difficult, I recom- 
 mend, as a means of facilitating it, the second of M. Comte's two 
 principal works, the Systemc de Politique Positive. I entertain the 
 strongest objections to the system of politics and morals set forth 
 in that treatise; but I think it has superabundantly shown the 
 possibility of giving to the service of humanity, even without the 
 aid of belief in a Providence, both the psychical power and the 
 social efficacy of a religion: making it take hold of human life, and 
 colour all thought, feeling, and action, in a manner of which the 
 greatest ascendancy ever exercised by any religion may be but a 
 type and foretaste; and of which the danger is, not that it should 
 be insuflScient, but that it should be so excessive as to interfere 
 unduly with human freedom and individuality. 
 
 Neither is it necessary to the feeling which constitutes the 
 binding force of the utilitarian morality on those who recognize 
 it, to wait for those social influences which would make its obli- 
 gation felt by mankind at large. In the comparatively early 
 state of human advancement in which we now live, a person can 
 not indeed feel that entireness of sympathy with all others, which 
 would make any real discordance in the general direction of their 
 

 isr, 
 
 conduct in life impossible; but already a person in whom the 
 social feeling is at all developed, cannot >)rin,!^ himself to think 
 of the rest of his fellow-creatures as strui^gling rivals Avith him 
 for the means of happiness, whom he must desire to see defeated 
 in their object in order that he may succeed in his. The deeply- 
 rooted conception which every individual even now has of him- 
 self as a social being, tends to make him feel it one of his natural 
 wants that there shoidd be harmony belwe(?n his feelings and 
 aims and those of his fellow-creatures. If differences of opinion 
 and of mental culture make it impossible for him to share 
 many of their actual feelings — perhaps make hira denounce and 
 defy those feelings — he still needs to be conscious that his real 
 aim and theirs do not conflict; that he is not opi)osing himself to 
 what they really wish for, namely, their own good; but is, on the 
 contrary, promoting it. This feeling in most individuals is much 
 inferior in strength to their selfish feelings, and is often wanting 
 altogether. But to those who have it, it possesses all the charac- 
 ters of a natural feeling. It does not present itself to their minds 
 as a superstition of education, or a law despotically imposed by 
 the power of society, but as an attribute which it would not be 
 well for them to be without. This conviction is the ultimate 
 sanction of the greatest-happiness morality. This it is which 
 makes any mind, of well developed-feelings, work with, and not 
 against, the outward motives to care for others, afforded by what 
 I have called the external sanctions; and when those sanctions 
 are wanting, or act in an opposite direction, constitutes in itself 
 a powerful internal binding force, in proportion to the sensitive- 
 ness and thoughtfulness of the character; since few but those 
 whose mind is a moral blank, could bear to lay out their course 
 of life on the plan of paying no regard to others except so far as 
 their own private interest compels. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OF WHAT SOURCE OP PROOF THK PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY 
 
 18 SUSCEPTIBLE. 
 
 The only proof capable of being given that an object is visible. 
 is that people actually see it. The only proof that a sound is 
 
137 
 
 audible, is that people hear it: and so of the other sources of our 
 experience. In like manner, I apprehend, the sole evidence it is 
 possible to produce that anything is desirable, is that people do 
 actually desire it. If the end which the utilitarian doctrine pro- 
 poses to itself were not, in theory, and in practice, acknowledged 
 to be an end, nothing could ever convince any person that it was 
 so. No reason can be given why the general happiness is desir- 
 able, except that each person, so far as he believes it to be attain- 
 able, desires his own happiness. This, however, being a fact, 
 we have not only all the proof which the case admits of, but all 
 which it is possible to retpiire, that happiness is a good: that each 
 person's happiness is a good to that person, and the general hap- 
 piness therefore a good to the aggregate of all persons. Haj)piness 
 has made out its title as one of the ends of conduct, and con- 
 sequentl}' one of the criteria of morality. 
 
 But it has not, by this alone, proved itself to be the sole cri- 
 terion. To do that, it would seem, by the same rule, nece.ssary to 
 show, not only that people desire happiness, but that they never 
 desire anything else. Now it is palpable that they do desire 
 things which, in common language, are decidedly distinguished 
 from happiness. They desire, for example, virtue, and the absence 
 of vice, no less really than pleasure and the absence of pain. The 
 desire of virtue is not as universal, but it is as authentic a fact, as 
 the desire of happiness. And hence the opponents of the utilitar 
 ian standard deem that they have a right to infer that there are 
 other ends of human action besides happiness, and that happiness 
 is not the standard of approbation and disapprobation. 
 
 But does the utilitarian doctrine deny that people desire virtue, 
 or maintain that virtue is not a thing to be desired? The very 
 reverse. It maintains not only that virtue is to be desired, but 
 that it is to be desired disinterestedly, for itself. Whatever may 
 be the opinion of utilitarian moralists as to the original conditions 
 by which virtue is made virtue; however they may believe (as 
 they «lo) that actions and dispositions are only virtuous because 
 they promote another end than virtue; yet this being granted, 
 and it having been decided, from considerations of this descrip- 
 tion, what h virtuous, they not only place virtue at the very head 
 
f 
 
 138 
 
 of the thihgs which are good as means to the ultimate etui, but 
 they also recognise as a psychological fact the possibility of its 
 being, to the individual, a good in itself, without looking to any 
 end beyond it; and hold, that the mind is not in a right state, not 
 in a state conformable to Utility, not in the state most conducive 
 to the general happiness, unless it does love virtue in this man- 
 ner- as a thing desirable in its(,'If, even although, in the individ- 
 ual instance, it should not produce those other desirable conse- 
 quences which it tends to produce, and on account of which it is 
 held to be virtue. This opinion is not, in the smallest degree, a 
 dei)arture from the Happiness principle. The ingredients of hap- 
 ^^)iness are very various, and each of them is desirable in itself, 
 and not merely when considered as swelling an aggregate. The 
 principle llity does not mean that any given pleasure, as 
 
 music, fo .' ce, or any given exemption from pain, as for ex- 
 
 ample health, are to be looked upon as means to a collective some- 
 thing ter.pcJ >iapp"p'-^s, and to be desired on that account. They 
 are desired auu dc;su?ble 'n and for themselves; besides being 
 means, they are a part of the end. Virtue, according to the util- 
 itarian doctrine, is not naturally and originally part of the end. 
 but it is capable of becoming so; and in those who love it disin- 
 terestedly it has become so, and is desired and cherished, not as a 
 means to happiness, but as a part of their happiness. 
 
 To illustrate this farther, we may remember that virtue is not 
 the only thing, originally a means, and which if it were not a 
 means to anything else, would be and remain indifferent, but 
 which by association of what it is a means to, comes to be desired 
 for itself, and that too with the utmost intensity. What, for exam- 
 ple, shall we say of the love of money? There is nothing originally 
 more desirable about money than about any heap of glittering peb- 
 bles. Its worth is solely that of the things which it will buy; the 
 desires for other things than itself, which it is a means of gratify- 
 ing. Yet the love of money is not only one of the strongest moving 
 forces of human life, but money is, in many cases, desired in and 
 for itself; the desire to possess it is often stronger than the desire 
 to use it, and goes on increasing when all the desires which point 
 to ends beyond it, to be compassed by it, are falling off. It may 
 
139 
 
 be then said truly, that money is desired not for the sake of an 
 end, but as part of the end. From bein^ a means to happiness, 
 it has come to be itself a principal ingredient of the individual's 
 conception of hapi)iness. The same may be said of the majority 
 of the great objects of human life — power, for example, or fjiine; 
 except that to each of these there is a certain amount of immedi- 
 ate pleasure annexed, which has at least the semblance of being 
 naturally inherent in them; a thing which cannot be said of 
 money. Still, however, the strongest natural attraction, both of 
 power and of fame, is the immense aid they give to the attain- 
 ment of our other wishes; and it is the strong association thus 
 generated between them and all our objects of desire, which gives 
 to the direct desire of them the intensity it often assumes, so us in 
 some characters to surpass in strength all other desires. In these 
 cases the means have become a part of the end, and a more imi)ort- 
 ant part or it, than any of the things which they are means to. 
 What was once desired as an instrument for the attainment of hap- 
 piness, has come to be desired for its own sake. In being desired for 
 its own sake it is, however, desired as part of happiness. The per 
 son is made, or thinks he would be made, happy by its mere pos- 
 session; and is made unhappy by failure to obtain it. The desire of 
 it is not a different thing from the desire of happiness, any more 
 than the love of music, or the desire of health. They areiacluded 
 in happiness. They are some of the elements of which the desire 
 of happiness is made up. Happiness is not an abstract idea, but 
 a concrete whole; and these are some of its parts. And the util- 
 itarian standard sanctions and approves their being so. Life 
 would be a poor thing, very ill provided with sources of happiness, 
 if there were not this provision of nature, by which things origin- 
 ally indifferent, but conducive to, or otherwise associated with, 
 the satisfaction of our primitive desires, become in themselves 
 sources of pleasure more valuable than primitive pleasures, both 
 in permanency, in the space of human existence that they are 
 capable of covering, and even in intensity. 
 
 Virtue, according to the utilitarian conception, is a good of 
 this description. There was no original desire of it, or motive to 
 \V, save its conduciveness to pleasure, and especially to protection 
 
 ui 
 
140 
 
 from pain. But through the association tlius fornnMl, it may l)c 
 felt a good in itself, and desired as such with as great intensity 
 as any other good; and with this difference between it and the 
 love of money, of power, or of fame, that all of these may, and 
 often do, render the individual noxious to the other members of 
 the society to whicli he belongs, whereas there is nothing which 
 makes him so much a blessing to them as the cultivation of the 
 disinterested love of virtue. And conse(iiiently, the utilitarian 
 standard, while it tolerates and approves those other acquired de- 
 sires, up to the point beyond which they would be more injur- 
 ious to the general happiness than promotive of it, enjoins and 
 requires the cultivation of the love of virtue up to the greatest 
 strength possible, as being above all things important to the gen- 
 eral happiness. 
 
 It results from the preceding considerations, that there is in 
 reality nothing desired except happiness. Whatever is desired 
 otherwise than as a means to some end beyond itself, and ulti- 
 mately to happiness, is desired as itself a part of happiness, and 
 is not desired for itself until it has become so. Those who desire 
 virtue for its ow^n sake, desire it either because the consciousness 
 of it is a pleasure, or because the consciousness of being without 
 it is a pain, or for both reasons united; as in truth the pleasure and 
 pain seldom exist separately, but almost always together, the same 
 person feeling pleasure in the degree of virtue attained, and pain 
 in not having attained more. If one of these gave him no pleasure, 
 and the other no pain, he would not love or desire virtue, or would 
 desire it only for the other beneflts which it might produce to him 
 self or to persons whom he cared for. 
 
 We have now, then, an answer to the question, of what sort of 
 proof the principle of utility is susceptible. If the opinion which 
 I have now stated is psychologically true — if human nature is 
 so constituted as to desire nothing which is not either a part of 
 happiness or a means of happiness, we can have no other proof, 
 and we require no other, that these are the only things desirable. 
 If so, happiness is the sole end of human action, and the promo- 
 tion of it the test by which to judge of all human conduct; from 
 whence it necessarily follows that it must be the criterion of 
 morality, since a part is included in the whole. 
 
HI 
 
 And now to decide wliether this is really so; whether mankind 
 do desire nothing for itself but that which is a pleasure to them, 
 or of which the absence is a ])ain; we have evidently arrived at a 
 question of fact and experieiu^e. dependent, like all similar ques- 
 tions, upon evidence. It can only be determined by practised 
 stlf-consciousness and self-observation, assisted by observation of 
 others. I believe that these sources of evidence, impartially con- 
 sulted, will declare that desirini; a thini? and finding? it pleasant, 
 aversion to it and thinking of it as painful, are phenomena en- 
 tirely inseparable, or rather two parts of the same phenomenon; 
 in strictness of lanj;ua<re, two different modes of naming the same 
 psychological fact: that to think of an object as desirable (unless 
 for the sake of its consequences), and to think of it as pleasant, 
 are one and the same thing; and that to desire anything, except 
 in proportion as the idea of it is pleasant, is a physical and meta- 
 physical impossibility. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ON THE CONNEXION BETWEEN JUSTICE AND UTILITY. 
 
 Mankind are always predisposed to believe that any subject- 
 ive feeling, not otherwise accounted for, is a revelation of some 
 objective reality. Our present object is to determine whether 
 the reality, to which the feeling of justice corresponds, is one 
 which needs any such special revelation; whether the justice or 
 injustice of an action is a thing intrinsically peculiar, and distinct 
 from all its other qualities, or only a combination of certain of those 
 qualities, presented under a peculiar aspect. For the purpose of 
 this inquiry, it is practically imi)ortant to consider whether the 
 feeling itself, of justice and injustice, is sui generis like our sen- 
 ations of colour and taste, or a derivative feeling, formed by a 
 combination of others. And this is the more essential to examine, 
 as people are in general willing enough to allow, that objectively 
 the dictates of justice coincide with a part of the field of General 
 Expediency; but inasmuch as the subjective mental feeling of 
 Justice is different from that which commonly attaches to simple 
 expediency, and, except in extreme cases of the latter, is far mon^ 
 
142 
 
 imperative in its fleniands. people llnd it dlffleult to see. injustice, 
 only a particular kind or branch of ^'eueral utility, and tliink that 
 its superior binding force niciuires a totally differetit origin. 
 
 To find the common attributes of a variety of objects, it is 
 necessary to ])egin by surveying tlu; objects themselves in the 
 concrete. Let us therefore advert successively to the various 
 modes of action, and arrangements of human alTairs, wliich are 
 classed, by universal or widely spread opinion, as Just or as Un 
 just. The things well known to excite the sentiments associated 
 with those names, are of a very multifarious character. I shall 
 pass them rapidly in review, without studying any particular ar- 
 rangement. 
 
 In the first place, it is mostly considered unjust to deprive any 
 one of his personal liberty, his property, or any other thing which 
 belongs to him by law. Here, therefore, is one instance of the 
 application of the terms just and unjust in a perfectly definite 
 sense, namely, that it is just to respect, unjust to violate, the 
 kgnl rightK of any one. But this judgment admits of several ex- 
 ceptions, arising from the other forms in which the notions of 
 justice and injustice present themselves. For example, the per- 
 son who suffers the deprivation may (as the phrase is) have for- 
 feited the rights which he is so deprived of: a case to which we 
 shall return presently. But also, 
 
 Secondly; the legal rights of which he is deprived, may be 
 rights wliich ongJit not to have belonged to him; in other words, 
 the law which confers on him these rights, may be a bad law. 
 When it is so, or when (which is the same thing for our purpose) 
 it is .supposed to be so, opinions will differ as to the justice or in- 
 justice of infringing it. Some maintain that no law, however 
 bad, ought to be disobeyed by an individual citizen; that his op- 
 position to it, if shown at all, should only be shown in endeavour- 
 ing to get it altered by competent authority. This opinion (which 
 condemns many of the most illustrious benefactors of mankind, 
 and would often protect pernicious institutions against the only 
 weapons which, in the state of things existing at the time, have 
 any chance of succeeding against them) is defended, by those 
 who hold it, on grounds of expediency; principally on that of the 
 
143 
 
 iinpDrlanci', to the common interest of mankind, of maintaining 
 inviolate the .sentiment of submission to hiw. Other persons, 
 a;;ain, hold the directly contrary opinion, that any law judged to 
 he l)n(l, may blamelessly be disobeyed, even though it be not 
 judged to be unjust, but only inexpedient; while others would 
 confine the licence of disolx-dience to the case of unjust laws; 
 but again, some say, that all laws which are inexpedient are uu- 
 just; since every law imposes some restriction on the natural 
 liberty of mankind, which restriction is an injustice, uidess legi- 
 timated by tending to their good. Among these diversities of 
 opinion, it seems to he universally admitted that there may he 
 unjust laws, and that law, conseciuently, is not the ultimate cri- 
 terion of justice, but may give to one person a benefit or im|)osc 
 on another an evil, which justice condemns. When, however, a 
 law is thought to be unjust, it seems always to he regarded as 
 l)eing so in the same way in which a breach of law is unjust, 
 namely, by infringing somebody's right; which, as it cannot in 
 this case be a legal right, receives a different appellation, and is 
 called a moral right. We may say, therefore, that a second case 
 of injustice consists in taking or withholdingfrom any person that 
 to which he has a moral right. 
 
 Thirdly, it is univc^rsally considered just that each person 
 should obtain that (whether good or evil) which he (h'-servrn; and 
 unjust that he should obtain a good, or be made to undergo an 
 evil, which he does not deserve. This is, perhaps, the clearest 
 and most emphatic form in which the idea of justice is conceived 
 by the general mind. As it involves the notion of desert, the 
 question arises, what constitutes desert? Speaking in a general 
 way, a person is understood to deserve good if he does right, evil 
 if he does wrong; and in a more particular sense, to deserve good 
 from those to whom he does or has done good, and evil from 
 those to whom he does or has done evil. The prec{ j t of returf - 
 ing good for evil has never been regarded as a case uf the fulfil- 
 ment of justice, but as one in which the claims of justice are 
 waived, in obedience to other considerations. 
 
 Fourthly, it is confessedly unjust to break faith with any one: 
 to violate an engagement, either expressed or implied, or disap 
 
144 
 
 point expectations niiscd by our own conduct, at least if we have 
 raised those exp(!ctations knowin^^Iy and vt)luntarily. Like the 
 other o!)li;;ati<)nH of justice already spoken of, tins one is not 
 regarded as absolute, but as capable of being overru'"d by a 
 strongiT obligation of justicj; on the other side; or by such con- 
 duct on the part of tlu; person concerned as is deemed to absolve 
 us from our obligation to him, and to constitute a forfeiture '" 
 the benefit which he has been led to expect. 
 
 Fifthly, it is, by universal admission, inconsistent with justice 
 to be partial; to show favour or preference to one person over 
 another, in matters to which favour and preference do not jiroperly 
 apply. Impartiality, however, does not seem to be regarded as a 
 duty in itself, but rather as instrumental to some other duty; for 
 it is admitted that favour and preference are not always censur 
 able, and indeinl the cases in which they are condemned are 
 rather the exception than the rule. A i)erson would be more 
 likely to be blamed than applauded for giving his family or 
 friends no superiority in good offices over strangers, when he 
 could do so without violating any other duty; and no one thinks 
 it unjust to seek one person in preftiiiicc to another as a frien' 
 connexion, or companion. Impartiality where rights are c( 
 C(!rned is of cours(! obligatory, but this is involved in the more 
 general obligation of giving to every one his right. A tribunal, 
 for example, must be impartial, because it is bound to award, 
 without regard to any other consideration, a disputed object to 
 the one of two parties who has the right to it. There are other 
 cases in which impartiality means, being solely influenced by 
 desert; as with those who, in the capacity of judges, preceptors, 
 or parents, administer reward and punishment as such. There 
 are cases, again, in which it means, being solely influenced by 
 consideration for the public interest; as in making a selection 
 among candidates for a Government employment. Impartiality, 
 in short, as an obligation of justice, may be said to mean, being 
 exclusively influenced by the considerations which it is supposed 
 ought to influence the particular case in hand; and resisting the 
 solicitation of any motives which prompt to conduct different 
 from what those considerations would dictate. 
 
145 
 
 Nearly iillird to tlu- idea of impnrliallty, is that of tqunUtu; 
 wliicli often enters as a component part both into the conception 
 of justice and into the practice of it, an<l, in tiie eyes of many 
 persons, constitutes its essence. Hut in this, still more than in 
 any other case, the notion of justice varies in dilTerent persons, 
 and always conforms in its variations to their notion of utility. 
 Each person maintains that c(|uality is the dictate of justice, ex- 
 cept where he tlilnks that expediency re(pjires inequality. The 
 justice of ^ivini^ e(|ual protection to the ri;;hts of all, is maintained 
 hy those whosup|)ort the Uiost outrageous ineciuality in the rights 
 themselves. Even in slave ( 'untries it is theoretically admitted 
 that the rights of the slave, such as they are, ought to he as sacred 
 as those of the master; and that a tribunal which fails to enforce 
 them with equal strictness is wanting in justice; while, at the same 
 time, institutions which leave to the slave; scarcely any rights to 
 enforce, are not deemed unjust, because they are not deemeil in- 
 expedient. Those who think that utility requries distinctions of 
 rank, do not consider it unjust that riclies and social privileges 
 should be unecpudly dispensed; but tho-e who think this inequal- 
 ity inexpedient, think it unjust also. Whoever thinks that gov- 
 ernment is necessary, sees no injustice in as nuich inequality as 
 is constituted by giving to the nuigistrate powers not granted to 
 other people. Even among those who hold levelling doctrines, 
 there are as many (questions of justice as there are differences of 
 opinion about expediency. Some Communists consider it unjust 
 that the produce of the labour of the community should be shared 
 on any other principle than that of exact ecjuality; others think 
 it just that those should receive most whose needs are greatest; 
 while others hold that those who work harder, or who produce 
 more, or whose services are more valuable to the community, may 
 justly claim a larger quota in the division of the produce. And 
 the sense of natural justice may be plausibly appealed to in 
 behalf of every one of these opinions. 
 
 Among so many diverse applications of the term Justice, which 
 yet is not regarded as ambiguous, it is a matter of some difficulty 
 to seize the mental link which holds them together and on which 
 the moral sentiment adhering to the term essentially depends. 
 
m:'H 
 
 •1 
 t 
 
 i 
 - t 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 rr i 
 
 146 
 
 Perhaps, in this emharassmeiit, some help may be derived from 
 the history of the word, as indicated by its etymology. 
 
 In most, if not in all, languages, the etymology of the word 
 which corresponds to Just, points to an origin connected either 
 with positive law, or with that which was in most cases the ])rini- 
 itive form of law — authoritative custom. JuHtum is a form of jux- 
 HUM, that which has been ordered. Jun is of the same origin. 
 
 >X(j.t(W comes from Oixr^^ of which the principal meaning, at 
 least in the historical ages of Greece, was a suit at law. Orig- 
 inally, indeed, it meant only the mode or manner of doing things, 
 hut it early came to mean W\ii prescribed nviuwmv; that which the 
 recognized authorities, patriarchial, judicial, or political, would 
 enforce. Itecht, from which came right and righteous, is syuon- 
 onious with law. The original meaning, indeed, of recht did 
 not point to law, but to physical straightness; as wrong and its 
 Latin equivalents meant twisted or tortuous; and from this it is 
 argued tliat right did not originally mean law, but on the contrary 
 law meant right. But however this may be, the fact that recht 
 and droit became restricted in their meaning to positive law, al- 
 though much which is not required by law is equally necessary to 
 moral straightness or rectitude, is as significant of the original 
 character of moral ideas as if the derivation had been the reverse 
 way. The courts of justice, the administration of justice, are 
 the courts and the atlmiulstration of law. La justice, in French, 
 is the established term for judicature. There can, I think, be no 
 doubt that the idee mere, the primitive element, in the formation of 
 the notion of justice, was conformity to law. It constituted the 
 entire idea among the Hebrews, up to the birth of Christianity; as 
 might be expected in the case of a people whose laws attempted to 
 embrace all subjects on which precepts were required, and who be- 
 lieved those laws tobe adirect emanation from the Supreme Being. 
 But other nations, and in particular the Greeks and Romans, who 
 knew that their laws had been made originally, and still continued 
 to be made, by men, were not afraid to admit that those men 
 might make bad laws; might do, by law, the same things, and 
 from the same motives, which, if done by individuals without the 
 sanction of law, would be called unjust. And hence the sent!- 
 
147 
 
 mcTit of injustice came to be attached, not to all violations of law. 
 but only to violations of such laws as oiifjht to exist, includincf such 
 as ought to exist but do not; and to laws themselves, if supposed 
 to be contrary to what ought to be law. In this mannei the idea 
 of law and of its injunctions was still predominant in the notion of 
 justice, even when the laws actually in force ceased to be accepted 
 as the standard of it. 
 
 It is true that mankind consider the idea of justice and its ob- 
 ligations as applicable to many things which neither are, nor is 
 it desired that they should be, regulated by law. Nobody desires 
 that laws should interfere with the whole detail of private life; 
 yet every one allows that in all daily conduct a person may and 
 does show himself to be either just (»r unjust. But even here, 
 the idea of the breach of what ought to be law, still lingers In a 
 modified shape. It would always give us pleasure, and chime in 
 with our feeelings of fitness, that acts which we deem unjust- 
 should be punished, thoiigh we do not always think it expedient 
 that this should be done by the tribunals. We forego that grati- 
 fication on account of incidental inconveniences. We should be 
 glad to see just conduct enforced and injustice repressed, even 
 in the minutest details, if we were not, with reason, afraid of 
 trusting the magistrate with so unlimited an amount of power 
 over individuals. When we think that a person is bound in jus- 
 tice to do a thing, it is an ordinary form of language to say, that 
 he ought to be compelled to do it. We should be gratified to see 
 the o])ligation enforced by any body who had the power. If we 
 see that its enforcement by low would be inexpedient, we lament 
 the impossibility, we consider the impunity given to injustice as 
 an evil, and strive to make amends for it by bringing a strong ex- 
 pression of our own and the public disapprobation to bear upon 
 the offender. Thus the idea of legal constraint is still the gener- 
 ating idea of the notion of justice, though undergoing several 
 transformations before that notion, as it exists in an advanced 
 state of society, becomes complete. 
 
 The above is, I think, a true account, as far as it goes, of the 
 origin and progressive growth of the idea of justice. But we 
 must observe, that it contains, as yet, nothing to distinguish that 
 

 m 
 
 mi 
 
 148 
 
 obligation from moral obliii^ation in general. For the truth is, 
 thai Ihe idea of penal sanction, which is the essence of law, enters 
 not only into the conception of injustice, but into that of any kind 
 of wrong. We do not call anything wrong, unless we mean to 
 imply that a person ought to be punished in some way or other 
 for doing it; if not by law, l)y the opinion of his fellow-creatures; 
 if not by opinion, by the reproaches of his own conscience. This 
 seems the real turning point of the distinction between morality 
 and simple expediency. It is a part of the notion of Duty in 
 every one of its forms, that a person may rightfully l)e compelled 
 to fulfil it. Duty i, a thing which may be exacted from a person, 
 as one exacts a debt. Unless we think that it might be exacted 
 from him, we do not call it his duty. Reasons of prudence, or 
 the interest of other people, may militate against actually exact- 
 ing it; but the person himself, it is clearly understood, would not 
 be entitled to complain. There are other things, on the contrary, 
 which we wish that people should do, which we like or admire them 
 for doing, perhaps dislike or despise them for not doing, but yet 
 admit that they are not bound to do; it is not a case of moral 
 obligation; we do not blame them, that is, we do not think that 
 they are proper objects of punishment. How we come by these 
 ideas of deserving and not deserving punishment, will appear, 
 perhaps, in the sequel; but I think there is no doubt that this dis- 
 tinction lies at the bottom of the notions of right and wrong; 
 that we call any conduct wrong, or employ, instead, some otlier 
 term of dislike or disparagement, according as we think that the 
 person ought, or ought not, to be punished for it; and we say that 
 it would be right to do so and so, or merely that it would be de- 
 sirable or laudable, according as we would wish to see the person 
 whom it concerns, compelled, or only persuaded and exhorted, to 
 act in that manner. 
 
 This, therefore, being the characteristic diflFerence which marks 
 off, not justice, but morality in general, from the remaining prov- 
 inces of Expediency and Worthiness; the character is still to be 
 sought which distinguishes justice from other branches of moral- 
 ity. Now it is known that ethical writers divide moral duties into 
 two classes, denoted by the ill-chosen expressions, duties of per- 
 fect and of imperfect obligation; the latter being those in which, 
 
149 
 
 though the act is obligatory, the particular occasions of perform- 
 ing it are left to our choice; as in the case of charity or benefi- 
 cence, which we are indeed bound to practise, but not towards 
 any definite person, nor at any prescribed time. In the more pre- 
 cise language of philosophic jurists, duties of perfect obligation 
 are those duties in virtue of which a correlative right resides in 
 some person or persons; duties of imperfect obligation are those 
 moral obligations which do not give birth to any right. I think 
 it will be found that this distinction exactly coincides with that 
 which existu between justice and the other obligations of moral- 
 ity. In our survey of the various popular acceptations of justice, 
 the term appeared generally to involve the idea of a personal 
 right — a claim on the part of one or more individuals, like that 
 which the law gives when it confers a proprietary or other legal 
 right. Whether the injustice consists in depriving a person of a 
 possession, or in breaking faith with him, or in treating him 
 worse than he deserves, or worse than other people who have no 
 greater claims, in each case the supposition implies two things — 
 a wrong done, and some assignable person who is wronged. In- 
 justice may also be done by treating a person better than others; 
 but the wrong in this case is to his competitors, who are also 
 assignable persons. It seems to me that this feature in the 
 case — a right in some person, correlative to the moral obliga- 
 tion — constitutes the specific difference between justice, and 
 generosity or beneficence. Justice implies something which il is 
 not only right to do, and wrong not to do, but which some indiv- 
 idual person can claim from us as his moral right. No one has 
 a moral right to our generosity or beneficence, because we are 
 not morally bound to p:acti(;e those virtues towards any given in- 
 dividual. And it will be found with respect to this as with respect 
 to every correct definition, that the instances which seem to con- 
 flict with it are those which most confirm it. For if a moralist 
 attempts, as some have done, to make out th»» mankind generally, 
 though not any given individual, have a right to all the good we 
 can do them, he at once, by that thesis, includes generosity and 
 beneficence within the category of justice. He is obliged to say, 
 that our utmost exertions are due to our fellow-creatures, thus as- 
 
150 
 
 m 
 
 ¥•■ '• 
 
 ■■} 
 
 similating them to a debt; or that nothing less can be a sufficient 
 return for what society does for us, thus classing the case as one 
 of gratitude; both of wliich are acknowleged cases of justice. 
 Wherever there is a right, the case is one of justice, au'l not of 
 the virtue of beneficence: and whoever does not place the distinc- 
 tion between justice and morality in general where we have now 
 placed it, will be found to make no distinction between them at 
 all, but to merge all morality in justice. 
 
 Having thus endeavoured to determine the distinctive elements 
 which enter into the composition of tlie idea of justice, we are 
 ready to enter on the inquiry, whetlier tlie feeling, which accom- 
 panies the idea, is attached to it by a special dispensation of 
 nature, or whether it could liave grown up, by any known laws, 
 out of the idea itself; and in particular, whether it can have 
 originated in considerations of general expediency. 
 
 I conceive that the sentiment itself does not arise from anything 
 which would commonly, or correctly, be termed an idea of expe- 
 diency; but that, though the sentiment does not, whatever is 
 moral in it does. 
 
 We have seen that the twoessential ingredients in tlie sentiment 
 of justice are, the desire to punish a person wlio lias done barn), 
 and the knowledge or belief that there is some definite individual 
 or individuals to whom harm has been done. 
 
 Now it appears to me, that the desire to punish a person who 
 has done harm to some individual, is a spontaneous outgrowth 
 from two sentiments, both in the highest degree natural, and 
 which either are or resemble instincts; the impulse of self-defence, 
 and the feeling of sympathy. 
 
 It is natural to resent, and to repel or retaliate, any harm done 
 or attempted against ourselves, or against those with whom we 
 sympathise. The origin of this sentiment it is not necessary here 
 to discuss. Whether it be an instinct or a result of intelligence, 
 it is, we know, common to all animal nature; for every animal 
 tries to hurt those who have hurt, or who it thinks are about to 
 hurt, itself or its young. Human beings, on this point, only differ 
 from other animals in two particulars. First, in being capable of 
 sympathising, not solaly with their offspring, or, like some of the 
 
 
151 
 
 more no])le animals, with some superior animal who is kind to 
 them, but with all human, and even with all sentient beings. 
 Secondly, in having a more developed intelligence, which gives a 
 wider range to the whole of their sentiments, whether self-regard- 
 ing or sympathetic. By virtue of his superior intelligence, even 
 a{)art from his superior range of sympathy, a human being is 
 capable of apprehending a comnuinity of interest between him- 
 self and the human society of which he forms a part, such that 
 any conduct which threatens the security of the society generally, 
 is threatening to his own, and calls forth his instinct (if instinct 
 it be) of self-defense. Th^^- same su[)eriority of intelligence, joined 
 to the power of sympathising with human beings generally, en- 
 ables him to attach himself to the collective idea of his tribe, his 
 country, or mankind, in such a numner that any act hurtful to 
 them rouses his instinct of sympathy, and urges him to resistance. 
 
 The sentiment of justice, in that one of its elements which con- 
 sists of the desire to i)unish, is thua, I conceive, the natural feel- 
 ing of retaliation or vengeance, rendered by intellect and sym- 
 pathy applicable to those injuries, that is, to those hurts, which 
 wound us through, or in common with, society at large. This 
 sentiment, in itself, has nothing moral in it; what is moral is, the 
 exclusive subordiiuition of it to the socrial sympathies, so as to 
 wait on and obey their call. For the natural fi'eling tends to 
 make us resent indiscriminately whatever any one does that is 
 disagreeable to us; but when moralised by the social feeling, it 
 only acts in the (iirections conformable to the general good; jiist 
 persons resenting a hurt to society, though not otherwise a hurt 
 to themselves, and not resenting a hurt to themselves, however 
 painful, unless it be of the kind which society has a common in- 
 terest with them in the repression of. 
 
 It is no objection against this doctrine to say, that when we 
 feel our sentiment of justice outraged, we are not thinking of so- 
 ciety at large, or of any collective interest, but only of the indi- 
 vidual case. It is common enough certainly, though the reverse 
 of conunendable, to feel resentment merely because we have suff- 
 ered pain; but a person whose resentment is really a moral feel- 
 ing, that is, who considers whether an act is blameable before he 
 
152 
 
 
 i 
 
 allows himself to resent it — such a person, though he may not 
 say expressly to himself that he is standing up for the interest of 
 society, certainly does feel that he is asserting a rule which 
 is for the benefit of others as well as for his own. If he is not 
 feeling this — if he is regarding the act solely as it affects him in- 
 dividually — he is not consciously just; he is not concerning him- 
 self about the justice of his actions. This is admitted even by 
 anti-utilitarian moralists. When Kant (as before remarked) pro- 
 pounds as the fundamental principle of morals, 'So act, that thy 
 rule of conduct might be adopted as a law by all rational beings.' 
 he virtually acknowledges that the interest of mankind collect- 
 ively, or at least of mankind indiscriminately, must be in the 
 mind of the agent when conscientiously deciding on the morality 
 of the act. Otherwise he uses words -without a meaning: for, 
 that a rule even of utter selfishness could not possibly be adopted 
 by all rational beings — that there is any insuperable obstacle in 
 the nature of things to its adoption — cannot even plausibly be 
 maintained. To give any meaning to Kant's principle, the sense 
 put upon it must be, that we ought to shai)e our conduct by a 
 rule which tfll rational beings might adopt irith benefit to their 
 eollective interest. 
 
 To recapitulate: the idea of justice supposes two things; a rule 
 of conduct, and a sentiment which sanctions the rule. The first 
 must be supposed common to all mankind, and intended for their 
 good. The other (the sentiment) is a desire that punishment may 
 be suffered by those who infringe the rule. There is involved, in 
 addition, the conception of some definite person who suffers by 
 the infringement; whose rights (to use the expression appropriated 
 to the case) are violated by it. And the sentiment of justice ap- 
 pears to me to be, the animal desire to repel or retaliate a hurt or 
 damage to oneself, or to those with whom one sympathises, 
 widened so as to include all persons, by the human capacity of 
 enlarged sympathy, and the human conception of intelligent self- 
 interest. From the latter elements the feeling derives its morality; 
 from the former, its peculiar impressiveness, and energy of self- 
 assertion. 
 
 I have, throughout, treated the idea of a right residing in the in- 
 
153 
 
 le in- 
 
 jured person, and violated by the injury, not as a separate element 
 in the composition of the idea and sentiment, but as one of the 
 forms in which the other two elements clothe themselves. These 
 elements are, a hurt to some assignable person or persons on the 
 one hand, and a demand for punishment on the other. An exam- 
 ination of our own minds, I think, will show, that these two 
 things include all that we mean when we speak of violation of 
 a right. When we call anything a person's right, we mean that 
 he has a valid claim on society to protect him in the possession of 
 it, either by the force of law, or by that of education and opinion. 
 If he has what we consider a sufficient claim, on whatever account, 
 to have something guaranteed to him by society, we say that he 
 has a right to it. If we desire to prove that anything does not 
 belong to him by right, we think this done as soon as it is ad- 
 mitted tliat society ought not to take measures for securing it to 
 him, but should leave it to chance, or to his own exertions. Thus, 
 a person is said to have a right to what he cau earn in a fair pro- 
 fessional comi)etition; because society ought not to allow any 
 other person to hinder Lim from endeavouring to earn in that man- 
 ner as much as he can. But he has not a right to three hundred 
 a-year though he may happen to be earning it; because society is 
 not called on to provide that he shall earn that sum. On the con- 
 trary, if he owns ten thousand pounds three per cent stock he hdK 
 a right to three hundred a-year; because society has come under 
 an obligation to provide him with an income of that amount. 
 
 To have a right, then, is, I conceive, to have something which 
 society ought to defend me in the possession of. If the objector 
 goes on to ask why it ought, I cau give him no other reason than 
 general utility. If that expression does not seem to convey a suf- 
 ficient feeling of the strength of the obligation, nor to account 
 for the peculiar energy of the feeling, it is because there goes to 
 the composition of the sentiment, not a rational only, but also an 
 animal element, the thirst for retaliation; and this thirst derives 
 its intensity, as well as its moral justification, from the extraor- 
 dinarily important and impressive kind of utility which is con- 
 cerned. The interest involved is that of security, to every one's 
 feelings the most vital of all interests. Nearly all other earthly 
 
154 
 
 benefits are needed by one person, not needed by another; and 
 many of them can, if necessary, be cheerfully foregone, or re- 
 placed by something else; but security no human being can 
 possibly do without; on it we depend for all our immunity from 
 evil, and for the whole value of all and every good, beyond the 
 passing moment; since nothing but the gratification of the instant 
 could be of any worth to us, if we could be deprived of every- 
 thing the next instant by whoever was momentarily stronger 
 than ourselves. Now this most indispensable of all necessaries, 
 after physical nutriment, cannot be had, unless the machinery 
 for providing it is kept unintermittedly in active play. Our 
 notion, therefore, of the claim we have on our fellow-crea- 
 tures to join in making safe for us the very groundwork of our 
 existence, gathers feelings round it so much more intense than 
 those concerned in any of the more common cases of utility, that 
 the difference in degree (as is often the case in psychology) be- 
 comes a real difference in kind. The claim assumes that char- 
 acter of absoluteness, that apparent infinity, and incommensur- 
 ability with all other considerations, which constitute the distinc- 
 tion between the feeling of right and wrong and that of ordinary 
 expediency and inexpediency. The feelings concerned are so 
 powerful, and we count so positively on finding a responsive 
 feeling in others (all being alike interested), that ought and should 
 grow into must, and recognised indispensability becomes a moral 
 necessity, analogous to physical and often inferior to it in bind- 
 ing force.