I cannot explain the deep emotion with which I open this book again. Here I write but never after read what I have written for what I write is done in the process of forming a conception. Yet I cannot forget that here are the germs of the theory of the categories which is (if anything is) the gift I make to the world. That is my child. In it I shall live when oblivion has me—my body.

This matter of the logical principles of the different kinds of inference is a difficult matter. One way of putting it would be this.

Every symbol denotes certain objects and connotes certain characters. The symbol represents each of those objects to have each of those characters. The symbol may be a false one; it may be that the objects it denotes do not have the characters it connotes. But if S is M in this sensenot merely that M is a name for S but that it is the name of a class of things among which S is and if M is P not merely in the sense that——-

Here the principle is that

Every one of the integrant parts of m is an integrant part of each prime aliquot of m and vice versa.

A purely contentless principle. As a logical principle should be.

Now let us take up the synthetic arguments.

Whatever is a character of every thing denoted by M is a character of M. Whatever has every character of M is denoted by m.

Here are two principles. But they do not apply to induction and hypothesis just as they stand.

Whatever is a common character of many things denoted by M is likely to be a character of m.

That does not quite hit the point. It does not contain the idea that the things must have been taken at random out of those denoted by M.

In what point of view shall we regard this necessity for a random selection?

Suppose we look at the matter thus. Certain things have a certain character in common. It follows that there must be some genus of these things which have the character. We cannot take any genus lower than that which they are selected as belonging to. To take a higher one would involve a perfectly arbitrary proposition.

I am convinced that this is a very awkward way of taking hold of the matter.

Suppose we take it up another way.

For any subject or predicate we can substitute what?

Only that which this subject or predicate representsonly that which fulfils the function of that subject or predicateonly that which the subject or predicate represents to the proposition or to the other terms of it.

Now a subject is a direct symbol of its subject to its predicate and a predicate of its predicate to its subject.

But a subject is also an imperfect representation of that genus from which it has been taken—by which it is determined. It is not a semeion sign of it as I have said—it is an example of it.

A predicate is a representation of the thing of which it is a random character—a copy of it.

This is horribly vague.

1867 March 25

Here is another point of view.

What is the function of a symbol as subject? To stand for certain things. Then if a predicate be true of all the things that it stands for as yet, that is for all which we yet know it to stand for, the symbol may stand as subject provisionally.

The difficulty with this is that it does not represent the synthetic probability of the inference.

It is however a good idea that a random selection is equivalent to all known—the genus of those two would fit that.

We have

M is P in the sense that the actual denotation or things taken under M are P (contingent)

and 2nd in the sense that all possible things taken under M would be P (necessary).On the same principle

S is M in the senses

1st that S has the qualities taken of M (attributive)
2nd that S has all qualities of M (subsumptive)

Still it may be doubted if Hypothesis proceeds by random selection of qualities of the new predicate.

Then the principle would be

the possible is like most of the actual.

1867 April 1

What is taken—the presentof a class if it has any common character—that character probably belongs to the class, or to the majority of it. And if what is known of the characters of a thing belong to another thing, the second thing has most of the characters of the first, probably.

The reason is that the parts compose the whole and therefore what does not belong to the majority of the whole does not belong to the majority of the parts.

What does not belong to most of the parts does not belong to the parts taken mostly, because the parts to be taken are all the possible parts.

April 12

The distinction must be observed between Induction and Hypothesis as formal operations and between them as leading to truth.

1867 September 24

Let me consider a little about the nature of truth.

First. I notice that if we define an image to be a representation completely determined in content so that in it every attribute is affirmed or denied there is probably no image. And is not this what

is requisite to make an image? What is an image? There is a good question for dialectical research.

As it seems to me that the world has not yet exhausted the instruction to be derived from Sophisms I shall undertake some analysis of a collocation of them which seems to me to lead at once to a solution of the darkest questions of metaphysics.

In the first place what is meant by a hypothetical proposition, when is it true? Take this one—If the carotid artery of a man is cut, he will die. Or this—if the shadow of the moon is cast on the earth, there is an eclipse of the sun.

Truth may be defined as the concurrence of the extension and comprehension of a representation which has extension and comprehension independent of one another.

Thus if a representation is a mere likeness (as no human representations are) which stands for nothing except what it happens fully to agree w ith in characters; it cannot be false of any thing because it only stands for whatever it fully agrees with. And therefore truth has no meaning in reference to it.

So if a representation merely points out certain things and implies nothing of them.

But if a representation at once indicates certain objects and independently implies certain characters, its truth or falsity depends on whether those characters can be predicated of those objects.

This definition is a bad one—it contains a diallele—but it will answer as a preliminary explanation and even sometimes as a test.

First apply what has been said to a categorical.

Now in a hypothetical proposition the function of the protasis is to mark the sphere of the representation, which it may do by means of it s connotation or otherwise. The apodosis on the other hand conveys the content of the representation. And the question whether the proposition is true is the same as whether that content belongs in fact to that sphere. Thus in the proposition—If the shadow of the moon is cast on the earth, the sun is eclipsed—the former clause indicates the circumstances to which the statement made in the latter clause is applicable.

Take now another case. If the motion of the earth in its orbit were suddenly arrested and the perturbative effects of other bodies pre-

vented, it would fall in a direct line to the sun. Unless the word truth be taken in a quite improper sense, this proposition is true. Yet how? For in this case there are no such circumstances as those indicated, they are even physically impossible, so that this would seem to be a representation like a copy which [ . . .]

1867 Sep. 26

Let x be that of which I know absolutely nothing
Then I do know that I know nothing of x
Therefore x is not x.

I know Greek. Greek is not present to my reminiscence, but occasion will call it up. This then is the essence of knowledge and what no occasion will call up is not known or conceived. I have therefore no conception of the absolutely unknowable.

Now a proposition is true in all its consequences for possible experience that either constitutes the truth of the proposition or it is false in reference to something which cannot be known (in which case the unknowable means something) or else it is devoid of meaning.

A proposition is not devoid of meaning which has true consequences.—

1867 Sep. 27

Every quality which we know of is of course either experienced or inferred from experience. We admit that things may have qualities which we do not know but that is because we may conceive of a state of knowledge in which something more is predicable of them. But do we mean anything if we say that a thing has a quality which cannot be predicated of it; that is which is unknowable and inconceivable? What can we mean by such a statement? We can imagine such a quality for as Berkeley says were we to imagine it, it would not be unimaginable. Can we have any general or relative notion of it? To have a general notion appears to be, having a habit according to which a certain sort of images will arise on occasion, that is having a capacity of imaging the particulars and the sense of this habit. But here such a thing is impossible.

Let us say then that it means nothing to say that a thing has an

inconceivable quality. An inconceivable quality—one inconceivable by every being and absolutely—is no quality.That which has no qualities is nothing.That which is absolutely inconceivable is nothing.

Sep. 28

To say that a word has meaning is to say that a conception corresponds to it.

To say that we have a general conception of a triangle for instance is to say that upon the occasion of a triangle being presented to the imagination or in experience a certain feeling complicated in a certain way arises. We have no conception therefore of that of which no determination can be presented in the imagination.

Consequently, though we may undoubtedly mean something by the inconceivable we can mean nothing by an absolutely and in itself inconceivable predicate.

Hence such a predicate is no predicate.

To say that we know what a word means is to say not that we can always apply it rightly in fact but that we can always apply it rightly to imagined cases.

On Logical Extension and Comprehension

One term is more extensive than another, when it is predicable of all that the latter is and of more, besides. One term is more comprehensive than another when all the characters predicable of the latter are predicable of it and more beside.

From this it is plain, at once, that the greater the extension the less the comprehension and vice versa.

We may distinguish real and verbal Comprehension and extension; thus "Englishman" is more extensive than "Surly Englishman" since it includes also Englishmen not surly. But if there is any doubt whether any of the latter exist, it is only verbally more extensive.

So "magnanimous hero" is more comprehensive than "hero" but if there is a doubt whether anything is conveyed by the adjective not already conveyed by the noun then the difference is merely verbal.

A better instance is "man John" and "man."

Confining our attention to Real Comprehension and Extension, we may observe that the predication spoken of may be either

1st such as could be made with no information except the meaning of the word. This I shall term the Essential Extension and Comprehension.

2nd such as could logically be made in a particular supposed state of information. This I shall term the Inferred Extension and Comprehension.

3rd such as could be made if our information were complete. This I shall term the Natural Extension and Comprehension.

Essential Extension and Comprehension

One half of all terms are positive and one half negative. Positive terms are defined, and therefore have an essential Comprehension. But they have no real essential extension. Negative terms are not defined and therefore have no real essential comprehension but they have a real essential extension since it is known that no determinate conception can embrace the whole sphere of being.

Man is a rational animal
Then Whatever is either irrational or not animal is not man

Two terms cannot be equal in essential extension or comprehension because if they were they would have the same meaning. The relation of two terms in essential comprehension or extension may not be measurable on account of the want of distinctness of one or both of those terms.

Oct. 2

There ought to be a proposition relating to universal and particular terms similar to that relating to affirmatives and negatives. My experience of logical symmetries assures me of it.

Perhaps this is it. A particular term will be found generally to have some natural extension, therefore all the extension implied, but

it will not have a comprehension adequate to limiting its extension as it is limited. On the other hand a universal term, will never have an extension capable of limiting its comprehension as it is limited since new propositions will be discovered.

This is not yet very clear to me. But it would seem that as there is an arbitrariness in the extension of particulars so that we may exclude this or that from its extension so as to be able to predicate of it what we cannot predicate of them, so there is an arbitrary element in the comprehension of the universal so that this or that may be omitted from it so that we can predicate it of (imaginary things) of which we could not predicate them.

I think this is it. In a particular there is no concrete thing which must be included under it; in a universal there is no concrete quality which must be included in it.

If some S is P
it does not follow that this S is P

If S isP
it does not follow that it is thisP

Ah I think I have it now—

SomeS has a complete concrete comprehension
Thus Some Man—is a laugher, a one-eyed man, a cross person, &c.

This cannot be said of Any man which is therefore without concrete comprehension.

On the other hand Some man is not completely defined in extension since it is disjunctive alternative while any man applies definitely to certain things.

Note the meaning of a particular in the predicate. Some S means Either S' S'' S''' &c. select which I please.

Some S is P, that is let me take as my subject one what one I
please of S' S'' S''' &c. and I can make the proposition true.

Now this does not hold for M is some P unless M is completely determined in comprehension just as Any S is P only holds if P has a very wide extension.

We may therefore say

Oct. 2

2. Of the Effect of a Change of Information

Suppose it is learned that

Any S is P

Then S receives an addition to its comprehension.

P an addition to its extension.

If we looking at an S find it to be P

Some S is P

This adds to the extension of P—supposing we know what S.

Any S is not-P

This adds to the comprehension of S—supposing we know something of not-P.

1867 Nov. 24

I wish to investigate the nature of a simple concept. Such a concept first arises as predicated of some object (occasion of experience)

S is M

On the ground of some previous representation of the object. (Not immediate)

1. entirely knowable. Intuitional. Capable of external existence.

The predication of the concept is virtually contained in this previous representation.

To say that a simple concept is the immediate apprehension of a quality is but a mode of saying that its meaning is given in the representation which gives rise to it inasmuch as it is as much as to say that that quality is contained in that representation.

1867 Dec. 7

When I conceive a thing as say 'three' or say 'necessary' I necessarily have some concrete object in my imagination. I have some concrete object—'the necessary'. By saying that I have the necessary in my mind, it is not meant that I have all necessary things in mind. Nor that I have simply the character of necessity. For what I am thinking is not necessity but the necessary. Then I must have something which I recognize as a general sign of the necessary. But why should that particular feeling which is a sign of the necessary be a sign of that any more than of anything else? Because such is my constitution. Very true.

When I conceive as say "necessary," I have some singular object present to my imagination. I have not all necessary things separately imaged.

The Logic of Chance. An Essay on the Foundations and Province of the Theory of Probability, with especial Reference to its Application to Moral and Social Science. By John Venn, M.A. London and Cambridge. 1866. 16mo. pp. 370.

Here is a book which should be read by every thinking man. Great changes have taken place of late years in the philosophy of chances. Mr. Venn remarks, with great ingenuity and penetration, that this doctrine has had its realistic, conceptualistic, and nominalistic stages. The logic of the Middle Ages is almost coextensive with demonstrative logic; but our age of science opened with a discussion of probable argument (in the Novum Organum), and this part of the subject has given the chief interest to modern studies of logic. What is called the doctrine of chances is, to be sure, but a small part of this field of inquiry; but it is a part where the varie ties in the conceptions of probability have been most evident. When this doctrine was first studied, probability seems to have been regarded as something inhering in the singular events, so that it was possible for Bernouilli to enounce it as a theorem (and not merely as an identical proposition), that events happen with frequencies proportional to their probabilities. That was a realistic view. Afterwards it was said that probability does not exist in the singular events, but consists in the degree of credence which ought to be reposed in the occurrence of an event. This is conceptualistic. Finally, probability is regarded as the ratio of the number of events in a certain part of an aggregate of them to the number in the whole aggregate. This is the nominalistic view.

This last is the position of Mr. Venn and of the most advanced writers on the subject. The theory was perhaps first put forth by Mr. Stuart Mill; but his head became involved in clouds, and he relapsed

into the conceptualistic opinion. Yet the arguments upon the modern side are overwhelming. The question is by no means one of words; but if we were to inquire into the manner in which the terms probable, likely, and so forth, have been used, we should find that they always refer to a determination of a genus of argument. See, for example, Locke on the Understanding, Book IV, ch. 15, §1. There we find it stated that a thing is probable when it is supported by reasons such as lead to a true conclusion. These words such as plainly refer to a genus of argument. Now, what constitutes the validity of a genus of argument? The necessity of thinking the conclusion, say the conceptualists. But a madman may be under a necessity of thinking fallaciously, and (as Bacon suggests) all mankind may be mad after one uniform fashion. Hence the nominalist answers the question thus: A genus of argument is valid when from true premises it will yield a true conclusion,invariably if demonstrative, generally if probable. The conceptualist says, that probability is the degree of credence which ought to be placed in the occurrence of an event. Here is an allusion to an entry on the debtor side of man's ledger. What is this entry? What is the meaning of this ought? Since probability is not an affair of morals, the ought must refer to an alternative t o be avoided. Now the reasoner has nothing to fear but error. Probability will accordingly be the degree of credence which it is necessary to repose in a proposition in order to escape error. Conceptualists have not undertaken to say what is meant by "degree of credence." They would probably pronounce it indefinable and indescribable. Their philosophy deals much with the indefinable and indescribable. But propositions are either absolutely true or absolutely false. There is nothing in the facts which corresponds at all to a degree of credence, except that a genus of argument may yield a certain proportion of true conclusions from true premises. Thus, the following form of argument would, in the long run, yield (from true premises) a true conclusion two-thirds of the time:

A is taken at random from among the B's;
2/3 of the B's are C;
[therefore] A is C.

Truth being, then, the agreement of a representation with its object, and there being nothing in re answering to a degree of credence, a modification of a judgment in that respect cannot make it

more true, although it may indicate the proportion of such judgments which are true in the long run. That is, indeed, the precise and only use or significance of these fractions termed probabilities: they give security in the long run. Now, in order that the degree of credence should correspond to any truth in the long run, it must be the representation of a general statistical fact,a real, objective fact. And then, as it is th e fact which is said to be probable, and not the belief, the introduction of "degree of credence" at all into the definition of probability is as superfluous as the introduction of a reflection upon a mental process into any other definition would be,as though we were to define man as "that which (if the essence of the name is to be apprehended) ought to be conceived as a rational animal."

To say that the conceptualistic and nominalistic theories are both true at once, is mere ignorance, because their numerical results conflict. A conceptualist might hesitate, perhaps, to say that the probability of a proposition of which he knows absolutely nothing is 1/2, although this would be, in one sense, justifiable for the nominalist, inasmuch as one half of all possible propositions (be ing contradictions of the other half) are true; but he does not hesitate to assume events to be equally probable when he does not know anything about their probabilities, and this is for the nominalist an utterly unwarrantable procedure. A probability is a statistical fact, and cannot be assumed arbitrarily. Boole first did away with this absurdity, and thereby brought the mathematical doctrine of probabilities into harmony with the modern logical doctrine of probable inference. But Boole (owing to the needs of his calculus) admitted the assumption that simple events whose probabilities are given are independent,—an assumption of the same vicious character. Mr. Venn strikes down this last remnant of conceptualism with a very vigorous hand.

He has, however, fallen into some conceptualistic errors of his own; and these are specially manifest in his "applications to moral and social science." The most important of these is contained in the chapter "On the Credibility of Extraordinary Stories"; but it is defended with so much ingenuity as almost to give it the value of a real contribution to science. It is maintained that the credibility of an extraordinary story depends either entirely upon the veracity of the witness, or, in more extraordinary cases, entirely upon the a priori credibility of the story; but that these considerations cannot, under any circumstances, be combined, unless arbitrarily. In order to support this opinion, the author invents an illustration. He supposes that

statistics were to have shown that nine out of ten consumptives who go to the island of Madeira live through the first year, and that nine out of ten Englishmen who go to the same island die the first year; what, then, would be the just rate of insurance for the first year of a consumptive Englishman who is about to go to that island? There are no certain data for the least approximation to the proportion of consumptive Englishmen who die in Madeira during the first year. But it is certain that an insurance company which insured only Englishmen in Madeira during the first year, or only consumptives underthe same circumstances, would be warranted (a certain moral fact being neglected) in taking the consumptive Englishman at its ordinary rate. Hence, Mr. Venn thinks that an insurance company which insured all sorts of men could with safety and fairness insure the consumptive Englishman either as Englishman or as consumptive.1 Now, the case of an extraordinary story is parallel to this: for such a story is, 1st, told by a certain person, who tells a known proportion of true stories,—say nine out of ten; and, 2d, is of a certain sort (as a fish story), of which a known proportion are true,—say one in ten. Then, as much as before, we come out right, in the long run, by considering such a story under either of the two classes to which it belongs. Hence, says Mr. Venn, we must repose such belief in the story as the veracity of the witness alone, or the antecedent probability alone, requires, or else arbitrarily modify one or other of these degrees of credence. In examining this theory, let us first re mark, that there are two principal phrases in which the word probability occurs: for, first, we may speak of the probability of an event or proposition, and then we express ourselves incompletely, inasmuch as we refer to the frequency of true conclusions in the genus of arguments by which the event or proposition in question may have

1. This is an error. For supposing every man to be insured for the same amount, which we may take as our unit of value, and adopting the notation,

x = unknown ratio of consumptive English who do not die in the first year. The amount paid out yearly by the company would be, in the long run,

and x is unknown. This objection to Venn's theory may, however, be waived.

been inferred, without indicating what genus of argument that is; and, secondly, we may speak of the probability that any individual of a certain class has a certain character, when we mean the ratio of the number of those of that class that have that character to the total number in the class. Now it is this latter phrase which we use when we speak of the probability that a story of a certain sort, told by a certain man, is true. And since there is no thing in the data to show what this ratio is, the probability in question is unknown. But a "degree of credence" or "credibility," to be logically determined, must, as we have seen, be an expression of probability in the nominalistic sense; and therefore this "degree of credence" (supposing it to exist) is unknown. "We know not what to believe," is the ordinary and logically correct expression in such cases of perplexity.

Credence and expectation cannot be represented by single numbers. Probability is not always known; and then the probability of each degree of probability must enter into the credence. Perhaps this again is not known; then there will be a probability of each degree of probability of each degree of probability; and so on. In the same way, when a risk is run, the expectation is composed of the probabilities of each possible issue, but is not a single number, as the Petersburg problem shows. Suppose the capitalists of the world were to owe me a hundred dollars, and were to offer to pay in either of the following ways: 1st, a coin should be pitched up until it turned up heads (or else a hundred times, if it did not come up heads sooner), and I should be paid two dollars if the head came up the first time, four if the second time, eight if the third time, &c.; or, 2d, a coin should be turned up a hundred times, and I should receive two dollars for every head. Each of these offers would be worth a hundred dollars, in the long run; that is to say, if repeated often enough, I should receive on the average a hundred dollars at each trial. But if the trial were to be made but once, I should infinitely prefer the second alternative, on account of its greater security. Mere certainty is worth a great deal. We wish to know our fate. How much it is worth is a question of political economy. It must go into the market, where its worth is what it will fetch. And since security may be of many kinds (according to the distribution of the probabilities of each sum of money and of each loss, in prospect), the value of the various kinds will fluctuate among one another with the ratio of demand and supply,—the demand varying with the moral and intellectual state of the community,—and thus no single and constant number can represent the value of any kind.

Logic must begin with analyzing the meanings of certain words, which we shall take up in due order.

The first of these is the word "is", as when we say, Julius Caesar is dead, a griffin is a fabulous animal, a four-sided triangle is an absurdity, height is the distance from the ground, nothing is that which does not exist. These examples suffice to show that we apply this word to whatever we give a name, whether it really exists or not, or whether we consider it as existing or not.

The word is is called by logicians the copula because it joins subject and predicate. That which is, in the sense of the copula, was termed ens (pl: entia) by the schoolmen, and the corresponding abstract noun used was entitas. In this as in many other cases, we have taken in English, the abstract noun in a concrete sense, and we can consequently speak of entities. At the same time we have forgotten the very general meaning attached to the word in the middle ages, as denoting whatever can be named, and employ it for what would then have been termed ens reale. Thus, we often hear the schoolmen reviled because they considered abstractions to be "entities," but in their sense of the term it admits of no dispute that an abstraction is ens. It is true that they frequently use the word ens simply when they mean ens reale, but only in cases in which there can be no doubt of their meaning; and it was universal to consider entia as embracing not only entia realia but also entia rationis. I propose to restore the term ens or entity to its original meaning of whatever can be named or talked about. I shall also endeavor as much as possible to reserve the word being and other derivatives of is, to express this same conception; but these words must be somewhat ambiguous.

It may be observed that entity is so extremely general a name that it has no negative over against it. We may talk of a nonentity, but then as we have given it a name it is also an entity.

In contrast with this general being which is conferred by our mere thought of an object, is the being of real things which is quite independent of what we think.

We shall designate this by "reality", and its cognates; and shall employ "figment" and "fiction" to denote that which is non-existent without meaning to imply that the conception has been a deliberate invention.

It is important to observe that the essential difference between a reality and a nonreality, is that the former has an existence entirely independent of what you or I or any number of men may think about it. What I dream, for example, only exists so far as my dreaming imagination creates it. But the fact that I have had such a dream, remains true whether I ever reflect upon that fact or not. The dream, therefore, as a mental phenomenon, is a reality; but the thing dreamed is a figment. If there ever really was such a man as Romulus, he would have existed just the same if history had never mentioned him; but if he is not a reality he exists only in the fables which have been told of the foundation of Rome. When Gray says,

Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen
And waste its sweetness on the desert air;

he expresses with precision the essential character of reality. But when we say that the real is that which is independent of how you or I or any number of men think about it, we have still left the conception of independent being to be analyzed. Before making that analysis we must consider the conceptions of one, two, and three.

We have seen that an ens is something to which the copula is can be applied. But is is a word whose meaning is not complete in itself. It means nothing to say that anything is (in the sense of the copula) unless I say what it is; for the only function of the copula is to join subject and predicate. Hence, whatever is, is somehow. This somehow of entity I propose to express by the term quality. A quality therefore in the very general sense in which I shall use it, denotes whatever can be expressed by all that comes after is in a complete assertion. Every ens, then, has some quality for to say that it is an ens is to say that it may be made the subject of an assertion and that assertion must have some predicate. There is no conception so vague that some thing cannot be asserted of the object of it, for it is the first condition of thought that some quality must be thought in the thought.

2. That this doctrine has a favorable influence upon scientific investigation, and that the Positivists have been clever savans.

3. That this doctrine is fatal to religion, and that the religious side of positivism is its weakness.

4. That it is possible and usual for scientific men to occupy another position equally advantageous in reference to scientific research and not so destructive of religious faith.

5. Of Positivism as held by unphilosophic and unscientific persons, not owing to severe thought but to the influence of the ""spirit of the age.''

6. That the fundamental position of positivism is false.

7. The true doctrine and its consequences.

7 1/2. Of some doctrines allied to positivism.

8. In what sense positivism has deeply influenced the age and in what sense it has not.

9. Conclusion.

The first disciples of the positive philosophy (I do not speak now of its doctors) were men interested in carrying the research of what ordinary people call causes into realms which had hitherto been trodden only by the foot of the metaphysician or the classifier. Without allowing all its rules for this kind of investigation, we may admit that it has been of real service to those men and through them to the world. Its scientific side is its strength. But now that it has become the fashion, it has been taken up by persons who have neither the stern masculinity proper for positive philosophers nor any business with physical science. By these persons it is regarded in its practical

and especially its religious aspect. This is decidedly its weak side. This was perhaps felt by the man who to put it to the test pushed it to its legitimate religious consequences in paradoxes respecting the grand ^etre, &c. These modern disciples, however, shrink from these doctrines which offend the Anglosaxon sense and prefer to discard all religious belief altogether. And, then, not being particularly philosophic in temperament they seek to reconcile themselves to the sceptical state by persuading themselves that theism could offer no rational consolation to its believers, even if it could be rationally accepted. Herein they show the secret influence upon them of the capital principle of theism namely that whatever is is best. Only by a covert faith in this could they commit the absurdity of maintaining that God, Freedom, and Immortality would be evils.

Now the pleasantness or unpleasantness of consequences is no argument for or against a speculative opinion. But a man fights the battle of life better under the stimulus of hope; and we ought not to complain, therefore, that men lean toward the hopeful belief. At any rate it is a fact that they do so; and therefore if scepticism can show that the prospects it offers are more cheering than those of theism it is likely to sweep away the latter altogether except from the minds of a few sad thinkers who unfortunately shall be convinced that they are immortal beings under the government of a loving God. But that this never will happen and that scepticism is not so comfortable or inspiriting a state as theistic belief will be shown beyond further controversy in the present paper.

In the first place, then, we are to give no weight to the testimony of an individual sceptic that he finds his scepticism delightful. For apart from the question of veracity (which in such a case is serious for everyone but himself) he may be self-deceived, or may understand by theism a particular determination of it, gloomy on account of what it adds to the fundamental doctrine, or may be of an abnormal constitution in his sentimental part. Nor shall we be convinced by an instance or two of a heroic sceptic, since heroism in these few cases can well be attributed to natural force of character, since for every such instance ten can be adduced of sneaking sceptics, and since on the other hand reli gion can show a history of whole communities becoming heroic in a way that can only be accounted for by supposing that it can make a hero of almost anybody. The argument might be urged the other way with perfect justness and with a force perfectly convincing to the clear-minded. But since a caviller

might easily raise a cloud of dust in reference to such a matter, it will be more adviseable to pass it over.

We prefer to begin with this undoubted fact: All men and all animals love life. This is not a passion produced by theism or any other superstition, but is of all impulses one of the most original, strongest, and ineradicable. If some man says he does not love life, other evidence rather bears down his testimony, and if he really does not he is only an unhappy exception, a miserable a bortion, which is not to set aside the result of all experience.

This passion has for its object firstly and primarily ourselves, in a less strong degree our friends, then our blood, then our country, then our race, and finally it is still a deep and lively emotion even in its reference to intellect in general. It may be objected that the love of the life of our family, for example, is not the same passion as the love of our own life. But all I say is, that we have a desire for the continued life of all these objects, and that these desires have this in common that they are all love of life in some form, all are lively emotions, all seem to spring from our original nature and all are in the great body of mankind incapable of being rooted out without shattering the heart almost entirely.

We may wonder why men should care for what is to happen after they are (according to their belief) annihilated; it may be that such a wish implies a lurking of the contrary belief, but it is a fact any man even the merest atheist does not limit his love of life to this side of the grave. He provides for the wellbeing of the world when he is to be no more. Nay, Hume was anxious for his own good reputation among succeeding generations. The love of life is more than a love of sensuous life: it is also a love of rational life. For it continues up to the point where our sensations become intolerable agony. Hence, our love of life is not confined within the walls of our own body; but since our reason lives wherever it is active, primarily in our own brains but also secondarily in the brains of those who take up our thoughts and sentiments, it is a part of the love of life, to love our influence upon and fame with succeeding generations. We, also, feel within us in addition to elements peculiar to ourselves, elements also which are common to ourselves and others, among which are personality and intellect. Personality has two senses, 1st being personal and 2nd the special idiosyncracy of a particular person. It is in the first sense that the sympathy we exhibit shows that we feel that it is the same, in others as in ourselves. Hence the love of the life of others

is still a passion which centres in ourselves because we love them as having something in common with ourselves, that is, because a part of them is identical with a part of ourselves. Th is would be quite false if these elements were material but as they are general and purely formal objects, there is nothing in nominalism to refute such a sentiment. The more true culture we have, the more we approach that ideal of a man of which we all cherish a more or less vague idea; the more we love our rational life relatively to our sensuous life, and of all the elements of a rational life the more we value those which are fundamental and necessary results of the developement of reason in general relatively to those which are merely the mannerism and idiosyncracy peculiar to ourselves; and consequently the further we advance to what we ought to be, the stronger is our love of reason in general relatively to that of our race, that of our race relatively to that of our country, that o f our country relatively to that of our blood, and that of our blood relatively to that of our own persons. These passions then which I have summed up in one word as the love of life, are really intimately bound together and connected in our nature. These passions go by many different names in common language and some are not named at all, but it will readily be perceived that there is not a single impulse or sentiment of any consequence, which is not among the number, which is not in some sense a love of life. Now let us see what the two doctrines positivism and theism promise to this passion which is the sum of all longings.

Now some positivistswhom I should certainly adduce as instances of sneaking scepticsendeavor to conceal the bearing of the ir doctrine upon religion. They seek to represent that it merely denies the possibility of arriving at scientific certainty with regard to such matters and not the possibility of reaching highly probable conclusions. But this is a miserable falsification. The doctrine that it implies, that knowing a thing to be probable is not knowledge, is not only unsound in itself, it is so also on positivist principles, and is distinctly recognized as being so by the positivists themselves. Positivists to be consequent should hold that all religious belief is superstition, and that all superstitions which do not come into conflict with any scientifically known fact are on one level of credibility, and should assume the same attitude of mind towards the doctrine that the soul is immortal as to that of Bernardus Carnotensis that universals are beings who marry and have children, ""quia albedo significat virginem incorruptam, albet eandem introeuntem thalamum aut

cubantem in toro, album vero eandem sed corruptam'';except that one view may be more entertaining than the other. It is true that one of the most eminent American metaphysicians is of opinion that religion might be based on positive philosophy as Comte defines it. But though Comte's definition labors under the ambiguity so common in French, all the world understands the term in a sense of which it is an essential part that no theory shall be admitted except in so far as it asserts or denies something with respect to a possible observation. In respect to the continuance of life in this world, positivism is even less favorable. That there always should be intellect in the universe, that there should not come a time when it all dies out forever, not only presents no preponderance of probability but is even perhaps opposed by the fact that all the conditions of the world of which we have any knowledge are mutable.

Life upon the globe is a phase, quite accidental, tending as far as we know to no permanent end, of no sort of use, except in producing a pleasant titillation now and then on the nerves of this or that wayfarer on this weary and purposeless journeywhich like a treadmill starts nowhere and goes nowhere, and whose machinery produces nothing at all. There is no good in life but its occasional plea-sures; these are mostly delusive, and as like as not will soon utterly pass away.

Let us now turn to theism. The capital principle of this is, that nature is absolutely conformed to an end; or in other words, that there is reason in the nature of things. Now from what has been said before it follows that so far as we attain true culture so far will the sum of all our impulses come to the love of reason as it necessarily is, and therefore so far as we are as we ought to be so far are we perfectly gratified by what according to the nature of things, takes place; which is another way of saying that whatever is is best. Now this is not only a consolation; it is the very sum, quintessence and acme of all consolation. That happens which so far as our own nature is developed, so far as we truly know our own mind, is what delights us most.

Whatever palliatives to the ills of life can be applied by the sceptic are also at the command of the theist and in addition the only true consolation.

I know very well that a great many theists are nearer pessimists than optimists but they are unsound and inconsistent. To say, however, that whatever is is best is not to deny the existence of evil, but

only to maintain that if any event is bad in one way it more than counterbalances for it by being good in another and higher way.

Positivists are in the habit of considering positivism and metaphysics as opposed species of philosophy. Now to maintain that the conclusions of metaphysics are as yet very certain would be enthusiastic enough in view of the differences of opinion among metaphysicians. These differences have been growing less and less from one centur y to another, owing to a gradual clearing up of conceptions. But the whole effective result of metaphysical research hitherto may be described in saying that certain indistinct conceptions have been made distinct. Every great branch of science has once been in the state in which metaphysics is now, that is when its fundamental conceptions were vague and consequently its doctrines utterly unsettled; and there is no reason whatever to despair of metaphysics eventually becoming a real science like the rest; but at present that is not the case. Now the positivist may define metaphysics, as he pleases, but if he deals with conceptions which are indistinct in his mind, he is for all purposes of certainty in the same condition as the metaphysician. That is precisely what he does do in maintaining that we can have no knowledge of any reality except single impressions of sense and their sensible relations. The question what is reality has a great pertinency here. Suppose we say it is that which is independently of our belief and which could be properly inferred by the most thorough discussion of the sum of all impressions of sense whatever. If that is what the positivist means by reality (and since he does not tell us we must guess for ourselves), then he ought to be not a sceptic but an atheist, for that which we cannot possibly be in a state to infer, is not then a reality at all. And, indeed, I should be glad to know what the positivist does mean by an existence which cannot possibly be known. Such an existence must be utterly cut off from everything knowa ble, for if it was in any way manifested, if it anyhow effected anything knowable, that would be some slight reason for inferring it to be. I can attach no idea to such a reality and I have not been able to find a positivist or other person who could explain it and this confirms me in the opinion that the above definition really expresses what men mean by reality.

If therefore I am asked as a theist what I have to reply to the arguments of the positivist against religion, I reply in the first place, that positivism is only a particular species of metaphysics open to all the uncertainty of metaphysics, and its conclusions are for that rea-

son of not enough weight to disturb any practical belief. We awake to reflection and find ourselves theists. Now those beliefs which come before reflect ion to all men alike are generally true, and the reason is that the causes which produce fallaciesdepend for their operation upon a conscious process of reasoning. But apart from the weight of common sense which must be presumed to attach to theism, the fact that it is my belief itself throws the burden of proof upon its opponents. And metaphysical conclusions ought not in the present state of the science to weigh in practical affairs.

But even if I am asked as a metaphysician whether the objections of positivism to religion seem to me to be valid, I still answer not in the least.

For I object to its logical doctrine that no theory is to be admitted except so far as it asserts or denies something with respect to possible impressions of sense or their sensible relations.

This be it observed is a proposition of positivism which has nothing to do with natural science (the strong side of positivism) which anyway only deals with phenomena. Its principal effect is upon religion with reference to which positivism has rather its comical side. It is true positivists value this proposition as shutting out all metaphysical conclusions, but it appears to me it shuts them out for the wrong reason, that is on account of their object matter instead of on account of the unsatisfactory state of the science as yet.

What is the end of a theory or what is a theory considered as an end? The passionate advocate of positivism will be ready with some hasty answer, but passion and haste are not the way to answer such questions. Were it doubted whether a theory can be considered tele ologically, it could be shown that end and theory are almost the same thing; but it is not doubted since positivism expressly defines itself a particular doctrine concerning the end of theory.

I should define the end of a theory as to carry one thread of consciousness through different states of consciousness. But whether this be the end or not, whatever is necessary to accomplishing the end of a theory must be admitted into the theory. Now to admit as a theory is the same as to believe for though in the ordinary use of language we attach more of the notion of a provisional character to admitting as a theory, yet as all belief is provisional this is merely a difference of degree which cannot affect the general logical consideration of the matter. We must therefore believe whatev er is necessary for accomplishing the end of a theory whether that is capable of

observation or not. The only question is whether anything not capable of direct observation is thus necessary.

Now as theories have this in common they are inferences of the unobserved from the observedfrom the present in experience to the future in experience. Now who does not see that the future is not observable except when the present is not, so that we either reason to conclusions which are absolutely unobservable or from facts which are absolutely unobservable. This is the conclusive objection to positivism. If the reader cannot understand it in its pure philosophical statement, let him ask whether time can be observed, to flow. All science depends upon record of the past, and a record other than that in the memory is plainly something which cannot be verified by direct observation. The positivist may say if he pleases that memory is an immediate knowledge of the past, but all men admit that it may err. If one man's memory may err, so may ten men's. And though if ten men think they remember the same event there is really good ground for believing that they remember rightly, that there is none on the positivist principle that no theory is to be admitted except so far as it concludes something observable, is self-evident. Thus as every theory whatever concludes from the present to the future every theory necessarily concludes more than can possibly be verified by direct observation.

The positivists endeavor to elude this reductio ad absurdum by saying that by possible observation they mean that which can be supposed to be made at any time whatever. But they are aware, I suppose, that they cannot force any arbitrary rule of reasoning they please upon the world. They are upon their trial, and if they say that this is their doctrine they must support it by reasons and must hold nothing which shall lead to that further determination of it which we have supposed them to hold and which has been proved absurd. Now they are continually harping upon this: that if a theory concludes more than possible observations, it cannot be verified by direct observation and therefore is wholly baseless and metaphysical. Verification is the watchword of positivism. But it is easy to see that a proposition is no more verifiable by direct observation for being such as we can suppose (by a recognized falsification) to be observed unless it is also such as really can be observed. Their maxim, therefore, must refer to really possible observations not such as are supposably possible, for the proof they give leads to that or to nothing.

But the positivist has another reply to the objection here made to

his doctrine. He may say:""It is very true, that upon my principles I have not the least reason to believe that the record of the facts is true to the facts themselves. I do not pretend to have. The only world of which I have any information or in which I have any interest is the world which appears to me. Whether this represents correctly or otherwise any other world I neither know nor care.'' This is all very well, but it is plain t hat the positivist like other men inquires whether his history is right or not. What the significance of his doing so is, it is not necessary to inquire. In any case it follows, that he does somehow discriminate between direct observation and what has not been observed, and indeed if he did not his rule would have no possible application. And as matters of history are not capable of verification by direct observation in any case, some conclusions must be admitted which are not matters of direct observation. Besides, when the positivist assumes the transcendental position, which he is here supposed to do, he must admit that among all the elements present to consciousness, the grounds upon which some are set off as being matters of intuition are as it were conjectural. It is not a question c apable of being decided by direct observation, what is and what is not direct observation.

The logical rule, therefore, which is the whole basis of positivism appears to me to be entirely false.

L 183: W. T. Harris Collection

Cambridge 1868 Jan. 24

Dear Sir

I have to thank you for the fourth number of your excellent Journal. I think you are to be congratulated upon the success of your first volume. There are many things which might be said in the way of praise and blame, but I will not venture upon criticism. Only, the national importance of your undertaking impels me to mention one matter itself of national importance. I think that the terminology used in the journal has occasionally violated usage. I remember, for example, such expressions as, "Locke's primary properties" instead of qualities, reality as the opposite of potentiality instead of actuality, contemplation (for Anschauung) instead of intuition, comprehension (for Begriff) instead of concept. Begriff is a common word and there can be no doubt of its equivalence commonly to concept. Shall we then assign two English words to this one German? Considering the superior richness of the latter language, I fear that this would necessitate our assigning but one word in English to several German ones which ought to be distinguished. If Hegel put up with Begriff, I think that we must get along with Concept. In English a rigid economy of words is requisite which in German is unnecessary, although it could hardly be without its advantages.

I should like to make some inquiries in regard to your meaning in the paragraph beginning 'Being is the pure simple' on p. 140.

I will begin by stating how much of it [ . . . ]

I have been thus long-winded in order that the nature of my questions in reference to your meaning and position should be unmistakable. I will say again that I do not argue or profess to represent or state the position of Hegelians, but only seek a more explicit statement from one of them.

I have written on one side of the paper only so that if you should think it well to answer my questions in print, you might print them in full with the answers. Should you do this, I should desire (as a mere inquirer) to remain incognito. Yours with great respect

C. S. Peirce

P 25: Journal of Speculative Philosophy 2(1868):57-61

[We print below some strictures upon the position assumed in our last number with reference to M. Janet's version of Hegel's doctrine of the "Becoming." We hope that these acute statements which have been written, for the most part, in the form of queries, will receive a careful reading, especially by those who have differed from our own views hitherto expressed. They seem to us the most profound and compendious statement of the anti-speculative standpoint as related to the Science of Pure Thought (Prima Philosophia), that we have seen. But for this very reason we are fain to believe that the defects of the formalism relied upon are all the more visible. We have endeavored to answer these queries with the same spirit of candor that animates their author.--Editor.]

L 183: W. T. Harris Collection

Cambridge 1868 March 16

Dear Sir

I have received the proof sheets of your very courteous reply to my queries. I have strong reasons for thinking that you have understood me as using the adjectives abstract and concrete in the senses of general or very general and singular; whereas, in fact, by an abstract name I mean such as entitas, whiteness, immediacy and by a concrete one such as ens, white, Immediate. Further reflection and a reference to your own statement on p. 117 and to Hegel's very careful remarks under the head of Daseyn, will I think convince you that being, as I defined it, is not determinate, the reflection that all which is is by negation and determination, not being involved in that definition. Far less, is it existence, which you certainly will not maintain to be the same as Daseyn. I have thought proper to defer making any remarks upon your reply until you have had an opportunity to amend it in these respects.

There are two unimportant errata in my letter. p 59 2nd column 6th line from the bottom. The dash should be a hyphen. p 60 2nd col. 11th and 12th lines from the top. Omit the words "or that being in the sense intended is humanity."

I have read Mr. Kroeger's pamphlet on Politics with great attention, interest, and general approval. It seems to me that it is in the sphere of morals and politics that the school of Fichte is strongest. I should have been glad to have had more said about the theory of checks and balances which has lately been powerfully attacked and also upon the peculiar modification of the theory of the state of nature contained in the Declaration.

I remain, with great regard
Yours &c.
Charles S. Peirce

P 28: Journal of Speculative Philosophy 2(1868):190-91

[The following discussion, which is a continuation of the one in a former issue called "Nominalism and Realism," may serve a good purpose to clear up any confusion that may exist regarding some of the important technical expressions employed.--EDITOR.]

Qu. 1. Whether by the simple contemplation of a cognition, we are enabled in any case to declare with considerable certainty that it is an ultimate premise or cognition not determined by any previous cognition, or whether this is only a hypothesis to be resorted to when the facts cannot be explained by the action of known causes? Ans. The latter alternative is the true one.

Potentia ex Impotentia

L 183: W. T. Harris Collection

Cambridge 1868 Nov. 30

Dear Sir

I send to you today two proof-sheets. I should have sent the first one on some days ago but was ill when it came.

I suppose you saw that I struck out the paragraph referring to Hegelians. I intended no slur on them, or any appeal to the ignorant against them. What I meant was to protest respectfully but energetically to them against a certain tendency in their philosophy. In fact with all the disposition of this school to find every philosophical doctrine true for its time and stage of developement, yet if their categories should happen not to be true it is plain that to classify men according to them may be one of the most unfair things in the world.

I have considered your remark that you do not see the drift of my making man entirely ignorant of his own states of mind. I suppose I have not written very clearly for one thing,--and that I have tried to correct in the proof. But the real difficulty is that the article is truncated. I had intended to wind up with a long discussion about the metaphysics--the ontology of the soul. I left this off on account of the length of the article. But now I find by your criticism that it is wanted, and I have endeavored to put it into the briefest and most meagre form and send it to you, in hopes you will be able to tack it on to the end of the article.

I do not say that we are ignorant of our states of mind. What I say is that the mind is virtual, not in a series of moments, not capable of existing except in a space of time--nothing so far as it is at any one moment.

Yrs. very truly
C. S. Peirce

MS 158: November-December 1869

The president requested me to deliver nine lectures upon the history of logic. I have limited the subject to British Logicians, but even with this limitation I have a subject which would require for an adequate treatment not less than ten times the number of lectures I have to give. I am under the necessity therefore of treating it in an altogether fragmentary manner and you must not be surprized that I leave quite out of account some of the most famous names.

Let it be understood in the first place that I do not come here to air my own opinions or even to talk about logic at all but purely and solely about a branch of history,--the history of logical thought in the British Islands. In such imperfect manner as the time will allow I shall endeavor to show you how this subject appeared to the chief thinkers in England and reproduce their state of mind. But whether they were right or wrong will be for you and me a question altogether to be neglected, for that is a question of philosophy and not of history.

This history of logic is not altogether without an interest as a branch of history. For so far as the logic of an age adequately represents the methods of thought of that age, its history is a history of the human mind in its most essential relation,--that is to say with reference to its power of investigating truth. But the chief value of the study of historical philosophy is that it disciplines the mind to regard philosophy in a cold and scientific eye and not with passion as though philosophers were contestants.

British Logic is a subject of some particular interest inasmuch as some peculiar lines of thought have always been predominant in those islands, giving their logicians a certain family resemblance, which already begins to appear in very early times. The most striking characteristic of British thinkers is their nominalistic tendency. This has always been and is now very marked. So much so that in England and in England alone are there many thinkers more distinguished at this day as being nominalistic than as holding any other doctrines. William Ockham or Oakum, an Englishman, is beyond question the greatest nominalist that ever lived; while Duns Scotus, another British name, it is equally certain is the subtilest advocate of the opposite opinion. These two men Duns Scotus and William Ockham are decidedly the greatest speculative minds of the middle ages, as well as two of the profoundest metaphysicians that ever lived. Another circumstance which makes Logic of the British Islands interesting is that there more than elsewhere have the studies of the logic of the natural sciences been made. Already we find some evidence of English thought running in that direction, when we meet with that singular phenomenon Roger Bacon,--a man who was scientific before science began. At the first dawn of the age of science, Francis Bacon wrote that professedly and really logical treatise the Novum Organum, a work the celebrity of which perhaps exceeds its real merits. In our own day, the writings of Whewell, Mill, and Herschel afford some of the finest accounts of the method of thought in science. Another direction in which logical thought has gone farther in England than elsewhere is in mathematico-formal logic,--the chief writers on which are Boole, De Morgan, and the Scotch Sir Wm. Hamilton,--for although Hamilton was so bitter against mathematics, that his own doctrine of the quantified predicate is essentially mathematical is beyond intelligent dispute. This fondness for the formal part of logic already appeared in the middle ages, when the nominalistic school of Ockham--the most extremely scholastic of the scholastics--and next to them the school of Scotus--carried to the utmost the doctrines of the Parva Logicalia which were the contribution of those ages to this branch of the science. And those Parva Logicalia may themselves have had an English origin for the earliest known writer upon the subject--unless the Synopsis be attributed to Psellus--is an Englishman, William of Sherwood.

You perceive therefore how intimately modern and medieval thought are connected in England--more so than in Germany or France; and therefore how indispensible it is that we should begin our history at a very early date. But here comes a stupendous difficulty. If I were to devote the whole of my nine lectures to medieval philosophy I could not enable you to read a page of Scotus or of Ockham understandingly nor even give you a good general idea of their historical position. I shall content myself therefore with some remarks upon their nominalism and realism with special reference to their relations to modern doctrines concerning generals. And as preliminary to those remarks I will in this lecture give a very slight sketch of the great strife between the nominalists and realists which took place in the 12th century.

All real acquaintance with Scholasticism died out in the 17th century, and it was not till late in our own that the study of it was taken up again. Even now the later ages are little understood but the great logical controversies of the 12th century have been pretty well studied. Cousin began the investigation, by publishing some logical works of Abaelard, together with other works which he wrongly attributed to the author, and by writing an introduction to them in which he gave his conception of the dispute. These contributions of Cousin are contained in his Ouvrages Inédits d'Abélard, which forms one of the volumes of the Documents relatives à l'Histoire de France and in the second edition of his Fragments Philosophiques: Philosophie Scholastique. Hauréau in his Histoire de la philosophie scholastique, de Rémusat in his Abélard, Jourdain in his Recherches critiques sur la connaissance d'Aristote dans le moyen age, and Barach in his Nominalismus vor Roscellinus have brought to light other important documents relative to this subject. The works of Anselm, John of Salisbury, and Alanus of Lille, the Liber sex principiorum of Gilbertus, the same author's commentary on the three books De Trinitate falsely attributed to Boethius, and Abaelard's letters to Heloise and his Introductio in Theologiam--works having an important bearing upon this part of logical history--were already in our possession. The best account of the dispute is contained in Prantl's great Geschichte der Logik im Abendlande, chapter 14.

The most striking characteristic of medieval thought is the importance attributed to authority. It was held that authority and reason were two coördinate methods of arriving at truth, and far from holding that authority was secondary to reason, the scholastics were much more apt to place it quite above reason. When Berengarius in his dispute with Lanfranc remarked that the whole of an affirmation does not stand after a part is subverted, his adversary replied: "The sacred authorities being relinquished you take refuge in dialectic, and when I am to hear and to answer concerning the ministry of the Faith, I prefer to hear and to answer the sacred authorities which are supposed to relate to the subject than dialectical reasons." To this Berengarius replied that St. Augustine in his book De doctrina christiana says that what he said concerning an affirmation is bound up indissolubly with that very eternity of truth which is God. But added "Maximi plane cordis est, per omnia ad dialecticam confugere, quia confugere ad eam ad rationem est confugere, quo qui non confugit, cum secundum rationem sit factus ad imaginem Dei, suum honorem reliquit, nec potest renovari de die in diem ad imaginem Dei." Next to sacred authorities--the Bible, the church, and the fathers,--that of Aristotle of course ranked the highest. It could be denied, but the presumption was immense against his being wrong on any particular point.

Such a weight being attached to authority,--a weight which would be excessive were not the human mind at that time in so uneducated a state that it could not do better than follow masters since it was totally incompetent to solve metaphysical problems for itself,--it follows naturally that originality of thought was not greatly admired but that on the contrary the admirable mind was his who succeeded in interpreting consistently the dicta of Aristotle, Porphyry, and Boethius. Vanity, therefore, the vanity of cleverness was a vice from which the schoolmen were remarkably free. They were minute and thorough in their knowledge of such authorities as they had, and they were equally minute and thorough in their treatment of every question which came up.

All these characters remind us less of the philosophers of our day than of the men of science. I do not hesitate to say that scientific men now think much more of authority than do metaphysicians; for in science a question is not regarded as settled or its solution as certain until all intelligent and informed doubt has ceased and all competent persons have come to a catholic agreement, whereas 50 metaphysicians each holding opinions that no one of the other 49 can admit, will nevertheless severally regard their 50 opposite opinions as more certain than that the sun will rise tomorrow. This is to have what seems an absurd disregard for others' opinions; the man of science attaches a positive value to the opinion of every man as competent as himself so that he cannot but have a doubt of a conclusion which he would adopt were it not that a competent man opposes it; but on the other hand, he will regard a sufficient divergence from the convictions of the great body of scientific men as tending of itself to argue incompetence and he will generally attach little weight to the opinions of men who have long been dead and were ignorant of much that has been since discovered which bears upon the question in hand. The schoolmen however attached the greatest authority to men long since dead and there they were right for in the dark ages it was not true that the later state of human knowledge was the most perfect but on the contrary. I think it may be said then that the schoolmen did not attach too much weight to authority although they attached much more to it than we ought to do or than ought or could be attached to it in any age in which science is pursuing a successful and onward course--and of course infinitely more than is attached to it by those intellectual nomads the modern metaphysicians, including the positivists. In the slight importance they attached to a brilliant theory, the schoolmen also resembled modern scientific men, who cannot be comprehended in this respect at all by men not scientific. The followers of Herbert Spencer, for example, cannot comprehend why scientific men place Darwin so infinitely above Spencer, since the theories of the latter are so much grander and more comprehensive. They cannot understand that it is not the sublimity of Darwin's theories which makes him admired by men of science, but that it is rather his minute, systematic, extensive, and strict scientific researches which have given his theories a more favorable reception--theories which in themselves would barely command scientific respect. And this misunderstanding belongs to all those metaphysicians who fancy themselves men of science on account of their metaphysics. This same scientific spirit has been equally misunderstood as it is found in the schoolmen. They have been above all things found fault with because they do not write a literary style and do not "study in a literary spirit." The men who make this objection can not possibly comprehend the real merits of modern science. If the words quidditas, entitas, and haecceitas, are to excite our disgust, what shall we say of the Latin of the botanists, and the style of any technically scientific work. As for that phrase "studying in a literary spirit" it is impossible to express how nauseating it is to any scientific man, yes even to the scientific linguist. But above all things it is the searching thoroughness of the schoolmen which affiliates them with men of science and separates them, world-wide, from modern so-called philosophers. The thoroughness I allude to consists in this that in adopting any theory, they go about everywhere, they devote their whole energies and lives, in putting it to tests bona fide--not such as shall merely add a new spangle to the glitter of their proofs but such as shall really go towards satisfying their restless insatiable impulse to put their opinions to the test. Having a theory they must apply it to every subject and to every branch of every subject to see whether it produces a result in accordance with the only criteria they were able to apply--the truth of the catholic faith and the teaching of the Prince of Philosophers. Mr. George Henry Lewes in his work on Aristotle seems to me to have come pretty near to stating the true cause of the success of modern science when he has said that it was Verification. I should express it in this way: modern students of science have been successful, because they have spent their lives not in their libraries and museums but in their laboratories and in the field--and while in their laboratories and in the field they have been not gazing on nature with a vacant eye, that is in passive perception unassisted by thought--but have been observing--that is perceiving by the aid of analysis,--and testing suggestions of theories. The cause of their success has been that the motive which has carried them to the laboratory and the field has been a craving to know how things really were and an interest in finding out whether or not general propositions actually held good--which has overbalanced all prejudice, all vanity, and all passion. Now it is plainly not an essential part of this method in general, that the tests were made by the observation of natural objects. For the immense progress which modern mathematics has made is also to be explained by the same intense interest in testing general propositions and particular cases--only the tests were applied by means of particular demonstrations. This is observation, still, for as the great mathematician Gauss has declared--Algebra is a science of the eye,--only it is observation of artificial objects and of a highly recondite character. Now this same unwearied interest in testing general propositions is what produced those long rows of folios of the schoolmen,--and if the test which they employed is of only limited validity so that they could not unhampered go on indefinitely to further discoveries, yet the spirit, which is the most essential thing--the motive, was nearly the same. And how different this spirit is from that of the major part, though not all, of modern philosophers--even of those who have called themselves empirical, no man who is actuated by it can fail to perceive.

One consequence of the dependence of logical thought in the middle ages upon Aristotle is that the state of development of logic at any time may be measured by the amount of Aristotle's writings which were known to the Western world. At the time of the great discussion between the nominalists and realists in the 12th century the only works of Aristotle which were thoroughly known were the Categories and Peri Hermeneias, two small treatises forming less than a sixtieth of his works as we now know them and of course a much smaller proportion of them as they originally existed. There was also some knowledge of the Prior Analytics but not much. Porphyry's introduction to the categories was well known and the authority of it was nearly equal to that of Aristotle. This treatise concerns the logical nature of genus, species, difference, property, and accident; and is a work of great value and interest. A sentence of this book is said by Cousin to have created scholastic philosophy, which is as true as such eminently French statements usually are. It is however correct that it was in great measure the study of this book which resulted in course of time in the discussion concerning nominalism and realism; but to mistake this discussion for all scholastic philosophy argues great ignorance of the subject,--an ignorance excusable when Cousin wrote but not now.

Before we come to this dispute it will be well to give a glance at the state of opinions upon the subject before the dispute began and as these opinions were much influenced by Scotus Erigena, I will say a word or two about this man.

Scotus Erigena was an Irishman who lived in the ninth century,--when Ireland was very far beyond the rest of Western Europe in intellectual culture,--when in fact Ireland alone had any learning,--and was sending missionaries to France, England, and Germany who first roused these countries from utter barbarism. He has excited great interest in our own day and many books have been written about him. Various editions of his different works have been published of which the most important is his De Divisione Naturae. Hauréau has in the 21st volume of the Notices of manuscripts of the French academy published some extracts from a gloss supposed to be by him upon Porphyry. Works upon his Life and Writings of Scotus have been published by Hjort, Staudenmaier, Taillandier, Möller, Christlieb, and Huber. Although he is not chiefly a logician his writings are of great interest for this history of logic and I should gladly devote several lectures to the consideration of them. This pleasure I must deny myself and shall speak of Scotus Erigena not to explain his position but only to throw a light on those who followed after him and were influenced by him. He is usually and rightly reckoned as an extreme realist and yet the extremest nominalists such as Roscellin were regarded as his followers. How could this be?

For one thing we perceive that Erigena attaches a vast importance to words. In consequence of this he seems to suppose that non-existences are as real as existences. He begins his work De divisione naturae by dividing all things into those which are and those which are not. In another place he declares that no philosopher rightly denies that possibles and impossibles are to be reckoned among the number of things. And such expressions are in fact constantly met with in his works. He does not seem to see that as the ancient philosopher said "Being only is and nothing is altogether not." Thus he says that the name Nothing signifies the ineffable, incomprehensible, and inaccessible brightness of the Divine nature which is unknown to every understanding of man or of Angel, which "dum per se ipsam cogitatur" neither is nor was nor will be. And he describes creation as the production out of the negations of things which are and which are not, the affirmations of all things which are and which are not. Again he says "Darkness is not nothing but something; otherwise the Scripture would not say 'and God called the light day and the darkness he called night'." Thus you perceive he has the idea that the immediate immaterial object of a name is something.

MS 160: November-December 1869

As Scotus was the chief of the formalists who were the most consistent realists; so William of Ockam was the head of the terminists who were the most consistent of nominalists.

The chief peculiarity of Scotus was the importance he attached to formalitates or modes of conception; that of Ockam was the importance he attached to terms, in the logical sense.

I shall begin what I have to say about Ockam by reading with you the first few pages of his textual logic. He has departed here from the usual method, that of writing commentaries, because he wished to present his thoughts in an order chosen by himself and therefore the order which he adopts becomes of more than usual consequence.

This logic is divided in 3 parts and each part into chapters. I propose to run over the first 17 chapters, giving you the substance of each.

"Omnes logice tractatores intendunt astruere per argumenta quod sillogismi ex propositionibus et propositiones ex terminis componuntur. Unde terminus aliud non est quam pars propinqua propositionis."

All systematical writers on logic conceive that they discover by means of arguments that syllogisms of propositions, propositions of terms are composed. So a term is nothing but one of the parts into which a proposition may be directly resolved.

In order however that we may have a perfectly distinct conception of this important subject, he draws a distinction in reference to terms which plays a large part in nominalism.

Terms are written, spoken, or conceived. "Triplex est terminus, scriptus, prolatus, et conceptus."

MS 162: November-December 1869

There is nothing perhaps which in a university town we feel more strongly than the contrast not to say contradiction between the modes of thought of the scientific and literary men. This divergency has existed throughout modern times and we already have evidence of its existence in the thirteenth century from the poem by Henry d'Andeli called the "Battle of the Seven Liberal Arts." You will find it in the Library. As I am not in the least degree literary it would be impossible, I suppose, for me to state correctly the position of literary men but this position appears to me to be that we cannot regard things as they ought to be regarded unless we look at them broadly and from the entirety of human nature; while the scientific man thinks that things cannot be understood unless they are scrutinized closely and narrowly and with the entire exclusion of the passions and emotional sensibilities.

A literary man thinks a specialist is a piddling pedant--and speaks of "Science peddling with the names of things." A scientific man thinks that in specialty lies the only intellectual salvation.

Which of these views is right 'twould be foolish for me to try to say. But this much I think must be conceded, that be the necessity of breadth of view and of general culture as great as you please, yet to understand science well, its proceeding and its logic, one must have recourse besides to an interior view of science and therefore to a scientific specialist.

This I feel sure is the opinion of scientific men, for I have heard the opinion expressed many times by them and the contrary one never.

In this respect Dr. Whewell's qualifications for treating of science could hardly have been better than they were, for he was not only a scientific specialist but an eminent scientific investigator, his works upon the tides containing a research of no ordinary importance. Indeed they will never be forgotten.

But while he was a specialist positivè he was not so negativè for he made original researches also into dynamics, conic sections, engineering, meteorology, optics, chemistry, and mineralogy of which last science he was professor for many years at Oxford.

Nor was his knowledge confined to Natural Science for he wrote several works upon Ethics and the history of Ethical doctrines, a number of papers on Metaphysics in which he was well versed, two books on Natural Theology, two on University Education, one of them in 3 volumes, a book of Sermons, a book on the Plurality of Worlds, a work on the architecture of German churches, articles in Encyclopaedias on other subjects, besides many other things.

He was a man who made enemies and it was said of him by one of them that "Knowledge was his forte, but omniscience was his foible," and you can imagine how the man must really have been respected, whose extremely arrogant manners brought down no bitterer satire than this.

But Whewell was not the man to write upon the Logic of Science solely on the basis of general qualifications. He prepared himself for his task by an exhaustive study of the history of all Natural Science, and the Results of that study he has embodied in two works. One, The History of the Inductive Sciences, is a work which I have never heard spoken of without admiration by anybody acquainted with the subject; the other, The History of Scientific Ideas, is also executed with great ability, and I do not think these two books can be rivalled by anything upon the same subjects in any language. He also made a study of all previous attempts to erect a philosophy of the sciences and embodied his strictures upon them in a third work called The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences. And then and then only did he begin the construction of his own Theory.

But when I have stated all these qualifications of Whewell for what he undertook, I have left one condition unmentioned the importance of which relatively is as that one which our Saviour mentioned to the young man who had kept all the commandments from his youth up. For the question comes now to be asked did Dr. Whewell with all his knowledge of the history of science really derive his theory from that, or did he only use his knowledge to give a colour of verisimilitude to a theory which had come down to him as a metaphysical tradition or which he had drawn from Kant or some other metaphysical writer? I have not time to answer this question as it should be answered. You will detect some of the grounds upon which I have formed my opinion, but to state them fully would not be possible at present. I can only give it then as my conviction, which I can truly say is impartial, and which you can take for what it is worth, that when I consider what are the characters which are found associated with real Scientific Induction and exert my best power of distinguishing true scientific work I must say that Whewell's Novum Organon Renovatum seems to me to possess every mark of such work. And I think that in running over in my mind such of his works as I have read that I should say that a genuine impartiality--a rare trait--was one of his. Indeed I am so forcibly impressed with his work's having all the characters of a Scientific Induction from the History of Science that superior as I think that he is to other English and French writers upon the philosophy of science in point of learning and specially in scientific training, I think that his preëminent superiority lies in the perfect singlemindedness with which he has derived his theories from his facts.

A theory of science which is thus founded on the history of science in a truly scientific spirit and by a genuine inductive method and which does not merely make use of facts of scientific history to support a theory which has really been derived not from these but from a general philosophical doctrine of a metaphysical origin, must be true to the grand features of scientific progress, to all those characters of scientific investigation which leave their mark upon its history, although there is doubtless something else which concerns the individual investigator and which does not appear in his publications which such a theory would be apt to overlook. But scientific progress is to a large extent public and belongs to the community of scientific men of the same department, its conclusions are unanimous, its interpretations of nature are no private interpretations, and so much must always be published to the world as will suffice to enable the world to adopt the individual investigator's conclusions. For this reason, I am inclined to think that a historical theory of science like that of Whewell is likely to contain the most representative conditions of the success of scientific thought. And I think that Whewell's theory in fact does so.

There is one defect which I think belongs to Whewell's system and which I should think would be apt to belong to any systematic exposition of the proceedure of science. Such an exposition must of course divide scientific investigation into different parts, it must separate it into different kinds, and it must also distinguish between the different steps taken. I should think that it was a fault to be expected in any such system and one which is found in Whewell's, that the necessity of making these divisions would lead to drawing the line between them too sharply and to representing them as existing in a degree of isolation in which they neither are nor ought to be found.

Whewell's chief strength was in the physical sciences as distinguished from Natural History--and in the former observation and reasoning are much more separated than in the latter--and his chief work was done in that part of the physical sciences in which they are separated the most. I think that his books show this distinctly. His exposition of astronomy, optics, etc., is most admirable but I should imagine that his treatment of the classificatory sciences was less satisfactory. It seems to me, at least, that he has not represented the importance in all such sciences as chemistry, geology, zoology, &c. of observing and thinking together nor the fusion which there is and ought to be in those fields between observation and analysis.

Whewell's general conception of a science is that a scientific conclusion is composed of facts on the one hand and ideas on the other. This sentence really contains the essence or rather the germ of his theory of science, although it cannot at the outset convey any adequate notion to you. A scientific conclusion is composed of facts and of ideas. To reach it, the facts must be brought together--colligated--and the conceptions must be rendered distinct--explicated. Then the colligation of facts and the explication of conceptions are the two parts of scientific investigation.

I have stated this as though it were a conclusion à priori. I have so set it forth because it admits of such a presentation and because in such a mode of statement the unity of the theory is clearly brought out.

But that is not the way in which Whewell enforces it, for he has shown with great elaboration that in every science two processes have taken place. One, the observation and grouping of facts. The other, controversies which resulted in the establishment of clear conceptions.

This I have said is the central point of Whewell's theory; and it has been urged that it has been drawn from the Kantian philosophy.

The distinction in Kantism between the matter and form of cognition.

Double origin of knowledge.

This to be seen in Whewell, but yet common experience in scientific reasoning shows it to hold good.

Example of a cipher. Facts easily enough obtained. First difficulty is in getting the appropriate idea.

History of science also shows it.

If then it does happen to be in accord with the results of the profound analysis of cognition by Kant--a result which must be allowed by all who would avoid the extremes of sensualism and absolute idealism--I say if Whewell's theory accords with this--as well as with the History of Science--that ought to be regarded rather as a powerful support of the theory rather than as a disproof of it.

Professor Bowen, for example, has declared that Whewell's Philosophy of Science is "mere Kantism." So far as this means that it receives no support from the experience of scientific men, the question must be decided by those who have such experience. But so far as it is intended that Whewell's theory will not hold true if Kantism is false, I reply that Whewell's theory does not involve the whole of Kantism, but only the general proposition that cognition consists of two elements one of which is idealistic and the other empirical, a proposition which seems to be virtually admitted by Hamiltonians when they hold that all knowledge reposes in part ultimately on "Faith." I admit that besides this general agreement with Kant, Whewell also has the same conception of Space and Time in its most general outlines, but not by any means to such an extent as is peculiar to Kantism,--he goes no further than Cudworth did before Kant or than Sir Wm. Hamilton has since. I do not see therefore what Kantian propositions Whewell holds which Hamilton denies.

The process of explication of conceptions has according to Whewell been effected by means of controversies. And there can be no doubt that to take the controversies concerning the single science of mechanics as an example, men's thoughts were confused and hazy before the controversies about Galileo's time concerning the definition of uniform force, the question concerning the measure of the force of Percussion,--the war of the vis viva--the controversy of the centre of oscillation--of the principle of heart Action--&c. &c.--and that at the end of these debates their minds were so much clearer as to make a vast difference in the progress of science.

This calls our attention again to Whewell's theory being drawn from the public history of science. It is I have no doubt true that scientific conceptions have always first become clear in debates. And this is an important truth. But what was the mental process, what was the change and what the law of the change in the individual mind by which an obscure idea became clear? This Whewell tells us nothing of and indeed seems to have no conception of the question. A metaphysician's mind would have been wholly engrossed in this question to the entire exclusion of that one about the public process of controversy.

The final result of the clearing up of a conception, as it takes place in science along with observation and induction is that the conception is seen to be necessary.

Uniform force.

Parallelogram of forces.

Gravity.

This identification of inductive conclusions with à priori truths has been eagerly seized by J. S. Mill who makes his sensualistic theory of knowledge rest in large measure on this result of Whewell's. Others have ignorantly characterized it as mere Kantism to which in truth it bears no analogy.

This is decidedly the most theoretical and the weakest part of Whewell's theory but it is one which no man who moves in metaphysics with scientific caution can peremptorily deny. It should be regarded as an open question still and one to the solution of which we are not very near.

A consideration of Whewell's arguments in the Cambridge Philosophical Transactions to show that all matter is heavy leads me to the belief that the more convincing ones only go to show that we may be sure that we can adopt the formula "All matter is heavy" as long as we leave other formulae to be determined as may be necessary in order to be consistent with this one.

And this naturally brings us to Whewell's next remark which is that a clear conception resulting from a discussion is often formulated in a definition, but that in that case some proposition expressed or implied has always gone along with the definition. Thus along with the definition of the uniform force goes the proposition that gravity is a uniform force and along with the definition of the Vis Viva and in the whole discussion concerning it it is assumed that in the mutual action of bodies the whole effect of the force is unchanged.

This remark is excellent but somewhat inadequate to the subject. You often hear this and that called a question of words, but there are not nearly as many mere questions of words discussed as smatterers in logic are apt to imagine. As important a practical lesson as any other which I could indicate as derivable from the study of logic is how to distinguish a question of words from a question truly scientific and how to treat that class of questions which are apt to be mistaken for questions of words. In this department of logic, Whewell gives us but little assistance. He remarks however with perfect truth that in default of a definition Axioms may be made to fulfill the same function.

But clearness is not the only condition which a conception must satisfy in order that it may contribute to the progress of science. Besides being clear it must be appropriate. It seems to me that a good illustration of this is afforded us in chemistry. Chemistry presents the phenomenon of the perpetual recurrence of integral numbers. A few examples of these are the following: When two substances combine with one another in different proportions by weight, those proportions are to one another as two small integral numbers. Equivalent proportions of different vapours are either equal or bear to one another a ratio as between two small integral numbers. The specific heats of different substances divided by their chemical equivalents are in the ratio of two small integral numbers. The differences in the boiling points of adjacent members of two different series of organic compounds are in the ratio of two small integral numbers. The ratio of the equivalents of two elements usually approximates nearly to the ratio of two integral numbers.

It is a great and unsolved problem to find a theory which shall explain these things. In searching for such a theory we must look out for an idea which is appropriate to the subject.

Now the spectroscope has shown us that different chemical substances are distinguished by the greater or less refrangibility of the heat with which they vibrate. This greater or less refrangibility means a greater or less rapidity of vibration. And this again means that the elasticity or force which tends to draw a portion back to its original position when it has been disturbed is greater or less. Different chemical substances are therefore bodies of different elasticity and susceptible of different rates of vibration.

Now there is no part of the pure mathematical theory of force in which integral numbers come in to any great extent except that of vibrations. And then they come in constantly in the whole doctrine of nodes interferens etc.

Here then we have an idea appropriate to the subject. Not a clear conception as yet I admit--not a definite theory. But we have indicated to us the direction in which a theory should be sought.

What for example is the combining weight of a body? It is the weight of that body which contains a unit of chemical force.

And what is the specific gravity of a gas? It is the weight of the gas which contains a unit of elastic force. But it is a fact of chemistry that these two are equal. Then the elastic force of a gas is equal to its chemical force. But in certain vapours the specific gravity is only half the combining weight. So that the elasticity seems to be doubled just as if there were a sort of node in the vibration.

I have given this illustration of what appears to me to be an idea appropriate to this subject, in order that you might plainly see that the appropriate idea must contain the notion of elastic force. At least it must contain the idea of force.

But how have chemists endeavored to explain these things? By suppositions regarding the size, shape, and arrangement of the particles of bodies. Now these are mere geometrical ideas, which have no relation to the facts to be explained. And the consequence is that the atomic theory will not explain a single fact as it appears to me without the aid of subsidiary hypotheses, which subsidiary hypotheses taken by themselves, or else others equally probable, will suffice of themselves to account for all the facts which can be accounted for by the additional supposition of atoms.

No discoveries accidental.

We pass now, with Whewell, from the consideration of Ideas to the consideration of Facts, their observation and colligations. And here our author begins with the very fundamental proposition that all Facts involve Ideas.

This may remind the metaphysician of a metaphysical proposition, but nobody can understand Whewell who cannot look at these things from a practically scientific point of view.

All facts involve Ideas. This is the first lesson a man has to learn in studying science. What, is there not such a thing as pure observation?

There is probably no one maxim of logic the ignorance of which by ordinary people produces such deplorable results as this that all Facts involve ideas. People detail to you some foolish story about Ghosts or Planchettes and seem to think that you must believe it or doubt their veracity. Now I certainly have no great confidence in the veracity of most people on speculative subjects; because a love of truth is very rarely strong without a really sound mental discipline; and nothing but the amiable desire of men to respect one another prevents this from being more generally perceived. But veracity apart, do these people suppose that they can make any pure observation unaffected by fancy passion or accidental moods or states of the nerves? The most trained scientific observers cannot do that; and as for those who are undisciplined and who are unaware of this weakness of human nature, especially when they are dealing with a subject so momentous as the other world, they are incapable of any approximation to it. A physician won't prescribe for himself. And if he has too much interest in the matter to keep his observations cold, ought not any ordinary person to be regarded as incompetent to keep cool when an immortal destiny is in question?

But the influence of the mind upon observations is not necessarily evil. It may almost be said that we can only see what we look for.

And I only give this as a single instance of a proposition perfectly familiar among observers of all kinds.

Hence observation as distinct from mere gazing consists in perception in the light of a question.

[Enlarge a little on this--Whewell has not remarked this. Why.]