Logic Part 27

Those of Succession are either--(1) of direct causation, as that 'Water quenches fire,' or (more strictly) that 'Evaporation reduces temperature'; or (2) of the effect of a remote cause, as 'Bad harvests tend to raise the price of bread'; or (3) of the joint effects of the same cause, as that 'Night follows day' (from the revolution of the earth), or the course of the seasons (from the inclination of the earth's axis).

Laws of Co-existence are of several cla.s.ses. (1) One has the generality of a primary law, though it is proved only by Agreement, namely, 'All gravitating bodies are inert'. Others, though less general than this, are of very extensive range, as that 'All gases that are not decomposed by rise of temperature have the same rate of expansion'; and, in Botany that 'All monocotyledonous plants are endogenous'. These laws of Co-existence are concerned with fundamental properties of bodies.

(2) Next come laws of the Co-existence of those properties which are comprised in the definitions of Natural Kinds. Mill distinguished between (a) cla.s.ses of things that agree among themselves and differ from others only in one or a few attributes (such as 'red things,'

'musical notes', 'carnivorous animals', 'soldiers'), and () cla.s.ses of things that agree among themselves and differ from others in a mult.i.tude of characters: and the latter he calls Natural Kinds. These comprise the chemical elements and their pure compounds (such as water, alcohol, rock-salt), and the species of plants and animals. Clearly, each of these is const.i.tuted by the co-existence or co-inherence of a mult.i.tude of properties, some of which are selected as the basis of their definitions. Thus, Gold is a metal of high specific gravity, atomic weight 197.2, high melting point, low chemical affinities, great ductility, yellow colour, etc.: a Horse has 'a vertebral column, mammae, a placental embryo, four legs, a single well-developed toe in each foot provided with a hoof, a bushy tail, and callosities on the inner sides of both the fore and the hind legs' (Huxley).

Since Darwinism has obtained general acceptance, some Logicians have doubted the propriety of calling the organic species 'Kinds,' on the ground that they are not, as to definiteness and permanence, on a par with the chemical elements or such compounds as water and rock-salt; that they vary extensively, and that it is only by the loss of former generations of animals that we are able to distinguish species at all.

But to this it may be replied that species are often approximately constant for immense periods of time, and may be called permanent in comparison with human generations; and that, although the leading principles of Logic are perhaps eternal truths, yet upon a detail such as this, the science may condescend to recognise a distinction if it is good for (say) only 100,000 years. That if former generations of plants and animals were not lost, all distinctions of species would disappear, may be true; but they are lost--for the most part beyond hope of recovery; and accordingly the distinction of species is still recognised; although there are cases, chiefly at the lower stages of organisation, in which so many varieties occur as to make adjacent species almost or quite indistinguishable. So far as species are recognised, then, they present a complex co-inherence of qualities, which is, in one aspect, a logical problem; and, in another, a logical datum; and, coming more naturally under the head of Natural Kinds than any other, they must be mentioned in this place.

(3) There are, again, certain coincidences of qualities not essential to any kind, and sometimes prevailing amongst many different kinds: such as 'Insects of nauseous taste have vivid (warning) colours'; 'White tom-cats with blue eyes are deaf'; 'White spots and patches, when they appear in domestic animals, are most frequent on the left side.'

(4) Finally, there may be constancy of relative position, as of sides and angles in Geometry; and also among concrete things (at least for long periods of time), as of the planetary orbits, the apparent positions of fixed stars in the sky, the distribution of land and water on the globe, opposite seasons in opposite hemispheres.

All these cases of Co-existence (except the geometrical) present the problem of deriving them from Causation; for there is no general Law of Co-existence from which they can be derived; and, indeed, if we conceive of the external world as a perpetual redistribution of matter and energy, it follows that the whole state of Nature at any instant, and therefore every co-existence included in it, is due to causation issuing from some earlier distribution of matter and energy. Hence, indeed, it is not likely that the problems of co-existence as a whole will ever be solved, since the original distribution of matter is, of course, unknown. Still, starting with any given state of Nature, we may hope to explain some of the co-existences in any subsequent state. We do not, indeed, know why heavy bodies are always inert, nor why the chemical elements are what they are; but it is known that "the properties of the elements are functions of their atomic weight," which (though, at present, only an empirical law) may be a clue to some deeper explanation. As to plants and animals, we know the conditions of their generation, and can trace a connection between most of their characteristics and the conditions of their life: as that the teeth and stomach of animals vary with their food, and that their colour generally varies with their habitat.

Geometrical Co-existence, when it is not a matter of definition (as 'a square is a rectangle with four equal sides'), is deduced from the definitions and axioms: as when it is shown that in triangles the greater side is opposite the greater angle. The deductions of theorems or secondary laws, in Geometry is a type of what is desirable in the Physical Sciences: the demonstration, namely, that all the connections of phenomena, whether successive or co-existent, are consequences of the redistribution of matter and energy according to the principle of Causation.

Coincidences of Co-existence (Group (3)) may sometimes be deduced and sometimes not. That 'nauseous insects have vivid coloration' comes under the general law of 'protective coloration'; as they are easily recognised and therefore avoided by insectivorous birds and other animals. But why white tom-cats with blue-eyes should be deaf, is (I believe) unknown. When co-existences cannot be derived from causation, they can only be proved by collecting examples and trusting vaguely to the Uniformity of Nature. If no exceptions are found, we have an empirical law of considerable probability within the range of our exploration. If exceptions occur, we have at most an approximate generalisation, as that 'Most metals are whitish,' or 'Most domestic cats are tabbies' (but this probably is the ancestral colouring). We may then resort to statistics for greater definiteness, and find that in Hampshire (say) 90 _per cent._ of the domestic cats are tabby.

-- 5. Scientific Explanation consists in discovering, deducing, and a.s.similating the laws of phenomena; it is the a.n.a.lysis of that Heracleitan 'flux' which so many philosophers have regarded as intractable to human inquiry. In the ordinary use of the word, 'explanation' means the satisfying a man's understanding; and what may serve this purpose depends partly upon the natural soundness of his understanding, and partly on his education; but it is always at last an appeal to the primary functions of cognition, discrimination and a.s.similation.

Generally, what we are accustomed to seems to need no explanation, unless our curiosity is particularly directed to it. That boys climb trees and throw stones, and that men go fox-hunting, may easily pa.s.s for matters of course. If any one is so exacting as to ask the reason, there is a ready answer in the 'need of exercise.' But this will not explain the peculiar zest of those exercises, which is something quite different from our feelings whilst swinging dumb-bells or tramping the highway.

Others, more sophisticated, tell us that the civilised individual retains in his nature the instincts of his remote ancestors, and that these a.s.sert themselves at stages of his growth corresponding with ancestral periods of culture or savagery: so that if we delight to climb trees, throw stones, and hunt, it is because our forefathers once lived in trees, had no missiles but stones, and depended for a livelihood upon killing something. To some of us, again, this seems an explanation; to others it merely gives annoyance, as a superfluous hypothesis, the fruit of a wanton imagination and too much leisure.

However, what we are not accustomed to immediately excites curiosity. If it were exceptional to climb trees, throw stones, ride after foxes, whoever did such things would be viewed with suspicion. An eclipse, a shooting star, a solitary boulder on the heath, a strange animal, or a Chinaman in the street, calls for explanation; and among some nations, eclipses have been explained by supposing a dragon to devour the sun or moon; solitary boulders, as the missiles of a giant; and so on. Such explanations, plainly, are attempts to regard rare phenomena as similar to others that are better known; a snake having been seen to swallow a rabbit, a bigger one may swallow the sun: a giant is supposed to bear much the same relation to a boulder as a boy does to half a brick. When any very common thing seems to need no explanation, it is because the several instances of its occurrence are a sufficient basis of a.s.similation to satisfy most of us. Still, if a reason for such a thing be demanded, the commonest answer has the same implication, namely, that a.s.similation or cla.s.sification is a sufficient reason for it. Thus, if climbing trees is referred to the need of exercise, it is a.s.similated to running, rowing, etc.; if the customs of a savage tribe are referred to the command of its G.o.ds, they are a.s.similated to those things that are done at the command of chieftains.

Explanation, then, is a kind of cla.s.sification; it is the finding of resemblance between the phenomenon in question and other phenomena. In Mathematics, the explanation of a theorem is the same as its proof, and consists in showing that it repeats, under different conditions, the definitions and axioms already a.s.sumed and the theorems already demonstrated. In Logic, the major premise of every syllogism is an explanation of the conclusion; for the minor premise a.s.serts that the conclusion is an example of the major premise.

In Concrete Sciences, to discover the cause of a phenomenon, or to derive an empirical law from laws of causation, is to explain it; because a cause is an invariable antecedent, and therefore reminds us of, or enables us to conceive, an indefinite number of cases similar to the present one wherever the cause exists. It cla.s.sifies the present case with other instances of causation, or brings it under the universal law; and, as we have seen that the discovery of the laws of nature is essentially the discovery of causes, the discovery and derivation of laws is scientific explanation.

The discovery of quant.i.tative laws is especially satisfactory, because it not only explains why an event happens at all, but why it happens just in this direction, degree, or amount; and not only is the given relation of cause and effect definitely a.s.similated to other causal instances, but the effect is identified with the cause as the same matter and energy redistributed; wherefore, whether the conservation of matter and energy be universally true or not, it must still be an universal postulate of scientific explanation.

The mere discovery of an empirical law of co-existence, as that 'white tom-cats with blue eyes are deaf', is indeed something better than an isolated fact: every general proposition relieves the mind of a load of facts; and, for many people, to be able to say--'It is always so'--may be enough; but for scientific explanation we require to know the reason of it, that is, the cause. Still, if asked to explain an axiom, we can only say, 'It is always so:' though it is some relief to point out particular instances of its realisation, or to exhibit the similarity of its form to that of other axioms--as of the _Dictum_ to the axiom of equality.

-- 6. There are three modes of scientific Explanation; First, the a.n.a.lysis of a phenomenon into the laws of its causes and the concurrence of those causes.

The pumping of water implies (1) pressure of the air, (2) distribution of pressure in a liquid, (3) that motion takes the direction of least resistance. Similarly, that thunder follows forked lightning, and that the report of a gun follows the flash, are resolvable into (1) the discharge of electricity, or the explosion of gunpowder; (2) distance of the observer from the event; (3) that light travels faster than sound.

The planetary orbits are a.n.a.lysable into the tendency of planets to fall into the sun, and their tendency to travel in a straight line. When this conception is helped out by swinging a ball round by a string, and then letting it go, to show what would happen to the earth if gravitation ceased, we see how the recognition of resemblance lies at the bottom of explanation.

Secondly, the discovery of steps of causation between a cause and its remote effects; the interpolation and concatenation of causes.

The maxim 'No cats no clover' is explained by a.s.signing the intermediate steps in the following series; that the fructification of red clover depends on the visits of humble-bees, who distribute the pollen in seeking honey; that if field-mice are numerous they destroy the humble-bees' nests; and that (owls and weasels being exterminated by gamekeepers) the destruction of field-mice depends upon the supply of cats; which, therefore, are a remote condition of the clover crop.

Again, the communication of thought by speech is an example of something so common that it seems to need no explanation; yet to explain it is a long story. A thought in one man's mind is the remote cause of a similar thought in another's: here we have (1) a thought a.s.sociated with mental words; (2) a connection between these thoughts and some tracts of the brain; (3) a connection between these tracts of the brain and the muscles of the larynx, the tongue and the lips; (4) movements of the chest, larynx and mouth, propelling and modifying waves of air; (5) the impinging of these air-waves upon another man's ear, and by a complex mechanism exciting the aural nerve; (6) the transfer of this excitation to certain tracts of his brain; (7) a connection there with sounds of words and their a.s.sociated thoughts. If one of these links fail, there is no communication.

Thirdly, the subsumption of several laws under one more general expression.

The tendency of bodies to fall to the earth and the tendency of the earth itself (with the other planets) to fall into the sun, are subsumed under the general law that 'All matter gravitates.' The same law subsumes the movements of the tide. By means of the notion of specific gravity, it includes 'levitation,' or the actual rising of some bodies, as of corks in water, of balloons, or flames in the air: the fact being that these things do not tend to rise, but to fall like everything else; only as the water or air weighs more in proportion to its volume than corks or balloons, the latter are pushed up.

This process of subsumption bears the same relation to secondary laws, that these do to particular facts. The generalisation of many particular facts (that is, a statement of that in which they agree) is a law; and the generalisation of these laws (that is, again, a statement of that in which they agree) is a higher law; and this process, upwards or downwards, is characteristic of scientific progress. The perfecting of any science consists in comprehending more and more of the facts within its province, and in showing that they all exemplify a smaller and smaller number of principles, which express their most profound resemblances.

These three modes of explanation (a.n.a.lysis, interpolation, subsumption) all consist in generalising or a.s.similating the phenomena. The pressure of the air, of a liquid, and motion in the direction of least resistance, are all commoner facts than pumping; that light travels faster than sound is a commoner fact than a thunderstorm or gun-firing.

Each of the laws--'Cats kill mice,' 'Mice destroy humble-bees' nests,'

'Humble-bees fructify red clover'--is wider and expresses the resemblance of more numerous cases than the law that 'Clover depends on cats'; because each of them is less subject to further conditions.

Similarly, every step in the communication of thought by language is less conditional, and therefore more general, than the completion of the process.

In all the above cases, again, each law into which the phenomenon (whether pumping or conversation) is resolved, suggests a host of parallel cases: as the modifying of air-waves by the larynx and lips suggests the various devices by which the strings and orifices of musical instruments modify the character of notes.

Subsumption consists entirely in proving the existence of an essential similarity between things where it was formerly not observed: as that the gyrations of the moon, the fall of apples, and the flotation of bubbles are all examples of gravitation: or that the purifying of the blood by breathing, the burning of a candle, and the rusting of iron are all cases of oxidation: or that the colouring of the underside of a red-admiral's wings, the spots of the giraffe, the shape and att.i.tude of a stick-caterpillar, the immobility of a bird on its nest, and countless other cases, though superficially so different, agree in this, that they conceal and thereby protect the organism.

Not any sort of likeness, however, suffices for scientific explanation: the only satisfactory explanation of concrete things or events, is to discover their likeness to others in respect of Causation. Hence attempts to help the understanding by familiar comparisons are often worse than useless. Any of the above examples will show that the first result of explanation is not to make a phenomenon seem familiar, but to put (as the saying is) 'quite a new face upon it.' When, indeed, we have thought it over in all its newly discovered relations, we feel more at home with it than ever; and this is one source of our satisfaction in explaining things; and hence to subst.i.tute immediate familiarisation for radical explanation, is the easily besetting sin of human understanding: the most plausible of fallacies, the most attractive, the most difficult to avoid even when we are on our guard against it.

-- 7. The explanation of Nature (if it be admitted to consist in generalisation, or the discovery of resemblance amidst differences) can never be completed. For--(1) there are (as Mill says) facts, namely, fundamental states or processes of consciousness, which are distinct; in other words, they do not resemble one another, and therefore cannot be generalised or subsumed under one explanation. Colour, heat, smell, sound, touch, pleasure and pain, are so different that there is one group of conditions to be sought for each; and the laws of these conditions cannot be subsumed under a more general one without leaving out the very facts to be explained. A general condition of sensation, such as the stimulating of the sensory organs of a living animal, gives no account of the _special_ characters of colour, smell, etc.; which are, however, the phenomena in question; and each of them has its own law. Nay, each distinct sensation-quality, or degree, must have its own law; for in each ultimate difference there is something that cannot be a.s.similated. Such differences amount, according to experimental Psychologists, to more than 50,000. Moreover, a neural process can never explain a conscious process in the way of cause and effect; for there is no equivalence between them, and one can never absorb the other.

(2) When physical science is treated objectively (that is, with as little reference as possible to the fact that all phenomena are only known in relation to the human mind), colour, heat, smell, sound (considered as sensations) are neglected, and attention is fixed upon certain of their conditions: extension, figure, resistance, weight, motion, with their derivatives, density, elasticity, etc. These are called the Primary Qualities of Matter; and it is a.s.sumed that they belong to matter by itself, whether we look on or not: whilst colour, heat, sound, etc., are called Secondary Qualities, as depending entirely upon the reaction of some conscious animal. By physical science the world is considered in the abstract, as a perpetual redistribution of matter and energy, and the distracting multiplicity of sensations seems to be got rid of.

But, not to dwell upon the difficulty of reducing the activities of life and chemistry to mechanical principles--even if this were done, complete explanation could not be attained. For--(a) as explanation is the discovery of causes, we no sooner succeed in a.s.signing the causes of the present state of the world than we have to inquire into the causes of those causes, and again the still earlier causes, and so on to infinity.

But, this being impossible, we must be content, wherever we stop, to contemplate the uncaused, that is, the unexplained; and then all that follows is only relatively explained.

Besides this difficulty, however, there is another that prevents the perfecting of any theory of the abstract material world, namely (b), that it involves more than one first principle. For we have seen that the Uniformity of Nature is not really a principle, but a merely nominal generalisation, since it cannot be definitely stated; and, therefore, the principles of Contradiction, Mediate Equality, and Causation remain incapable of subsumption; nor can any one of them be reduced to another: so that they remain unexplained.

(3) Another limit to explanation lies in the infinite character of every particular fact; so that we may know the laws of many of its properties and yet come far short of understanding it as a whole. A lump of sandstone in the road: we may know a good deal about its specific gravity, temperature, chemical composition, geological conditions; but if we inquire the causes of the particular modifications it exhibits of these properties, and further why it is just so big, containing so many molecules, neither more nor less, disposed in just such relations to one another as to give it this particular figure, why it lies exactly there rather than a yard off, and so forth, we shall get no explanation of all this. The causes determining each particular phenomenon are infinite, and can never be computed; and, therefore, it can never be fully explained.

-- 8. a.n.a.logy is used in two senses: (1) for the resemblance of relations between terms that have little or no resemblance--as _The wind drives the clouds as a shepherd drives his sheep_--where wind and shepherd, clouds and sheep are totally unlike. Such a.n.a.logies are a favourite figure in poetry and rhetoric, but cannot prove anything. For valid reasoning there must be parallel cases, according to substance and attribute, or cause and effect, or proportion: e.g. _As cattle and deer are to herbivorousness, so are camels; As bodies near the earth fall toward it, so does the moon; As 2 is to 3 so is 4 to 6._

(2) a.n.a.logy is discussed in Logic as a kind of probable proof based upon imperfect similarity (as the best that can be discovered) between the _data_ of comparison and the subject of our inference. Like Deduction and Induction, it a.s.sumes that things which are alike in some respects are also alike in others; but it differs from them in not appealing to a definite general law a.s.signing the essential points of resemblance upon which the argument relies. In Deductive proof, this is done by the major premise of every syllogism: if the major says that 'All fat men are humorists,' and we can establish the minor, 'X is a fat man,' we have secured the essential resemblance that carries the conclusion. In induction, the Law of Causation and its representatives, the Canons, serve the same purpose, specifying the essential marks of a cause. But, in a.n.a.logy, the resemblance relied on cannot be stated categorically.

If we argue that Mars is inhabited because it resembles the datum, our Earth, (1) in being a planet, (2) neither too hot nor too cold for life, (3) having an atmosphere, (4) land and water, etc., we are not prepared to say that 'All planets having these characteristics are inhabited.' It is, therefore, not a deduction; and since we do not know the original causes of life on the Earth, we certainly cannot show by induction that adequate causes exist in Mars. We rely, then, upon some such vague notion of Uniformity as that 'Things alike in some points are alike in others'; which, plainly, is either false or nugatory. But if the linear markings upon the surface of Mars indicate a system of ca.n.a.ls, the inference that he has intelligent inhabitants is no longer a.n.a.logical, since ca.n.a.ls can have no other cause.

The cogency of any proof depends upon the _character_ and _definiteness_ of the likeness which one phenomenon bears to another; but a.n.a.logy trusts to the general _quant.i.ty_ of likeness between them, in ignorance of what may be the really important likeness. If, having tried with a stone, an apple, a bullet, etc., we find that they all break an ordinary window, and thence infer that a cricket ball will do so, we do not reason by a.n.a.logy, but make instinctively a deductive extension of an induction, merely omitting the explicit generalisation, 'All missiles of a certain weight, size and solidity break windows.' But if, knowing nothing of snakes except that the viper is venomous, a child runs away from a gra.s.s-snake, he argues by a.n.a.logy; and, though his conduct is prudentially justifiable, his inference is wrong: for there is no law that 'All snakes are venomous,' but only that those are venomous that have a certain structure of fang; a point which he did not stay to examine.

The discovery of an a.n.a.logy, then, may suggest hypotheses; it states a problem--to find the causes of the a.n.a.logy; and thus it may lead to scientific proof; but merely a.n.a.logical argument is only probable in various degrees. (1) The greater the number and importance of the points of agreement, the more probable is the inference. (2) The greater the number and importance of the points of difference, the less probable is the inference. (3) The greater the number of unknown properties in the subject of our argument, the less the value of any inference from those that we do know. Of course the number of unknown properties can itself be estimated only by a.n.a.logy. In the case of Mars, they are probably very numerous; and, apart from the evidence of ca.n.a.ls, the prevalent a.s.sumption that there are intelligent beings in that planet, seems to rest less upon probability than on a curiously imaginative extension of the gregarious sentiment, the chilly discomfort of mankind at the thought of being alone in the universe, and a hope that there may be conversable and 'clubable' souls nearer than the Dog-star.

CHAPTER XX

PROBABILITY

-- 1. Chance was once believed to be a distinct power in the world, disturbing the regularity of Nature; though, according to Aristotle, it was only operative in occurrences below the sphere of the moon. As, however, it is now admitted that every event in the world is due to some cause, if we can only trace the connection, whilst nevertheless the notion of Chance is still useful when rightly conceived, we have to find some other ground for it than that of a spontaneous capricious force inherent in things. For such a conception can have no place in any logical interpretation of Nature: it can never be inferred from a principle, seeing that every principle expresses an uniformity; nor, again, if the existence of a capricious power be granted, can any inference be drawn from it. Impossible alike as premise and as conclusion, for Reason it is nothing at all.

Every event is a result of causes: but the mult.i.tude of forces and the variety of collocations being immeasurably great, the overwhelming majority of events occurring about the same time are only related by Causation so remotely that the connection cannot be followed. Whilst my pen moves along the paper, a cab rattles down the street, bells in the neighbouring steeple chime the quarter, a girl in the next house is practising her scales, and throughout the world innumerable events are happening which may never happen together again; so that should one of them recur, we have no reason to expect any of the others. This is Chance, or chance coincidence. The word Coincidence is vulgarly used only for the inexplicable concurrence of _interesting_ events--"quite a coincidence!"

On the other hand, many things are now happening together or coinciding, that will do so, for a.s.signable reasons, again and again; thousands of men are leaving the City, who leave at the same hour five days a week.

But this is not chance; it is causal coincidence due to the custom of business in this country, as determined by our lat.i.tude and longitude and other circ.u.mstances. No doubt the above chance coincidences--writing, cab-rattling, chimes, scales, etc.--are causally connected at some point of past time. They were predetermined by the condition of the world ten minutes ago; and that was due to earlier conditions, one behind the other, even to the formation of the planet. But whatever connection there may have been, we have no such knowledge of it as to be able to deduce the coincidence, or calculate its recurrence. Hence Chance is defined by Mill to be: Coincidence giving no ground to infer uniformity.

Still, some chance coincidences do recur according to laws of their own: I say _some_, but it may be all. If the world is finite, the possible combinations of its elements are exhaustible; and, in time, whatever conditions of the world have concurred will concur again, and in the same relation to former conditions. This writing, that cab, those chimes, those scales will coincide again; the Argonautic expedition, and the Trojan war, and all our other troubles will be renewed. But let us consider some more manageable instance, such as the throwing of dice.