of the art of Descriptive Geometry, as conceived by M. Monge. It is not, however, difficult to understand what the nature of these intermediate principles must generally be. After framing the most comprehensive possible conception of the end to be aimed at, that is, of the effect to be produced, and determining in the same comprehensive manner the set of conditions on which that effect depends, there remains to be taken, a general survey of the resources which can be commanded for realizing this set of conditions; and when the result of this survey has been embodied in the fewest and most extensive propositions possible, those propositions will express the general relation between the available means and the end, and will constitute the general scientific theory of the art, from which its practical methods will follow as corollaries.
§ 6. But though the reasonings which connect the end or purpose of every art with its means belong to the domain of Science, the definition of the end itself belongs exclusively to Art, and forms its peculiar province.
Every art has one first principle, or general major premise, not borrowed from science; that which enunciates the object aimed at, and affirms it to be a desirable object. The builder’s art assumes that it is desirable to have buildings; architecture, as one of the fine arts, that it is desirable to have them beautiful or imposing. The hygienic and medical arts assume, the one that the preservation of health, the other that the cure of disease, are fitting and desirable ends. These are not propositions of science. Propositions of science assert a matter of fact: an existence, a co-existence, a succession, or a resemblance. The propositions now spoken of do not assert that any thing is, but enjoin or recommend that something should be. They are a class by themselves. A proposition of which the predicate is expressed by the words _ought_ or _should be_, is generically different from one which is expressed by _is_, or _will be_. It is true, that in the largest sense of the words, even these propositions assert something as a matter of fact. The fact affirmed in them is, that the conduct recommended excites in the speaker’s mind the feeling of approbation. This, however, does not go to the bottom of the matter; for the speaker’s approbation is no sufficient reason why other people should approve; nor ought it to be a conclusive reason even with himself. For the purposes of practice, every one must be required to justify his approbation; and for this there is need of general premises, determining what are the proper objects of approbation, and what the proper order of precedence among those objects.
These general premises, together with the principal conclusions which may be deduced from them, form (or rather might form) a body of doctrine, which is properly the Art of Life, in its three departments, Morality, Prudence or Policy, and Æsthetics; the Right, the Expedient, and the Beautiful or Noble, in human conduct and works. To this art (which, in the main, is unfortunately still to be created), all other arts are subordinate; since its principles are those which must determine whether the special aim of any particular art is worthy and desirable, and what is its place in the scale of desirable things. Every art is thus a joint result of laws of nature disclosed by science, and of the general principles of what has been called Teleology, or the Doctrine of Ends;(289) which, borrowing the language of the German metaphysicians, may also be termed, not improperly, the principles of Practical Reason.
A scientific observer or reasoner, merely as such, is not an adviser for practice. His part is only to show that certain consequences follow from certain causes, and that to obtain certain ends, certain means are the most effectual. Whether the ends themselves are such as ought to be pursued, and if so, in what cases and to how great a length, it is no part of his business as a cultivator of science to decide, and science alone will never qualify him for the decision. In purely physical science, there is not much temptation to assume this ulterior office; but those who treat of human nature and society invariably claim it: they always undertake to say, not merely what is, but what ought to be. To entitle them to do this, a complete doctrine of Teleology is indispensable. A scientific theory, however perfect, of the subject-matter, considered merely as part of the order of nature, can in no degree serve as a substitute. In this respect the various subordinate arts afford a misleading analogy. In them there is seldom any visible necessity for justifying the end, since in general its desirableness is denied by nobody, and it is only when the question of precedence is to be decided between that end and some other, that the general principles of Teleology have to be called in; but a writer on Morals and Politics requires those principles at every step. The most elaborate and well-digested exposition of the laws of succession and co-existence among mental or social phenomena, and of their relation to one another as causes and effects, will be of no avail toward the art of Life or of Society, if the ends to be aimed at by that art are left to the vague suggestions of the _intellectus sibi permissus_, or are taken for granted without analysis or questioning.
§ 7. There is, then, a _philosophia prima_ peculiar to Art, as there is one which belongs to Science. There are not only first principles of Knowledge, but first principles of Conduct. There must be some standard by which to determine the goodness or badness, absolute and comparative, of ends, or objects of desire. And whatever that standard is, there can be but one; for if there were several ultimate principles of conduct, the same conduct might be approved by one of those principles and condemned by another; and there would be needed some more general principle, as umpire between them.
Accordingly, writers on Moral Philosophy have mostly felt the necessity not only of referring all rules of conduct, and all judgments of praise and blame, to principles, but of referring them to some one principle; some rule, or standard, with which all other rules of conduct were required to be consistent, and from which by ultimate consequence they could all be deduced. Those who have dispensed with the assumption of such a universal standard, have only been enabled to do so by supposing that a moral sense, or instinct, inherent in our constitution, informs us, both what principles of conduct we are bound to observe, and also in what order these should be subordinated to one another.
The theory of the foundations of morality is a subject which it would be out of place, in a work like this, to discuss at large, and which could not to any useful purpose be treated incidentally. I shall content myself, therefore, with saying, that the doctrine of intuitive moral principles, even if true, would provide only for that portion of the field of conduct which is properly called moral. For the remainder of the practice of life some general principle, or standard, must still be sought; and if that principle be rightly chosen, it will be found, I apprehend, to serve quite as well for the ultimate principle of Morality, as for that of Prudence, Policy, or Taste.
Without attempting in this place to justify my opinion, or even to define the kind of justification which it admits of, I merely declare my conviction, that the general principle to which all rules of practice ought to conform, and the test by which they should be tried, is that of conduciveness to the happiness of mankind, or rather, of all sentient beings; in other words, that the promotion of happiness is the ultimate principle of Teleology.(290) I do not mean to assert that the promotion of happiness should be itself the end of all actions, or even of all rules of action. It is the justification, and ought to be the controller, of all ends, but it is not itself the sole end. There are many virtuous actions, and even virtuous modes of action (though the cases are, I think, less frequent than is often supposed), by which happiness in the particular instance is sacrificed, more pain being produced than pleasure. But conduct of which this can be truly asserted, admits of justification only because it can be shown that, on the whole, more happiness will exist in the world, if feelings are cultivated which will make people, in certain cases, regardless of happiness. I fully admit that this is true; that the cultivation of an ideal nobleness of will and conduct should be to individual human beings an end, to which the specific pursuit either of their own happiness or of that of others (except so far as included in that idea) should, in any case of conflict, give way. But I hold that the very question, what constitutes this elevation of character, is itself to be decided by a reference to happiness as the standard. The character itself should be, to the individual, a paramount end, simply because the existence of this ideal nobleness of character, or of a near approach to it, in any abundance, would go farther than all things else toward making human life happy, both in the comparatively humble sense of pleasure and freedom from pain, and in the higher meaning, of rendering life, not what it now is almost universally, puerile and insignificant, but such as human beings with highly developed faculties can care to have.
§ 8. With these remarks we must close this summary view of the application of the general logic of scientific inquiry to the moral and social departments of science. Notwithstanding the extreme generality of the principles of method which I have laid down (a generality which, I trust, is not, in this instance, synonymous with vagueness), I have indulged the hope that to some of those on whom the task will devolve of bringing those most important of all sciences into a more satisfactory state, these observations may be useful, both in removing erroneous, and in clearing up the true, conceptions of the means by which, on subjects of so high a degree of complication, truth can be attained. Should this hope be realized, what is probably destined to be the great intellectual achievement of the next two or three generations of European thinkers will have been in some degree forwarded.
THE END.
FOOTNOTES 1 In the later editions of Archbishop Whately’s “Logic,” he states his meaning to be, not that “rules” for the ascertainment of truths by inductive investigation can not be laid down, or that they may not be “of eminent service,” but that they “must always be comparatively vague and general, and incapable of being built up into a regular demonstrative theory like that of the Syllogism.” (Book iv., ch.
iv., § 3.) And he observes, that to devise a system for this purpose, capable of being “brought into a scientific form,” would be an achievement which “he must be more sanguine than scientific who expects.” (Book iv., ch. ii., § 4.) To effect this, however, being the express object of the portion of the present work which treats of Induction, the words in the text are no overstatement of the difference of opinion between Archbishop Whately and me on the subject.
2 Now forming a chapter in his volume on “The Philosophy of Discovery.”
3 Archbishop Whately.
4 I use these terms indiscriminately, because, for the purpose in view, there is no need for making any distinction between them. But metaphysicians usually restrict the name Intuition to the direct knowledge we are supposed to have of things external to our minds, and Consciousness to our knowledge of our own mental phenomena.
5 This important theory has of late been called in question by a writer of deserved reputation, Mr. Samuel Bailey; but I do not conceive that the grounds on which it has been admitted as an established doctrine for a century past, have been at all shaken by that gentleman’s objections. I have elsewhere said what appeared to me necessary in reply to his arguments. (_Westminster Review_ for October, 1842; reprinted in “Dissertations and Discussions,” vol.
ii.)
6 The view taken in the text, of the definition and purpose of Logic, stands in marked opposition to that of the school of philosophy which, in this country, is represented by the writings of Sir William Hamilton and of his numerous pupils. Logic, as this school conceives it, is “the Science of the Formal Laws of Thought;” a definition framed for the express purpose of excluding, as irrelevant to Logic, whatever relates to Belief and Disbelief, or to the pursuit of truth as such, and restricting the science to that very limited portion of its total province, which has reference to the conditions, not of Truth, but of Consistency. What I have thought it useful to say in opposition to this limitation of the field of Logic, has been said at some length in a separate work, first published in 1865, and entitled “An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy, and of the Principal Philosophical Questions discussed in his Writings.” For the purposes of the present Treatise, I am content that the justification of the larger extension which I give to the domain of the science, should rest on the sequel of the Treatise itself. Some remarks on the relation which the Logic of Consistency bears to the Logic of Truth, and on the place which that particular part occupies in the whole to which it belongs, will be found in the present volume (Book II., chap.
iii., § 9).
_ 7 Computation or Logic_, chap. ii.
8 In the original “had, _or had not_.” These last words, as involving a subtlety foreign to our present purpose, I have forborne to quote.
9 Vide infra, note at the end of § 3, book ii., chap. ii.
_ 10 Notare_, to mark; _con_notare, to mark _along with_; to mark one thing _with_ or _in addition to_ another.
11 Archbishop Whately, who, in the later editions of his _Elements of Logic_, aided in reviving the important distinction treated of in the text, proposes the term “Attributive” as a substitute for “Connotative” (p. 22, 9th edit.). The expression is, in itself, appropriate; but as it has not the advantage of being connected with any verb, of so markedly distinctive a character as “to connote,” it is not, I think, fitted to supply the place of the word Connotative in scientific use.
12 A writer who entitles his book _Philosophy; or, the Science of Truth_, charges me in his very first page (referring at the foot of it to this passage) with asserting that _general_ names have properly no signification. And he repeats this statement many times in the course of his volume, with comments, not at all flattering, thereon. It is well to be now and then reminded to how great a length perverse misquotation (for, strange as it appears, I do not believe that the writer is dishonest) can sometimes go. It is a warning to readers when they see an author accused, with volume and page referred to, and the apparent guarantee of inverted commas, of maintaining something more than commonly absurd, not to give implicit credence to the assertion without verifying the reference.
13 “Take the familiar term Stone. It is applied to mineral and rocky materials, to the kernels of fruit, to the accumulations in the gall-bladder and in the kidney; while it is refused to polished minerals (called gems), to rocks that have the cleavage suited for roofing (slates), and to baked clay (bricks). It occurs in the designation of the magnetic oxide of iron (loadstone), and not in speaking of other metallic ores. Such a term is wholly unfit for accurate reasoning, unless hedged round on every occasion by other phrases; as building stone, precious stone, gall-stone, etc.
Moreover, the methods of definition are baffled for want of sufficient community to ground upon. There is no quality uniformly present in the cases where it is applied, and uniformly absent where it is not applied; hence the definer would have to employ largely the license of striking off existing applications, and taking in new 14 Before quitting the subject of connotative names, it is proper to observe, that the first writer who, in our times, has adopted from the schoolmen the word _to connote_, Mr. James Mill, in his _Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind_, employs it in a signification different from that in which it is here used. He uses the word in a sense co-extensive with its etymology, applying it to every case in which a name, while pointing directly to one thing (which is consequently termed its signification), includes also a tacit reference to some other thing. In the case considered in the text, that of concrete general names, his language and mine are the converse of one another. Considering (very justly) the signification of the name to lie in the attribute, he speaks of the word as _noting_ the attribute, and _connoting_ the things possessing the attribute. And he describes abstract names as being properly concrete names with their connotation dropped; whereas, in my view, it is the _de_notation which would be said to be dropped, what was previously connoted becoming the whole signification.
In adopting a phraseology at variance with that which so high an authority, and one which I am less likely than any other person to undervalue, has deliberately sanctioned, I have been influenced by the urgent necessity for a term exclusively appropriated to express the manner in which a concrete general name serves to mark the attributes which are involved in its signification. This necessity can scarcely be felt in its full force by any one who has not found by experience how vain is the attempt to communicate clear ideas on the philosophy of language without such a word. It is hardly an exaggeration to say, that some of the most prevalent of the errors with which logic has been infected, and a large part of the cloudiness and confusion of ideas which have enveloped it, would, in all probability, have been avoided, if a term had been in common use to express exactly what I have signified by the term to connote. And the schoolmen, to whom we are indebted for the greater part of our logical language, gave us this also, and in this very sense. For though some of their general expressions countenance the use of the word in the more extensive and vague acceptation in which it is taken by Mr. Mill, yet when they had to define it specifically as a technical term, and to fix its meaning as such, with that admirable precision which always characterizes their definitions, they clearly explained that nothing was said to be connoted except _forms_, which word may generally, in their writings, be understood as synonymous with _attributes_.
Now, if the word _to connote_, so well suited to the purpose to which they applied it, be diverted from that purpose by being taken to fulfill another, for which it does not seem to me to be at all required; I am unable to find any expression to replace it, but such as are commonly employed in a sense so much more general, that it would be useless attempting to associate them peculiarly with this precise idea. Such are the words, to involve, to imply, etc. By employing these, I should fail of attaining the object for which alone the name is needed, namely, to distinguish this particular kind of involving and implying from all other kinds, and to assure to it the degree of habitual attention which its importance demands.
15 Professor Bain (_Logic_, i., 56) thinks that negative names are not names of all things whatever except those denoted by the correlative positive name, but only for all things of some particular class: _not-white_, for instance, he deems not to be a name for every thing in nature except white things, but only for every _colored_ thing other than white. In this case, however, as in all others, the test of what a name denotes is what it can be predicated of: and we can certainly predicate of a sound, or a smell, that it is not white.
The affirmation and the negation of the same attribute can not but divide the whole field of predication between them.
16 Or rather, all objects except itself and the percipient mind; for, as we shall see hereafter, to ascribe any attribute to an object, necessarily implies a mind to perceive it.
The simple and clear explanation given in the text, of relation and relative names, a subject so long the opprobrium of metaphysics, was given (as far as I know) for the first time, by Mr. James Mill, in his Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind.
17 On the preceding passage Professor Bain remarks (Logic, i., 265): “The Categories do not seem to have been intended as a classification of Namable Things, in the sense of ‘an enumeration of all kinds of Things which are capable of being made predicates, or of having any thing predicated of them.’ They seem to have been rather intended as a generalization of predicates; an analysis of the final import of predication. Viewed in this light, they are not open to the objections offered by Mr. Mill. The proper question to ask is not—In what Category are we to place sensations or other feelings or states of mind? but, Under what Categories can we predicate regarding states of mind? Take, for example, Hope. When we say that it is a state of mind, we predicate Substance: we may also describe how great it is (Quantity), what is the quality of it, pleasurable or painful (Quality), what it has reference to (Relation). Aristotle seems to have framed the Categories on the plan—Here is an individual; what is the final analysis of all that we can predicate about him?”
This is doubtless a true statement of the leading idea in the classification. The Category Οὐσία was certainly understood by Aristotle to be a general name for all possible answers to the question Quid sit? when asked respecting a concrete individual; as the other Categories are names comprehending all possible answers to the questions Quantum sit? Quale sit? etc. In Aristotle’s conception, therefore, the Categories may not have been a classification of Things; but they were soon converted into one by his Scholastic followers, who certainly regarded and treated them as a classification of Things, and carried them out as such, dividing down the Category Substance as a naturalist might do, into the different classes of physical or metaphysical objects as distinguished from attributes, and the other Categories into the principal varieties of quantity, quality, relation, etc. It is, therefore, a just subject of complaint against them, that they had no Category of Feeling. Feeling is assuredly predicable as a summum genus, of every particular kind of feeling, for instance, as in Mr.
Bain’s example, of Hope: but it can not be brought within any of the Categories as interpreted either by Aristotle or by his followers.
20 It is to be regretted that Sir William Hamilton, though he often strenuously insists on this doctrine, and though, in the passage quoted, he states it with a comprehensiveness and force which leave nothing to be desired, did not consistently adhere to his own doctrine, but maintained along with it opinions with which it is utterly irreconcilable. See the third and other chapters of _An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy_.
21 “Nous savons qu’il existe quelque chose hors de nous, parceque nous ne pouvons expliquer nos perceptions sans les rattacher à des causes distinctes de nous mêmes; nous savons de plus que ces causes, dont nous ne connaissons pas d’ailleurs l’essence, produisent les effets les plus variables, les plus divers, et même les plus contraires, selon qu’elles rencontrent telle nature ou telle disposition du sujet. Mais savons-nous quelque chose de plus? et même, vu le caractère indéterminé des causes que nous concevons dans les corps, y a-t-il quelque chose de plus à savoir? Y a-t-il lieu de nous enquérir si nous percevons les choses telles qu’elles sont? Non évidemment...Je ne dis pas que le problème est insoluble, _je dis qu’il est absurde et enferme une contradiction_. Nous _ne savons pas ce que ces causes sont en elles-mêmes_, et la raison nous défend de chercher à le connaître: mais il est bien évident _à priori_, qu’_elles ne sont pas en elles-mêmes ce qu’elles sont par rapport à nous_, puisque la présence du sujet modifie nécessairement leur action. Supprimez tout sujet sentant, il est certain que ces causes agiraient encore puisqu’elles continueraient d’exister; mais elles agiraient autrement; elles seraient encore des qualités et des propriétés, mais qui ne ressembleraient à rien de ce que nous connaissons. Le feu ne manifesterait plus aucune des propriétés que nous lui connaissons: que serait-il? C’est ce que nous ne saurons jamais. _C’est d’ailleurs peut-être un problème qui ne répugne pas seulement à la nature de notre esprit, mais à l’essence même des choses._ Quand même en effet on supprimerait par le pensée tous les sujets sentants, il faudrait encore admettre que nul corps ne manifesterait ses propriétés autrement qu’en relation avec un sujet quelconque, et dans ce cas _ses propriétés ne seraient encore que relatives_: en sorte qu’il me paraît fort raisonnable d’admettre que les propriétés déterminées des corps n’existent pas indépendamment d’un sujet quelconque, et que quand on demande si les propriétés de la matiere sont telles que nous les percevons, il faudrait voir auparavant si elles sont en tant que déterminées, et dans quel sens il est vrai de dire qu’elles sont.”—_Cours d’Histoire de la Philosophie Morale au 18me siècle_, 8me leçon.
22 An attempt, indeed, has been made by Reid and others, to establish that although some of the properties we ascribe to objects exist only in our sensations, others exist in the things themselves, being such as can not possibly be copies of any impression upon the senses; and they ask, from what sensations our notions of extension and figure have been derived? The gauntlet thrown down by Reid was taken up by Brown, who, applying greater powers of analysis than had previously been applied to the notions of extension and figure, pointed out that the sensations from which those notions are derived, are sensations of touch, combined with sensations of a class previously too little adverted to by metaphysicians, those which have their seat in our muscular frame. His analysis, which was adopted and followed up by James Mill, has been further and greatly improved upon in Professor Bain’s profound work, _The Senses and the Intellect_, and in the chapters on “Perception” of a work of eminent analytic power, Mr. Herbert Spencer’s _Principles of Psychology_.
On this point M. Cousin may again be cited in favor of the better doctrine. M. Cousin recognizes, in opposition to Reid, the essential subjectivity of our conceptions of what are called the primary qualities of matter, as extension, solidity, etc., equally with those of color, heat, and the remainder of the so-called secondary qualities.—_Cours_, ut supra, 9me leçon.
23 This doctrine, which is the most complete form of the philosophical theory known as the Relativity of Human Knowledge, has, since the recent revival in this country of an active interest in metaphysical speculation, been the subject of a greatly increased amount of discussion and controversy; and dissentients have manifested themselves in considerably greater number than I had any knowledge of when the passage in the text was written. The doctrine has been attacked from two sides. Some thinkers, among whom are the late Professor Ferrier, in his _Institutes of Metaphysic_, and Professor John Grote, in his _Exploratio Philosophica_, appear to deny altogether the reality of Noumena, or Things in themselves—of an unknowable substratum or support for the sensations which we experience, and which, according to the theory, constitute all our knowledge of an external world. It seems to me, however, that in Professor Grote’s case at least, the denial of Noumena is only apparent, and that he does not essentially differ from the other class of objectors, including Mr. Bailey in his valuable _Letters on the Philosophy of the Human Mind_, and (in spite of the striking passage quoted in the text) also Sir William Hamilton, who contend for a direct knowledge by the human mind of more than the sensations—of certain attributes or properties as they exist not in us, but in the Things themselves.
With the first of these opinions, that which denies Noumena, I have, as a metaphysician, no quarrel; but, whether it be true or false, it is irrelevant to Logic. And since all the forms of language are in contradiction to it, nothing but confusion could result from its unnecessary introduction into a treatise, every essential doctrine of which could stand equally well with the opposite and accredited opinion. The other and rival doctrine, that of a direct perception or intuitive knowledge of the outward object as it is in itself, considered as distinct from the sensations we receive from it, is of far greater practical moment. But even this question, depending on the nature and laws of Intuitive Knowledge, is not within the province of Logic. For the grounds of my own opinion concerning it, I must content myself with referring to a work already mentioned—_An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy_; several chapters of which are devoted to a full discussion of the questions and theories relating to the supposed direct perception of external objects.
24 Professor Bain (_Logic_, i., 49) defines attributes as “points of community among classes.” This definition expresses well one point of view, but is liable to the objection that it applies only to the attributes of classes; though an object, unique in its kind, may be said to have attributes. Moreover, the definition is not ultimate, since the points of community themselves admit of, and require, further analysis; and Mr. Bain does analyze them into resemblances in the sensations, or other states of consciousness excited by the object.
_ 25 Analysis of the Human Mind_, i., 126 et seq.
27 Instead of Universal and Particular as applied to propositions, Professor Bain proposes (_Logic_, i., 81) the terms Total and Partial; reserving the former pair of terms for their inductive meaning, “the contrast between a general proposition and the particulars or individuals that we derive it from.” This change in nomenclature would be attended with the further advantage, that Singular propositions, which in the Syllogism follow the same rules as Universal, would be included along with them in the same class, that of Total predications. It is not the Subject’s denoting many things or only one, that is of importance in reasoning, it is that the assertion is made of the whole or a part only of what the Subject denotes. The words Universal and Particular, however, are so familiar and so well understood in both the senses mentioned by Mr.
Bain, that the double meaning does not produce any material inconvenience.
28 It may, however, be considered as equivalent to a universal proposition with a different predicate, viz.: “All wine is good _quâ_ wine,” or “is good in respect of the qualities which constitute it wine.”
30 Dr. Whewell (_Philosophy of Discovery_, p. 242) questions this statement, and asks, “Are we to say that a mole can not dig the ground, except he has an idea of the ground, and of the snout and paws with which he digs it?” I do not know what passes in a mole’s mind, nor what amount of mental apprehension may or may not accompany his instinctive actions. But a human being does not use a spade by instinct; and he certainly could not use it unless he had knowledge of a spade, and of the earth which he uses it upon.
31 Professor Bain remarks, in qualification of the statement in the text (_Logic_, i., 50), that the word Class has two meanings; “the class definite, and the class indefinite. The class definite is an enumeration of actual individuals, as the Peers of the Realm, the oceans of the globe, the known planets...The class indefinite is unenumerated. Such classes are stars, planets, gold-bearing rocks, men, poets, virtuous...In this last acceptation of the word, class name and general name are identical. The class name denotes an indefinite number of individuals, and connotes the points of community or likeness.”
The theory controverted in the text, tacitly supposes all classes to be _definite_. I have assumed them to be indefinite; because, for