Popular Science Monthly/Volume 5/June 1874/Punishing a Senior Wrangler

by Herbert Spencer

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PUNISHING A SENIOR WRANGLER.

By HERBERT SPENCER.

IN the British Quarterly Review for January, 1874, the writer of the article to which I formerly replied,^[1] makes a rejoinder. It is of the kind which might have been anticipated. There are men to whom the discovery that they have done injustice is painful. After proof of having wrongly ascribed to another such a nonsensical belief as that insensible motion is heat because heat is insensible motion, some would express regret. Not so my reviewer. Having by forced interpretations debited me with an absurdity, he makes no apology; but, with an air implying that he had all along done this, he attacks the allegation I had really made—an allegation which is at least so far from an absurdity, that he describes it only as not justified by "the present state of science." And here, having incidentally referred to this point, I may as well, before proceeding, deal with his substituted charge at the same time that I further exemplify his method. Probably, most of those who see the British Quarterly will be favorably impressed by the confidence of his assertion; but those who compare my statement with his travesty of it, and who compare both with some authoritative exposition, will be otherwise impressed. To his statement that I conclude "that friction must ultimately transform all [the italics are his] the energy of a sound into heat," I reply that it is glaringly untrue: I have named friction as a second cause. And when he pooh-poohs the effect of compression because it is "merely momentary," is he aware of the meaning of his words? Will he deny that, from first to last, during the interval of condensation, heat is being generated? Will he deny to the air the power of radiating such heat? He will not venture to do so. Take, then, the interval of condensation as one-thousandth of a second. I ask him to inform those whom he professes to instruct, what is the probable number of heat-waves which have escaped in this interval. Must they not be numbered by thousands of millions? In fact, by his "merely momentary," he actually assumes that what is momentary in relation to our time-measures is momentary in relation to the escape of ethereal undulations!

Let me now proceed more systematically, and examine his rejoinder point by point. It sets out thus:

"In the notice of Mr. Spencer's works that appeared in the last number of this Review, we had occasion to point out that he held mistaken notions of the most fundamental generalizations of dynamics; that he had shown an ignorance of the nature of proof in his treatment of the Newtonian Law; that he had used phrases such as the Persistence of Force in various and inconsistent significations; and more especially that he had put forth proofs logically faulty in his endeavor to demonstrate certain physical propositions by a priori methods, and to show that such proofs must exist. To this article Mr. Spencer has replied in the December number of the Fortnightly Review. His reply leaves every one of the above positions unassailed."

In my "Replies to Criticisms," which, as it was, trespassed unduly on the pages of the Fortnightly Review, I singled out, from his allegations which touched me personally, one that might be briefly dealt with as an example; and I stated that, passing over other personal questions, as not interesting to the general reader, I should devote the small space available to an impersonal one. Notwithstanding this, the reviewer, in the foregoing paragraph, enumerates his chief positions; asserts that I have not assailed any of them (which is untrue); and then leads his readers to the belief that I have not assailed them because they are unassailable.

Leaving this misbelief to be dealt with presently, I continue my comments on his rejoinder. After referring to the passage I have quoted from Prof. Tait's statement about physical axioms, and after indicating the nature of my criticism, the reviewer says:

"Had Mr. Spencer, however, read the sentence that follows it, we doubt whether we should have heard aught of this quotation. It is: 'Without further remark we shall give Newton's Three Laws; it being remembered that, as the properties of matter might have been such as to render a totally different set of laws axiomatic, these laws must he considered as resting on convictions drawn from observation and experiment, and not on intuitive perception. 'This not only shows that the term 'axiomatic' is used in the previous sentence in a sense that does not exclude an inductive origin, but it leaves us indebted to Mr. Spencer for the discovery of the clearest and most authoritative expression of disapproval of his views respecting the nature of the Laws of Motion."

Let us analyze this "authoritative expression." It contains several startling implications, the disclosure of which the reader will find not uninteresting. Consider, first, what is implied by framing the thought that "the properties of matter might have been such as to render a totally different set of laws axiomatic." I will not stop to make the inquiry whether matter, having properties fundamentally unlike its present ones, can be conceived; though such an inquiry, leading to the conclusion that no conception of the kind is possible, would show that the proposition is merely a verbal one. It will suffice if I examine the nature of this proposition that "the properties of matter might have been" other than they are. Does it express an experimentally ascertained truth? If so, I invite Prof. Tait to describe the experiments. Is it an intuition? If so, then, along with doubt of an intuitive belief concerning things as they are, there goes confidence in an intuitive belief concerning things as they are not. Is it an hypothesis? If so, the implication is that a cognition of which the negation is inconceivable (for an axiom is such) may be discredited by inference from that which is not a cognition at all, but simply a supposition. Does the reviewer admit that no conclusion can have a validity greater than is possessed by its premises? or will he say that the trustworthiness of cognitions increases in proportion as they are the more inferential? Be his answer what it may, I shall take it as unquestionable that nothing concluded can have a warrant higher than that from which it is concluded, though it may have a lower. Now, the elements of the proposition before us are these: As "the properties of matter might have been such as to render a totally different set of laws axiomatic" (therefore) "these laws [now in force] must be considered as resting.... not on intuitive perception:" that is, the intuitions in which these laws are recognized must not be held authoritative. Here the cognition posited as premiss is, that the properties of the matter might have been other than they are; and the conclusion is that our intuitions relative to existing properties are uncertain. Hence, if this conclusion is valid, it is valid because the cognition or intuition respecting what might have been is more trustworthy than the cognition or intuition respecting what is! Skepticism respecting the deliverances of consciousness about things as they are is based upon faith in a deliverance of consciousness about things as they are not!

I go on to remark that this "authoritative expression of disapproval" by which I am supposed to be silenced, even were its allegation as valid as it is fallacious, would leave wholly untouched the real issue. I pointed out how Prof. Tait's denial, that any physical truths could be reached a priori, was contradicted by his own statement respecting physical axioms. The question thus raised the reviewer evades, and substitutes another with which I have just dealt. Now I bring forward again the evaded question.

In the passage I quoted, Prof. Tait, besides speaking of physical "axioms," says of them that due familiarity with physical phenomena gives the power of seeing "at once" "their necessary truth." These last words, which express his conception of an axiom, express also the usual conception. An axiom is defined as a "self-evident truth," or a truth that is seen at once; and the definition otherwise worded is—a "truth so evident at first sight that no process of reasoning or demonstration can make it plainer." Now, I contend that Prof. Tait, by thus committing himself to a definition of physical axioms identical with that which is given of mathematical axioms tacitly admits that they have the same a priori character; and I further contend that no such nature as that which he describes physical axioms to have, can be acquired by experiment or observation during the life of an individual. Axioms, if defined as truths of which the necessity is at once seen, are thereby defined as truths of which the negation is inconceivable; and the familiar contrast between them and the truths established by individual experiences is, that these last never become such that their negations are inconceivable, however multitudinous the experiences may be. Thousands of times has the sportsman heard the report that follows the flash from his gun, but still he can imagine the flash as occurring silently; and countless daily experiments on the burning of coal leave him able to conceive coal as remaining in the fire without ignition. So that the "convictions drawn from observation and experiment" during a single life can never acquire that character which Prof. Tait admits physical axioms to have: in other words, physical axioms cannot be derived from personal observation and experiment. Thus, otherwise applying the reviewer's words, I "doubt whether we should have heard aught of this quotation" to which he calls my attention, had he studied the matter more closely; and he "leaves us indebted to" him "for the discovery of" a passage which serves to make clearer the untenability of the doctrine he so dogmatically affirms.

I turn now to what the reviewer says concerning the special arguments I used to show that the first law of motion cannot be proved experimentally. After a bare enunciation of my positions, he says:

"On the utterly erroneous character of these statements we do not care to dwell, we wish simply to call our reader's attention to the conclusion arrived at. Is that a disproof of the possibility of an inductive proof? We thought that every tolerably educated man was aware that the proof of a scientific law consisted in showing that, by assuming its truth, we could explain the observed phenomena."

Probably the reviewer expects his readers to conclude that he could easily dispose of the statements referred to if he tried. Among scientific men, however, this cavalier passing over of my arguments will perhaps be ascribed to another cause. I will give him my reason for saying this. Those arguments, read in proof by one of the most eminent physicists, and by a specially-honored mathematician, had their entire concurrence; and I have since had from another mathematician, standing among the very first, such qualified agreement as is implied in saying that the first law of motion cannot be proved by terrestrial observations (which is in large measure what I undertook to show in the paragraphs which the reviewer passes over so contemptuously). But his last sentence, telling us what he thought "every tolerably educated man was aware" of, is the one which chiefly demands attention. In it he uses the word law—a word which, conveniently wide in meaning, suits his purpose remarkably well. But we are here speaking of physical axioms. The question is, whether the justification of a physical axiom consists in showing that, by assuming its truth, we can explain the observed phenomena. If it does, then all distinction between hypothesis and axiom disappears. Mathematical axioms, for which there is no other definition than that which Prof. Tait gives of physical axioms, must stand on the same footing. Henceforth we must hold that our warrant for asserting that "things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another" consists in the observed truth of the geometrical and other propositions deducible from it and the associated axioms—the observed truth, mind; for the fabric of deductions yields none of the required warrant until these deductions have been tested by measurement. When we have described squares on the three sides of a right-angled triangle, cut them out in paper, and, by weighing them, have found that the one on the hypothenuse balances the other two, then we have got a fact which, joined with other facts similarly ascertained, justifies us in asserting that things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another! Even as it stands, this implication will not, I think, be readily accepted; but we shall find that its unacceptability becomes still more conspicuous when the analysis is pursued to the end.

Continuing his argument to show that the laws of motion have no a priori warrant, the reviewer says:

"Mr. Spencer asserts that Newton gave no proof of the Laws of Motion. The whole of the 'Principia' was the proof, and the fact that, taken as a system, these laws account for the lunar and planetary motions, is the warrant on which they chiefly rest to this day."

I have first to point out that here, as before, the reviewer escapes by raising a new issue. I did not ask what he thinks about the "Principia" and the proof of the laws of motion by it; nor did I ask whether others at this day hold the assertion of these laws to be justified mainly by the evidence the Solar System affords. I asked what Newton thought. The reviewer had represented the belief that the second law of motion is knowable a priori, as too absurd even for me openly to enunciate. I pointed out that since Newton enunciates it openly under the title of an axiom, and offers no proof whatever of it, he did explicitly what I am blamed for doing implicitly. And thereupon I invited the reviewer to say what he thought of Newton. Instead of answering, he gives me his opinion to the effect that the laws of motion are proved true by the truth of the "Principia" deduced from them. Of this hereafter. My present purpose is to show that Newton did not say this, and gave every indication of thinking the contrary. He does not call the laws of motion "hypotheses;" he calls them "axioms." He does not say that he assumes them to be true provisionally, and that the warrant for accepting them as actually true will be found in the astronomically-proved truth of the deductions. He lays them down just as mathematical axioms are laid down—posits them as truths to be accepted a priori, from which follow consequences which must therefore be accepted. And, though the reviewer thinks this an untenable position, I am quite content to range myself with Newton in thinking it a tenable one—if, indeed, I may say so without undervaluing the reviewer's judgement. But now, having shown that the reviewer evaded the issue 1 raised, which it was inconvenient for him to meet, I pass to the issue he substitutes for it. I will first deal with it after the methods of ordinary logic, before dealing with it after the methods of what may be called transcendental logic.

To establish the truth of a proposition postulated, by showing that the deductions from it are true, requires that the truth of the deductions shall be shown in some way that does not directly or indirectly assume the truth of the proposition postulated. If, setting out with the axioms of Euclid, we deduce the truths that "the angle in a semicircle is a right angle," and that "the opposite angles of any quadrilateral figure described in a circle are together equal to two right angles," and so forth; and, if, because these propositions are true, we say that the axioms are true, we are guilty of a petitio principii. I do not mean simply that, if these various propositions are taken as true on the strength of the demonstrations given, the reasoning is circular, because the demonstrations assume the axioms, but I mean more—I mean that any supposed experimental proof of these propositions, by measurement, itself assumes the axioms to be justified. For, even when the supposed experimental proof consists in showing that some two lines, demonstrated by reason to be equal, are equal when tested in perception, the axiom, that things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another, is taken for granted. The equality of the two lines can be ascertained only by carrying from the one to the other some measure (either a movable marked line or the space between the points of compasses), and by assuming that the two lines are equal to one another, because they are severally equal to this measure. The ultimate truths of mathematics, then, cannot be established by any experimental proof that the deductions from them are true; since the supposed experimental proof takes them for granted. The same thing holds of ultimate physical truths. For the alleged a posteriori proof of these truths has a vice exactly analogous to the vice I have just indicated. Every evidence yielded by astronomy, that the axioms called "the laws of motion" are true, resolves itself into a fulfilled prevision that some celestial body or bodies will be seen in a specified place, or in specified places, in the heavens, at some assigned time. Now, the day, hour, and minute, of this verifying observation can be fixed only on the assumption that the Earth's motion in its orbit and its motion round its axis continue undiminished. Mark, then, the parallelism. One who chose to deny that things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another, could never have it proved to him by showing the truth of deduced propositions; since the testing process would in every case assume that which he denied. Similarly, one who refused to admit that motion, uninterfered with, continues in the same straight line at the same velocity, could not have it proved to him by the fulfillment of an astronomical prediction; because he would say that both the spectator's position in space and the position of the event in time were those alleged only if the Earth's motions of translation and rotation were undiminished, which was the very thing he called in question. Evidently such a skeptic might object that the seeming fulfillment of the prediction, say a transit of Venus, may be effected by various combinations of the changing positions of Venus, of the Earth, and of the spectator on the Earth. The appearances may occur as anticipated, though Venus is at some other place than the calculated one; provided the Earth also is at some other place, and the spectator's position on the Earth is different. And, if the first law of motion is not assumed, it must be admitted that the Earth and the spectator may occupy these other places at the predicted time: supposing that, in the absence of the first law, this predicted time can be ascertained, which it cannot. Thus the testing process inevitably begs the question.

That the perfect congruity of all astronomical observations with all deductions from "the laws of motion" gives coherence to this group of intuitions and perceptions, and so furnishes a warrant for the entire aggregate of them which it would not have were any of them at variance, is unquestionable. But it does not therefore follow that astronomical observations can furnish a test for each individual assumption, out of the many which are simultaneously made. I will not dwell on the fact that the process of verification assumes the validity of the assumptions on which acts of reasoning proceed; for the reply may be that these are shown to be valid apart from astronomy. Nor will I insist that the assumptions underlying mathematical inferences, geometrical and numerical, are involved; since it may be said that these are justifiable separately by our terrestrial experiences. But, passing over all else that is taken for granted, it suffices to point out that, in making every astronomical prediction, the three laws of motion and the law of gravitation are all assumed; that, if the first law of motion is to be held proved by the fulfillment of the prediction, it can be so only by taking for granted that the two other laws of motion and the law of gravitation are true; and that non-fulfillment of the prediction would not disprove the first law of motion, since the error might be in one or other of the three remaining assumptions. Similarly with the second law: the astronomical proof of it depends on the truth of the accompanying assumptions. So that the warrants for the assumptions A, B, C, and D, are respectively such that A, B, and C, being taken as trustworthy, prove the validity of D; D being thus proved valid, joins C, and B, in giving a character to A; and so throughout. The result is that every thing comes out right if they happen to be all true; but, if one of them is false, it may destroy the characters of the other three, though these are in reality exact. Clearly, then, astronomical prediction and observation can never test any one of the premises by itself. They can only justify the entire aggregate of premises, mathematical and physical, joined with the entire aggregate of reasoning processes leading from premises to conclusions.

I now recall the reviewer's "thought," uttered in his habitual manner, "that every tolerably educated man was aware that the proof of a scientific law consisted in showing that, by assuming its truth, we could explain the observed phenomena." Having from the point of view of ordinary logic dealt with this theory of proof as applied by the reviewer, I proceed to deal with it from the point of view of transcendental logic, as I have to charge the reviewer with either being ignorant of, or else deliberately ignoring, a cardinal doctrine of the System of Philosophy he professes to review—a doctrine set forth not in those four volumes of it which he seems never to have looked into, but in the one volume of it he has partially dealt with. For this principle which, in respect to scientific beliefs, he enunciates for my instruction, is one which, in "First Principles," I have enunciated in respect to all beliefs whatever. In the chapter on the "Data of Philosophy," where I have inquired into the legitimacy of our modes of procedure, and where I have pointed out that there are certain ultimate conceptions without which the intellect can no more stir "than the body can stir without help of its limbs," I have inquired how their validity or invalidity is to be shown; and I have gone on to reply that—

"Those of them which are vital, or cannot be severed from the rest without mental dissolution, must be assumed as true provisionally.... leaving the assumption of their unquestionableness to be justified by the results.

"§40, How is it to be justified by the results? As any other assumption is justified—by ascertaining that all the conclusions deducible from it correspond with the facts as directly observed—by showing the agreement between the experiences it leads us to anticipate and the actual experiences. There is no mode of establishing the validity of any belief, except that of showing its entire congruity with all other beliefs."

Proceeding avowedly and rigorously on this principle, I have next inquired what is the fundamental process of thought by which this congruity is to be determined, and what is the fundamental product of thought yielded by this process. This fundamental product I have shown to be the coexistence of subject and object; and then, describing this as a postulate to be justified by "its subsequently-proved congruity with every result of experience, direct and indirect," I have gone on to say that "the two divisions of self and not-self are redivisible into certain most general forms, the reality of which Science, as well as Common-Sense, from moment to moment assumes." Nor is this all. Having thus assumed, only provisionally, this deepest of all intuitions, far transcending an axiom in self-evidence, I have, after drawing deductions occupying four volumes, deliberately gone back to the assumption ("Principles of Psychology," § 386). After quoting the passage in which the principle was laid down, and after reminding the reader that the deductions drawn had been found congruous with one another, I have pointed out that it still remained to ascertain whether this primordial assumption was congruous with all the deductions; and have thereupon proceeded, throughout eighteen chapters, to show the congruity. And yet, having the volumes before him in which this principle is set forth with a distinctness and acted upon with a deliberation which I believe are nowhere exceeded, the reviewer enunciates for my benefit this principle of which he "thought that every tolerably educated man was aware! "He enunciates it as applying to limited groups of beliefs to which it does not apply; and shuts his eyes to the fact that I have avowedly and systematically acted upon it in respect to the entire aggregate of our beliefs (axioms included) for which it furnishes the ultimate justification!

Here I must add another elucidatory statement, which would have been needless had the reviewer read that which he criticises. His argument proceeds throughout on the assumption that I understand a priori truths after the ancient manner, as truths independent of experience; and he shows this more than tacitly, where he "trusts" that he is "attacking one of the last attempts to deduce the laws of Nature from our inner consciousness." Manifestly, a leading thesis of one of the works he professes to review is entirely unknown to him—the thesis that forms of thought, and consequently the intuitions which those forms of thought involve, result entirely from the effects of experiences, organized and inherited. With the "Principles of Psychology" before him, not only does he seem unaware that it contains this doctrine, but, though this doctrine, set forth in its first edition published nearly twenty years ago, has gained considerable currency, he seems never to have heard of it. The implication of this doctrine is, not that the "laws of Nature" are deducible from "our inner consciousness," but that our consciousness has a preëstablished correspondence with such of those laws (simple, perpetually presented, and never negatived) as have, in the course of practically-infinite ancestral experiences, registered themselves in our nervous structure. Had he taken the trouble to acquaint himself with this doctrine, he would have learned that the intuitions of axiomatic truths are regarded by me as latent in the inherited brain, just as bodily reflex actions are latent in the inherited nervous centres of a lower order; that such latent intuitions are made potentially more distinct by the greater definiteness of structure due to individual action and culture; and that thus, axiomatic truths, having a warrant entirely a posteriori for the race, have for the individual a warrant which, substantially a priori is made complete a posteriori. And he would then have learned that, as, during evolution, Thought has been moulded into increasing correspondence with Things, and as such correspondence, tolerably complete in respect of the simple, ever-present, and invariable relations, as those of space, has made considerable advance in respect of the primary dynamical relations, the assertion that the resulting intuitions are authoritative is the assertion that the simplest uniformities of Nature, as experienced throughout an immeasurable past, are better known than they are as experienced during an individual life. All which conceptions, however, being, as it seems, unheard of by the reviewer, he regards my trust in these primordial intuitions as like that of the Ptolemists in their fancies about perfection!

Thus far my chief antagonists, passive, if not active, have been Prof. Tait and, by implication. Sir William Thomson, his coadjutor in the work quoted against me—men of standing, and the last of them of world-wide reputation as a mathematician and physicist. Partly because the opinions of such men demand attention, I have dealt with the questions raised at some length; and partly, also, because the origin and consequent warrant of physical axioms are questions of general and permanent interest. The reviewer, who, by citing against me these authorities, has gained for some of his criticisms consideration they would otherwise not deserve, I must, in respect of his other criticisms, deal with very briefly. Because, for reasons sufficiently indicated, I did not assail sundry of his statements, he has reiterated them as unassailable. I will here add no more than is needful to show how groundless is his assumption.

What the reviewer says on the metaphysical aspects of the propositions we distinguish as physical, need not detain us long. His account of my exposition of "Ultimate Scientific Ideas," he closes by saying of me that "he is not content with less than showing that all our fundamental conceptions are inconceivable." Whether the reviewer knows what he means by an inconceivable conception, I cannot tell. It will suffice to say that I have attempted no such remarkable feat as that described. My attempt has been to show that objective activities, together with their objective forms, are inconceivable by us—that such symbolic conceptions of them as we frame, and are obliged to use, are proved, by the alternative contradictions which a final analysis of them discloses, to have no likeness to the realities. But the proposition that objective existence cannot be rendered in terms of subjective existence, the reviewer thinks adequately expressed by saying that "our fundamental conceptions" (subjective products) "are inconceivable" (cannot be framed by subjective processes)! Giving this as a sample from which may be judged his fitness for discussing these ultimate questions, I pass over his physico-metaphysical criticisms, and proceed at once to those which his special discipline may be assumed to render more worthy of attention.

Quoting a passage relative to the law that "all central forces vary inversely as the squares of the distances," he derides the assertion that "this law is not simply an empirical one, but one deducible mathematically from the relations of space—one of which the negation is inconceivable." Now, whether this statement can or cannot be fully justified, it has at any rate none of that absurdity alleged by the reviewer. When he puts the question: "Whence does he [do I] get this?" he invites the suspicion that his mind is not characterized by much excursiveness. It seems never to have occurred to him that, if rays like those of light radiate in straight lines from a centre, the number of them falling on any given area of a sphere described from that centre will diminish as the square of the distance increases, because the surfaces of spheres vary as the squares of their radii. For, if this has occurred to him, why does he ask whence I get the inference? The inference is so simple a one as naturally to be recognized by those whose thoughts go a little beyond their lessons in geometry.^[2] If the reviewer means to ask whence I get the implied assumption that central forces act only in straight lines, I reply that this assumption has a warrant akin to that of Newton's first axiom, that a moving body will continue moving in a straight line, unless interfered with. For that the force exerted by one centre on another should act in a curved line, implies the conception of some second force, complicating the direct effect of the first. And, even could a central force be truly conceived as acting in lines not straight, the average distribution of its effects upon the inner surface of the surrounding sphere would still follow the same law. Thus, whether or not the law be accepted on a priori grounds, the assumed absurdity of representing it to have a priori grounds is not very obvious. Respecting this statement of mine, the reviewer goes on to say:

"This is a wisdom far higher than that possessed by the discoverer of the great law of attraction, who was led to consider it from no cogitations on the relations of space, but from observations of the movements of the planets; and who was so far from rising to that clearness of view of the truth of his great discovery, which is expressed by the phrase, 'its negation is inconceivable,' that he actually abandoned it for a time, because (through an error in his estimate of the earth's diameter) it did not seem fully to account for the motion of the moon."

To the first clause in this sentence, I have simply to give a direct denial; and to assert that neither Newton's "observations of the movements of the planets," nor other such observations continued by all astronomers for all time, would yield "the great law of attraction." Contrariwise, I contend that when the reviewer says, by implication, that Newton had no antecedent hypothesis respecting the cause of the planetary motions, he (the reviewer) is not only going beyond his possible knowledge, but he is asserting that which even a rudimentary acquaintance with the process of discovery might have shown him was impossible. Without framing, beforehand, the supposition that there was at work an attractive force varying inversely as the square of the distance, no such comparison of observations as that which led to the establishment of the theory of gravitation could have been made. On the second clause of the sentence, in which the reviewer volunteers for my benefit the information that Newton "actually abandoned" his hypothesis for a while because it did not bring out right results, I have first to tell him that, in an early number of the very periodical containing his article,^[3] I cited this fact (using these same words) at a time when he was at school, or before he went there.^[4] I have next to assert that this fact is irrelevant; and that Newton, while probably seeing it to be a necessary implication of geometrical laws that central forces vary inversely as the squares of the distances, did not see it to be a necessary implication of any laws, geometrical or dynamical, that there exists a force by which the celestial bodies affect one another; and therefore doubtless saw that there was no a priori warrant for the doctrine of gravitation. The reviewer, however, aiming to substitute for my "confused notions" his own clear ones, wishes me to identify the proposition—Central forces vary inversely as the squares of the distances—with the proposition—There is a cosmical force which varies inversely as the squares of the distances. But I decline to identify them; and I suspect that a considerable distinction between them was recognized by Newton. Lastly, apart from all this, I have to point out that, even had Newton thought the existence of an attractive force throughout space was an a priori truth, as well as the law of variation of such a force if it existed, he would still, naturally enough, pause before asserting this law, when he found his deductions from it did not correspond with the facts. To suppose otherwise, is to ascribe to him a rashness which no disciplined man of science could be guilty of.

See, then, the critical capacity variously exhibited in the space of a single sentence. The reviewer, quite erroneously, thinks that observations unguided by hypotheses suffice for physical discoveries. He seems unaware that, on a priori grounds, the law of the inverse square had been suspected as the law of some cosmical force, before Newton. He asserts, without warrant, that no such a priori conception preceded, in Newton's mind, his observations and calculations. He confounds the law of variation of a force with the existence of a force varying according to that law. And he concludes that Newton could have had no a priori conception of the law of variation, because he did not assert the existence of a force varying according to this law in defiance of the evidence as then presented to him!

Now that I have analyzed, with these results, the first of his criticisms, the reader will neither expect me to waste time in similarly dealing with the rest seriatim nor will he wish to have his own time occupied in following the analysis. To the evidence thus furnished of the reviewer's fitness for the task he undertakes, it will suffice if I add an illustration or two of the animus which leads him to make grave imputations on trivial grounds, and to ignore the evidence which contradicts his interpretations.

Because I have spoken of a balanced system, like that formed by the sun and planets, as having the "peculiarity, that though the constituents of the system have relative movements, the system, as a whole, has no movement," he unhesitatingly assumes me to be unaware that, in a system of bodies whose movements are not balanced, it is equally true that the centre of gravity remains constant. Ignorance of a general principle in dynamics is alleged against me solely because of this colloquial use of the word "peculiarity," where I should have used a word (and there is no word perfectly fit) free from the implication of exclusiveness. If the reviewer were to assert that arrogance is a "peculiarity" of critics; and if I were thereupon to charge him with entire ignorance of mankind, many of whom besides critics are arrogant, he would rightly say that my conclusion was a very large one to draw from so small a premise.

To this example of strained inference I will join an example of what seems like deliberate misconstruction. From one of my essays (not among the works he professes to deal with) the reviewer, to strengthen his attack, brings a strange mistake; which, even without inquiry, any fair-minded reader would see must be an oversight. A statement true of a single body acted on by a tractive force, I have inadvertently pluralized; being so possessed by another aspect of the question, as to overlook the obvious fact that with a plurality of bodies the statement became untrue. Not only, however, does the reviewer ignore various evidences furnished by the works before him, that I could not really think what I had there said, but he ignores a direct contradiction contained in the paragraph succeeding that from which he quotes. So that the case stands thus: On two adjacent pages I have made two opposite statements, both of which I cannot be supposed to believe. One of them is right; and this the reviewer assumes I do not believe. One of them is glaringly wrong; and this the reviewer assumes I do believe. Why he made this choice no one who reads his criticism will fail to see.

Even had his judgments more authority than is given to them by his mathematical honors, this brief characterization would, I think, suffice. Perhaps already, in rebutting the assumption that I did not answer his allegations because they were unanswerable, I have ascribed to them an unmerited importance. For the rest, suggesting that their value may be measured by the value of that above dealt with as a sample, I leave them to be answered by the works they are directed against.

Here I end. The foregoing pages, while serving, I think, the more important purpose of making clearer the relations of physical axioms to physical knowledge, incidentally justify the assertion that the reviewer's charges of fallacious reasoning and ignorance of the nature of proof recoil on himself. When, in his confident way, he undertakes to teach me the nature of our warrant for scientific beliefs, ignoring absolutely the inquiry contained in "Principles of Psychology," concerning the relative values of direct intuitions and reasoned conclusions, he lays himself open to a sarcasm which is sufficiently obvious. And when a certain ultimate principle of justification for our beliefs, set forth and acted upon in the "System of Synthetic Philosophy" more distinctly than in any other work, is enunciated by him for my instruction, as one which he "thought that every tolerably educated man was aware" of, his course is one for which I find no fit epithet in the vocabulary I permit myself to use. That in some cases he has shown eagerness to found charges on misinterpretations little less than deliberate, has been sufficiently shown; as also that, in other cases, his own failure to discriminate is made the ground for ascribing to me beliefs that are manifestly untenable. Save in the single case of a statement respecting collisions of bodies, made by me without the needful qualification, I am not aware of any errors he detects, except errors of oversight or those arising from imperfect expression and inadequate exposition. When he unhesitatingly puts the worst constructions on these, it cannot be because his own exactness is such that no other constructions occur to him; for he displays an unusual capacity for inadvertencies, and must have had many experiences showing him how much he might be wronged by illiberal interpretations of them. One who in twenty-three professed extracts makes fifteen mistakes—words omitted, or added, or substituted—should not need reminding how largely mere oversight may raise suspicion of something worse. One who shows his notions of accurate statement by asserting that, as I substitute "persistence" for "conservation," I therefore identify Persistence of Force with Conservation of Energy and debits me with the resulting incongruities—one who, in pursuance of this error, confounds a special principle with the general principle it is said to imply, and thereupon describes a wider principle as being included in a narrower (p. 481)—one who speaks of our "inner consciousness" (p. 488), so asserting, by implication, that we have an outer consciousness—one who talks of an inconceivable conception; ought surely to be aware how readily lax expressions may be turned into proofs of absurd opinions. And one who, in the space of a few pages, falls into so many solecisms, ought to be vividly conscious that a whole volume thus written would furnish multitudinous statements from which a critic, moved by a spirit like his own, might evolve abundant absurdities; supplying ample occasion for blazoning the tops of pages with insulting words.

 

1. See Popular Science Monthly for March, 1874.
2. That I am certainly not singular in this view is shown to me, even while I write, by the just-issued work of Prof. Jevons on the "Principles of Science: a Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method." In vol. ii., p. 141, Prof. Jevons remarks respecting the law of variation of the attractive force, that it "is doubtless connected at this point with the primary properties of space itself, and is so far conformable to our necessary ideas."
3. See Essay on "The Genesis of Science," in the British Quarterly Review for July, 1854, p. 127.
4. I do not say this at random. The reviewer, who has sought rather to make known than to conceal his identity, took his degree in 1868.