History of scientific ideas

2. Yet speculative men have been constantly employed in attempts to arrive at that which thus seems to be placed out of their reach. The Origin of Languages, the Origin of the present Distribution of Plants and Animals, the Origin of the Earth, have been common subjects of diligent and persevering inquiry. Indeed inquiries respecting such subjects have been, at least till lately, the usual form which Palætiological researches have assumed. Cosmogony, the Origin of the World, of which, in such speculations, the earth was considered as a principal part, has been a favourite study both of ancient and of modern times: and most of the attempts at Geology previous to the present period have been Cosmogonies or Geogonies, rather than that more genuine science which we have endeavoured to delineate. Again: Glossology, though now an extensive body of solid knowledge, was 317 mainly brought into being by inquiries concerning the Original Language spoken by men; and the nature of the first separation and diffusion of languages, the first peopling of the earth by man and by animals, were long sought after with ardent curiosity, although of course with reference to the authority of the Scriptures, as well as the evidence of natural phenomena. Indeed the interest of such inquiries even yet is far from being extinguished. The disposition to explore the past in the hope of finding, by the light of natural reasoning as well as by the aid of revelation, the origin of the present course of things, appears to be unconquerable. ‘What was the beginning?’ is a question which the human race cannot desist from perpetually asking. And no failure in obtaining a satisfactory answer can prevent inquisitive spirits from again and again repeating the inquiry, although the blank abyss into which it is uttered does not even return an echo.

3. What, then, is the reason of an attempt so pertinacious yet so fruitless? By what motive are we impelled thus constantly to seek what we can never find? Why are the errour of our conjectures, the futility of our reasonings, the precariousness of our interpretations, over and over again proved to us in vain? Why is it impossible for us to acquiesce in our ignorance and to relinquish the inquiry? Why cannot we content ourselves with examining those links of the chain of causes which are nearest to us,—those in which the connexion is intelligible and clear; instead of fixing our attention upon those remote portions where we can no longer estimate its coherence? In short, why did not men from the first take for the subject of their speculations the Course of Nature rather than the Origin of Things?

To this we reply, that in doing what they have thus done, in seeking what they have sought, men are impelled by an intellectual necessity. They cannot conceive a Series of connected occurrences without a Commencement; they cannot help supposing a cause for the Whole, as well as a cause for each part; they cannot be satisfied with a succession of causes without 318 assuming a First Cause. Such an assumption is necessarily impressed upon our minds by our contemplation of a series of causes and effects; that there must be a First Cause, is accepted by all intelligent reasoners as an Axiom: and like other Axioms, its truth is necessarily implied in the Idea which it involves.

4. The evidence of this axiom may be illustrated in several ways. In the first place, the axiom is assumed in the argument usually offered to prove the existence of the Deity. Since, it is said, the world now exists, and since nothing cannot produce something, something must have existed from eternity. This Something is the First Cause: it is God.

Now what I have to remark here is this:—the conclusiveness of this argument, as a proof of the existence of one independent, immutable Deity, depends entirely upon the assumption of the axiom above stated. The World, a series of causes and effects, exists: therefore there must be, not only this series of causes and effects, but also a First Cause. It will be easily seen, that without the axiom, that in every series of causes and effects there must be a First Cause, the reasoning is altogether inconclusive.

5. Or to put the matter otherwise: The argument for the existence of the Deity was stated thus: Something exists, therefore something must have existed from eternity. ‘Granted,’ the opponent might say; ‘but this something which has existed from eternity, why may it not be this very series of causes and effects which is now going on, and which appears to contain in itself no indication of beginning or end?’ And thus, without the assumption of the necessity of a First Cause, the force of the argument may be resisted.

6. But, it may be asked, how do those who have written to prove the existence of the Deity reply to such an objection as the one just stated? It is natural to suppose that, on a subject so interesting and so long discussed, all the obvious arguments with their replies, have been fully brought into view. What is the result in this case? 319

The principal modes of replying to the above objection, that the series of causes and effects which now exists, may have existed from eternity, appear to be these.

In the first place, our minds cannot be satisfied with a series of successive, dependent, causes and effects, without something first and independent. We pass from effect to cause, and from that to a higher cause, in search of something on which the mind can rest; but if we can do nothing but repeat this process, there is no use in it. We move our limbs, but make no advance. Our question is not answered, but evaded. The mind cannot acquiesce in the destiny thus presented to it, of being referred from event to event, from object to object, along an interminable vista of causation and time. Now this mode of stating the reply,—to say that the mind cannot thus be satisfied, appears to be equivalent to saying that the mind is conscious of a Principle, in virtue of which such a view as this must be rejected;—the mind takes refuge in the assumption of a First Cause, from an employment inconsistent with its own nature.

7. Or again, we may avoid the objection, by putting the argument for the existence of a Deity in this form: The series of causes and effects which we call the world, or the course of nature, may be considered as a whole, and this whole must have a cause of its existence. The whole collection of objects and events may be comprehended as a single effect, and of this effect there must be a cause. This Cause of the Universe must be superior to, and independent of the special events, which, happening in time, make up the universe of which He is the cause. He must exist and exercise causation, before these events can begin: He must be the First Cause.

Although the argument is here somewhat modified in form, the substance is the same as before. For the assumption that we may consider the whole series of causes and effects as a single effect, is equivalent to the assumption that besides partial causes we must have a First Cause. And thus the Idea of a First Cause, and 320 the axiom which asserts its necessity, are recognized in the usual argumentation on this subject.

8. This Idea of a First Cause, and the principle involved in the Idea, have been the subject of discussion in another manner. As we have already said, we assume as an axiom that a First Cause must exist; and we assert that God, the First Cause, exists eternal and immutable, by the necessity which the axiom implies. Hence God is said to exist necessarily;—to be a necessarily existing being. And when this necessary existence of God had been spoken of, it soon began to be contemplated as a sufficient reason, and as an absolute demonstration of His existence; without any need of referring to the world as an effect, in order to arrive at God as the cause. And thus men conceived that they had obtained a proof of the existence of the Deity, à priori, from Ideas, as well as à posteriori, from Effects.

9. Thus, Thomas Aquinas employs this reasoning to prove the eternity of God29: ‘Oportet ponere aliquod primum necessarium quod est per se ipsum necessarium; et hoc est Deus, cum sit prima causa ut dictum est: igitur Deus æternus est, cum omne necessarium per se sit æternum.’ It is true that the schoolmen never professed to be able to prove the existence of the Deity à priori: but they made use of this conception of necessary existence in a manner which approached very near to such an attempt. Thus Suarez30 discusses the question, ‘Utrum aliquo modo possit à priori demonstrari Deum esse.’ And resolves the question in this manner: ‘Ad hunc ergo modum dicendum est: Demonstrato à posteriori Deum esse ens necessarium et a se, ex hoc attributo posse à priori demonstrari præter illud non posse esse aliud ens necessarium et a se, et consequenter demonstrari Deum esse.’

But in modern times attempts were made by Descartes and Samuel Clarke, to prove the Divine 321 existence at once à priori, from the conception of necessary existence; which, it was argued, could not subsist without actual existence. This argumentation was acutely and severely criticised by Dr. Waterland.

10. Without dwelling upon a subject, the discussion of which does not enter into the design of the present work, I may remark that the question whether an à priori proof of the existence of a First Cause be possible, is a question concerning the nature of our Ideas, and the evidence of the axioms which they involve, of the same kind as many questions which we have already had to discuss. Is our Conception or Idea of a First Cause gathered from the effects we see around us? It is plain that we must answer, here as in other cases, that the Idea is not extracted from the phenomena, but assumed in order that the phenomena may become intelligible to the mind;—that the Idea is a necessary one, inasmuch as it does not depend upon observation for its evidence; but that it depends upon observation for its development, since without some observation, we cannot conceive the mind to be cognizant of the relation of causation at all. In this respect, however, the Idea of a First Cause is no less necessary than the ideas of Space, or Time, or Cause in general. And whether we call the reasoning derived from such a necessity an argument à priori or à posteriori, in either case it possesses the genuine character of demonstration, being founded upon axioms which command universal assent.

11. I have, however, spoken of our Conception rather than of our Idea of a First Cause; for the notion of a First Cause appears to be rather a modification of the Fundamental Idea of Cause, which was formerly discussed, than a separate and peculiar Idea. And the Axiom, that there must be a First Cause, is recognised by most persons as an application of the general Axiom of Causation, that every effect must have a Cause; this latter Axiom being applied to the World, considered in its totality, as a single Effect. This distinction, however, between an Idea and a Conception, is of no material consequence to our argument; provided we 322 allow the maxim, that there must be a First Cause, to be necessarily and evidently true; whether it be thought better to speak of it as an independent Axiom, or to consider it as derived from the general Axiom of Causation.

12. Thus we necessarily infer a First Cause, although the Palætiological Sciences only point towards it, and do not lead us to it. But I must observe further; that in each of the series of events which form the subject of Palætiological research, the First Cause is the same. Without here resting upon reasoning founded upon our Conception of a First Cause, I may remark that this identity is proved by the close connexion of all the branches of natural science, and the way in which the causes and the events of each are interwoven with those which belong to the others. We must needs believe that the First Cause which produced the earth and its atmosphere is also the Cause of the plants which clothe its surface; that the First Cause of the vegetable and of the animal world are the same; that the First Cause which produced light produced also eyes; that the First Cause which produced air and organs of articulation produced also language and the faculties by which language is rendered possible: and if those faculties, then also all man’s other faculties;—the powers by which, as we have said, he discerns right and wrong, and recognises a providential as well as a natural course of things. Nor can we think otherwise than that the Being who gave these faculties, bestowed them for some purpose;—bestowed them for that purpose which alone is compatible with their nature:—the purpose, namely, of guiding and elevating man in his present career, and of preparing him for another state of being to which they irresistibly direct his hopes. And thus, although, as we have said, no one of the Palætiological Sciences can be traced continuously to an Origin, yet they not only each point to an Origin, but all to the same Origin. Their lines are broken indeed, as they run backwards into the early periods of the world, but yet they all appear to converge to the same invisible point. And 323 this point, thus indicated by the natural course of things, can be no other than that which is disclosed to us as the starting-point of the providential course of the world; for we are persuaded by such reasons as have just been hinted, that the Creator of the natural world can be no other than the Author and Governor and Judge of the moral and spiritual world.

13. Thus we are led, by our material Sciences, and especially by the Palætiological class of them, to the borders of a higher region, and to a point of view from which we have a prospect of other provinces of knowledge;—to contemplations in which other faculties of man are concerned besides his intellectual, other interests involved besides those of speculation. On these it does not belong to our present plan to dwell: but even such a brief glance as we have taken of the connexion of material with moral speculations may not be useless, since it may serve to show that the principles of truth which we are now laboriously collecting among the results of the physical sciences, may possibly find some application in those parts of knowledge towards which men most naturally look with deeper interest and more serious reverence.

We have been employed hitherto in examining the materials of knowledge, Facts and Ideas;—Facts in our former History, and Ideas in the present History. We have dwelt at length on this latter element; inasmuch as the consideration of it is, on various accounts, and especially at the present time, by far the most important, having hitherto been least distinctly attended to as a special element of scientific knowledge.

There still remains an important task, with a view to which we have undertaken this survey of the past course of human thought and discovery:—namely, the task of determining the processes by which these materials may actually be made to constitute knowledge. 324 We have surveyed the stones which lie before us, partly built and partly ready for building: we have found them exactly squared, and often curiously covered with significant imagery and important inscriptions. We have now to discover how they may best be fitted into their places, and cemented together, so that rising stage above stage, they may grow at last into that fair and lofty temple of Truth, for which we cannot doubt that they were intended by the Great Architect.

This task, the description of the processes by which Scientific Truth is discovered and established, we shall, as has already been said, entitle, in reference to previous attempts of the same kind, Novum Organum Renovatum.

end of vol. ii.

Cambridge: Printed at the University Press.