* Logic, p. 207.
It is well observed, that the spontaneous growth of language is of the utmost importance to the thinker. There seems to be so palpable a substratum of right sense, in the rude classifications of the multitude, that the logician has little else to do, in many cases, than to retouch them and give them precision. Guizot observes, there is frequently more truth in common acceptations of general terms than in the more precise definitions of science. Common sense gives to words their ordinary signification. The leading terms of philosophy are clothed in innumerable shades of meaning acquired in their transitional use, and immense is the knowledge ofthing:requisite to enable a man to affirm that any given argument turns wholly onwords. The study of terms, for which logicians have provided multiplied means, is one of the most interesting and profitable upon which men can enter. If it be worth while to speak at all, it is worth while to know certainly what we speak about.
Philanthropic genius has pointed out a perversion of power, arising through definitional incapacity, which makes it a moral duty to study analysis of terms, and exactitude of expression.
'All battle,' says Carlyle, 'ismisunderstanding—did the parties know one another, the battle would cease. No man at bottom means injustice; he contends for some distorted image of right.Clear, undeniable right—clear, undeniable might—either of these, once ascertained, puts an end to battle. Battle is a confused experiment to ascertain these.'
Of the power of names to impose on the multitude, history furnishes too many examples. Strength to forefend us against they delusion ability to see that the meaning governs the term, and not the term the meaning—are species of intellectual self-defence.
'Augustus,' says Gibbon, 'was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation that the senate and people would submit to slavery provided that they were respectably assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedom.'
'Never,' adjures W. J. Fox, 'be deceived by words. Always try to penetrate to realities. Have your wits sharpened, your senses exercised to discern good and evil. Be not imposed upon by pompous manners. Many a solemnly-uttered sentence is often a sheer inanity, which will not bear the scrutiny of an observant intellect. Be not frightened by denunciations; by being told that you are not a good subject or a good Christian, if you do not believe, or say that you believe this or that. Be not led astray by iteration—mistake not the familiar for the intelligible. Ascertain what words are meant to convey, and what they actually do convey. Go to the substance and soul of whatever is propounded. Be on your guard against bold assumptions, nor let them bear you away against the dictates of your own understanding.
Look at phrases as counters, or paper money, that may pass for much or little according to circumstances. Endeavour to arrive at truth, and make that your treasure. Be ever wide awake to see through any veil of sophistry and cant; nor by the agency of words be made the dupe of critic or lawyer, of priest of politician.'*
* Lectures to the Working Classes, p. 70, vol. 2.
Propositions being assertions—as soon as sufficient reasons are adduced to make the proposition credible, it becomes a truth probable or certain, as the case may be.
Reasoning is a simple business. To reason is to state facts in support of a proposition. A conclusive fact so advanced is called a reason. All the reasons offered in proof of a proposition are called premises. The Pythagorean, who lays down the proposition that fruits and grain are the proper food of man, and cites facts to prove his assertion—reasons. A proposition and its reasons are called an argument.
Reason is the faculty of perceiving coherences. Effective reasoning is stating them so that others cannot but see them too. 'Reasoning on the abstrusest questions is nothing more than arriving at a remote truth by discovering its coherence with the preceding facts in the same chain.'*
* Uses and Beauties of Euclid, p. 52.
A syllogism is a peculiarformof expression, in which every argument may be stated. It consists of three propositions.
1. Whoever have their heads cut off ought to be allowed to ask the reason why.
2. Women have their heads cut off.
3. Therefore women ought to be allowed to ask (politically) the reason why.
This is an argument of Mad. de Stael, in allusion to the beheading of women in France, without allowing them any voice in making the laws which determine the offences for which they suffered.
A syllogism is constructed upon the principle (known as the Dictum of Aristotle) that whatever is affirmed or denied universally of a whole class of things, may be affirmed or denied of anything comprehended in that class. Thus the first proposition introduces the class of persons who have their heads cut off. Of this class it is affirmed that they ought to be allowed to ask the reason why. But women are included in the class of persons who have their heads cut off, and consequently that may be affirmed of them which is affirmed of the whole class—that they should be allowed to ask the reason why.
'To prove an affirmative,' says Mr. Mill, 'the argument must admit of being stated in this form:—
All animals are mortal;
All men |Some men } are animals;Socrates |thereforeAll men |Some men } are mortal.Socrates |
'To prove a negative, the argument must be capable of being expressed in this form:—
'No one who is capable of self-control is necessarily vicious;
All negroes |Some negroes } are capable of self-control;Mr. A.'s negro |thereforeNo negroes are |Some negroes are not } necessarily vicious.Mr. A.'s negro is not |
'Although all ratiocination admits of being thrown into one or the other of these forms, and sometimes gains considerably by the transformation, both in clearness and in the obviousness of its consequence; there are, no doubt, cases in which the argument falls more naturally into one of the other three figures, and in which its conclusiveness is more apparent at the first glance in those figures, than when reduced into the first. Thus, if the proposition were that pagans may be virtuous, and the evidence to prove it were the example of Aristides; a syllogism in the third figure,
Aristides was virtuous,Aristides was a pagan,
therefore
Some pagan was virtuous,
Would be a more natural mode of stating the argument, and would carry conviction more instantly home, than the same ratiocination strained into the first figure, thus—
Aristides was virtuous,Some pagan was Aristides,
therefore
Some pagan was virtuous.'
The best thing that can be said in favour of the syllogism, as an instrument of reasoning, is that it is a regular form to which every valid argument can be reduced; and may be accompanied by a rule, showing the validity of every argument in that form, and consequently the unsoundness of any apparent argument which cannot be reduced to it. This would be high praise if every 'valid argument' was a trusty one. But unfortunately 'the question respecting the validity of an argument is not whether the conclusion betrue, but whether itfollowsfrom the premises adduced.'* Even this small advantage is purchased at a greater expense of tedium and trouble than the bulk of mankind are willing to pay, or able to pay if they were willing.
* Logic, vol. 1, pp. 232-3.
There is some reason to believe that the syllogistic form, as atestof valid arguments, may be entirely dispensed with, if we can secure accuracy of data, and intelligibility in terms.
It is not contended now that we discover new truths by the syllogism. The syllogism is allowed to be only a form ofstatinga truth. Example:—
No predacious animals are ruminant,The lion is predacious,
therefore
The lion is not ruminant.* Whately's Logic, Anal. Out. chap. 1, sec. 3.
Of course, if we know that no animal that lives by prey chews the cud, and know, also, that the lion lives by prey, we know that the lion does not chew the cud. This conclusion, as Lord Kames contends, and Dr. Whately admits, is not a truthinferredfrom the fundamental premises, butincludedin it. Smart, whom Mr. J. S. Mill calls acute and often profound, remarks—'Every one, as to themereact of reasoning,reasons rightly: we may reason from wrong premises, or mistake right ones; we may be unable to infer from proper ones; but from such premises as we do reason from, we reasoncorrectly: for all premises contain their conclusion; and in knowing the premises, we therefore know the conclusion. The art wanted is one that will enable us to use language perspicuously in expressing our premises:' and he might have added—direct us in selecting proper materials of which to make premises.
The strength and weakness of the syllogism as an instrument of reasoning will now be understood. Whately remarks, that 'since all reasoning may be resolved into syllogisms, and since in a syllogism the premises do virtually assert the conclusion, it follows at once that no new truth can be elicited by any process of reasoning.'* We therefore no longer look to the syllogism to discover truth, its value is in stating it. In this sense it is worthy of all attention. It is the form of nature.
* Logic, p. 223.
Of such a syllogism as the one quoted—
No predacious animals are ruminant,The lion is predacious,
therefore
The lion is not ruminant.
It has been insisted by some logicians that the genius required for its construction wasinvention. Having made a general proposition like the first, we then have to invent or find out a middle term as the second—but if we bear in mind that the general affirmation of the first proposition relates to a class of (predacious animals in this case) objects which include the middle term, the necessity of invention is consequently dispensed with. We need only look well to what we have there. Simplicity will be promoted by returning to our previous remark, viz.—that reasoning is asserting a proposition, and then showing why it is true—in other words, adducing the fact or facts, on which the assertion rests.
In the Logic given in 'Chambers' Information,' it is said—' In choosing your middle terms, or arguments to prove any question, always take such topics as are purest and least fallible, and which carry the greatest evidence and strength with them,' But it rather appears that we have not to invent a middle term, but only to look to the major premises, and find it included there.
By methodical questioning any argument may be tested. Thus, on any assertion being made, ask—Why is the assertion true? In this manner, if an argument has truth in it, it may be elicited. In this manner you dig through assertions down to premises, and discover whether any ore of truth lies there.
The value of the argument depends upon the final answer which reveals the premises or data of facts, upon which the conclusion rests. Forms of speech, classification of propositions, figures of syllogisms, are of minor importance when you have once elicited the rough truth. The best test of an argument is the soundness of its data, and the simplest formula for drawing out and exhibiting such data, is of the greatest service in enabling us to judge of the validity thereof.
Tyranny, says Cobbett, has no enemy so formidable as the pen, Why? 'Because the pen pursues tyranny both in life and beyond the grave.' How is this proved to be the most formidable enemy of tyranny? 'From the fact that tyranny has no enemy so formidable as that which assails not only its existence, but its reputation, which pursues it in life and beyond the grave.' Such interrogatories and replies generate the expository syllogism.
1. Tyranny has no enemy so formidable as that which assails not only its existence, but its reputation, which pursues it in life and beyond the grave.
2. The pen pursues tyranny in life and beyond the grave.
3. Therefore, tyranny has no enemy so formidable as the pen. A syllogism is made up of collective and single facts. It is the process of reasoning, whereby we show that a single truth is proved by a collective one which contains it, or a less quantity is proved by a greater, or that an assertion is proved by an induction from a class of facts. From the class of the enemies of tyranny the pen is selected, and is proved, by passing in inductive review the whole class, to be the most formidable.
The usual manner in which an argument is presented is called the entihymeme. Thus:—
He is an industrious man,
therefore
He will acquire wealth.
The first or major proposition is in this form suppressed. The syllogistic form would be this:—
Every industrious man acquires wealth,He is an industrious man,
therefore
He will acquire wealth.
But if we ask for the proof that every industrious man acquires wealth, we find the facts wanting—for the idle are often rich, and the diligent poor. The industriousmayacquire wealth, the chances are in their favour.
Again.
We must cherish self-respect,Because self-respect is the stay of virtue.
The suppressed proposition is—'We must cherish whatever is the stay of virtue.'
The whole syllogism then stands thus:—
We must cherish whatever is the stay of virtue,Self-respect is the stay of virtue,
therefore
We must cherish self-respect.
Dilemma is derived from a Greek word, and signifies twice an argument. It is an argument divided into several members, and infers of each part what is to be inferred of the whole. Thus: Either we shall live or die. If we live, we can only live happily by being virtuous; and if we die, we can only die happy by being virtuous; therefore, we ought always to be virtuous. In the dilemma, question one argument at a time, as in preceding cases.
The Sorites uses several middle terms by which the predicate of the last proposition is connected with the first subject. Of this argument the well-known speech of Themistocles is a specimen. 'My son,' said that eminent person, 'governs his mother, his mother governs me, I govern the Athenians, the Athenians govern Greece, Greece governs Europe, and Europe governs the world; therefore, my son governs the world.' In these instances, question each assertion, as there are as many acts of reasoning as intermediate propositions.
The Onus Probandi, or Burden of Proof, is said to rest with him who would dispute any point in favour of a presumptive, or generally allowed truth. But manly logic holds no quibbling about who shall prove. Whatever he asserts, the honest reasoner should be prompt to prove.
Chalmers, it is said, made Morell known—but Morell has written a synopsis of metaphysical philosophy that only needed to be known to be appreciated. If Chalmers gave Morell distinction, Morell had previously earned it. From his work I extract the following passage, which passes in review the steps taken, marks the analytic point reached, and outlines the ground before us:—'Different as were the minds of those two great men [Bacon and Descartes] in themselves, different as were their respective labours, and opposite as were, in many respects, the results at which they arrived, yet the writings of both were marked by one and the same great characteristic, namely, by thespirit of method. The most important works of Bacon, it will be remembered, were the "Instanratio Magna," and the "Novum Organum;" those of Descartes were his "Dissertatio de Methodo," and his "Meditationes de Prima Philosophia," The fruitlessness of the ancient logic, as an instrument of discovery, had been abundantly proved by past experience, and the watchword which these two great thinkers of their age both uttered, and which has been ever since the guiding principle of all philosophy, was—analysis. Bacon, who gave his attention chiefly to the direction and improvement of physical science, taught to analyse nature, while Descartes, who aimed rather at grounding all human knowledge upon its ultimate principles, instructed how to analysethought. All modern philosophy, therefore, whether it arise from the Baconian or the Cartesian point of view, bears upon it the broad outline of the analytic method. It matters not whether it be the outer or the inner world to which its investigations apply, in each case it teaches us to observe and analysefactsto induce instances, and upon such observation and induction to ground our knowledge of laws and principles. In this alone consists the Unity of modern science, and from this arises its broad distinction from that of the ancient world. Every natural philosopher since Bacon has grounded his success upon an induction of the facts of the outward world, and every metaphysician, since Descartes, has progressed onwards in his department of knowledge by analysing the facts of our inward consciousness.'*
* Morell: Modern Philosophy, pp. 76-8.
Induction is an inference from many facts. Induction is verification. Just as in a syllogism we show that a part is contained in the whole, so in induction we show that a part is illustrated by the whole. It seems that every single fact contains many truths, but induction establishes theiruniversality. A single brain contains all the truths of phrenology, a single stone includes the phenomena of gravitation, the temperance of a single individual exhibits the whole law of moderation, but we learn the universality of these truths by induction.
Every legal statute, says Dr. Johnson, is founded on induction. 'Law is the science in which the greatest powers of understanding are applied to the greatest number of facts.' Thebasis of allscience is such an extensive induction of particulars as leads to general definitions and fundamental axioms, and furnishes the premises from which inferences may be deduced.
Inductive observation is the great instrument of discovering important truths. 'What are called the principles of human nature are learned from individual instances. It is the only possible way of learning them. * * When we reason from a general law or principle, we are in truth reasoning from a number of instances represented by It.'*
* Rationale of Political Representation, p. 34.
A general election is an induction of the intelligence of the country represented by the members of Parliament. The difference between democracy and monarchy is in one sense an affair of logic. Where electors are limited in franchise, and candidates restricted by property qualification, the induction is partial, but where all can vote and many can be chosen from, the premises are more capacious and the inference sounder.
Dr. Whately says, that 'in Natural Philosophy asingle instanceis often accounted asufficientinduction; e.g., having once ascertained that an individual magnet will attract iron, we are authorised to conclude that this property is universal.'
'The Edinburgh Reviewer of Whewell's "History of the Inductive Sciences," observes that, "by theaccidentalplacing of a rhomb of calcareous spar, upon a book or line, Bartholinus discovered the property of the double refraction of light. Byaccidentallycombining two rhombs in different positions, Huygens discovered the polarisation of light. Byaccidentallylooking through a prism of the same substance, and turning it round, Mains discovered the polarisation of light by reflection; and by placing thin chrystalline films between two similar prisms or rhombs, M. Arago discovered the phenomena of polarised tints."
'To this Mr. Whewell, in his "Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences," makes the following reply:—"But Bartholinus could have seen no such consequence in the accident, if he had not previously had a clear conception of single refraction. A lady, in describing an optical experiment which had been shown her, said of her teacher, 'he told me to increase and diminish the angle of refraction: and, at last, I found that he only meant me to move my head up and down.' At any rate, till the lady had acquired a knowledge of the meaning which the technical terms convey, she could not have made Bartholinus's discovery by means of this accident. Suppose that Huygens made the experiment alluded to, without design, what he really observed was that the images appeared and disappeared alternately as he turned the rhomb round. His success depended on his clearness of thought, which enabled him to perform the intellectual analysis which would never have occurred to most men, however often they had combined two rhombs in different positions. Malus saw that in some positions the light reflected from the windows of the Louvre became dim. Another person would have attributed this to accident; he, however, considered the position of the prism, and the window; repeated the experiment often; and by virtue of the eminently distinct conceptions of space which he possessed, resolved the phenomenon into its geometrical conditions."* "If it were true, that the fall of an apple was the occasion of Newton's pursuing that train of thought which led to the doctrine of universal gravitation, the habits and constitution of Newton's intellect were the real source of this great event in the progress of knowledge."** "In whatever manner facts may be presented to the notice of a discoverer, they can never become the materials of exact knowledge, except they find his mind already provided with precise and suitable conceptions, by which they may be analysed and connected."'***
* Whewell: Phil. Induct. Sciences, vol. 2. pp. 199-1.** Ibid, vol. 2, p. 189.*** See J. N. Bailey's Essays pp. 87-8-9.
These admissions seem to me to prove that whenever a casual fact proves to us a new truth, it does so by its coincidence with previously known facts, and that the novelty of the occasion attracts all credit to itself, and we lose sight of the generalisation below—the fruitful soil of experience on which the new fact, like a seed, falls. We only recognise difference by comparison, and the comparison is an induction, however slender.
Monsieur de Montmorine was recaptured and brought to the scaffold, through the trifling circumstance of some chicken bones being found near the door of his landlady—a woman too poor to indulge in such dainties.* The discovery of de Montmorine was not, as at first sight appears, an inference from a single fact, but from an adjacent induction. It was a general truth, (known to the party who observed the bones) a truth inducted from a number of facts that poor people could not afford to luxuriate on chickens. It was, therefore, from this induction, inferred that some one of superior fortune must be living in that particular place.
* Chambers' Miscellany of Useful and Entertaining Tracts,No. 61: the Story of Lavaiette, p. 27
The judicious care which the great fathers of science have exhibited in making their inferences, incontestably establishes their conviction of the danger of any other reasoning than that from inductions. Lord Brougham informs us, that what Newton's Principia is to science, Locke's essay to metaphysics, Demosthenes in oratory, and Homer in poetry, Cuvier's researches to our fossil osteology. But Cuvier never attempted to draw any inferences until he had examined thewholeosteology of the living species.
Lord Brougham remarks, that 'from examining asinglefragment of bone we infer that, in the wilds where we found it, there lived and ranged, some thousands of years ago, an animal of a peculiar kind.' This is a case in which the inference spoken of is arrived at in a way different from that apparently stated. We recognise in the 'fragment of bone' a link in a chain of facts constituting the basis of a well-known induction, which comparative anatomy has many times verified. It is important to distinguish well the grounds from which accurate inferences, such as these in the cases before us, have really been adduced, in order to ascertain the grounds from which we should reason generally. It will be found that solid reasoning can only proceed from general rules—i.e., inductions from facts. It will be found that the prime source of fallacy lies in reasoning from isolated facts. It is not to be denied that such reasoning is sometimes right, but it is to be remembered that it is right by accident, not by design. There is no science or certainty in it. It is hazard, not logic.
This habit however, is very common. Mr. Mill says, that 'Not onlymaywe reason from particulars to particulars, without passing through generals, but we perpetually do so reason. All our earliest inferences are of this nature. From the first dawn of intelligence we draw inferences, but years elapse before we learn the use of general language. The child, who, having burnt his fingers, avoids to thrust them again into the fire, has reasoned or inferred, though he has never thought of the general maxim—fire burns. He knows from memory that he has been burnt, and on this evidence believes, when he sees a candle, that if he puts his fingers into the flame of it, he will be burnt again. He believes this in every case which happens to arise; but without looking, in each instance, beyond the present case. He is not generalising; he is inferring a particular from particulars. In the same way, also, brutes reason. There is little or no ground, for attributing to any of the lower animals the use of conventional signs, without which general propositions are impossible. But those animals profit by experience, and avoid what they have found to cause them pain, in the same manner, though not always with the same skill, as a human creature. Not only the burnt child, but the burnt dog, dreads the fire.
'I believe that, in point of fact, when drawing inferences from our personal experience, and not from maxims handed down to us by books or tradition, we much oftener conclude from particulars to particulars directly, than through the intermediate agency of any general proposition. We are constantly reasoning from ourselves to other people, or from one person to another, without giving ourselves the trouble to erect our observations into general maxims of human or external nature. When we conclude that some person will, on some given occasion, feel or act so and so, we sometimes judge from an enlarged consideration of the manner in which men in general, or men of some particular character, are accustomed to feel and act; but much oftener from having known the feelings and conduct of the same man in some previous instance, or from considering how we should feel or act ourselves. It is not only the village matron who, when called to a consultation upon the case of a neighbour's child, pronounces on the evil and its remedy simply on the recollection and authority of what she accounts the similar case of her Lucy. We all, where we have no definite maxims to steer by, guide ourselves in the same way; and if we have an extensive experience, and retain its impressions strongly, we may acquire, in this manner, a very considerable power of accurate judgment, which we may be utterly incapable of justifying or of communicating to others. Among the higher order of practical intellects, there have been many of whom it was remarked how admirably they suited their means to their ends, without being able to give any sufficient reasons for what they did and applied, or seemed to apply, recondite principles which they were wholly unable to state. This is a natural consequence of having a mind stored with appropriate particulars, and having been long accustomed to reason at once from these to fresh particulars, without practising the habit of stating to oneself or to others the corresponding general propositions. An old warrior, on a rapid glance at the outlines of the ground, is able at once to give the necessary orders for a skilful arrangement of his troops; though if he has received little theoretical instruction, and has seldom been called upon to answer to other people for his conduct, he may never have had in his mind a single general theorem respecting the relation between ground and array. But his experience of encampments, under circumstances more or less similar, has left a number of vivid, unexpressed, ungeneralised analogies in his mind, the most appropriate of which, instantly suggesting itself, determines him to a judicious arrangement.
'The skill of an uneducated person in the use of weapons, or of tools, is of a precisely similar nature. The savage who executes unerringly the exact throw which brings down his game, or his enemy, in the manner most suited to his purpose, under the operation of all the conditions necessarily involved, the weight and form of the weapon, the direction and distance of the object, the action of the wind, &c., owes this power to a long series of previous experiments, the results of which he certainly never framed into any verbal theorems or rules. It is the same in all extraordinary manual dexterity. Not long ago a Scotch manufacturer procured from England, at a high rate of wages, a working dyer, famous for producing very fine colours, with a view of teaching to his other workmen the same skill. The workman came; but his mode of proportioning the ingredients, in which lay the secret of the effects he produced, was by taking them up in handfuls while the common method was to weigh them. The manufacturer sought to make him turn his handling system into an equivalent weighing system, that the general principle of his peculiar mode of proceeding might be ascertained. This, however, the man found himself quite unable to do, and therefore could impart his skill to nobody. He had, from the individual cases of his own experience, established a connection in his mind between fine effects of colour, and tactual perceptions in handling his dyeing materials; and from these perceptions he could, in any particular cases, infer the means to be employed, and the effect which would be produced, but could not put others in possession of the grounds on which he proceeded, from having never generalised them in his own mind, or expressed them in language.
'Almost every one knows Lord Mansfield's advice to a man of practical good sense, who, being appointed governor of a colony, had to preside in its court of justice, without previous judicial practice or legal education. The advice was to give his decision boldly, for it would probably be right; but never to venture on assigning reasons, for they would almost infallibly be wrong. In cases like this, which are of no uncommon occurrence, it would be absurd to suppose that the bad reason was the source of the good decision. Lord Mansfield knew that if any reason were assigned it would be necessarily an afterthought, the judge beingin factguided by impressions from past experience, without the circuitous process of framing general principles from them, and that if he attempted to frame any such he would assuredly fail. Lord Mansfield, however, would not have doubted that a man of equal experience, who had also a mind stored with general propositions derived by legitimate induction from that experience, would have been greatly preferable as a judge, to one, however sagacious, who could not be trusted with the explanation and justification of his own judgments. The cases of able men performing wonderful things they know not how, are examples of the less civilised and most spontaneous form of the operations of superior minds It is adefect in them, andoften a source of errors, not to have generalised as they went on; but generalisation is a help, the most important indeed of all helps, yet not an essential.'*
* Mill's Logic, pp. 251-5.
In illustration of generalising from single instances, Miss Martineau gives this example:—'A raw Chinese traveller in England was landed by a Thames waterman who had a wooden leg. The stranger saw that the wooden leg was used to stand in the water with, while the other was high and dry. The apparent economy of the fact struck the Chinese; he saw in it strong evidence of design, and wrote home that in England one-legged men are kept for watermen, to the saving of all injury to health, shoe, and stocking, from standing in the river.'*
Reasoning on insufficient data—
Falls like an inverted cone,Wanting its proper base to stand upon.
Samuel Bailey has furnished, in one passage, both a clear illustration of the process, and the validity of an induction:—'Whoever had witnessed the acts of a landlord to his tenants, of a schoolmaster to his pupils, of artizans towards their apprentices, of husbands towards their wives, on points where the power of the superior could not be contested, and where his personal gratification was incompatible with just conduct to the subordinate, would necessarily have formed in his own mind a species of general rule; and from this rule he might safely draw an inference as to what would be the conduct of a despot, seated on a throne, in the possession of unchecked authority; assisted too, as the inquirer would be, by thatindispensable and inestimable guide to the knowledge of mankind, an appeal to his own feelings, in a variety ofanalogousinstances.
'We conclude, that a ruler with uncontrolled power will act the tyrant, not merely from the fact that Caligula, or Nero, or Bonaparte did, but from a thousand facts attesting that men, in, every situation, use uncontrolled power in this way—just as we infer that all bodies tend to the centre of the earth,not merely from the circumstance of an apple dropping from a tree, but from seeing the tendency in stones, water, animals, and all things within our observation. The use of uncontrolled power, for the gratification of the possessor, without an equitable respect to others, is no more peculiar to monarchs, than a tendency to the earth is peculiar to apples. It may be useful to know thatmonarchsact in this way, as it may be useful to know that apples drop to the ground; but it is much more useful to know thatmenact in this manner.An inference is safer when gathered from the widest induction.'
* How to Observe, p. 6.** Rationale of Political Representation. Introduction, pp.85-6. The last sentence of this extract is abridged—but, asthe reader will find upon reference, the sense of the authoris faithfully rendered.
It may be useful to observe that, though a few instances are insufficient to establish a theory, one may be sufficient to overturn a theory, fancifully or hypothetically supported, Gibbon overturns the entertaining theory of Rudbeck, an antiquarian of Upsal, of profound learning and easy faith, who, by the dim light of legends and traditions, of conjectures and etymologies, sought to establish the antiquity of Sweden over half the earth. Gibbon annihilated this well laboured system of German antiquities, by a single fact too well attested to admit of any doubt, and of too decisive a nature to leave room for any reply—the fact that the Germans, of the age of Tacitus, were unacquainted with the use of letters. A circumstance fatal to their literary claims, urged by Olaus Rudbeck.
In the chapter on 'Facts' I have cautioned the reader against unquestioned data. This seems the place to remark that the unsuspected sources of error and unfriendliness have their rise in the criminal implicitness with which we listen to reports, and infer from rumours as from facts. These are the very little handles which move men and women to strange performances.'* All the plots of dramas and romances are founded on misunderstandings, which a little sagacity of action (such as a wise resolution not to be imposed upon would lead to) would commonly suffice to arrest the error at its birth. With regard to character we constantly infer from data, partial, limited, and doubtful. If most quarrelers were called into a court of Inquiry to confess the real grounds from which they have arrived at certain conclusions with regard to their neighbours, and often with regard to their friends, they would be at once overwhelmed with a conviction of the weakness of which they have been guilty. Upon analysing the miserable sources of opinions of which scandal and calumny are born, I have found it impossible to restrain astonishment at the imbecility of logical power men will sometimes be content to exhibit, where meanness prevails, malice incites, and passion governs. Well might Bacon exclaim—'Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men's minds, vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things?'** The wise rule is, never judge from appearances when facts can be had—never receive a report without challenging its foundation, nor adopt it without permission to give the authority.
* Cricket on the Hearth.** Essay on Truth.
In all cases, in which you must judge from appearances and reason from conjectures, adopt thefairestinterpretation possible. On this principle, credit will sometimes be given where none is due—but in nine cases out of ten, justice will be done, for I am satisfied that there is more worth among men than wisdom, and that we do well much oftener than we reason well. We seldom need judge charitably, did we always endeavour to judge justly. But we make a virtue of our own errors, and we often affect tocondescendto pronounce an opinion, which it would be criminal to withhold. If ever I go to the Herald's, office, the motto I will have emblazoned shall be this—Justice is sufficient. Could we only get justice in the world, we could afford to excuse it all its 'charity' of judgment, and its benevolence even of act.
Where should a man's reputation be safe from suspicion if not in the hands of his friend? It ought to be a principle of action with all men, never to judge a friend except out of his own mouth. 'There was a generous friend of mine once, who never would have judged me or any other man unheard.'* With the sublime intensity of one who felt the infinite value of private justice, has Schiller delineated this spirit in the interview between Octavio and his son Max Piccolomini. After a violent and visible struggle with his feelings—wrought upon by his father's endeavours to sow suspicions in his mind, and detach him from the service of his friend, Wallenstein—Max exclaims:—
* Edward to Mr. Peerybing.
I will procure me light a shorter way. Farewell.
Octavio. Where now?
Max. (To the Duke.)
If thou hast believed that I shall actA part in this thy play——Thou hast miscalculated on me grievously.My way must be straight on.True with the tongue,False with the heart—I may not, cannot be:Nor can I suffer that a man should trust me—As his friend trust me—and then lull my conscienceWith such low pleas as these:—"I ask him not—He did it all at his own hazard—andMy mouth has never lied to him."—No, noWhat a friend takes me for, that I must be.—I'll to the Duke; ere yet this day is endedWill I demand of him that he do saveHis good name from the world, and with one strideBreak through and rend this fine-spun web of yours.He can, he will!—I still am his believer.Yet I'll not pledge myself, but that those lettersMay furnish you, perchance, with proofs against him.How far may not this Tertsky have proceeded—What may not he himself too have permittedHimself to do, to snare the enemy,The laws of war excusing? Nothing, saveHis own mouth shall convict him—nothing less!And face to face will I go question him.Ay—this state-policy? O how I curse it!You will some time, with your state-policy,Compel him to the measure; it may happenBecause ye aredeterminedthat he is guilty,Guilty ye'll make him. All retreat cut off,You close up every outlet, hem him inNarrower and narrower, till at length ye force him—Yes, ye,—ye force him in his desperation,To set fire to his prison. Father! father!That never can end well—it cannot—will not!Deem of it what thou wilt; but pardon me,That I must bear me on in my own way.All must remain pure betwixt him and me;And, ere the day-light dawns, it must be knownWhich I must lose—my father, or my friend.** Shiller's Piccolomini, act 3, scene 9.
Had Othello been thus honourable to Desdemona, he would never have murdered her. Incalculable is the evil we bring on ourselves and society, by supposing and surmising facts we ought resolutely to question. The motto of the garter—