ought to be,
Every man will be his own Lawyer and his own Doctor, and such is the perversity of human nature, he will also be his own Iago, and feed himself with suspicions. Nearly all tragedies hinge on this error.
To avoid being the cause of misunderstanding to others, it is a good rule never to speak critically of others, except in their presence, or in print. When I am obliged to do this in conversation, with persons of unknown or doubtful exactitude, I take care to keep much below the truth in matters of censure, as anything of that kind may gain ten or twenty per cent, in carriage. When with men of just habits of interpretation, I pay them the highest compliment of friendship, and speak to them of others, without reserve.
Notorious are the contumelies put upon the cases of grievance presented from the people in the House of Commons. Nor is it altogether causeless. So prone are the ignorant to mistake their prejudices for facts, and ascribe to others as crimes what exists only in their own surmises, that most popular cases may be stripped of half their pretensions without injuring their truth. Exaggeration is the vice of ignorance. Half the speeches addressed to 'King Mob' are hyperbolic. The sentiments of public meetings minister too often to the prevalent inflation. The people will be powerful when they learn to be exact—and not till then.
The only mode of correcting this evil is to instil into the people the wise rule of Burlamiqui. To reason, (that is, inductively) says this writer, is to calculate, and as it were draw up an account, after balancing all arguments, in order to see on which side the advantage lies. Burlamiqui had law chiefly in view in his remark, but the rule is of immense application. A logician is a secretary or banker's clerk, who keeps an account between truth and error. When a lady once consulted Dr. Johnson on the degree of turpitude to be attached to her son's robbing an orchard—'Madam,' said Johnson, 'it all depends upon the weight of the boy. I remember my schoolfellow, Davy Garrick, who was always a little fellow, robbing a dozen orchards with impunity, but the very first time I climbed up an apple tree, for I was always a heavy boy, the bough broke with me, and it was called a judgment. I suppose that is why Justice is represented with a pair of scales.' This may not be the precise reason why Justice has a pair of scales, but the point goes to the root of the matter. Without weighing there can be neither justice nor fair induction.
In illustration of these views Mr. Mill has some able remarks:—'In proportion to any person's deficiency of knowledge and mental cultivation, is generally his inability to discriminate between his inferences and the perceptions on which they were grounded.
Many a marvellous tale many a scandalous anecdote, owes its origin to this incapacity. The narrater relates, not what he saw or heard, but the impression which he derived from what he saw or heard, and of which perhaps the greater part consisted of inference, though the whole is related not as inference but as matter-of-fact. The difficulty of inducing witnesses to restrain, within any moderate limits, the intermixture of their inferences with the narrative of their perceptions, is well known to experienced cross-examiners; and still more is this the case when ignorant persons attempt to describe any natural phenomenon. "The simplest narrative," says Dugald Stewart, "of the most illiterate observer involves more or less of hypothesis nay, in general, it will be found that, in proportion to his ignorance, the greater is the number of conjectural principle involved in his statements. A village apothecary (and, if possible, in a still greater degree, an experienced nurse) is seldom able to describe; the plainest case, without employing a phraseology of which every word is a theory; whereas a simple and genuine specification of the phenomena which mark a particular disease—a specification unsophisticated by fancy, or by preconceived opinions, may be regarded as unequivocal evidence of a mind trained by long and successful study to the most difficult of all arts, that of the faithful interpretation of nature."'*
It is in judgments formed, in reprehensible indifference to the actual facts of the case, that party rancour and the proverbial injustice of popular political opinion take their rise. A useful caution on this head is pronounced by Lord Brougham in his sketch of the life of Lord Wellesley:—'How often do we see,' observes his lordship, 'vehement: and unceasing; attacks made upon a minister or a statesman, perhaps not in the public service, for something which he does not choose to defend or explain, resting his claims to the confidence of his countrymen upon his past exertions and his known character. Yet these assaults are unremittingly made upon him, and the people believe that so much noise could not be stirred up without something to authorise it. Sometimes the objects of the calumny are silent from disdain; sometimes from knowing that the base propagators of it will only return to their slander the more eagerly alter their conviction of falsehood; but sometimes, also, the silencer may be owing to official reserve, of which we see a most remarkable instance in the ease of Lord Wellesly.'
Not only are enemies of the people afforded a justification for their opposition by wrongful judgment pronounced upon them, but the friends of the people often pass over to the other side through the same cause. When a leader of the people first comes in personal contact with the opposite party, and becomes acquainted with merits of feeling and judgment which he had as it were pledged himself to deny, and indeed achieved himself a position by disbelieving in, he becomes ashamed of the injustice exacted from him by his inexorable adherents, and forsakes his party when he should only forsake its errors. The case of Barnave, in the first French Revolution, is a memorable instance of this. On lesser theatres I have seen many instances of this kind of conversion; Such changes have always been ascribed to venality, yet they are men of generous instincts who are thus overcome—but they want logical strength, and cannot correct themselves without falling.
It is a wise rule in conversation, never to guess at meanings. When, an observation is made, capable of affording two inferences, at once put the question which shall elicit the meaning intended. Conversation is held to no purpose unless explicitness comes out of it. Innumerable are the errors that arise through letting remarks pass, of which we only suppose we know the purport. This is a fruitful source of misunderstanding. When in Scotland I was much instructed by the intellectual characteristics of the people. The Scotch are essentially a reflective people. The English conceive doubts, but the Scotch put them into queries. Before I had been in the country many hours I was struck by the inductive habits of the people. A very old and illiterate woman, to whom I put an indefinite question, eyed me deliberately from head to foot before she gave me an answer. Not in rudeness did she gaze, so much as in inquiry as to what could be my object. I spent more than a week in inquiring at places, where apartments were to be let, by which I acquired profitable acquaintance with the people. Upon asking the terms of apartments, I was met, in all cases, by several preliminary questions, as for whom were they? what number of persons? what station, habits, and probable stay? Then I received the precise answer required. It did not seem to me that they were answering one question by asking another, as is sometimes said of the Scotch—but by a happy and wise presence of mind they asked, as all should do, at many questions as were required to complete the data of the specific answer they were called upon to give.
A wise practice is followed in courts of law. No judge pronounces an opinion on a hypothetical case. What he would do? or what would be the judgment of the law, suppose a certain case should arise?—are questions he never condescends to answer. 'Bring the plaintiff into court, let the evidence be taken, and then we will decide. We sit here to judge actual, not suppositious cases.' Such would be the reply. People out of court might profit by the example.
I remember one striking instance of the pernicious effects of surmise. Some years ago I took part in a Fraternal Demonstration at Highbury Barn. The assembly was numerous, and composed of persons of all nations and all parties. The celebration was avowedly one of fraternity. The tone of the meeting reflected its object. Pacific words were on every tongue, and harmony reigned up till eleven o'clock. At that hour Monsieur Chillman asked me if some steps could not be taken to annualize the meeting, and he requested me to prepare and propose a resolution to that effect. Monsieur Chillman, thinking the resolution ought to come from an Englishman, strongly urged me to move it. I, thinking it too important to emanate from a young man, looked about for a person of experience and known discretion to introduce it. After several had declined, Mr. Hetherington undertook it. The English politicians were composed of two parties, the friends of Mr. O'Connor, and the members of the National Hall. At that time they were pleased to be the antipodes of each other. No sooner had Mr. Hetherington spoken, he being the friend of Mr. Lovett, than his motion was supposed to come from Mr. Lovett's party, though they were utterly ignorant of its origination. Clamour's hundred tongues were loosened. Slumbering differences were awakened. Suspicion spread like an infection. Fraternity perished of the contagion. Twenty amendments were proposed, and it was not till midnight, and then in a storm indescribably contradictory of the meeting's whole purport, that a common understanding was come to. Had the least inquiry been made by the objecting party, previously to dissenting, they would have found that the suspicious proposition originated with one of themselves. But assuming premises, they inferred from conjecture instead of fact, and raised disastrous doubts as to the ability of that assembly for domestic or international fraternisation.
The use and abuse of authority Is a subject worthy of the young logician's serious attention. Many great writers like Bacon, through policy—Burke through position, or Shakspere through versatility of genius, have written on both sides of important questions. Such men, taken piece-meal, may be quoted by the most opposite parties in favour of the most opposite opinions. Unless there is time to make a broad induction from their writings, showing, by weighty, quantitive evidence, the side to which they leaned, better not quote them as authorities at all, but give what expresses your own views on your own responsibility—indeed, in all cases, the quoter ought to stand prepared, if possible, to justify all he cites from another in argument. 'There is perhaps something weak and servile in our wishing to rely on, or draw assistance from, ancient opinions. Reason ought not, like vanity, to adorn herself with old parchments, and the display of a genealogical tree; more dignified in her proceedings, she ought to derive everything from herself; she should disregard past times, and be, if I may use the phrase, the contemporary of all ages.'* Quote others as Grotius did: not as judges from whose decision there is no appeal, but as witnesses whose conspiring testimony confirms the view taken.
Analogy has frequently been confounded with induction. Analogy signifies reasoning from resemblances subsisting between phenomena—induction, reasoning from the sameness of phenomena.
The phenomena affording an induction of a law of nature must be obvious, uniform, and universal.
The rules to be observed in deducing general principles are, that the case be true and the facts universal.
On this subject, as exhibiting the clearest results arrived at, I transcribe a passage from Mill: 'There is no word which is used more loosely, or in a greater variety of senses, than analogy. It sometimes stands for arguments which may be examples of the most rigid induction. Archbishop Whately, for instance, following Ferguson and other writers, defines analogy conformably to its primitive acceptation, that which was given to it by mathematicians, resemblance of relations. In this sense, when a country which has sent out colonies is termed the mother country, the expression is analogical, signifying that the colonies of a country stand in the same relation to her in which children stand to their parents. And if any inference be drawn from this resemblance of relations, as, for instance, that the same obedience or affection is due from colonies to the mother country which is due from children to a parent, this is called reasoning by analogy. Or if it be argued that a nation is most beneficially governed by an assembly elected by the people, from the admitted fact that other associations for a common purpose, such as joint stock companies, are best managed by a committee chosen by the parties interested; this, too, is an argument from analogy in the preceding sense, because its foundation is, not that a nation is like a joint stock company, or Parliament like a board of directors, but that Parliament stands in the same relation to the nation in which a board of directors stands to a joint stock company. Now, in an argument of this nature, there is no inherent inferiority of conclusiveness like other arguments from resemblance, it may amount to nothing, or it may be a perfect and conclusive induction. The circumstance in which the two cases resemble, may be capable of: being shown to be the matereal circumstance; to be that on which all the consequences, necessary to be taken into account in the particular discussion, depend. In the case in question, the resemblance is one of relation; the fundamentum relationis being the management, by a few persons, of affairs in which a much greater number are interested along with them. Now, some may contend that this circumstance which is common to the two cases, and the various consequences which follow from it, have the chief share in determining all those effects which make up what we term good or bad administration. If they can establish this, their argument has the force of a rigid induction: if they cannot, they are said to have failed in proving the analogy between the two cases, a mode of speech which implies that when the analogy can be proved, the argument founded upon it cannot be resisted.'*
'Many of the most splendid and important discoveries in this science were the result of analogical reasonings. It was from this source that Dr. Priestley proved the compound nature of atmospheric air; and it is related that it was in consequence of hints which he had given, when on a visit to Paris, to Lavoisier, founded entirely upon analogical conjectures, that the latter philosopher was induced to commence experiments, with the view of proving the compound nature of water, and of reducing it to its constituent elements. Indeed the whole history of this very important and useful department of human knowledge exhibits very striking and incontestable proofs how much of the art owed its existence to mere hints and conjectures, founded, in many cases, upon very slight resemblances or analogies.*. The chief province of analogy is confined to that of suggestion. Analogies are the great hinters of experiments. They illustrate an argument, but do not establish it. They are probabilities, not proofs. Hence Lord Brougham in one place exclaims:—'I have a dread, at least a suspicion, of all analogies, and never more than when on the slippery heights of an obscure subject; when we are, as it were, inter apices of a metaphysical argument, and feeling, perhaps groping, our way in the dark, or among the clouds. I then regard analogy as a dangerous light, a treacherous ignii fatuus.'**
A striking instance of the fallacy of analogy is afforded in the experiments of Professor Matteuoci, which seem to prove that though the analogies between electricity and nervous substance are nearly perfect, yet they are two distinct agencies.***
WE hope to be able to save students from the fate of Diodorus, (a great logician, who died in his school through shame at being, unable to resolve a quibble propounded by Stilno)—not by hardening, but by enlightening them. Though we bring neither mood nor figure wherewith to test the presence of error, we are not without the hope of qualifying the student for its discovery.
It has been confessed from the throne of logic that, 'After all, in the practical detection of each individual fallacy, much must depend on natural and acquired acuteness: nor can any rules be given, the mere learning of which will enable us to apply them with mechanical certainty and readiness.'
Bulwer, in remarking that error is a view of some facts instead of a survey of all, indicated the key to logical fallacy. Error lies principally in defective premises. Sophistry in science is referable to incomplete analysis of nature, of systems—to artificial arrangements—to supposing qualities, to assuming principles, to false inductions from imperfect demonstration.
Dickens, in 'Nicholas Nickleby,' gives the case of a certain lady, who, because she knew one young milliner, who retained red cheeks and did not die of consumption, was immovably of opinion that all representations of the injurious effect of such sedentary occupation were false. It is ever so with the vulgar. Some one case has come under their notice, and it is in vain that you appeal to a chain of facts. They know nothing of induction—they know one case to the contrary, and that is enough. This error is the source of vulgar prejudice. Once teach men that truth does not lie in a single instance, but in a calculation in a balance of probabilities, and you rationalise them. 'The chapter of accidents [or single instances] is the Bible of the fool—it supplies him with a text against everything great, or good, or wise.'*
The first source of error is defective induction. We easily arrive at this point of examination by the questions we have proposed for use in the test of syllogism. Formerly, one syllogism was required to be defeated by another—we now attack a fallacy by induction. No false syllogism, says Biennan, can resist the inductive process of sifting particulars.
This kind of thing will not do. Induction pursues the reasoner with an eternal why. A clear because to a clear why, is a demand that is never remitted in sound logic.
Lord Melbourne, in giving his reason for his religion in the House of Lords, said it was the religion of his forefathers and that of his country, therefore, he would support the church. (Cheers from the opposition benches.) The Brahmin and Mussulman give the same reason for theirs. A logician in facts would have said, I hold and support my religion because it is true. What the standard of physical certainty is to facts, what axioms are to science, such is induction to syllogisms—it is the test of their correctness.
Dr. Whately exhibits the following instance of a regularly expressed syllogism:—
Every applicable rule of Dr. Whately's logic is, of course, applied here—it is true in mood and figure, and yet the argument is fallacious. A fallacy is defined as 'an ingenious mixture of truth and falsehood, so entangled as to be intimately blended—that the falsehood is, in chemical phrase, held in solution: one drop of sound logic is that test which immediately disunites them, makes the foreign substance visible, and precipitates it to the bottom.'* But whence is to come 'this drop of sound logic?' Not from the Doctor's Elements, they have sent forth the fallacy. But touch it with the talisman of facts and; the error will appear.
What facts support the assertion that Afflictions are dispensations of Providence?' The simple question is fatal to the argument. Can such a proposition have facts for its support? Ignorance, congregating in narrow courts, and laziness, accumulating filth, generate sickness and affliction. Are these the dispensations of Providence, or the dispensations of folly and crime? To ascribe them to Providence is virtually to allow ignorance and laziness to step into the throne of God, and call upon men to believe in their beneficent dispensations. Dr. Watts, another writer on logic, set the Christian congregations of England to sing the same species of fallacy:—-
According to this lyrical logician, whenever wise precautions arrest the progress of pestilence, or the physician's skill subdues disease, Jehovah is robbed of a servant. By such an argument, humanity is made to be in rebellion against heaven, and our medical colleges are in antagonism with Deity, and the recent appointment, by the Russell government, of a Sanatory Commission, was high blasphemy. It is the degradation of language to employ it to such a purpose, and logic needs revising to save us from publishing such puerility in the name of learning and of reason. It must have been logic of this kind that induced a strong-thoughted woman to hazard the bold but tenable conjecture, that 'If an argument has truth in it, less than a philosopher will see it—and if it has not, less than a logician will refute it.'*
R. G. Latham, M.D., in his 'First Outlines of Logic applied to Grammar and Etymology,' has introduced the particular instance of the syllogism on Providence here cited from Whately. It would be no difficult task to present other instances of the same species of polemical fallacy from Dr. Whately and other writers on logic, did it comport with the rule I have chosen for observance. I give these cases chiefly to show how extensively and obtrusively they are introduced.
'We have,' says Mr. Mill, 'five distinguishable classes of fallacy, which may to expressed in the following synoptic table:—
It was the boast of Archimedes, that if any one would find him a fulcrum, on which to rest a prop, he would raise the world, But this was mere assertion unsupported by facts, for if the fulcrum had been found him, Archimedes could not have performed his promise. This has been proved by Ferguson, who has demonstrated that if Archimedes could have moved with the swiftness of a cannon ball—480 miles every hour—it would have taken him just 44,963,540,000,000 of years to have-raised the world one inch. Bulwer remarks, 'Critics have said, what a fine idea of Archimedes! But how much finer is the fact that refutes it. One of the sublimest things in the world is plain truth.'
We look, in this case, to the facts on which the first proposition rests, and find the assertion too general.
To one who said that none were happy who were not above opinion, a Spartan replied, 'Then none are happy but knaves and robbers.'
Mr. Goodrich, the original Peter Farley gives, In his 'Fireside Education,' an instance to this effect of two boys arguing on the division of their beds. William exclaims, 'You take more than your share of the bed, James.' James answers, 'I only take half the bed.' William replies, 'True, but you take your half out of the middle, and I am obliged to lie on both sides to get my half.'
Innumerable sophisms are suffered to pass in consequence of Some brilliancy of position which, dazzles us and prevents our seeing that they are wide of the' mark of reason. An instance occurs in Bulwer—who says, 'Helvetius erred upon education—but his dogma has been beneficial.' Probably so—but not so beneficial as the truth would have been. Many persons have argued from such an instance, that error is useful. Dickens, in those incidental observations of striking good sense strewed up and down his writings, says, in the 'Cricket on the Hearth:'—'These remarks (of Mrs. Fielding) were quite unanswerable: which is the happy property of all remarks that are sufficiently wide of the purpose.' Of the refutation of such remarks he has presented an able instance in 'Martin Chuzzlewit':
'Bless my soul, Westlock,' says Pinch, is it nothing to see Pecksniff moved to that extent and know one's self to be the cause? And did you not hear him say that he could have shed his blood for me?
'Do you want any blood shed for you?' returned Westlock with considerable irritation. 'Does he shed anything for you that you do want? Does he shed employment for you, instruction for you pocket money for you? Does he even shed legs of mutton for you in any decent proportion to potatoes and garden stuff?'
Man has been called the plaything of chance, but there is no logic more close and inflexible than that of human life: all is entwined together; and for him who is able to disentangle the premises and patiently await the conclusion it is the most correct of syllogisms.—Jules Sandau: People's Journal, No. 87.
'To quote authors,' says Harris, in his preface to his Hermes,' 'who have lived in various ages, and in distant countries; some in the full maturity of Grecian and Roman literature; some in its declension; and others in periods still more barbarous and depraved; may afford, perhaps, no unpleasing speculation, to see how the same reason has at all times prevailed; how there is one truth like one sun, that has enlightened human intelligence through every age, and saved it from the darkness both of sophistry and error.' This is the assurance which right reason will ever impart. Underneath all the change after which we pant, amid all the variety which surrounds us, and seem the very aliment of our nature, lies the instinct after the permanent. It is the province of sound logic to guarantee this in conclusion.
The novelty, change, fluctuation, which scientific discovery has brought, and will yet bring, into the formerly settled worlds of opinion and social condition, will unsettle men's minds, and pave the way to an age of scepticism. Sound logic is necessary to provide that this doubt is transitional and not ultimate.
Scepticism is of two kinds, that of Pyrrho, and that of examination. The followers of Pyrrho, it is said, made doubting a profession, until at last they doubted whether they did doubt. This is the scepticism of the scorner and trifler.
He did not know that he did not know it, and if he did know it it was more than he knew. This is as far as the philosopher, of this school can go. Dickens has drawn the portrait of these, logicians in Mr. Tigg:—
'When a man like Slyme,' said Mr. Tigg, 'is detained for such a thing as a bill' I reject the superstition of ages, and believe nothing. I don't even believe that I don't believe, curse me if I do.'
Hood is ironical on the professors of uncertainty. 'On a certain day of a certain year, certain officers went, on certain information, to a certain court, in a certain city, to take up a certain Italian for a certain crime. What gross fools are they who say there is nothing certain in this world.'
But scepticism is not capable of disturbing the well-grounded repose of the wise; for when the sceptic thinks he has involved everything in doubt, everything is still left in as much certainty as his scepticism.
In the great maze of conflicting opinion, it matters little that we are cautioned that reason is not all-sufficient—it is the best sufficiency we have. If reason will not serve us well, will anything serve us better? Bishop Berkeley may demonstrate that we are not sure of matter's existence—but are we more sure of any thing else? We are not thus to be cajoled. But it is right to say that Mr. J. S. Mill contends that Berkeley has been misunderstood—but if he did argue, as popularly believed, to such argument, the answer of Byron is sufficient—
If all is delusion, the delusion is very orderly—it observes regular laws, and we proceed in logical method to inform each other, how the delusion of things appears to our understandings or affects our fortunes.
We discuss the seemings with the same gravity as realities.' If a man seems to do wrong, and I seem to prevent him, and the wrong, therefore, seems not to be done, I am satisfied.
The 'wise considerate scepticism' of inquiry has been well expressed by Emerson, in his recent lecture on Montaigne.—'Who shall forbid a wise scepticism, seeing that there is no practical question on which anything more than a proximate solution is to be had? Marriage itself is an open question: those "out" wish to be "in:" those "in" to be "out."
The state. With all its obvious advantages, nobody loves it. Is it; otherwise with the Church? Shall the young man enter trade or a profession without being vitiated? Shall he stay on shore or put out to sea? There is much to be said on both sides. Then there is competition and the attractions of the co-operative system. The labourer has a poor hut, is without knowledge, virtue, civilisation. If: we say, "Let us have culture," the expression awakens a new indisposition; for culture destroys spontaneous and hearty unencumbered action. Let us have a robust manly life; let us have to do with realities, not with shadowy ghosts. Now this precisely is the right ground of the sceptic; not of unbelief, denying or doubting—least of all of scoffing and profligate jeering at what is stable and good. He is the considerer. He has, too many enemies around him to wish to be his own. The position of the sceptic is one taken up for defence; as we build a house not too high or too low; under the wind, but out of the dust. For him the Spartan vigour is too-austere. St. John too thin and aerial. The wise sceptic avoids to be fooled by any extreme; he wishes to, see the game. He wishes to see all things, but mainly men. Really our life in this world not of so easy interpretation as preachers and school-books are accustomed to describe it.' These have not so efficiently solved the problem, that the sceptic should yield himself contentedly to their interpretation. True, he does not wish to speak harshly of what is best in us,—to turn himself into a "devil's attorney." But he points out the room there is for doubt;—the power of moods;—the power of complexion, and so forth. Shall we, then, because good-nature inclines us to virtue's side, smoothly cry: "There are no doubts!"—and lie for the right? We ask whether life is to be led in a brave or a cowardly way: whether the satisfaction of our doubts be not essential to all manliness: whether the name of virtue is to be a barrier to that which is virtue? The sceptic wants truth, wants to have things made plain to him, and has a right to be convinced in his own way. In such scepticism there is no malignity; it is honest, and does not hinder his being convinced; and this hard-headed man, once convinced will prove a giant in defence of his faith. The true and final answer in which all scepticism is lost is the moral sentiment: that never forfeits the supremacy. It is the drop that balances the universe.'
Science and logic have so far advanced as to abridge the field of doubtful questions. When syllogism answered syllogism, uncertainty reigned absolute—but now that the appeal is to facts, we can, wherever facts can be had, weigh or number them, and decide on one side or the other.
When Ali Pacha was at Janina, the case of a poor woman, who accused a man of the theft of all her property, was brought before him; but the plaintiff having no witnesses, the case was discharged, as the other asserted his innocence, and insisted as a proof, that he had not a farthing in the world. On their leaving his presence, Ali ordered both to be weighed, and then released them without further notice. A fortnight afterwards, he commanded both into his presence, and again weighed them; the accuser had lost as much as the defendant had gained in weight. The thing spoke for itself, and Ali decided that the accusation was just. Ali Pacha was the Burlamiqui of justice. Induction, too, has its scales, and seldom leaves us in doubt when it gets truth and falsehood in them. Scepticism is now happily restricted to those questions resting on conjectures, and which do not pertain to the practical affairs of this life. On matter-of-fact questions, only the weak are perplexed. After men have been in deliberation till the time of action approach, if it be not then manifest what is best to be done, it is a sign the difference of motives the one way and the other is not great; therefore, not to resolve then is to lose the occasion by weighing of trifles, which is pusillanimity.
Quaint old Bunyan tells us, that when he had completed his 'Pilgrim's Progress' he took the opinions of various friends on the propriety of publishing it. Some said 'John, do;' others 'John, don't.' But solid old John was not to be thus confounded. 'Then I will print it,' said he, 'and thus the case decide.' To this good sense the public owe that immortal dream.
In the great field of physical investigation, science has conquered doubt. 'Contingency and versimilitude are the offspring of human ignorance, and, with an intellect of the highest order, cannot be supposed to have any existence.'*
'Probability,' says Laplace,' has reference partly to our ignorance, and partly to our knowledge.'
'Chance,' observes Mr. Mill, 'is usually spoken of in direct antithesis to law; whatever (it is supposed) cannot be ascribed to law, If attributed to chance. It is, however, certain, that whatever happens is the result of some law; is an effect of causes, and could have been predicted from a knowledge of the existence of those causes, and from their laws. If I turn up a particular card, that is a consequence of its place in the pack. Its place in the pack was a consequence of the manner in which the cards were shuffled, or of the order in which they were played in the last game; which, again, were the effects of prior causes. At every stage, if we had possessed an accurate knowledge of the causes in existence, it would have been abstractedly possible to foretell the effect.'*
'In the domain of morals, too, a certainty, not dreamed of in past times, now prevails. However much man, as an individual, may be an enigma, in the aggregate he is a mathematical problem.'**
In the great world of opinion it is the duty of honest reasoners to endeavour to find out the truth, and take sides, undeterred by the philosophical frivolity now growing fashionable. If men are silent concerning objects and principles, it is said they have none, and it is impatiently asked 'where is their bond of union?' And no sooner is it explained than they are told 'it is very unphilosophical to think of setting up a creed.' Where the alternatives are thus put against them they should take their own course. Creeds are the necessary exponents of conviction. The creedless philosopher is out on the sea of opinion, without compass or chart. To bind yourself for the future to present opinions is doubtless unwise, but he who has inquired to any purpose has come to some conclusion, affirmative, negative, or neutral; and it is the province of a creed to avow the actual result, and the consequent; conduct intended to be followed. It is the vice of free thinking that it spreads universal uncertainty, and assumes right and wrong to be so protean that no man can tell one hour what opinion he shall hold the next. Logic should correct this unsatisfactory extreme, and extirpate the tiresome race whom Shelley described in Peter Bell:—
Freedom has been hunted through the world, and is ever exposed to Insult and injury. It is crushed by conquest; frowned from courts; expelled from colleges; scorned out of society; flogged in schools; and anathematised in churches. Mind is her last asylum; and if freedom quail there, what becomes of the hope of the world, or the worth of human nature?—W. J. Fox's Lectures to the Working Classes, part 12, p. 65.
We should be prepared to dare all things for truth. If the 'very hopes of man, the thoughts of his heart, the religion of nations, the manners and morals of mankind, are all at the mercy of a new generalisation,' we should be prepared to risk them. If we must choose between truth and repose, we ought not to hesitate. There is danger in having the truth—philosophers are obliged to conceal it. Mankind vaunt their love of truth, but they are not to be trusted. From interest or ignorance they always persecute, and often kill, the discoverer. Still the pursuit of truth is a duty, and we must find consolation in the heroic reflection of Burke, that in all exertions of duty there it something to be hazarded. But intellectual daring will never be common while it is so generally believed to be criminal. We will, therefore, quote some considerations touching the rightfulness of inquiry.
Without inquiry it is impossible for us to know whether our opinions are true or false, and various are the pretences employed for declining investigation: frequently they are masked under vague and metaphorical phrases: "inquiry implies the weighing of evidence, and might lead to doubt and perplexity"—"to search into a subject might shake the settled convictions of the understanding"—to examine opposite arguments, and contradictory opinions, might contaminate the mind with false views.
'Every one who alleges pretexts like these for declining inquiry, must obviously begin by assuming that his own opinions are unerringly in the right. Nothing could justify a man for declining the investigation of a subject involving important opinions, but the possession of an understanding free from liability of error. Not gifted with infallibility, in what way, except by diligent inquiry, can he obtain any assurance that he is not pursuing a course of injurious action? If he holds any opinion, he must have acquired it either by examination, by instillation, rote, or some other process. On the supposition that he has acquired it by proper examination, the duty on which I am now insisting has been discharged, and the matter is at an end—but if he has acquired it in any other manner, the mere plea, that his mind might become unsettled, can be no argument against the duty of investigation. For anything he can allege to the contrary, his present opinions are wrong—and, in that case, the disturbance of his blind convictions, instead of being an evil, is an essential step towards arriving at the truth.
'It may possibly be assigned, as a further reason for his declining inquiry, that he may come to some fallacy which he cannot surmount, although convinced of its character. If he is convinced of its character, he must either have grounds for that conviction or not. If he has grounds, let him examine them, draw them out, try if they are valid, and then the fallacy will stand exposed. If he has no grounds for suspecting a fallacy, what an irrational conclusion he confesses himself to have arrived at! But perhaps he will reply—he may be unable to solve the difficulty; his mind may become perplexed, and the issue may prove, after all, that it would have been much better had he remained in his former strong, though unenlightened, conviction. Why better? If he is in perplexity let him read, think, consult the learned and the wise, and in the end he will probably reach a definite opinion on one side or the other. But if he should still remain in doubt, where is the harm? or rather, why is it not to be considered a good? The subject is evidently one which admits strong probabilities on opposite sides. Doubt is therefore the proper sentiment for the occasion—it is the result of the best exercise of the faculties—and either positively to believe, or positively to disbelieve, would imply an erroneous appreciation of evidence.
In the minds of some people a strong prejudice appears to exist against that state of the understanding which is termed doubt. A little reflection, however, will convince any one that on certain subjects "doubt" is as appropriate a state of the reasoning faculties as belief or disbelief on others. There are doctrines, propositions, facts, supported and opposed by every degree of evidence, and amongst them by that degree of evidence of which the proper effect is to leave the understanding in an equipoise between two conclusions. In these cages "doubt" is the appropriate result, which there can be no reason to shrink from or lament. But it may be further urged, that inquiry might contaminate the understanding with false views—and, therefore, It is wise and laudable to abstain from it.
'We can comprehend what is meant by contaminating a man's habits or disposition, or even imagination. But there is no analogy on these points in reference to the understanding. There is contamination, there is evil, in preposterous and obscene images crowding before the intellectual vision, notwithstanding a full and distinct perception of their character—but there is no contamination, no evil, in a thousand false arguments coming before the understanding, if their quality is clearly discerned. The only possible evil in this case is mistaking false for true—but the man who shrinks from investigation lest he should mistake false for true, can have no reason for supposing himself free from that delusion in his actual opinions. Besides these objections to inquiry, there are other prejudices of a similar character, forming serious impediments to the attainment of truth.
'One of these is a fear that we may search too far, and become chargeable with presumption in prying into things we ought not to know. A few words will suffice to prove that nothing can be more irrational and absurd. We have already shown that true opinions are conducive to the welfare of mankind—and the prosecution of inquiry is therefore a process from which we have everything to hope and nothing to fear, and to which there are no limits but such as the nature of our own faculties pre scribes.
'A second prejudice—that we may contract guilt, if, in the course of our researches, we miss the right conclusion, and had therefore better let inquiry alone—is still more influential in preventing those investigations which it is our duty to make. As our opinions on any subject are not voluntary acts, but involuntary effects, in whatever conclusions our researches terminate they can involve us in no culpability. All that we have to take care of is, to bestow on every subject an adequate and impartial attention. Having done this, we have discharged our duty; and it would be irrational and unmanly to entertain any apprehension for the result.
'In fact, there is the grossest inconsistency in the prejudice now under consideration. If we may contract guilt by searching after truth, wo may equally do so by remaining in our present state The reason alleged in the prejudice itself, and the only reason which can be assigned with any plausibility, why we may commit an offence by embarking in any inquiry, is that we may, by so doing, miss the right conclusion, or, in other words, fall into error—for no one would seriously contend that we incur any moral culpability by an investigation which conducts us to the truth. But it is obvious that we may equally miss the right conclusion by remaining in our actual opinions. It is, then, incumbent on us to ascertain whether we are committing an offence by remaining in them—in other words, it is necessary to examine whether those opinions are true. Thus the reasons assigned for not inquiring, lead to the conclusion that it is necessary to inquire.
'The third prejudice is that acquiescence in received opinions, or forbearing to think for ourselves, shows a degree of humility highly proper and commendable—if closely examined will be found usually to evince nothing but a great degree of indolent presumption, or intellectual cowardice. There is often, in truth, as great a measure of presumption in this species of acquiescence as in the boldest hypothesis which human invention can start. That received and established opinions are true, is one of those sweeping conclusions which would require very strong reasons, and often elaborate research, to justify. On what grounds are they considered to be true by one who declines investigation? Because (on the most favourable supposition) they have been handed down to us by our predecessors, and have been held with unhesitating faith by a multitude of illustrious men. But what comprehensive reasons are these? What investigation would it require to shew that they were valid? As the whole history of mankind teems with instances of the transmission of the grossest errors from one generation to another, and of their having been countenanced by the concurrence of the most eminent of our race—how, without examination, can we show that this particular instance is an exception from the general lot?
'From the necessity of using our own judgment, or, in other words, of arriving at a conclusion for ourselves, we cannot be absolved. Far from being a virtue, blind acquiescence in the opinions of others is, in most cases, a positive vice, tending to stop all advancement in knowledge, and all improvement in practice.
From the preceding it is evident that the inquirer may enter on his task with full confidence that he is embarking in no criminal, or forbidden, or presumptuous enterprise, but is, on the contrary, engaging in the discharge of a duty. Let him be as circumspect as he pleases in collecting his facts and deducing his conclusions, cautious in the process, but fearless in the result. Let him be fully aware of his liability to error, of the thousand sources of illusions, of the limited powers of the individual, of the paramount importance of truth—but let him dismiss all apprehensions of the issue of an investigation conducted with due application of mind and rectitude of purpose.'*