the number of affirmative instances over the number of exceptions. If it has been found practicable to attain numerical precision in the data, a corresponding degree of precision may be given to the evaluation of the chances of error in the conclusion. If it can be established as an empirical law that nine out of every ten A are B, there will be one chance in ten of error in assuming that any A, not individually known to us, is a B: but this of course holds only within the limits of time, place, and circumstance, embraced in the observations, and therefore can not be counted on for any sub-class or variety of A (or for A in any set of external circumstances) which were not included in the average. It must be added, that we can guide ourselves by the proposition, Nine out of every ten A are B, only in cases of which we know nothing except that they fall within the class A. For if we know, of any particular instances _i_, not only that it falls under A, but to what species or variety of A it belongs, we shall generally err in applying to _i_ the average struck for the whole genus, from which the average corresponding to that species alone would, in all probability, materially differ. And so if _i_, instead of being a particular sort of instance, is an instance known to be under the influence of a particular set of circumstances, the presumption drawn from the numerical proportions in the whole genus would probably, in such a case, only mislead. A general average should only be applied to cases which are neither known, nor can be presumed, to be other than average cases. Such averages, therefore, are commonly of little use for the practical guidance of any affairs but those which concern large numbers.
Tables of the chances of life are useful to insurance offices, but they go a very little way toward informing any one of the chances of his own life, or any other life in which he is interested, since almost every life is either better or worse than the average. Such averages can only be considered as supplying the first term in a series of approximations; the subsequent terms proceeding on an appreciation of the circumstances belonging to the particular case.
§ 6. From the application of a single approximate generalization to individual cases, we proceed to the application of two or more of them together to the same case.
When a judgment applied to an individual instance is grounded on two approximate generalizations taken in conjunction, the propositions may cooperate toward the result in two different ways. In the one, each proposition is separately applicable to the case in hand, and our object in combining them is to give to the conclusion in that particular case the double probability arising from the two propositions separately. This may be called joining two probabilities by way of Addition; and the result is a probability greater than either. The other mode is, when only one of the propositions is directly applicable to the case, the second being only applicable to it by virtue of the application of the first. This is joining two probabilities by way of Ratiocination or Deduction; the result of which is a less probability than either. The type of the first argument is, Most A are B; most C are B; this thing is both an A and a C; therefore it is probably a B. The type of the second is, Most A are B; most C are A; this is a C; therefore it is probably an A, therefore it is probably a B.
The first is exemplified when we prove a fact by the testimony of two unconnected witnesses; the second, when we adduce only the testimony of one witness that he has heard the thing asserted by another. Or again, in the first mode it may be argued that the accused committed the crime, because he concealed himself, and because his clothes were stained with blood; in the second, that he committed it because he washed or destroyed his clothes, which is supposed to render it probable that they were stained with blood. Instead of only two links, as in these instances, we may suppose chains of any length. A chain of the former kind was termed by Bentham(195) a self-corroborative chain of evidence; the second, a self-infirmative chain.
When approximate generalizations are joined by way of addition, we may deduce from the theory of probabilities laid down in a former chapter, in what manner each of them adds to the probability of a conclusion which has the warrant of them all.
If, on an average, two of every three As are Bs, and three of every four Cs are Bs, the probability that something which is both an A and a C is a B, will be more than two in three, or than three in four. Of every twelve things which are As, all except four are Bs by the supposition; and if the whole twelve, and consequently those four, have the characters of C likewise, three of these will be Bs on that ground. Therefore, out of twelve which are both As and Cs, eleven are Bs. To state the argument in another way; a thing which is both an A and a C, but which is not a B, is found in only one of three sections of the class A, and in only one of four sections of the class C; but this fourth of C being spread over the whole of A indiscriminately, only one-third part of it (or one-twelfth of the whole number) belongs to the third section of A; therefore a thing which is not a B occurs only once, among twelve things which are both As and Cs. The argument would, in the language of the doctrine of chances, be thus expressed: the chance that an A is not a B is ⅓, the chance that a C is not a B is ¼; hence if the thing be both an A and a C, the chance In this computation it is of course supposed that the probabilities arising from A and C are independent of each other. There must not be any such connection between A and C, that when a thing belongs to the one class it will therefore belong to the other, or even have a greater chance of doing so. Otherwise the not-Bs which are Cs may be, most or even all of them, identical with the not-Bs which are As; in which last case the probability arising from A and C together will be no greater than that arising from A alone.
When approximate generalizations are joined together in the other mode, that of deduction, the degree of probability of the inference, instead of increasing, diminishes at each step. From two such premises as Most A are B, Most B are C, we can not with certainty conclude that even a single A is C; for the whole of the portion of A which in any way falls under B, may perhaps be comprised in the exceptional part of it. Still, the two propositions in question afford an appreciable probability that any given A is C, provided the average on which the second proposition is grounded was taken fairly with reference to the first; provided the proposition, Most B are C, was arrived at in a manner leaving no suspicion that the probability arising from it is otherwise than fairly distributed over the section of B which belongs to A. For though the instances which are A _may_ be all in the minority, they may, also, be all in the majority; and the one possibility is to be set against the other. On the whole, the probability arising from the two propositions taken together, will be correctly measured by the probability arising from the one, abated in the ratio of that arising from the other. If nine out of ten Swedes have light hair, and eight out of nine inhabitants of Stockholm are Swedes, the probability arising from these two propositions, that any given inhabitant of Stockholm is light-haired, will amount to eight in ten; though it is rigorously possible that the whole Swedish population of Stockholm might belong to that tenth section of the people of Sweden who are an exception to the rest.
If the premises are known to be true not of a bare majority, but of nearly the whole, of their respective subjects, we may go on joining one such proposition to another for several steps, before we reach a conclusion not presumably true even of a majority. The error of the conclusion will amount to the aggregate of the errors of all the premises. Let the proposition, most A are B, be true of nine in ten; Most B are C, of eight in nine; then not only will one A in ten not be C, because not B, but even of the nine-tenths which are B, only eight-ninths will be C; that is, the cases of A which are C will be only ⁸⁄₉ of ⁹⁄₁₀, or four-fifths. Let us now add Most C are D, and suppose this to be true of seven cases out of eight; the proportion of A which is D will be only ⅞ of ⁸⁄₉ of ⁹⁄₁₀, or ⁷⁄₁₀. Thus the probability progressively dwindles. The experience, however, on which our approximate generalizations are grounded, has so rarely been subjected to, or admits of, accurate numerical estimation, that we can not in general apply any measurement to the diminution of probability which takes place at each illation; but must be content with remembering that it does diminish at every step, and that unless the premises approach very nearly indeed to being universally true, the conclusion after a very few steps is worth nothing. A hearsay of a hearsay, or an argument from presumptive evidence depending not on immediate marks but on marks of marks, is worthless at a very few removes from the first stage.
§ 7. There are, however, two cases in which reasonings depending on approximate generalizations may be carried to any length we please with as much assurance, and are as strictly scientific, as if they were composed of universal laws of nature. But these cases are exceptions of the sort which are currently said to prove the rule. The approximate generalizations are as suitable, in the cases in question, for purposes of ratiocination, as if they were complete generalizations, because they are capable of being transformed into complete generalizations exactly equivalent.
First: If the approximate generalization is of the class in which our reason for stopping at the approximation is not the impossibility, but only the inconvenience, of going further; if we are cognizant of the character which distinguishes the cases that accord with the generalization from those which are exceptions to it; we may then substitute for the approximate proposition, a universal proposition with a proviso. The proposition, Most persons who have uncontrolled power employ it ill, is a generalization of this class, and may be transformed into the following: All persons who have uncontrolled power employ it ill, provided they are not persons of unusual strength of judgment and rectitude of purpose. The proposition, carrying the hypothesis or proviso with it, may then be dealt with no longer as an approximate, but as a universal proposition; and to whatever number of steps the reasoning may reach, the hypothesis, being carried forward to the conclusion, will exactly indicate how far that conclusion is from being applicable universally. If in the course of the argument other approximate generalizations are introduced, each of them being in like manner expressed as a universal proposition with a condition annexed, the sum of all the conditions will appear at the end as the sum of all the errors which affect the conclusion. Thus, to the proposition last cited, let us add the following: All absolute monarchs have uncontrolled power, unless their position is such that they need the active support of their subjects (as was the case with Queen Elizabeth, Frederick of Prussia, and others). Combining these two propositions, we can deduce from them a universal conclusion, which will be subject to both the hypotheses in the premises; All absolute monarchs employ their power ill, unless their position makes them need the active support of their subjects, or unless they are persons of unusual strength of judgment and rectitude of purpose. It is of no consequence how rapidly the errors in our premises accumulate, if we are able in this manner to record each error, and keep an account of the aggregate as it swells up.
Secondly: there is a case in which approximate propositions, even without our taking note of the conditions under which they are not true of individual cases, are yet, for the purposes of science, universal ones; namely, in the inquiries which relate to the properties not of individuals, but of multitudes. The principal of these is the science of politics, or of human society. This science is principally concerned with the actions not of solitary individuals, but of masses; with the fortunes not of single persons, but of communities. For the statesman, therefore, it is generally enough to know that _most_ persons act or are acted upon in a particular way; since his speculations and his practical arrangements refer almost exclusively to cases in which the whole community, or some large portion of it, is acted upon at once, and in which, therefore, what is done or felt by _most_ persons determines the result produced by or upon the body at large. He can get on well enough with approximate generalizations on human nature, since what is true approximately of all individuals is true absolutely of all masses. And even when the operations of individual men have a part to play in his deductions, as when he is reasoning of kings, or other single rulers, still, as he is providing for indefinite duration, involving an indefinite succession of such individuals, he must in general both reason and act as if what is true of most persons were true of all.
The two kinds of considerations above adduced are a sufficient refutation of the popular error, that speculations on society and government, as resting on merely probable evidence, must be inferior in certainty and scientific accuracy to the conclusions of what are called the exact sciences, and less to be relied on in practice. There are reasons enough why the moral sciences must remain inferior to at least the more perfect of the physical; why the laws of their more complicated phenomena can not be so completely deciphered, nor the phenomena predicted with the same degree of assurance. But though we can not attain to so many truths, there is no reason that those we can attain should deserve less reliance, or have less of a scientific character. Of this topic, however, I shall treat more systematically in the concluding Book, to which place any further consideration of it must be deferred.
Chapter XXIV.
Of The Remaining Laws Of Nature.
§ 1. In the First Book we found that all the assertions which can be conveyed by language, express some one or more of five different things: Existence; Order in Place; Order in Time; Causation; and Resemblance.(197) Of these, Causation, in our view of the subject, not being fundamentally different from Order in Time, the five species of possible assertions are reduced to four. The propositions which affirm Order in Time in either of its two modes, Co-existence and Succession, have formed, thus far, the subject of the present Book. And we have now concluded the exposition, so far as it falls within the limits assigned to this work, of the nature of the evidence on which these propositions rest, and the processes of investigation by which they are ascertained and proved. There remain three classes of facts: Existence, Order in Place, and Resemblance; in regard to which the same questions are now to be resolved.
Regarding the first of these, very little needs be said. Existence in general, is a subject not for our science, but for metaphysics. To determine what things can be recognized as really existing, independently of our own sensible or other impressions, and in what meaning the term is, in that case, predicated of them, belongs to the consideration of “Things in themselves,” from which, throughout this work, we have as much as possible kept aloof. Existence, so far as Logic is concerned about it, has reference only to phenomena; to actual, or possible, states of external or internal consciousness, in ourselves or others. Feelings of sensitive beings, or possibilities of having such feelings, are the only things the existence of which can be a subject of logical induction, because the only things of which the existence in individual cases can be a subject of experience.
It is true that a thing is said by us to exist, even when it is absent, and therefore is not and can not be perceived. But even then, its existence is to us only another word for our conviction that we should perceive it on a certain supposition; namely, if we were in the needful circumstances of time and place, and endowed with the needful perfection of organs. My belief that the Emperor of China exists, is simply my belief that if I were transported to the imperial palace or some other locality in Pekin, I should see him. My belief that Julius Cæsar existed, is my belief that I should have seen him if I had been present in the field of Pharsalia, or in the senate-house at Rome. When I believe that stars exist beyond the utmost range of my vision, though assisted by the most powerful telescopes yet invented, my belief, philosophically expressed, is, that with still better telescopes, if such existed, I could see them, or that they may be perceived by beings less remote from them in space, or whose capacities of perception are superior to mine.
The existence, therefore, of a phenomenon, is but another word for its being perceived, or for the inferred possibility of perceiving it. When the phenomenon is within the range of present observation, by present observation we assure ourselves of its existence; when it is beyond that range, and is therefore said to be absent, we infer its existence from marks or evidences. But what can these evidences be? Other phenomena; ascertained by induction to be connected with the given phenomenon, either in the way of succession or of co-existence. The simple existence, therefore, of an individual phenomenon, when not directly perceived, is inferred from some inductive law of succession or co-existence; and is consequently not amenable to any peculiar inductive principles. We prove the existence of a thing, by proving that it is connected by succession or co-existence with some known thing.
With respect to _general_ propositions of this class, that is, which affirm the bare fact of existence, they have a peculiarity which renders the logical treatment of them a very easy matter; they are generalizations which are sufficiently proved by a single instance. That ghosts, or unicorns, or sea-serpents exist, would be fully established if it could be ascertained positively that such things had been even once seen. Whatever has once happened, is capable of happening again; the only question relates to the conditions under which it happens.
So far, therefore, as relates to simple existence, the Inductive Logic has no knots to untie. And we may proceed to the remaining two of the great classes into which facts have been divided; Resemblance, and Order in Place.
§ 2. Resemblance and its opposite, except in the case in which they assume the names of Equality and Inequality, are seldom regarded as subjects of science; they are supposed to be perceived by simple apprehension; by merely applying our senses or directing our attention to the two objects at once, or in immediate succession. And this simultaneous, or virtually simultaneous, application of our faculties to the two things which are to be compared, does necessarily constitute the ultimate appeal, wherever such application is practicable. But, in most cases, it is not practicable: the objects can not be brought so close together that the feeling of their resemblance (at least a complete feeling of it) directly arises in the mind. We can only compare each of them with some third object, capable of being transported from one to the other. And besides, even when the objects can be brought into immediate juxtaposition, their resemblance or difference is but imperfectly known to us, unless we have compared them minutely, part by part. Until this has been done, things in reality very dissimilar often appear undistinguishably alike. Two lines of very unequal length will appear about equal when lying in different directions; but place them parallel with their farther extremities even, and if we look at the nearer extremities, their inequality becomes a matter of direct perception.
To ascertain whether, and in what, two phenomena resemble or differ, is not always, therefore, so easy a thing as it might at first appear. When the two can not be brought into juxtaposition, or not so that the observer is able to compare their several parts in detail, he must employ the indirect means of reasoning and general propositions. When we can not bring two straight lines together, to determine whether they are equal, we do it by the physical aid of a foot-rule applied first to one and then to the other, and the logical aid of the general proposition or formula, “Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another.” The comparison of two things through the intervention of a third thing, when their direct comparison is impossible, is the appropriate scientific process for ascertaining resemblances and dissimilarities, and is the sum total of what Logic has to teach on the subject.
An undue extension of this remark induced Locke to consider reasoning itself as nothing but the comparison of two ideas through the medium of a third, and knowledge as the perception of the agreement or disagreement of two ideas; doctrines which the Condillac school blindly adopted, without the qualifications and distinctions with which they were studiously guarded by their illustrious author. Where, indeed, the agreement or disagreement (otherwise called resemblance or dissimilarity) of any two things is the very matter to be determined, as is the case particularly in the sciences of quantity and extension; there, the process by which a solution, if not attainable by direct perception, must be indirectly sought, consists in comparing these two things through the medium of a third. But this is far from being true of all inquiries. The knowledge that bodies fall to the ground is not a perception of agreement or disagreement, but of a series of physical occurrences, a succession of sensations. Locke’s definitions of knowledge and of reasoning required to be limited to our knowledge of, and reasoning about, resemblances. Nor, even when thus restricted, are the propositions strictly correct; since the comparison is not made, as he represents, between the ideas of the two phenomena, but between the phenomena themselves. This mistake has been pointed out in an earlier part of our inquiry,(198) and we traced it to an imperfect conception of what takes place in mathematics, where very often the comparison is really made between the ideas, without any appeal to the outward senses; only, however, because in mathematics a comparison of the ideas is strictly equivalent to a comparison of the phenomena themselves.
Where, as in the case of numbers, lines, and figures, our idea of an object is a complete picture of the object, so far as respects the matter in hand; we can, of course, learn from the picture, whatever could be learned from the object itself by mere contemplation of it as it exists at the particular instant when the picture is taken. No mere contemplation of gunpowder would ever teach us that a spark would make it explode, nor, consequently, would the contemplation of the idea of gunpowder do so; but the mere contemplation of a straight line shows that it can not inclose a space; accordingly the contemplation of the idea of it will show the same.
What takes place in mathematics is thus no argument that the comparison is between the ideas only. It is always, either indirectly or directly, a comparison of the phenomena.
In cases in which we can not bring the phenomena to the test of direct inspection at all, or not in a manner sufficiently precise, but must judge of their resemblance by inference from other resemblances or dissimilarities more accessible to observation, we of course require, as in all cases of ratiocination, generalizations or formulæ applicable to the subject. We must reason from laws of nature; from the uniformities which are observable in the fact of likeness or unlikeness.
§ 3. Of these laws or uniformities, the most comprehensive are those supplied by mathematics; the axioms relating to equality, inequality, and proportionality, and the various theorems thereon founded. And these are the only Laws of Resemblance which require to be, or which can be, treated apart. It is true there are innumerable other theorems which affirm resemblances among phenomena; as that the angle of the reflection of light is _equal_ to its angle of incidence (equality being merely exact resemblance in magnitude). Again, that the heavenly bodies describe _equal_ areas in equal times; and that their periods of revolution are _proportional_ (another species of resemblance) to the sesquiplicate powers of their distances from the centre of force. These and similar propositions affirm resemblances, of the same nature with those asserted in the theorems of mathematics; but the distinction is, that the propositions of mathematics are true of all phenomena whatever, or at least without distinction of origin; while the truths in question are affirmed only of special phenomena, which originate in a certain way; and the equalities, proportionalities, or other resemblances, which exist between such phenomena, must necessarily be either derived from, or identical with, the law of their origin—the law of causation on which they depend. The equality of the areas described in equal times by the planets, is _derived_ from the laws of the causes; and, until its derivation was shown, it was an empirical law. The equality of the angles of reflection and incidence is _identical_ with the law of the cause; for the cause is the incidence of a ray of light upon a reflecting surface, and the equality in question is the very law according to which that cause produces its effects. This class, therefore, of the uniformities of resemblance between phenomena, are inseparable, in fact and in thought, from the laws of the production of those phenomena; and the principles of induction applicable to them are no other than those of which we have treated in the preceding chapters of this Book.
It is otherwise with the truths of mathematics. The laws of equality and inequality between spaces, or between numbers, have no connection with laws of causation. That the angle of reflection is equal to the angle of incidence, is a statement of the mode of action of a particular cause; but that when two straight lines intersect each other the opposite angles are equal, is true of all such lines and angles, by whatever cause produced.
That the squares of the periodic times of the planets are proportional to the cubes of their distances from the sun, is a uniformity derived from the laws of the causes (or forces) which produce the planetary motions; but that the square of any number is four times the square of half the number, is true independently of any cause. The only laws of resemblance, therefore, which we are called upon to consider independently of causation, belong to the province of mathematics.
§ 4. The same thing is evident with respect to the only one remaining of our five categories, Order in Place. The order in place, of the effects of a cause, is (like every thing else belonging to the effects) a consequence of the laws of that cause. The order in place, or, as we have termed it, the collocation, of the primeval causes, is (as well as their resemblance) in each instance an ultimate fact, in which no laws or uniformities are traceable. The only remaining general propositions respecting order in place, and the only ones which have nothing to do with causation, are some of the truths of geometry; laws through which we are able, from the order in place of certain points, lines, or spaces, to infer the order in place of others which are connected with the former in some known mode; quite independently of the particular nature of those points, lines, or spaces, in any other respect than position or magnitude, as well as independently of the physical cause from which in any particular case they happen to derive their origin.
It thus appears that mathematics is the only department of science into the methods of which it still remains to inquire. And there is the less necessity that this inquiry should occupy us long, as we have already, in the Second Book, made considerable progress in it. We there remarked, that the directly inductive truths of mathematics are few in number; consisting of the axioms, together with certain propositions concerning existence, tacitly involved in most of the so-called definitions. And we gave what appeared conclusive reasons for affirming that these original premises, from which the remaining truths of the science are deduced, are, notwithstanding all appearances to the contrary, results of observation and experience; founded, in short, on the evidence of the senses. That things equal to the same thing are equal to one another, and that two straight lines which have once intersected one another continue to diverge, are inductive truths; resting, indeed, like the law of universal causation, only on induction _per enumerationem simplicem_; on the fact that they have been perpetually perceived to be true, and never once found to be false. But, as we have seen in a recent chapter that this evidence, in the case of a law so completely universal as the law of causation, amounts to the fullest proof, so is this even more evidently true of the general propositions to which we are now adverting; because, as a perception of their truth in any individual case whatever, requires only the simple act of looking at the objects in a proper position, there never could have been in their case (what, for a long period, there were in the case of the law of causation) instances which were apparently, though not really, exceptions to them. Their infallible truth was recognized from the very dawn of speculation; and as their extreme familiarity made it impossible for the mind to conceive the objects under any other law, they were, and still are, generally considered as truths recognized by their own evidence, or by instinct.
§ 5. There is something which seems to require explanation, in the fact that the immense multitude of truths (a multitude still as far from being exhausted as ever) comprised in the mathematical sciences, can be elicited from so small a number of elementary laws. One sees not, at first, how it is that there can be room for such an infinite variety of true propositions, on subjects apparently so limited.
To begin with the science of number. The elementary or ultimate truths of this science are the common axioms concerning equality, namely, “Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another,” and “Equals added to equals make equal sums” (no other axioms are required),(199) together with the definitions of the various numbers. Like other so-called definitions, these are composed of two things, the explanation of a name, and the assertion of a fact; of which the latter alone can form a first principle or premise of a science. The fact asserted in the definition of a number is a physical fact. Each of the numbers two, three, four, etc., denotes physical phenomena, and connotes a physical property of those phenomena. Two, for instance, denotes all pairs of things, and twelve all dozens of things, connoting what makes them pairs, or dozens; and that which makes them so is something physical; since it can not be denied that two apples are physically distinguishable from three apples, two horses from one horse, and so forth; that they are a different visible and tangible phenomenon. I am not undertaking to say what the difference is; it is enough that there is a difference of which the senses can take cognizance. And although a hundred and two horses are not so easily distinguished from a hundred and three, as two horses are from three—though in most positions the senses do not perceive any difference—yet they may be so placed that a difference will be perceptible, or else we should never have distinguished them, and given them different names. Weight is confessedly a physical property of things; yet small differences between great weights are as imperceptible to the senses in most situations, as small differences between great numbers; and are only put in evidence by placing the two objects in a peculiar position—namely, in the opposite scales of a delicate balance.
What, then, is that which is connoted by a name of number? Of course, some property belonging to the agglomeration of things which we call by the name; and that property is, the characteristic manner in which the agglomeration is made up of, and may be separated into, parts. I will endeavor to make this more intelligible by a few explanations.
When we call a collection of objects _two_, _three_, or _four_, they are not two, three, or four in the abstract; they are two, three, or four things of some particular kind; pebbles, horses, inches, pounds’ weight.
What the name of number connotes is, the manner in which single objects of the given kind must be put together, in order to produce that particular aggregate. If the aggregate be of pebbles, and we call it _two_, the name implies that, to compose the aggregate, one pebble must be joined to one pebble. If we call it _three_, one and one and one pebble must be brought together to produce it, or else one pebble must be joined to an aggregate of the kind called _two_, already existing. The aggregate which we call _four_, has a still greater number of characteristic modes of formation.
One and one and one and one pebble may be brought together; or two aggregates of the kind called _two_ may be united; or one pebble may be added to an aggregate of the kind called _three_. Every succeeding number in the ascending series, may be formed by the junction of smaller numbers in a progressively greater variety of ways. Even limiting the parts to two, the number may be formed, and consequently may be divided, in as many different ways as there are numbers smaller than itself; and, if we admit of threes, fours, etc., in a still greater variety. Other modes of arriving at the same aggregate present themselves, not by the union of smaller, but by the dismemberment of larger aggregates. Thus, _three pebbles_ may be formed by taking away one pebble from an aggregate of four; _two pebbles_, by an equal division of a similar aggregate; and so on.
Every arithmetical proposition; every statement of the result of an