A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive Volume I Part 26

The law thus strongly indicated admits of corroboration by the Method of Concomitant Variations. The Leyden jar is capable of receiving a much higher charge than can ordinarily be given to the conductor of an electrical machine. Now in the case of the Leyden jar, the metallic surface which receives the induced electricity is a conductor exactly similar to that which receives the primary charge, and is therefore as susceptible of receiving and retaining the one electricity, as the opposite surface of receiving and retaining the other; but in the machine, the neighbouring body which is to be oppositely electrified is the surrounding atmosphere, or any body casually brought near to the conductor; and as these are generally much inferior in their capacity of becoming electrified, to the conductor itself, their limited power imposes a corresponding limit to the capacity of the conductor for being charged. As the capacity of the neighbouring body for supporting the opposition increases, a higher charge becomes possible: and to this appears to be owing the great superiority of the Leyden jar.

A further and most decisive confirmation by the Method of Difference, is to be found in one of Faraday's experiments in the course of his researches on the subject of induced electricity.

Since common or machine electricity, and voltaic electricity, may be considered for the present purpose to be identical, Faraday wished to know whether, as the prime conductor develops opposite electricity upon a conductor in its vicinity, so a voltaic current running along a wire would induce an opposite current upon another wire laid parallel to it at a short distance. Now this case is similar to the cases previously examined, in every circ.u.mstance except the one to which we have ascribed the effect. We found in the former instances that whenever electricity of one kind was excited in one body, electricity of the opposite kind must be excited in a neighbouring body. But in Faraday's experiment this indispensable opposition exists within the wire itself. From the nature of a voltaic charge, the two opposite currents necessary to the existence of each other are both accommodated in one wire; and there is no need of another wire placed beside it to contain one of them, in the same way as the Leyden jar must have a positive and a negative surface.

The exciting cause can and does produce all the effect which its laws require, independently of any electric excitement of a neighbouring body. Now the result of the experiment with the second wire was, that no opposite current was produced. There was an instantaneous effect at the closing and breaking of the voltaic circuit; electric inductions appeared when the two wires were moved to and from one another; but these are phenomena of a different cla.s.s. There was no induced electricity in the sense in which this is predicated of the Leyden jar; there was no sustained current running up the one wire while an opposite current ran down the neighbouring wire; and this alone would have been a true parallel case to the other.

It thus appears by the combined evidence of the Method of Agreement, the Method of Concomitant Variations, and the most rigorous form of the Method of Difference, that neither of the two kinds of electricity can be excited without an equal excitement of the other and opposite kind: that both are effects of the same cause; that the possibility of the one is a condition of the possibility of the other, and the quant.i.ty of the one an impa.s.sable limit to the quant.i.ty of the other. A scientific result of considerable interest in itself, and ill.u.s.trating those three methods in a manner both characteristic and easily intelligible.[35]

3. Our third example shall be extracted from Sir John Herschel's _Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy_, a work replete with happily-selected exemplifications of inductive processes from almost every department of physical science, and in which alone, of all books which I have met with, the four methods of induction are distinctly recognised, though not so clearly characterized and defined, nor their correlation so fully shown, as has appeared to me desirable. The present example is described by Sir John Herschel as "one of the most beautiful specimens" which can be cited "of inductive experimental inquiry lying within a moderate compa.s.s;" the theory of dew, first promulgated by the late Dr. Wells, and now universally adopted by scientific authorities.

The pa.s.sages in inverted commas are extracted verbatim from the Discourse.[36]

"Suppose _dew_ were the phenomenon proposed, whose cause we would know.

In the first place" we must determine precisely what we mean by dew: what the fact really is, whose cause we desire to investigate. "We must separate dew from rain, and the moisture of fogs, and limit the application of the term to what is really meant, which is the spontaneous appearance of moisture on substances exposed in the open air when no rain or _visible_ wet is falling." This answers to a preliminary operation which will be characterized in the ensuing book, treating of operations subsidiary to induction.[37]

"Now, here we have a.n.a.logous phenomena in the moisture which bedews a cold metal or stone when we breathe upon it; that which appears on a gla.s.s of water fresh from the well in hot weather; that which appears on the inside of windows when sudden rain or hail chills the external air; that which runs down our walls when, after a long frost, a warm moist thaw comes on." Comparing these cases, we find that they all contain the phenomenon which was proposed as the subject of investigation. Now "all these instances agree in one point, the coldness of the object dewed, in comparison with the air in contact with it." But there still remains the most important case of all, that of nocturnal dew: does the same circ.u.mstance exist in this case? "Is it a fact that the object dewed is colder than the air? Certainly not, one would at first be inclined to say; for what is to _make_ it so? But ... the experiment is easy: we have only to lay a thermometer in contact with the dewed substance, and hang one at a little distance above it, out of reach of its influence.

The experiment has been therefore made, the question has been asked, and the answer has been invariably in the affirmative. Whenever an object contracts dew, it _is_ colder than the air."

Here then is a complete application of the Method of Agreement, establishing the fact of an invariable connexion between the deposition of dew on a surface, and the coldness of that surface compared with the external air. But which of these is cause, and which effect? or are they both effects of something else? On this subject the Method of Agreement can afford us no light: we must call in a more potent method. "We must collect more facts, or, which comes to the same thing, vary the circ.u.mstances; since every instance in which the circ.u.mstances differ is a fresh fact: and especially, we must note the contrary or negative cases, _i.e._ where no dew is produced:" a comparison between instances of dew and instances of no dew, being the condition necessary to bring the Method of Difference into play.

"Now, first, no dew is produced on the surface of polished metals, but it _is_ very copiously on gla.s.s, both exposed with their faces upwards, and in some cases the under side of a horizontal plate of gla.s.s is also dewed." Here is an instance in which the effect is produced, and another instance in which it is not produced; but we cannot yet p.r.o.nounce, as the canon of the Method of Difference requires, that the latter instance agrees with the former in all its circ.u.mstances except one; for the differences between gla.s.s and polished metals are manifold, and the only thing we can as yet be sure of is, that the cause of dew will be found among the circ.u.mstances by which the former substance is distinguished from the latter. But if we could be sure that gla.s.s, and the various other substances on which dew is deposited, have only one quality in common, and that polished metals and the other substances on which dew is not deposited have also nothing in common but the one circ.u.mstance, of not having the one quality which the others have; the requisitions of the Method of Difference would be completely satisfied, and we should recognise, in that quality of the substances, the cause of dew. This, accordingly, is the path of inquiry which is next to be pursued.

"In the cases of polished metal and polished gla.s.s, the contrast shows evidently that the _substance_ has much to do with the phenomenon; therefore let the substance _alone_ be diversified as much as possible, by exposing polished surfaces of various kinds. This done, a _scale of intensity_ becomes obvious. Those polished substances are found to be most strongly dewed which conduct heat worst; while those which conduct well, resist dew most effectually." The complication increases; here is the Method of Concomitant Variations called to our a.s.sistance; and no other method was practicable on this occasion; for the quality of conducting heat could not be excluded, since all substances conduct heat in some degree. The conclusion obtained is, that _cteris paribus_ the deposition of dew is in some proportion to the power which the body possesses of resisting the pa.s.sage of heat; and that this, therefore, (or something connected with this,) must be at least one of the causes which a.s.sist in producing the deposition of dew on the surface.

"But if we expose rough surfaces instead of polished, we sometimes find this law interfered with. Thus, roughened iron, especially if painted over or blackened, becomes dewed sooner than varnished paper; the kind of _surface_, therefore, has a great influence. Expose, then, the _same_ material in very diversified states as to surface," (that is, employ the Method of Difference to ascertain concomitance of variations,) "and another scale of intensity becomes at once apparent; those _surfaces_ which _part with their heat_ most readily by radiation, are found to contract dew most copiously." Here, therefore, are the requisites for a second employment of the Method of Concomitant Variations; which in this case also is the only method available, since all substances radiate heat in some degree or other. The conclusion obtained by this new application of the method is, that _cteris paribus_ the deposition of dew is also in some proportion to the power of radiating heat; and that the quality of doing this abundantly (or some cause on which that quality depends) is another of the causes which promote the deposition of dew on the substance.

"Again, the influence ascertained to exist of _substance_ and _surface_ leads us to consider that of _texture_: and here, again, we are presented on trial with remarkable differences, and with a third scale of intensity, pointing out substances of a close firm texture, such as stones, metals, &c., as unfavourable, but those of a loose one, as cloth, velvet, wool, eider-down, cotton, &c., as eminently favourable to the contraction of dew." The Method of Concomitant Variations is here, for the third time, had recourse to; and, as before, from necessity, since the texture of no substance is absolutely firm or absolutely loose. Looseness of texture, therefore, or something which is the cause of that quality, is another circ.u.mstance which promotes the deposition of dew; but this third cause resolves itself into the first, viz. the quality of resisting the pa.s.sage of heat: for substances of loose texture "are precisely those which are best adapted for clothing, or for impeding the free pa.s.sage of heat from the skin into the air, so as to allow their outer surfaces to be very cold, while they remain warm within;" and this last is, therefore, an induction (from fresh instances) simply _corroborative_ of a former induction.

It thus appears that the instances in which much dew is deposited, which are very various, agree in this, and, so far as we are able to observe, in this only, that they either radiate heat rapidly or conduct it slowly: qualities between which there is no other circ.u.mstance of agreement, than that by virtue of either, the body tends to lose heat from the surface more rapidly than it can be restored from within. The instances, on the contrary, in which no dew, or but a small quant.i.ty of it, is formed, and which are also extremely various, agree (as far as we can observe) in nothing except in _not_ having this same property. We seem, therefore, to have detected the characteristic difference between the substances on which dew is produced, and those on which it is not produced. And thus have been realized the requisitions of what we have termed the Indirect Method of Difference, or the Joint Method of Agreement and Difference. The example afforded of this indirect method, and of the manner in which the data are prepared for it by the Methods of Agreement and of Concomitant Variations, is the most important of all the ill.u.s.trations of induction afforded by this interesting speculation.

We might now consider the question, on what the deposition of dew depends, to be completely solved, if we could be quite sure that the substances on which dew is produced differ from those on which it is not, in _nothing_ but in the property of losing heat from the surface faster than the loss can be repaired from within. And though we never can have that complete certainty, this is not of so much importance as might at first be supposed; for we have, at all events, ascertained that even if there be any other quality hitherto un.o.bserved which is present in all the substances which contract dew, and absent in those which do not, this other property must be one which, in all that great number of substances, is present or absent exactly where the property of being a better radiator than conductor is present or absent; an extent of coincidence which affords a strong presumption of a community of cause, and a consequent invariable coexistence between the two properties; so that the property of being a better radiator than conductor, if not itself the cause, almost certainly always accompanies the cause, and, for purposes of prediction, no error is likely to be committed by treating it as if it were really such.

Reverting now to an earlier stage of the inquiry, let us remember that we had ascertained that, in every instance where dew is formed, there is actual coldness of the surface below the temperature of the surrounding air; but we were not sure whether this coldness was the cause of dew, or its effect. This doubt we are now able to resolve. We have found that, in every such instance, the substance is one which, by its own properties or laws, would, if exposed in the night, become colder than the surrounding air. The coldness therefore being accounted for independently of the dew, while it is proved that there is a connexion between the two, it must be the dew which depends on the coldness; or in other words, the coldness is the cause of the dew.

This law of causation, already so amply established, admits, however, of efficient additional corroboration in no less than three ways. First, by deduction from the known laws of aqueous vapour when diffused through air or any other gas; and though we have not yet come to the Deductive Method, we will not omit what is necessary to render this speculation complete. It is known by direct experiment that only a limited quant.i.ty of water can remain suspended in the state of vapour at each degree of temperature, and that this maximum grows less and less as the temperature diminishes. From this it follows, deductively, that if there is already as much vapour suspended as the air will contain at its existing temperature, any lowering of that temperature will cause a portion of the vapour to be condensed, and become water. But, again, we know deductively, from the laws of heat, that the contact of the air with a body colder than itself, will necessarily lower the temperature of the stratum of air immediately applied to its surface; and will therefore cause it to part with a portion of its water, which accordingly will, by the ordinary laws of gravitation or cohesion, attach itself to the surface of the body, thereby const.i.tuting dew. This deductive proof, it will have been seen, has the advantage of at once proving causation as well as coexistence; and it has the additional advantage that it also accounts for the exceptions to the occurrence of the phenomenon, the cases in which, although the body is colder than the air, yet no dew is deposited; by showing that this will necessarily be the case when the air is so under-supplied with aqueous vapour, comparatively to its temperature, that even when somewhat cooled by the contact of the colder body, it can still continue to hold in suspension all the vapour which was previously suspended in it: thus in a very dry summer there are no dews, in a very dry winter no h.o.a.r frost. Here, therefore, is an additional condition of the production of dew, which the methods we previously made use of failed to detect, and which might have remained still undetected, if recourse had not been had to the plan of deducing the effect from the ascertained properties of the agents known to be present.

The second corroboration of the theory is by direct experiment, according to the canon of the Method of Difference. We can, by cooling the surface of any body, find in all cases some temperature, (more or less inferior to that of the surrounding air, according to its hygrometric condition,) at which dew will begin to be deposited. Here, too, therefore, the causation is directly proved. We can, it is true, accomplish this only on a small scale; but we have ample reason to conclude that the same operation, if conducted in Nature's great laboratory, would equally produce the effect.

And, finally, even on that great scale we are able to verify the result.

The case is one of those rare cases, as we have shown them to be, in which nature works the experiment for us in the same manner in which we ourselves perform it; introducing into the previous state of things a single and perfectly definite new circ.u.mstance, and manifesting the effect so rapidly that there is not time for any other material change in the pre-existing circ.u.mstances. "It is observed that dew is never copiously deposited in situations much screened from the open sky, and not at all in a cloudy night; but _if the clouds withdraw even for a few minutes, and leave a clear opening, a deposition of dew presently begins_, and goes on increasing.... Dew formed in clear intervals will often even evaporate again when the sky becomes thickly overcast." The proof, therefore, is complete, that the presence or absence of an uninterrupted communication with the sky causes the deposition or non-deposition of dew. Now, since a clear sky is nothing but the absence of clouds, and it is a known property of clouds, as of all other bodies between which and any given object nothing intervenes but an elastic fluid, that they tend to raise or keep up the superficial temperature of the object by radiating heat to it, we see at once that the disappearance of clouds will cause the surface to cool; so that Nature, in this case, produces a change in the antecedent by definite and known means, and the consequent follows accordingly: a natural experiment which satisfies the requisitions of the Method of Difference.[38]

The acc.u.mulated proof of which the Theory of Dew has been found susceptible, is a striking instance of the fulness of a.s.surance which the inductive evidence of laws of causation may attain, in cases in which the invariable sequence is by no means obvious to a superficial view.

4. The admirable physiological investigations of Dr. Brown-Squard afford brilliant examples of the application of the Inductive Methods to a cla.s.s of inquiries in which, for reasons which will presently be given, direct induction takes place under peculiar difficulties and disadvantages. As one of the most apt instances I select his speculation (in the Proceedings of the Royal Society for May 16, 1861) on the relations between muscular irritability, cadaveric rigidity, and putrefaction.

The law which Dr. Brown-Squard's investigation tends to establish, is the following:--"The greater the degree of muscular irritability at the time of death, the later the cadaveric rigidity sets in, and the longer it lasts, and the later also putrefaction appears, and the slower it progresses." One would say at first sight that the method here required must be that of Concomitant Variations. But this is a delusive appearance, arising from the circ.u.mstance that the conclusion to be tested is itself a fact of concomitant variation. For the establishment of that fact any of the Methods may be put in requisition, and it will be found that the fourth Method, though really employed, has only a subordinate place in this particular investigation.

The evidences by which Dr. Brown-Squard establishes the law may be enumerated as follows:--

1st. Paralysed muscles have greater irritability than healthy muscles.

Now, paralysed muscles are later in a.s.suming the cadaveric rigidity than healthy muscles, the rigidity lasts longer, and putrefaction sets in later and proceeds more slowly.

Both these propositions had to be proved by experiment; and for the experiments which prove them, science is also indebted to Dr.

Brown-Squard. The former of the two--that paralysed muscles have greater irritability than healthy muscles--he ascertained in various ways, but most decisively by "comparing the duration of irritability in a paralysed muscle and in the corresponding healthy one of the opposite side, while they are both submitted to the same excitation." He "often found in experimenting in that way, that the paralysed muscle remained irritable twice, three times, or even four times as long as the healthy one." This is a case of induction by the Method of Difference. The two limbs, being those of the same animal, were presumed to differ in no circ.u.mstance material to the case except the paralysis, to the presence and absence of which, therefore, the difference in the muscular irritability was to be attributed. This a.s.sumption of complete resemblance in all material circ.u.mstances save one, evidently could not be safely made in any one pair of experiments, because the two legs of any given animal might be accidentally in very different pathological conditions; but if, besides taking pains to avoid any such difference, the experiment was repeated sufficiently often in different animals to exclude the supposition that any abnormal circ.u.mstance could be present in them all, the conditions of the Method of Difference were adequately secured.

In the same manner in which Dr. Brown-Squard proved that paralysed muscles have greater irritability, he also proved the correlative proposition respecting cadaveric rigidity and putrefaction. Having, by section of the roots of the sciatic nerve, and again of a lateral half of the spinal cord, produced paralysis in one hind leg of an animal while the other remained healthy, he found that not only did muscular irritability last much longer in the paralysed limb, but rigidity set in later and ended later, and putrefaction began later and was less rapid than on the healthy side. This is a common case of the Method of Difference, requiring no comment. A further and very important corroboration was obtained by the same method. When the animal was killed, not shortly after the section of the nerve, but a month later, the effect was reversed; rigidity set in sooner, and lasted a shorter time, than in the healthy muscles. But after this lapse of time, the paralysed muscles, having been kept by the paralysis in a state of rest, had lost a great part of their irritability, and instead of more, had become less irritable than those on the healthy side. This gives the A B C, a b c, and B C, b c, of the Method of Difference. One antecedent, increased irritability, being changed, and the other circ.u.mstances being the same, the consequence did not follow; and moreover, when a new antecedent, contrary to the first, was supplied, it was followed by a contrary consequent. This instance is attended with the special advantage, of proving that the r.e.t.a.r.dation and prolongation of the rigidity do not depend directly on the paralysis, since that was the same in both the instances; but specifically on one effect of the paralysis, namely, the increased irritability; since they ceased when it ceased, and were reversed when it was reversed.

2ndly. Diminution of the temperature of muscles before death increases their irritability. But diminution of their temperature also r.e.t.a.r.ds cadaveric rigidity and putrefaction.

Both these truths were first made known by Dr. Brown-Squard himself, through experiments which conclude according to the Method of Difference. There is nothing in the nature of the process requiring specific a.n.a.lysis.

3rdly. Muscular exercise, prolonged to exhaustion, diminishes the muscular irritability. This is a well-known truth, dependent on the most general laws of muscular action, and proved by experiments under the Method of Difference, constantly repeated. Now it has been shown by observation that overdriven cattle, if killed before recovery from their fatigue, become rigid and putrefy in a surprisingly short time. A similar fact has been observed in the case of animals hunted to death; c.o.c.ks killed during or shortly after a fight; and soldiers slain in the field of battle. These various cases agree in no circ.u.mstance, directly connected with the muscles, except that these have just been subjected to exhausting exercise. Under the canon, therefore, of the Method of Agreement, it may be inferred that there is a connexion between the two facts. The Method of Agreement, indeed, as has been shown, is not competent to prove causation. The present case, however, is already known to be a case of causation, it being certain that the state of the body after death must somehow depend upon its state at the time of death. We are therefore warranted in concluding that the single circ.u.mstance in which all the instances agree, is the part of the antecedent which is the cause of that particular consequent.

4thly. In proportion as the nutrition of muscles is in a good state, their irritability is high. This fact also rests on the general evidence of the laws of physiology, grounded on many familiar applications of the Method of Difference. Now, in the case of those who die from accident or violence, with their muscles in a good state of nutrition, the muscular irritability continues long after death, rigidity sets in late, and persists long without the putrefactive change. On the contrary, in cases of disease in which nutrition has been diminished for a long time before death, all these effects are reversed. These are the conditions of the Joint Method of Agreement and Difference. The cases of r.e.t.a.r.ded and long continued rigidity here in question, agree only in being preceded by a high state of nutrition of the muscles; the cases of rapid and brief rigidity agree only in being preceded by a low state of muscular nutrition; a connexion is therefore inductively proved between the degree of the nutrition, and the slowness and prolongation of the rigidity.

5thly. Convulsions, like exhausting exercise, but in a still greater degree, diminish the muscular irritability. Now, when death follows violent and prolonged convulsions, as in teta.n.u.s, hydrophobia, some cases of cholera, and certain poisons, rigidity sets in very rapidly, and after a very brief duration, gives place to putrefaction. This is another example of the Method of Agreement, of the same character with No. 3.

6thly. The series of instances which we shall take last, is of a more complex character, and requires a more minute a.n.a.lysis.

It has long been observed that in some cases of death by lightning, cadaveric rigidity either does not take place at all, or is of such extremely brief duration as to escape notice, and that in these cases putrefaction is very rapid. In other cases, however, the usual cadaveric rigidity appears. There must be some difference in the cause, to account for this difference in the effect. Now "death by lightning may be the result of, 1st, a syncope by fright, or in consequence of a direct or reflex influence of lightning on the par vagum; 2ndly, hemorrhage in or around the brain, or in the lungs, the pericardium, &c.; 3rdly, concussion, or some other alteration in the brain;" none of which phenomena have any known property capable of accounting for the suppression, or almost suppression, of the cadaveric rigidity. But the cause of death may also be that the lightning produces "a violent convulsion of every muscle in the body," of which, if of sufficient intensity, the known effect would be that "muscular irritability ceases almost at once." If Dr. Brown-Squard's generalization is a true law, these will be the very cases in which rigidity is so much abridged as to escape notice; and the cases in which, on the contrary, rigidity takes place as usual, will be those in which the stroke of lightning operates in some of the other modes which have been enumerated. How, then, is this brought to the test? By experiments not on lightning, which cannot be commanded at pleasure, but on the same natural agency in a manageable form, that of artificial galvanism. Dr. Brown-Squard galvanized the entire bodies of animals immediately after death. Galvanism cannot operate in any of the modes in which the stroke of lightning may have operated, except the single one of producing muscular convulsions. If, therefore, after the bodies have been galvanized, the duration of rigidity is much shortened and putrefaction much accelerated, it is reasonable to ascribe the same effects when produced by lightning, to the property which galvanism shares with lightning, and not to those which it does not. Now this Dr. Brown-Squard found to be the fact. The galvanic experiment was tried with charges of very various degrees of strength; and the more powerful the charge, the shorter was found to be the duration of rigidity, and the more speedy and rapid the putrefaction. In the experiment in which the charge was strongest, and the muscular irritability most promptly destroyed, the rigidity only lasted fifteen minutes. On the principle, therefore, of the Method of Concomitant Variations, it maybe inferred that the duration of the rigidity depends on the degree of the irritability; and that if the charge had been as much stronger than Dr. Brown-Squard's strongest, as a stroke of lightning must be stronger than any electric shock which we can produce artificially, the rigidity would have been shortened in a corresponding ratio, and might have disappeared altogether. This conclusion having been arrived at, the case of an electric shock, whether natural or artificial, becomes an instance in addition to all those already ascertained, of correspondence between the irritability of the muscle and the duration of rigidity.

All these instances are summed up in the following statement:--"That when the degree of muscular irritability at the time of death is considerable, either in consequence of a good state of nutrition, as in persons who die in full health from an accidental cause, or in consequence of rest, as in cases of paralysis, or on account of the influence of cold, cadaveric rigidity in all these cases sets in late and lasts long, and putrefaction appears late, and progresses slowly:"

but "that when the degree of muscular irritability at the time of death is slight, either in consequence of a bad state of nutrition, or of exhaustion from over-exertion, or from convulsions caused by disease or poison, cadaveric rigidity sets in and ceases soon, and putrefaction appears and progresses quickly." These facts present, in all their completeness, the conditions of the Joint Method of Agreement and Difference. Early and brief rigidity takes place in cases which agree only in the circ.u.mstance of a low state of muscular irritability.

Rigidity begins late and lasts long in cases which agree only in the contrary circ.u.mstance, of a muscular irritability high and unusually prolonged. It follows that there is a connexion through causation between the degree of muscular irritability after death, and the tardiness and prolongation of the cadaveric rigidity. This investigation places in a strong light the value and efficacy of the Joint Method. For, as we have already seen, the defect of that Method is, that like the Method of Agreement, of which it is only an improved form, it cannot prove causation. But in the present case (as in one of the steps in the argument which led up to it) causation is already proved; since there could never be any doubt that the rigidity altogether, and the putrefaction which follows it, are caused by the fact of death: the observations and experiments on which this rests are too familiar to need a.n.a.lysis, and fall under the Method of Difference.

It being, therefore, beyond doubt that the aggregate antecedent, the death, is the actual cause of the whole train of consequents, whatever of the circ.u.mstances attending the death can be shown to be followed in all its variations by variations in the effect under investigation, must be the particular feature of the fact of death on which that effect depends. The degree of muscular irritability at the time of death fulfils this condition. The only point that could be brought into question, would be whether the effect depended on the irritability itself, or on something which always accompanied the irritability: and this doubt is set at rest by establishing, as the instances do, that by whatever cause the high or low irritability is produced, the effect equally follows; and cannot, therefore, depend upon the causes of irritability, nor upon the other effects of those causes, which are as various as the causes themselves; but upon the irritability, solely.

5. The last two examples will have conveyed to any one by whom they have been duly followed, so clear a conception of the use and practical management of three of the four methods of experimental inquiry, as to supersede the necessity of any further exemplification of them. The remaining method, that of Residues, not having found a place in any of the preceding investigations, I shall quote from Sir John Herschel some examples of that method, with the remarks by which they are introduced.

"It is by this process, in fact, that science, in its present advanced state, is chiefly promoted. Most of the phenomena which Nature presents are very complicated; and when the effects of all known causes are estimated with exactness, and subducted, the residual facts are constantly appearing in the form of phenomena altogether new, and leading to the most important conclusions.

"For example: the return of the comet predicted by Professor Encke, a great many times in succession, and the general good agreement of its calculated with its observed place during any one of its periods of visibility, would lead us to say that its gravitation towards the sun and planets is the sole and sufficient cause of all the phenomena of its...o...b..tual motion; but when the effect of this cause is strictly calculated and subducted from the observed motion, there is found to remain behind a _residual phenomenon_, which would never have been otherwise ascertained to exist, which is a small antic.i.p.ation of the time of its reappearance, or a diminution of its periodic time, which cannot be accounted for by gravity, and whose cause is therefore to be inquired into. Such an antic.i.p.ation would be caused by the resistance of a medium disseminated through the celestial regions; and as there are other good reasons for believing this to be a _vera causa_," (an actually existing antecedent,) "it has therefore been ascribed to such a resistance.[39]

"M. Arago, having suspended a magnetic needle by a silk thread, and set it in vibration, observed, that it came much sooner to a state of rest when suspended over a plate of copper, than when no such plate was beneath it. Now, in both cases there were two _ver caus_" (antecedents known to exist) "why it _should_ come at length to rest, viz. the resistance of the air, which opposes, and at length destroys, all motions performed in it; and the want of perfect mobility in the silk thread. But the effect of these causes being exactly known by the observation made in the absence of the copper, and being thus allowed for and subducted, a residual phenomenon appeared, in the fact that a r.e.t.a.r.ding influence was exerted by the copper itself; and this fact, once ascertained, speedily led to the knowledge of an entirely new and unexpected cla.s.s of relations." This example belongs, however, not to the Method of Residues but to the Method of Difference, the law being ascertained by a direct comparison of the results of two experiments, which differed in nothing but the presence or absence of the plate of copper. To have made it exemplify the Method of Residues, the effect of the resistance of the air and that of the rigidity of the silk should have been calculated _ priori_, from the laws obtained by separate and foregone experiments.

"Unexpected and peculiarly striking confirmations of inductive laws frequently occur in the form of residual phenomena, in the course of investigations of a widely different nature from those which gave rise to the inductions themselves. A very elegant example may be cited in the unexpected confirmation of the law of the development of heat in elastic fluids by compression, which is afforded by the phenomena of sound. The inquiry into the cause of sound had led to conclusions respecting its mode of propagation, from which its velocity in the air could be precisely calculated. The calculations were performed; but, when compared with fact, though the agreement was quite sufficient to show the general correctness of the cause and mode of propagation a.s.signed, yet the _whole_ velocity could not be shown to arise from this theory.

There was still a residual velocity to be accounted for, which placed dynamical philosophers for a long time in great dilemma. At length Laplace struck on the happy idea, that this might arise from the _heat_ developed in the act of that condensation which necessarily takes place at every vibration by which sound is conveyed. The matter was subjected to exact calculation, and the result was at once the complete explanation of the residual phenomenon, and a striking confirmation of the general law of the development of heat by compression, under circ.u.mstances beyond artificial imitation."

"Many of the new elements of chemistry have been detected in the investigation of residual phenomena. Thus Arfwedson discovered lithia by perceiving an excess of weight in the sulphate produced from a small portion of what he considered as magnesia present in a mineral he had a.n.a.lysed. It is on this principle, too, that the small concentrated residues of great operations in the arts are almost sure to be the lurking places of new chemical ingredients: witness iodine, brome, selenium, and the new metals accompanying platina in the experiments of Wollaston and Tennant. It was a happy thought of Glauber to examine what everybody else threw away."[40]

"Almost all the greatest discoveries in Astronomy," says the same author,[41] "have resulted from the consideration of residual phenomena of a quant.i.tative or numerical kind.... It was thus that the grand discovery of the precession of the equinoxes resulted as a residual phenomenon, from the imperfect explanation of the return of the seasons by the return of the sun to the same apparent place among the fixed stars. Thus, also, aberration and nutation resulted as residual phenomena from that portion of the changes of the apparent places of the fixed stars which was left unaccounted for by precession. And thus again the apparent proper motions of the stars are the observed residues of their apparent movements outstanding and unaccounted for by strict calculation of the effects of precession, nutation, and aberration. The nearest approach which human theories can make to perfection is to diminish this residue, this _caput mortuum_ of observation, as it may be considered, as much as practicable, and, if possible, to reduce it to nothing, either by showing that something has been neglected in our estimation of known causes, or by reasoning upon it as a new fact, and on the principle of the inductive philosophy ascending from the effect to its cause or causes."

The disturbing effects mutually produced by the earth and planets upon each other's motions were first brought to light as residual phenomena, by the difference which appeared between the observed places of those bodies, and the places calculated on a consideration solely of their gravitation towards the sun. It was this which determined astronomers to consider the law of gravitation as obtaining between all bodies whatever, and therefore between all particles of matter; their first tendency having been to regard it as a force acting only between each planet or satellite and the central body to whose system it belonged.

Again, the catastrophists, in geology, be their opinion right or wrong, support it on the plea, that after the effect of all causes now in operation has been allowed for, there remains in the existing const.i.tution of the earth a large residue of facts, proving the existence at former periods either of other forces, or of the same forces in a much greater degree of intensity. To add one more example: those who a.s.sert, what no one has shown any real ground for believing, that there is in one human individual, one s.e.x, or one race of mankind over another, an inherent and inexplicable superiority in mental faculties, could only substantiate their proposition by subtracting from the differences of intellect which we in fact see, all that can be traced by known laws either to the ascertained differences of physical organization, or to the differences which have existed in the outward circ.u.mstances in which the subjects of the comparison have hitherto been placed. What these causes might fail to account for, would const.i.tute a residual phenomenon, which and which alone would be evidence of an ulterior original distinction, and the measure of its amount. But the a.s.sertors of such supposed differences have not provided themselves with these necessary logical conditions of the establishment of their doctrine.

The spirit of the Method of Residues being, it is hoped, sufficiently intelligible from these examples, and the other three methods having already been so fully exemplified, we may here close our exposition of the four methods, considered as employed in the investigation of the simpler and more elementary order of the combinations of phenomena.