On the Philosophy of Discovery, Chapters Historical and Critical

7. We turn to speculations more closely connected with our present subject. M. Ampère, a French man of science, well entitled by his extensive knowledge, and large and profound views, to deal with the philosophy of the sciences, published in 1834, his Essai sur la Philosophie des Sciences, ou Exposition analytique d'une Classification Naturelle de toutes les Connaissances Humaines. In this remarkable work we see strong evidence of the progress of the reaction against the system which derives our knowledge from sensation only. The author starts from a maxim, that in classing the sciences, we must not only regard the nature of the objects about which each science is concerned, but also the point of view under which it considers them: that is, the ideas which each science involves. M. Ampère also gives briefly his views of the intellectual constitution of man; a subject on which he had long and sedulously employed his thoughts; and these views are far from belonging to the Sensational School. Human thought, he says, is composed of phenomena and of conceptions. Phenomena are external, or sensitive; and internal, or active. Conceptions are of four kinds; primitive, as space and motion, duration and cause; objective, as our idea of matter and substance; onomatic, or those which we associate with the general terms which language presents to us; and explicative, by which we ascend to causes after a comparative study of phenomena. He teaches further, that in deriving ideas from sensation, the mind is not passive; but exerts an action which, when voluntary, is called attention, but when it is, as it often is, involuntary, may be termed reaction.

I shall not dwell upon the examination of these opinions243; but I may remark, that both in the recognition of conceptions as an original and essential element of the mind, and in giving a prominent place to the active function of the mind, in the origin of our knowledge, this view approaches to that which I have presented in preceding works; although undoubtedly with considerable differences.

8. The classification of the sciences which M. Ampère proposes, is founded upon a consideration of the sciences themselves; and is, the author conceives, in accordance with the conditions of natural classifications, as exhibited in Botany and other sciences. It is of a more symmetrical kind, and exhibits more steps of subordination, than that to which I have been led; it includes also practical Art as well as theoretical Science; and it is extended to moral and political as well as physical Sciences. It will not be necessary for me here to examine it in detail: but I may remark, that it is throughout a dichotomous division, each higher member being subdivided into two lower ones, and so on. In this way, M. Ampère obtains sciences of the First Order, each of which is divided into two sciences of the Second, and four of the Third Order. Thus Mechanics is divided into Cinematics, Statics, Dynamics, and Molecular Mechanics; Physics is divided into Experimental Physics, Chemistry, Stereometry, and Atomology; Geology is divided into Physical Geography, Mineralogy, Geonomy, and Theory of the Earth. Without here criticizing these divisions or their principle, I may observe that Cinematics, the doctrine of motion without reference to the force which produces it, is a portion of knowledge which our investigation has led us also to see the necessity of erecting into a separate science; and which we have termed Pure Mechanism. Of the divisions of Geology, Physical Geography, especially as explained by M. Ampère, is certainly a part of the subject, both important and tolerably distinct from the rest. Geonomy contains what we have termed in the History, Descriptive Geology;—the exhibition of the facts separate from the inquiry into their causes; while our Physical Geology agrees with M. Ampère's Theory of the Earth. Mineralogy appears to be placed by him in a different place from that which it occupies in our scheme: but in fact, he uses the term for a different science; he applies it to the classification not of simple minerals, but of rocks, which is a science auxiliary to geology, and which has sometimes been called Petralogy. What we have termed Mineralogy, M. Ampère unites with Chemistry. "It belongs," he says244, "to Chemistry, and not to Mineralogy, to inquire how many atoms of silicium and of oxygen compose silica; to tell us that its primitive form is a rhombohedron of certain angles, that it is called quartz, &c.; leaving, on one hand, to Molecular Geometry the task of explaining the different secondary forms which may result from the primitive form; and on the other hand, leaving to Mineralogy the office of describing the different varieties of quartz, and the rocks in which they occur, according as the quartz is crystallized, transparent, coloured, amorphous, solid, or in sand." But we may remark, that by adopting this arrangement, we separate from Mineralogy almost all the knowledge, and absolutely all the general knowledge, which books professing to treat of that science have usually contained. The consideration of Mineralogical Classifications, which, as may be seen in the History of Science, is so curious and instructive, is forced into the domain of Chemistry, although many of the persons who figure in it were not at all properly chemists. And we lose, in this way, the advantage of that peculiar office which, in our arrangement, Mineralogy fills; of forming a rigorous transition from the sciences of classification to those which consider the mathematical properties of bodies; and connecting the external characters and the internal constitution of bodies by means of a system of important general truths. I conceive, therefore, that our disposition of this science, and our mode of applying the name, are far more convenient than those of M. Ampère.

9. We have seen the reaction against the pure sensational doctrines operating very powerfully in England and in France. But it was in Germany that these doctrines were most decidedly rejected; and systems in extreme opposition to these put forth with confidence, and received with applause. Of the authors who gave this impulse to opinions in that country, Kant was the first, and by far the most important. I have in the History of Ideas (b. iii. c. 3), endeavoured to explain how he was aroused, by the skepticism of Hume, to examine wherein the fallacy lay which appeared to invalidate all reasonings from effect to cause; and how this inquiry terminated in a conviction that the foundations of our reasonings on this and similar points were to be sought in the mind, and not in the phenomena;—in the subject, and not in the object. The revolution in the customary mode of contemplating human knowledge which Kant's opinions involved, was most complete. He himself, with no small justice, compares245 it with the change produced by Copernicus's theory of the solar system. "Hitherto," he says, "men have assumed that all our knowledge must be regulated by the objects of it; yet all attempts to make out anything concerning objects à priori by means of our conceptions," (as for instance their geometrical properties) "must, on this foundation, be unavailing. Let us then try whether we cannot make out something more in the problems of metaphysics, by assuming that objects must be regulated by our knowledge, since this agrees better with that supposition, which we are prompted to make, that we can know something of them à priori. This thought is like that of Copernicus, who, when he found that nothing was to be made of the phenomena of the heavens so long as everything was supposed to turn about the spectator, tried whether the matter might not be better explained if he made the spectator turn, and left the stars at rest. We may make the same essay in metaphysics, as to what concerns our intuitive knowledge respecting objects. If our apprehension of objects must be regulated by the properties of the objects, I cannot comprehend how we can possibly know anything about them à priori. But if the object, as apprehended by us, be regulated by the constitution of our faculties of apprehension, I can readily conceive this possibility." From this he infers that our experience must be regulated by our conceptions.

10. This view of the nature of knowledge soon superseded entirely the doctrines of the Sensational School among the metaphysicians of Germany. These philosophers did not gradually modify and reject the dogmas of Locke and Condillac, as was done in England and France246; nor did they endeavour to ascertain the extent of the empire of Ideas by a careful survey of its several provinces, as we have been doing in this series of works. The German metaphysicians saw at once that Ideas and Things, the Subjective and the Objective elements of our knowledge, were, by Kant's system, brought into opposition and correlation, as equally real and equally indispensable. Seeing this, they rushed at once to the highest and most difficult problem of philosophy,—to determine what this correlation is;—to discover how Ideas and Things are at the same time opposite and identical;—how the world, while it is distinct from and independent of us, is yet, as an object of our knowledge, governed by the conditions of our thoughts. The attempts to solve this problem, taken in the widest sense, including the forms which it assumes in Morals, Politics, the Arts, and Religion, as well as in the Material Sciences, have, since that time, occupied the most profound speculators of Germany; and have given rise to a number of systems, which, rapidly succeeding each other, have, each in its day, been looked upon as a complete solution of the problem. To trace the characters of these various systems, does not belong to the business of the present chapter: my task is ended when I have shown, as I have now done, how the progress of thought in the philosophical world, followed from the earliest up to the present time, has led to that recognition of the co-existence and joint necessity of the two opposite elements of our knowledge; and when I have pointed out processes adapted to the extension of our knowledge, which a true view of its nature has suggested or may suggest.

The latter portion of this task occupies the Third Book of the Novum Organon Renovatum. With regard to the recent succession of German systems of philosophy, I shall add something in a subsequent chapter: and I shall also venture to trace further than I have yet done, the bearing of the philosophy of science upon the theological view of the universe and the moral and religious condition of man.

CHAPTER XXI.

Further Advance of the Sensational School. M. Auguste Comte

I shall now take the liberty of noticing the views published by a contemporary writer; not that it forms part of my design to offer any criticism upon the writings of all those who have treated of those subjects on which we are now employed; but because we can more distinctly in this manner point out the contrasts and ultimate tendencies of the several systems of opinion which have come under our survey: and since from among these systems we have endeavoured to extract and secure the portion of truth which remains in each, and to reject the rest, we are led to point out the errors on which our attention is thus fixed, in recent as well as older writers.

M. Auguste Comte published in 1830 the first, and in 1835 the second volume of his Cours de Philosophie Positive; of which the aim is not much different from that of the present work, since as he states (p. viii.) such a title as the Philosophy of the Sciences would describe a part of his object, and would be inappropriate only by excluding that portion (not yet published) which refers to speculations concerning social relations.

1. M. Comte on Three States of Science.—By employing the term Philosophie Positive, he wishes to distinguish the philosophy involved in the present state of our sciences from the previous forms of human knowledge. For according to him, each branch of knowledge passes, in the course of man's history, through three different states; it is first theological, then metaphysical, then positive. By the latter term he implies a state which includes nothing but general representations of facts;—phenomena arranged according to relations of succession and resemblance. This "positive philosophy" rejects all inquiry after causes, which inquiry he holds to be void of sense247 and inaccessible. All such conceptions belong to the "metaphysical" state of science which deals with abstract forces, real entities, and the like. Still more completely does he reject, as altogether antiquated and absurd, the "theological" view of phenomena. Indeed he conceives248 that any one's own consciousness of what passes within himself is sufficient to convince him of the truth of the law of the three phases through which knowledge must pass. "Does not each of us," he says, "in contemplating his own history, recollect that he has been successively a theologian in his infancy, a metaphysician in his youth, and a physicist in his ripe age? This may easily be verified for all men who are up to the level of their time."

It is plain from such statements, and from the whole course of his work, that M. Comte holds, in their most rigorous form, the doctrines to which the speculations of Locke and his successors led; and which tended, as we have seen, to the exclusion of all ideas except those of number and resemblance. As M. Comte refuses to admit into his philosophy the fundamental idea of Cause, he of course excludes most of the other ideas, which are, as we endeavoured to show, the foundations of science; such as the ideas of Media by which secondary qualities are made known to us; the ideas of Chemical Attraction, of Polar Forces, and the like. He would reduce all science to the mere expression of laws of phenomena, expressed in formulæ of space, time, and number; and would condemn as unmeaning, and as belonging to an obsolete state of science, all endeavours to determine the causes of phenomena, or even to refer them to any of the other ideas just mentioned.

2. M. Comte rejects the Search of Causes.—In a previous work249 I have shown, I trust decisively, that it is the genuine office of science to inquire into the causes as well as the laws of phenomena;—that such an inquiry cannot be avoided; and that it has been the source of almost all the science we possess. I need not here repeat the arguments there urged; but I may make a remark or two upon M. Comte's hypothesis, that all science is first "metaphysical" and then "positive;" since it is in virtue of this hypothesis that he rejects the investigation of causes, as worthy only of the infancy of science. All discussions concerning ideas, M. Comte would condemn as "metaphysical," and would consider as mere preludes to positive philosophy. Now I venture to assert, on the contrary, that discussions concerning ideas, and real discoveries, have in every science gone hand in hand. There is no science in which the pretended order of things can be pointed out. There is no science in which the discoveries of the laws of phenomena, when once begun, have been carried on independently of discussions concerning ideas. There is no science in which the expression of the laws of phenomena can at this time dispense with ideas which have acquired their place in science in virtue of metaphysical considerations. There is no science in which the most active disquisitions concerning ideas did not come after, not before, the first discovery of laws of phenomena. In Astronomy, the discovery of the phenomenal laws of the epicyclical motions of the heavens led to assumptions of the metaphysical principle of equable circular motions: Kepler's discoveries would never have been made but for his metaphysical notions. These discoveries of the laws of phenomena did not lead immediately to Newton's theory, because a century of metaphysical discussions was requisite as a preparation. Newton then discovered, not merely a law of phenomena, but a cause; and therefore he was the greatest of discoverers. The same is the case in Optics; the ancients possessed some share of our knowledge of facts; but meddled little with the metaphysical reasonings of the subject. In modern times when men began to inquire into the nature of light, they soon extended their knowledge of its laws. When this series of discoveries had come to a pause, a new series of brilliant discoveries of laws of phenomena went on, inseparably connected with a new series of views of the nature and cause of light. In like manner, the most modern discoveries in chemistry involve indispensably the idea of polar forces. The metaphysics (in M. Comte's sense) of each subject advances in a parallel line with the knowledge of physical laws. The Explication of Conceptions must go on, as we have already shown, at the same rate as the Colligation of Facts.

M. Comte will say250 that Newton's discovery of gravitation only consists in exhibiting the astronomical phenomena of the universe as one single fact under different points of view. But this fact involves the idea of force, that is, of cause. And that this idea is not a mere modification of the ideas of time and space, we have shown: if it were so, how could it lead to the axiom that attraction is mutual, an indispensable part of the Newtonian theory? M. Comte says251 that we do not know what attraction is, since we can only define it by identical phrases: but this is just as true of space, or time, or motion; and is in fact exactly the characteristic of a fundamental idea. We do not obtain such ideas from definitions, but we possess them not the less truly because we cannot define them.

That M. Comte's hypothesis is historically false, is obvious by such examples as I have mentioned. Metaphysical discussions have been essential steps in the progress of each science. If we arbitrarily reject all these portions of scientific history as useless trifling, belonging to the first rude attempts at knowledge, we shall not only distort the progress of things, but pervert the plainest facts. Of this we have an example in M. Comte's account of Kepler's mechanical speculations. We have seen, in the History of Physical Astronomy, that Kepler's second law, (that the planets describe areas about the sun proportional to the times,) was proved by him, by means of calculations founded on the observations of Tycho; but that the mechanical reason of it was not assigned till a later period, when it appeared as the first proposition of Newton's Principia. It is plain from the writings of Kepler, that it was impossible for him to show how this law resulted from the forces which were in action; since the forces which he considered were not those tending to the centre, which really determine the property in question, but forces exerted by the sun in the direction of the planet's motion, without which forces Kepler conceived that the motion could not go on. In short, the state of mechanical science in Kepler's time was such that no demonstration of the law could be given. The terms in which such a demonstration must be expressed had not at that time acquired a precise significance; and it was in virtue of many subsequent metaphysical discussions (as M. Comte would term them) that these terms became capable of expressing sound mechanical reasoning. Kepler did indeed pretend to assign what he called a "physical proof" of his law, depending upon this, that the sun's force is less at greater distances; a condition which does not at all influence the result. Thus Kepler's reason for his law proves nothing but the confusion of thought in which he was involved on such subjects. Yet M. Comte assigns to Kepler the credit of having proved this law by sound mechanical reasoning, as well as established it as a matter of fact252. "This discovery by Kepler," he adds, "is the more remarkable, inasmuch as it occurred before the science of dynamics had really been created by Galileo." We may remark that inasmuch as M. Comte perceived this incongruity in the facts as he stated them, it is the more remarkable that he did not examine them more carefully.

3. Causes in Physics.—The condemnation of the inquiry into causes which is conveyed in M. Comte's notion of the three stages of Science, he again expresses more in detail, in stating253 what he calls his Fundamental theory of hypotheses. This "theory" is, that we may employ hypotheses in our natural philosophy, but these hypotheses must always be such as admit of a positive verification. We must have no suppositions concerning the agents by which effects are produced. All such suppositions have an anti-scientific character, and can only impede the real progress of physics. There can be no use in the ethers and imaginary fluids to which some persons refer the phenomena of heat, light, electricity and magnetism. And in agreement with this doctrine, M. Comte in his account254 of the Science of Optics, condemns, as utterly unphilosophical and absurd, both the theory of emission and that of undulation.

To this we reply, that theory of one kind or other is indispensable to the expression of the phenomena; and that when the laws are expressed, and apparently explained, by means of a theory, to forbid us to inquire whether it be really true or false, is a pedantic and capricious limitation of our knowledge, to which the intellect of man neither can nor should submit. If any one holds the adoption of one or other of these theories to be indifferent, let him express the laws of phenomena of diffraction in terms of the theory of emission255. If any one rejects the doctrine of undulation, let him point out some other way of connecting double refraction with polarization. And surely no man of science will contend that the beautiful branch of science which refers to that connexion is not a portion of our positive knowledge.

M. Comte's contempt for the speculations of the undulationists seems to have prevented his acquainting himself with their reasonings, and even with the laws of phenomena on which they have reasoned, although these form by far the most striking and beautiful addition which Science has received in modern times. He adduces, as an insuperable objection to the undulatory theory, a difficulty which is fully removed by calculation in every work on the subject:—the existence of shadow256. He barely mentions the subject of diffraction, and Young's law of interferences;—speaks of Fresnel as having applied this principle to the phenomena of coloured rings, "on which the ingenious labours of Newton left much to desire;" as if Fresnel's labours on this subject had been the supplement of those of Newton: and after regretting that "this principle of interferences has not yet been distinctly disentangled from chemical conceptions on the nature of light," concludes his chapter. He does not even mention the phenomena of dipolarization, of circular and elliptical polarization, or of the optical properties of crystals; discoveries of laws of phenomena quite as remarkable as any which can be mentioned.

M. Comte's favourite example of physical research is Thermotics, and especially Fourier's researches with regard to heat. It is shown257 in the History of Thermotics, that the general phenomena of radiation required the assumption of a fluid to express them; as appears in the theory of exchanges258. And the explanation of the principal laws of radiation, which Fourier gives, depends upon the conception of material molecular radiation. The flux of caloric, of which Fourier speaks, cannot be conceived otherwise than as implying a material flow. M. Comte apologizes259 for this expression, as too figurative, and says that it merely indicates a fact. But what is the flow of a current of fluid except a fact? And is it not evident that without such expressions, and the ideas corresponding to them, Fourier could neither have conveyed nor conceived his theory?

In concluding this discussion it must be recollected, that though it is a most narrow and untenable rule to say that we will admit no agency of ethers and fluids into philosophy; yet the reality of such agents is only to be held in the way, and to the extent, which the laws of phenomena indicate. It is not only allowable, but inevitable to assume, as the vehicle of heat and light, a medium possessing some of the properties of more familiar kinds of matter. But the idea of such a medium, which we possess, and on which we cannot but reason, can be fully developed only by an assiduous study of the cases in which it is applicable. It may be, that as science advances, all our knowledge may converge to one general and single aspect of the universe. We abandon and reject this hope, if we refuse to admit those ideas which must be our stepping-stones in advancing to such a point: and we no less frustrate such an expectation, if we allow ourselves to imagine that from our present position we can stride at once to the summit.