CHAPTER IV.Of Methods of acquiring clear Scientific Ideas,continued.—Of the Discussion of Ideas.AphorismXXXIII.The conception involved in scientific truths have attained the requisite degree of clearness by means of theDiscussionsrespecting ideas which have taken place among discoverers and their followers. Such discussions are very far from being unprofitable to science. They aremetaphysical,and must be so: the difference between discoverers and barren reasoners is, that the former employ good, and the latter bad metaphysics.1.IT is easily seen that in every part of science, the establishment of a new set of ideas has been accompanied with much of doubt and dissent. And by means of discussions so occasioned, the new conceptions, and the opinions which involve them, have gradually become definite and clear. The authors and asserters of the new opinions, in order to make them defensible, have been compelled to make them consistent: in order to recommend them to others, they have been obliged to make them more entirely intelligible to themselves. And thus the Terms which formed the main points of the controversy, although applied in a loose and vacillating manner at first, have in the end become perfectly definite and exact. The opinions discussed have been, in their main features, the same throughout the debate; but they have at first been dimly, and at last clearly apprehended: like the objects of a landscape, at which we look through a telescope ill adjusted, till, by sliding the tube backwards and181forwards, we at last bring it into focus, and perceive every feature of the prospect sharp and bright.2. We have in the last Book21fully exemplified this gradual progress of conceptions from obscurity to clearness by means of Discussion. We have seen, too, that this mode of treating the subject has never been successful, except when it has been associated with an appeal to facts as well as to reasonings. A combination of experiment with argument, of observation with demonstration, has always been found requisite in order that men should arrive at those distinct conceptions which give them substantial truths. The arguments used led to the rejection of undefined, ambiguous, self-contradictory notions; but the reference to facts led to the selection, or at least to the retention, of the conceptions which were both true and useful. The two correlative processes, definition and true assertion, the formation of clear ideas and the induction of laws, went on together.21B.ii.c. ii.Of the Explication of Conceptions.Thus those discussions by which scientific conceptions are rendered ultimately quite distinct and fixed, include both reasonings from Principles and illustrations from Facts. At present we turn our attention more peculiarly to the former part of the process; according to the distinction already drawn, between the Explication of Conceptions and the Colligation of Facts. The Discussions of which we here speak, are the Method (if they may be called amethod) by which the Explication of Conceptions is carried to the requisite point among philosophers.3. In theHistoryof the Fundamental Ideas of the Sciences which forms the Prelude to this work, and in theHistory of the Inductive Sciences, I have, in several instances, traced the steps by which, historically speaking, these Ideas have obtained their ultimate and permanent place in the minds of speculative men. I have thus exemplified the reasonings and controversies which constitute such Discussion as we now speak of. I have stated, at considerable length, the182various attempts, failures, and advances, by which the ideas which enter into the science of Mechanics were evolved into their present evidence. In like manner we have seen the conception ofrefracted raysof light, obscure and confused in Seneca, growing clearer in Roger Bacon, more definite in Descartes, perfectly distinct in Newton. Thepolarityof light, at first contemplated with some perplexity, became very distinct to Malus, Young, and Fresnel; yet the phenomena ofcircular polarization, and still more, thecircular polarization of fluids, leave us, even at present, some difficulty in fully mastering this conception. Therelated polaritiesof electricity and magnetism are not yet fully comprehended, even by our greatest philosophers. One of Mr. Faraday’s late papers (the Fourteenth Series of his Researches) is employed in an experimental discussion of this subject, which leads to no satisfactory result. The controversy between MM. Biot and Ampère22, on the nature of the Elementary Forces in electro-dynamic action, is another evidence that the discussion of this subject has not yet reached its termination. With regard tochemical polarity, I have already stated that this idea is as yet very far from being brought to an ultimate condition of definiteness; and the subject of Chemical Forces, (for that whole subject must be included in this idea of polarity,) which has already occasioned much perplexity and controversy, may easily occasion much more, before it is settled to the satisfaction of the philosophical world. The ideas of theclassificatorysciences also have of late been undergoing much, and very instructive discussion, in the controversies respecting the relations and offices of the natural and artificial methods. And with regard tophysiologicalideas, it would hardly be too much to say, that the whole history of physiology up to the present time has consisted of the discussion of the fundamental ideas of the science, such as Vital Forces, Nutrition, Reproduction, and the like. We had before us at some length, in theHistory of Scientific Ideas, a review183of the opposite opinions which have been advanced on this subject; and we attempted in some degree to estimate the direction in which these ideas are permanently settling. But without attaching any importance to this attempt, the account there given may at least serve to show, how important a share in the past progress of this subject thediscussionof its Fundamental Ideas has hitherto had.22Hist. Ind. Sc.b. xiii. c. 6.4. There is one reflexion which is very pointedly suggested by what has been said. The manner in which our scientific ideas acquire their distinct and ultimate form being such as has been described,—always involving much abstract reasoning and analysis of our conceptions, often much opposite argumentation and debate;—how unphilosophical is it to speak of abstraction and analysis, of dispute and controversy, as frivolous and unprofitable processes, by which true science can never be benefitted; and how erroneous to put such employments in antithesis with the study of facts!Yet some writers are accustomed to talk with contempt of all past controversies, and to wonder at the blindness of those who did notat firsttake the view which was establishedat last. Such persons forget that it was precisely the controversy, which established among speculative men that final doctrine which they themselves have quietly accepted. It is true, they have had no difficulty in thoroughly adopting the truth; but that has occurred because all dissentient doctrines have been suppressed and forgotten; and because systems, and books, and language itself, have been accommodated peculiarly to the expression of the accepted truth. To despise those who have, by their mental struggles and conflicts, brought the subject into a condition in which errour is almost out of our reach, is to be ungrateful exactly in proportion to the amount of the benefit received. It is as if a child, when its teacher had with many trials and much trouble prepared a telescope so that the vision through it was distinct, should wonder at his stupidity in pushing the tube of the eye-glass out and in so often.1845. Again, some persons condemn all that we have here spoken of as the discussion of ideas, terming itmetaphysical: and in this spirit, one writer23has spoken of the ‘metaphysical period’ of each science, as preceding the period of ‘positive knowledge.’ But as we have seen, that process which is here termed ‘metaphysical,’—the analysis of our conceptions and the exposure of their inconsistencies,—(accompanied with the study of facts,)—has always gone on most actively in the most prosperous periods of each science. There is, in Galileo, Kepler, Gassendi, and the other fathers of mechanical philosophy, as much ofmetaphysicsas in their adversaries. The main difference is, that the metaphysics is of a better kind; it is more conformable to metaphysical truth. And the same is the case in other sciences. Nor can it be otherwise. For all truth, before it can be consistent withfacts, must be consistent withitself: and although this rule is of undeniable authority, its application is often far from easy. The perplexities and ambiguities which arise from our having the same idea presented to us under different aspects, are often difficult to disentangle: and no common acuteness and steadiness of thought must be expended on the task. It would be easy to adduce, from the works of all great discoverers, passages more profoundly metaphysical than any which are to be found in the pages of barrenà priorireasoners.23M. Auguste Comte,Cours de Philosophie Positive.6. As we have said, these metaphysical discussions are not to be put in opposition to the study of facts; but are to be stimulated, nourished and directed by a constant recourse to experiment and observation. The cultivation of ideas is to be conducted as having for its object the connexion of facts; never to be pursued as a mere exercise of the subtilty of the mind, striving to build up a world of its own, and neglecting that which exists about us. For although man may in this way please himself, and admire the creations of his own brain, he can never, by this course, hit upon the185real scheme of nature. With his ideas unfolded by education, sharpened by controversy, rectified by metaphysics, he mayunderstandthe natural world, but he cannotinventit. At every step, he must try the value of the advances he has made in thought, by applying his thoughts to things. The Explication of Conceptions must be carried on with a perpetual reference to the Colligation of Facts.Having here treated of Education and Discussion as the methods by which the former of these two processes is to be promoted, we have now to explain the methods which science employs in order most successfully to execute the latter. But the Colligation of Facts, as already stated, may offer to us two steps of a very different kind,—the laws of Phenomena, and their Causes. We shall first describe some of the methods employed in obtaining truths of the former of these two kinds.
CHAPTER IV.Of Methods of acquiring clear Scientific Ideas,continued.—Of the Discussion of Ideas.
AphorismXXXIII.
The conception involved in scientific truths have attained the requisite degree of clearness by means of theDiscussionsrespecting ideas which have taken place among discoverers and their followers. Such discussions are very far from being unprofitable to science. They aremetaphysical,and must be so: the difference between discoverers and barren reasoners is, that the former employ good, and the latter bad metaphysics.
1.IT is easily seen that in every part of science, the establishment of a new set of ideas has been accompanied with much of doubt and dissent. And by means of discussions so occasioned, the new conceptions, and the opinions which involve them, have gradually become definite and clear. The authors and asserters of the new opinions, in order to make them defensible, have been compelled to make them consistent: in order to recommend them to others, they have been obliged to make them more entirely intelligible to themselves. And thus the Terms which formed the main points of the controversy, although applied in a loose and vacillating manner at first, have in the end become perfectly definite and exact. The opinions discussed have been, in their main features, the same throughout the debate; but they have at first been dimly, and at last clearly apprehended: like the objects of a landscape, at which we look through a telescope ill adjusted, till, by sliding the tube backwards and181forwards, we at last bring it into focus, and perceive every feature of the prospect sharp and bright.
2. We have in the last Book21fully exemplified this gradual progress of conceptions from obscurity to clearness by means of Discussion. We have seen, too, that this mode of treating the subject has never been successful, except when it has been associated with an appeal to facts as well as to reasonings. A combination of experiment with argument, of observation with demonstration, has always been found requisite in order that men should arrive at those distinct conceptions which give them substantial truths. The arguments used led to the rejection of undefined, ambiguous, self-contradictory notions; but the reference to facts led to the selection, or at least to the retention, of the conceptions which were both true and useful. The two correlative processes, definition and true assertion, the formation of clear ideas and the induction of laws, went on together.
21B.ii.c. ii.Of the Explication of Conceptions.
Thus those discussions by which scientific conceptions are rendered ultimately quite distinct and fixed, include both reasonings from Principles and illustrations from Facts. At present we turn our attention more peculiarly to the former part of the process; according to the distinction already drawn, between the Explication of Conceptions and the Colligation of Facts. The Discussions of which we here speak, are the Method (if they may be called amethod) by which the Explication of Conceptions is carried to the requisite point among philosophers.
3. In theHistoryof the Fundamental Ideas of the Sciences which forms the Prelude to this work, and in theHistory of the Inductive Sciences, I have, in several instances, traced the steps by which, historically speaking, these Ideas have obtained their ultimate and permanent place in the minds of speculative men. I have thus exemplified the reasonings and controversies which constitute such Discussion as we now speak of. I have stated, at considerable length, the182various attempts, failures, and advances, by which the ideas which enter into the science of Mechanics were evolved into their present evidence. In like manner we have seen the conception ofrefracted raysof light, obscure and confused in Seneca, growing clearer in Roger Bacon, more definite in Descartes, perfectly distinct in Newton. Thepolarityof light, at first contemplated with some perplexity, became very distinct to Malus, Young, and Fresnel; yet the phenomena ofcircular polarization, and still more, thecircular polarization of fluids, leave us, even at present, some difficulty in fully mastering this conception. Therelated polaritiesof electricity and magnetism are not yet fully comprehended, even by our greatest philosophers. One of Mr. Faraday’s late papers (the Fourteenth Series of his Researches) is employed in an experimental discussion of this subject, which leads to no satisfactory result. The controversy between MM. Biot and Ampère22, on the nature of the Elementary Forces in electro-dynamic action, is another evidence that the discussion of this subject has not yet reached its termination. With regard tochemical polarity, I have already stated that this idea is as yet very far from being brought to an ultimate condition of definiteness; and the subject of Chemical Forces, (for that whole subject must be included in this idea of polarity,) which has already occasioned much perplexity and controversy, may easily occasion much more, before it is settled to the satisfaction of the philosophical world. The ideas of theclassificatorysciences also have of late been undergoing much, and very instructive discussion, in the controversies respecting the relations and offices of the natural and artificial methods. And with regard tophysiologicalideas, it would hardly be too much to say, that the whole history of physiology up to the present time has consisted of the discussion of the fundamental ideas of the science, such as Vital Forces, Nutrition, Reproduction, and the like. We had before us at some length, in theHistory of Scientific Ideas, a review183of the opposite opinions which have been advanced on this subject; and we attempted in some degree to estimate the direction in which these ideas are permanently settling. But without attaching any importance to this attempt, the account there given may at least serve to show, how important a share in the past progress of this subject thediscussionof its Fundamental Ideas has hitherto had.
22Hist. Ind. Sc.b. xiii. c. 6.
4. There is one reflexion which is very pointedly suggested by what has been said. The manner in which our scientific ideas acquire their distinct and ultimate form being such as has been described,—always involving much abstract reasoning and analysis of our conceptions, often much opposite argumentation and debate;—how unphilosophical is it to speak of abstraction and analysis, of dispute and controversy, as frivolous and unprofitable processes, by which true science can never be benefitted; and how erroneous to put such employments in antithesis with the study of facts!
Yet some writers are accustomed to talk with contempt of all past controversies, and to wonder at the blindness of those who did notat firsttake the view which was establishedat last. Such persons forget that it was precisely the controversy, which established among speculative men that final doctrine which they themselves have quietly accepted. It is true, they have had no difficulty in thoroughly adopting the truth; but that has occurred because all dissentient doctrines have been suppressed and forgotten; and because systems, and books, and language itself, have been accommodated peculiarly to the expression of the accepted truth. To despise those who have, by their mental struggles and conflicts, brought the subject into a condition in which errour is almost out of our reach, is to be ungrateful exactly in proportion to the amount of the benefit received. It is as if a child, when its teacher had with many trials and much trouble prepared a telescope so that the vision through it was distinct, should wonder at his stupidity in pushing the tube of the eye-glass out and in so often.184
5. Again, some persons condemn all that we have here spoken of as the discussion of ideas, terming itmetaphysical: and in this spirit, one writer23has spoken of the ‘metaphysical period’ of each science, as preceding the period of ‘positive knowledge.’ But as we have seen, that process which is here termed ‘metaphysical,’—the analysis of our conceptions and the exposure of their inconsistencies,—(accompanied with the study of facts,)—has always gone on most actively in the most prosperous periods of each science. There is, in Galileo, Kepler, Gassendi, and the other fathers of mechanical philosophy, as much ofmetaphysicsas in their adversaries. The main difference is, that the metaphysics is of a better kind; it is more conformable to metaphysical truth. And the same is the case in other sciences. Nor can it be otherwise. For all truth, before it can be consistent withfacts, must be consistent withitself: and although this rule is of undeniable authority, its application is often far from easy. The perplexities and ambiguities which arise from our having the same idea presented to us under different aspects, are often difficult to disentangle: and no common acuteness and steadiness of thought must be expended on the task. It would be easy to adduce, from the works of all great discoverers, passages more profoundly metaphysical than any which are to be found in the pages of barrenà priorireasoners.
23M. Auguste Comte,Cours de Philosophie Positive.
6. As we have said, these metaphysical discussions are not to be put in opposition to the study of facts; but are to be stimulated, nourished and directed by a constant recourse to experiment and observation. The cultivation of ideas is to be conducted as having for its object the connexion of facts; never to be pursued as a mere exercise of the subtilty of the mind, striving to build up a world of its own, and neglecting that which exists about us. For although man may in this way please himself, and admire the creations of his own brain, he can never, by this course, hit upon the185real scheme of nature. With his ideas unfolded by education, sharpened by controversy, rectified by metaphysics, he mayunderstandthe natural world, but he cannotinventit. At every step, he must try the value of the advances he has made in thought, by applying his thoughts to things. The Explication of Conceptions must be carried on with a perpetual reference to the Colligation of Facts.
Having here treated of Education and Discussion as the methods by which the former of these two processes is to be promoted, we have now to explain the methods which science employs in order most successfully to execute the latter. But the Colligation of Facts, as already stated, may offer to us two steps of a very different kind,—the laws of Phenomena, and their Causes. We shall first describe some of the methods employed in obtaining truths of the former of these two kinds.