On the Philosophy of Discovery, Chapters Historical and Critical

CHAPTER XVIII.

Newton

1. BOLD and extensive as had been the anticipations of those whose minds were excited by the promise of the new philosophy, the discoveries of Newton respecting the mechanics of the universe, brought into view truths more general and profound than those earlier philosophers had hoped or imagined. With these vast accessions to human knowledge, men's thoughts were again set in action; and philosophers made earnest and various attempts to draw, from these extraordinary advances in science, the true moral with regard to the conduct and limits of the human understanding. They not only endeavoured to verify and illustrate, by these new portions of science, what had recently been taught concerning the methods of obtaining sound knowledge; but they were also led to speculate concerning many new and more interesting questions relating to this subject. They saw, for the first time, or at least far more clearly than before, the distinction between the inquiry into the laws, and into the causes of phenomena. They were tempted to ask, how far the discovery of causes could be carried; and whether it would soon reach, or clearly point to, the ultimate cause. They were driven to consider whether the properties which they discovered were essential properties of all matter, necessarily and primarily involved in its essence, though revealed to us at a late period by their derivative effects. These questions even now agitate the thoughts of speculative men. Some of them have already, in this work, been discussed, or arranged in the places which our view of the philosophy of these subjects assigns to them. But we must here notice them as they occurred to Newton himself and his immediate followers.

2. The general Baconian notion of the method of philosophizing,—that it consists in ascending from phenomena, through various stages of generalization, to truths of the highest order,—received, in Newton's discovery of the universal mutual gravitation of every particle of matter, that pointed actual exemplification, for want of which it had hitherto been almost overlooked, or at least very vaguely understood. That great truth, and the steps by which it was established, afford, even now, by far the best example of the successive ascent, from one scientific truth to another,—of the repeated transition from less to more general propositions,—which we can yet produce; as may be seen in the Table which exhibits the relation of these steps in Book II. of the Novum Organon Renovatum. Newton himself did not fail to recognize this feature in the truths which he exhibited. Thus he says217, "By the way of Analysis we proceed from compounds to ingredients, as from motions to the forces producing them; and in general, from effects to their causes, and from particular causes to more general ones, till the argument ends in the most general." And in like manner in another Query218: "The main business of natural philosophy is to argue from phenomena without feigning hypotheses, and to deduce causes from effects, till we come to the First Cause, which is certainly not mechanical."

3. Newton appears to have had a horror of the term hypothesis, which probably arose from his acquaintance with the rash and illicit general assumptions of Descartes. Thus in the passage just quoted, after declaring that gravity must have some other cause than matter, he says, "Later philosophers banish the consideration of such a cause out of Natural Philosophy, feigning hypotheses for explaining all things mechanically, and referring other causes to metaphysics." In the celebrated Scholium at the end of the Principia he says, "Whatever is not deduced from the phenomena, is to be termed hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, or occult causes, or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy. In this philosophy, propositions are deduced from phenomena, and rendered general by induction." And in another place, he arrests the course of his own suggestions, saying, "Verum hypotheses non fingo." I have already attempted to show that this is, in reality, a superstitious and self-destructive spirit of speculation. Some hypotheses are necessary, in order to connect the facts which are observed; some new principle of unity must be applied to the phenomena, before induction can be attempted. What is requisite is, that the hypothesis should be close to the facts, and not connected with them by the intermediation of other arbitrary and untried facts; and that the philosopher should be ready to resign it as soon as the facts refuse to confirm it. We have seen in the History219, that it was by such a use of hypotheses, that both Newton himself, and Kepler, on whose discoveries those of Newton were based, made their discoveries. The suppositions of a force tending to the sun and varying inversely as the square of the distance; of a mutual force between all the bodies of the solar system; of the force of each body arising from the attraction of all its parts; not to mention others, also propounded by Newton,—were all hypotheses before they were verified as theories. It is related that when Newton was asked how it was that he saw into the laws of nature so much further than other men, he replied, that if it were so, it resulted from his keeping his thoughts steadily occupied upon the subject which was to be thus penetrated. But what is this occupation of the thoughts, if it be not the process of keeping the phenomena clearly in view, and trying, one after another, all the plausible hypotheses which seem likely to connect them, till at last the true law is discovered? Hypotheses so used are a necessary element of discovery.

4. With regard to the details of the process of discovery, Newton has given us some of his views, which are well worthy of notice, on account of their coming from him; and which are real additions to the philosophy of this subject. He speaks repeatedly of the analysis and synthesis of observed facts; and thus marks certain steps in scientific research, very important, and not, I think, clearly pointed out by his predecessors. Thus he says220, "As in Mathematics, so in Natural Philosophy, the investigation of difficult things by the method of analysis ought ever to precede the method of composition. This analysis consists in making experiments and observations, and in drawing general conclusions from them by induction, and admitting of no objections against the conclusions, but such as are taken from experiments or other certain truths. And although the arguing from experiments and observations by induction be no demonstration of general conclusions; yet it is the best way of arguing which the nature of things admits of, and may be looked upon as so much the stronger, by how much the induction is more general." And he then observes, as we have quoted above, that by this way of analysis we proceed from compounds to ingredients, from motions to forces, from effects to causes, and from less to more general causes. The analysis here spoken of includes the steps which in our Novum Organon we call the decomposition of facts, the exact observation and measurement of the phenomena, and the colligation of facts; the necessary intermediate step, the selection and explication of the appropriate conception, being passed over by Newton, in the fear of seeming to encourage the fabrication of hypotheses. The synthesis of which Newton here speaks consists of those steps of deductive reasoning, proceeding from the conception once assumed, which are requisite for the comparison of its consequences with the observed facts. This, his statement of the process of research, is, as far as it goes, perfectly exact.

5. In speaking of Newton's precepts on the subject, we are naturally led to the celebrated "Rules of Philosophizing," inserted in the second edition of the Principia. These rules have generally been quoted and commented on with an almost unquestioning reverence. Such Rules, coming from such an authority, cannot fail to be highly interesting to us; but at the same time, we cannot here evade the necessity of scrutinizing their truth and value, according to the principles which our survey of this subject has brought into view. The Rules stand at the beginning of that part of the Principia (the Third Book) in which he infers the mutual gravitation of the sun, moon, planets, and all parts of each. They are as follows:

"Rule I. We are not to admit other causes of natural things than such as both are true, and suffice for explaining their phenomena.

"Rule II. Natural effects of the same kind are to be referred to the same causes, as far as can be done.

"Rule III. The qualities of bodies which cannot be increased or diminished in intensity, and which belong to all bodies in which we can institute experiments, are to be held for qualities of all bodies whatever.

"Rule IV. In experimental philosophy, propositions collected from phenomena by induction, are to be held as true either accurately or approximately, notwithstanding contrary hypotheses; till other phenomena occur by which they may be rendered either more accurate or liable to exception."

In considering these Rules, we cannot help remarking, in the first place, that they are constructed with an intentional adaptation to the case with which Newton has to deal,—the induction of Universal Gravitation; and are intended to protect the reasonings before which they stand. Thus the first Rule is designed to strengthen the inference of gravitation from the celestial phenomena, by describing it as a vera causa, a true cause; the second Rule countenances the doctrine that the planetary motions are governed by mechanical forces, as terrestrial motions are; the third rule appears intended to justify the assertion of gravitation, as a universal quality of bodies; and the fourth contains, along with a general declaration of the authority of induction, the author's usual protest against hypotheses, levelled at the Cartesian hypotheses especially.

6. Of the First Rule.—We, however, must consider these Rules in their general application, in which point of view they have often been referred to, and have had very great authority allowed them. One of the points which has been most discussed, is that maxim which requires that the causes of phenomena which we assign should be true causes, veræ causæ. Of course this does not mean that they should be the true or right cause; for although it is the philosopher's aim to discover such causes, he would be little aided in his search of truth, by being told that it is truth which he is to seek. The rule has generally been understood to prescribe that in attempting to account for any class of phenomena, we must assume such causes only, as from other considerations, we know to exist. Thus gravity, which was employed in explaining the motions of the moon and planets, was already known to exist and operate at the earth's surface.

Now the Rule thus interpreted is, I conceive, an injurious limitation of the field of induction. For it forbids us to look for a cause, except among the causes with which we are already familiar. But if we follow this rule, how shall we ever become acquainted with any new cause? Or how do we know that the phenomena which we contemplate do really arise from some cause which we already truly know? If they do not, must we still insist upon making them depend upon some of our known causes; or must we abandon the study of them altogether? Must we, for example, resolve to refer the action of radiant heat to the air, rather than to any peculiar fluid or ether, because the former is known to exist, the latter is merely assumed for the purpose of explanation? But why should we do this? Why should we not endeavour to learn the cause from the effects, even if it be not already known to us? We can infer causes, which are new when we first become acquainted with them. Chemical Forces, Optical Forces, Vital Forces, are known to us only by chemical and optical and vital phenomena; must we, therefore, reject their existence or abandon their study? They do not conform to the double condition, that they shall be sufficient and also real: they are true, only so far as they explain the facts, but are they, therefore, unintelligible or useless? Are they not highly important and instructive subjects of speculation? And if the gravitation which rules the motions of the planets had not existed at the earth's surface;—if it had been there masked and concealed by the superior effect of magnetism, or some other extraneous force,—might not Newton still have inferred, from Kepler's laws, the tendency of the planets to the sun; and from their perturbations, their tendency to each other? His discoveries would still have been immense, if the cause which he assigned had not been a vera causa in the sense now contemplated.

7. But what do we mean by calling gravity a "true cause"? How do we learn its reality? Of course, by its effects, with which we are familiar;—by the weight and fall of bodies about us. These strike even the most careless observer. No one can fail to see that all bodies which we come in contact with are heavy;—that gravity acts in our neighbourhood here upon earth. Hence, it may be said, this cause is at any rate a true cause, whether it explains the celestial phenomena or not.

But if this be what is meant by a vera causa, it appears strange to require that in all cases we should find such a one to account for all classes of phenomena. Is it reasonable or prudent to demand that we shall reduce every set of phenomena, however minute, or abstruse, or complicated, to causes so obviously existing as to strike the most incurious, and to be familiar among men? How can we expect to find such veræ causæ for the delicate and recondite phenomena which an exact and skilful observer detects in chemical, or optical, or electrical experiments? The facts themselves are too fine for vulgar apprehension; their relations, their symmetries, their measures require a previous discipline to understand them. How then can their causes be found among those agencies with which the common unscientific herd of mankind are familiar? What likelihood is there that causes held for real by such persons, shall explain facts which such persons cannot see or cannot understand?

Again: if we give authority to such a rule, and require that the causes by which science explains the facts which she notes and measures and analyses, shall be causes which men, without any special study, have already come to believe in, from the effects which they casually see around them, what is this, except to make our first rude and unscientific persuasions the criterion and test of our most laborious and thoughtful inferences? What is it, but to give to ignorance and thoughtlessness the right of pronouncing upon the convictions of intense study and long-disciplined thought? "Electrical atmospheres" surrounding electrized bodies, were at one time held to be a "true cause" of the effects which such bodies produce. These atmospheres, it was said, are obvious to the senses; we feel them like a spider's web on the hands and face. Æpinus had to answer such persons, by proving that there are no atmospheres, no effluvia, but only repulsion. He thus, for a true cause in the vulgar sense of the term, substituted an hypothesis; yet who doubts that what he did was an advance in the science of electricity?

8. Perhaps some persons may be disposed to say, that Newton's Rule does not enjoin us to take those causes only which we clearly know, or suppose we know, to be really existing and operating, but only causes of such kinds as we have already satisfied ourselves do exist in nature. It may be urged that we are entitled to infer that the planets are governed in their motions by an attractive force, because we find, in the bodies immediately subject to observation and experiment, that such motions are produced by attractive forces, for example, by that of the earth. It may be said that we might on similar grounds infer forces which unite particles of chemical compounds, or deflect particles of light, because we see adhesion and deflection produced by forces.

But it is easy to show that the Rule, thus laxly understood, loses all significance. It prohibits no hypothesis; for all hypotheses suppose causes such as, in some case or other, we have seen in action. No one would think of explaining phenomena by referring them to forces and agencies altogether different from any which are known; for on this supposition, how could he pretend to reason about the effects of the assumed causes, or undertake to prove that they would explain the facts? Some close similarity with some known kind of cause is requisite, in order that the hypothesis may have the appearance of an explanation. No forces, or virtues, or sympathies, or fluids, or ethers, would be excluded by this interpretation of veræ causæ. Least of all, would such an interpretation reject the Cartesian hypothesis of vortices; which undoubtedly, as I conceive, Newton intended to condemn by his Rule. For that such a case as a whirling fluid, carrying bodies round a centre in orbits, does occur, is too obvious to require proof. Every eddying stream, or blast that twirls the dust in the road, exhibits examples of such action, and would justify the assumption of the vortices which carry the planets in their courses; as indeed, without doubt, such facts suggested the Cartesian explanation of the solar system. The vortices, in this mode of considering the subject, are at the least as real a cause of motion as gravity itself.

9. Thus the Rule which enjoins "true causes," is nugatory, if we take veræ causæ in the extended sense of any causes of a real kind, and unphilosophical, if we understand the term of those very causes which we familiarly suppose to exist. But it may be said that we are to designate as "true causes," not those which are collected in a loose, confused and precarious manner, by undisciplined minds, from obvious phenomena, but those which are justly and rigorously inferred. Such a cause, it may be added, gravity is; for the facts of the downward pressures and downward motions of bodies at the earth's surface lead us, by the plainest and strictest induction, to the assertion of such a force. Now to this interpretation of the Rule there is no objection; but then, it must be observed, that on this view, terrestrial gravity is inferred by the same process as celestial gravitation; and the cause is no more entitled to be called "true," because it is obtained from the former, than because it is obtained from the latter class of facts. We thus obtain an intelligible and tenable explanation of a vera causa; but then, by this explanation, its verity ceases to be distinguishable from its other condition, that it "suffices for the explanation of the phenomena." The assumption of universal gravitation accounts for the fall of a stone; it also accounts for the revolutions of the Moon or of Saturn; but since both these explanations are of the same kind, we cannot with justice make the one a criterion or condition of the admissibility of the other.

10. But still, the Rule, so understood, is so far from being unmeaning or frivolous, that it expresses one of the most important tests which can be given of a sound physical theory. It is true, the explanation of one set of facts may be of the same nature as the explanation of the other class: but then, that the cause explains both classes, gives it a very different claim upon our attention and assent from that which it would have if it explained one class only. The very circumstance that the two explanations coincide, is a most weighty presumption in their favour. It is the testimony of two witnesses in behalf of the hypothesis; and in proportion as these two witnesses are separate and independent, the conviction produced by their agreement is more and more complete. When the explanation of two kinds of phenomena, distinct, and not apparently connected, leads us to the same cause, such a coincidence does give a reality to the cause, which it has not while it merely accounts for those appearances which suggested the supposition. This coincidence of propositions inferred from separate classes of facts, is exactly what we noticed in the Novum Organon Renovatum (b. ii. c. 5, sect. 3), as one of the most decisive characteristics of a true theory, under the name of Consilience of Inductions.

That Newton's First Rule of Philosophizing, so understood, authorizes the inferences which he himself made, is really the ground on which they are so firmly believed by philosophers. Thus when the doctrine of a gravity varying inversely as the square of the distance from the body, accounted at the same time for the relations of times and distances in the planetary orbits and for the amount of the moon's deflection from the tangent of her orbit, such a doctrine became most convincing: or again, when the doctrine of the universal gravitation of all parts of matter, which explained so admirably the inequalities of the moon's motions, also gave a satisfactory account of a phenomenon utterly different, the precession of the equinoxes. And of the same kind is the evidence in favour of the undulatory theory of light, when the assumption of the length of an undulation, to which we are led by the colours of thin plates, is found to be identical with that length which explains the phenomena of diffraction; or when the hypothesis of transverse vibrations, suggested by the facts of polarization, explains also the laws of double refraction. When such a convergence of two trains of induction points to the same spot, we can no longer suspect that we are wrong. Such an accumulation of proof really persuades us that we have to do with a vera causa. And if this kind of proof be multiplied;—if we again find other facts of a sort uncontemplated in framing our hypothesis, but yet clearly accounted for when we have adopted the supposition;—we are still further confirmed in our belief; and by such accumulation of proof we may be so far satisfied, as to believe without conceiving it possible to doubt. In this case, when the validity of the opinion adopted by us has been repeatedly confirmed by its sufficiency in unforeseen cases, so that all doubt is removed and forgotten, the theoretical cause takes its place among the realities of the world, and becomes a true cause.