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Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
Aristotle down to Kant, who have said the same thing. But now I go
further, and reply that against that form of the doctrine of relativity
held by me, this allegation cannot be made with the same effect as
it can against preceding forms of the doctrine. For I diverge from
other relativists in asserting that the existence of a non-relative is
not only a positive deliverance of con­scious­ness, but a deliverance
transcending in certainty all others whatever; and is one without
which the doctrine of relativity cannot be framed in thought. I have
urged that “unless a real Non-relative or Absolute be postulated, the
Relative itself becomes absolute; and so brings the argument to a
contradiction;”28 and elsewhere I have described this con­scious­ness
of a Non-relative manifested to us through the Relative as {261}
“deeper than demonstration—deeper even than definite cognition—
deep as the very nature of mind;”29 which seems to me to be saying
as emphatically as possible that, while all other truths may be held
as relative, this truth must be held as absolute. Yet, strangely
enough, though contending thus against the pure relativists, and
holding with the reviewer, that “every asserter of such a [purely-
relative] philosophy must be in the position of a man who saws
across the branch of a tree on which he actually sits, at a point
between himself and the trunk,”30 I am singled out by him as though
this were my own predicament! So far, then, from admitting that the
view I hold “involves the denial of all truth,” I assert that, having at
the outset posited the co-existence of subject and object as a
deliverance of con­scious­ness which precedes all reasoning;31 having
subsequently shown, analytically, that this postulate is in every way
verified,32 and that in its absence the proof of relativity is
impossible; my view is distinguished by an exactly-opposite trait.
The justification of his second proposition the reviewer
commences by saying that—“In the first place the process of
Evolution, as understood by Mr. Spencer, compels him to be at one
with Mr. Darwin in his denial of the existence of any fundamental
and essential distinction between Duty and Pleasure.” Following this
by a statement respecting the genesis of moral sentiments as
understood by me (which is extremely unlike the one I have given in
the Principles of Psychology , § 215, §§ 503–512, and §§ 524–532),
the reviewer goes on to say that “We yield with much reluctance to
the necessity of affirming that Mr. Spencer gives no evidence of ever
having acquired a knowledge of the meaning of the term ‘morality,’
according to the true sense of the word.”
Just noting that, as shown by the context, the assertion {262} thus
made is made against all those who hold the Doctrine of Evolution in
its unqualified form, I reply that in so far as it concerns me, it is one
the reviewer would scarcely have made had he more carefully
examined the evidence: not limiting himself to those works of mine
named at the head of his article. And I cannot but think that had the
spirit of fairness which he evidently strives to maintain, been fully
awake when these passages were written, he would have seen that,
before making so serious an allegation, wider inquiry was needful. If
he had simply said that, given the doctrine of mental evolution as
held by me, he failed to see how moral principles are to be
established, I should not have objected; provided he had also said
that I believe they can be established, and had pointed out what I
hold to be their bases. As it is, however, he has so presented his
own inference from my premises, as to make it seem an inference
which I also must draw from my premises. Quite a different and
much more secure foundation for moral principles is alleged by me,
than that afforded by moral sentiments and conceptions; which he
refers to as though they formed the sole basis of the ethical
conclusions I hold. While the reviewer contends that “Mr. Spencer’s
moral system is even yet more profoundly defective, as it denies any
objective distinction between right and wrong in any being, whether
men are or are not responsible for their actions;” I contend,
contrariwise, that it is distinguished from other moral systems by
asserting the objectivity of the distinction, and by endeavouring to
show that the subjective distinction is derived from the objective
distinction. In my first work, Social Statics , published twenty-three
years ago, the essential thesis is that, apart from their warrant as
alleged Divine injunctions, and apart from their authority as moral
intuitions, the principles of justice are primarily deducible from the
laws of life as carried on under social conditions. I argued
throughout that these principles so derived have {263} a supreme
authority, to which considerations of immediate expediency must
yield; and I was for this reason classed by Mr. Mill as an anti-
utilitarian. More recently, in a letter drawn from me by this mis­app­re­‐
hen­sion of Mr. Mill, and afterwards published by Professor Bain in his
Mental and Moral Science , I have re-stated this position. Already, in
an explanatory article entitled Morals and Moral Sentiments ,
published in the Fortnightly Review for April, 1871, I have quoted
passages from that letter; and here, considering the gravity of the
assertions made by the Quarterly reviewer, I hope to be excused for
re-quoting them:―
“Morality, properly so called—the science of right conduct—has for its object to
determine how and why certain modes of conduct are detrimental, and certain
other modes beneficial. These good and bad results cannot be accidental, but
must be necessary consequences of the constitution of things; and I conceive it to
be the business of Moral Science to deduce from the laws of life and the
conditions of existence, what kinds of action necessarily tend to produce
happiness, and what kinds to produce unhappiness. Having done this, its
deductions are to be recognized as laws of conduct; and are to be conformed to
irrespective of a direct estimation of happiness or misery.”

“If it is true that pure rectitude prescribes a system of things far too good for
men as they are, it is not less true that mere expediency does not of itself tend to
establish a system of things any better than that which exists. While absolute
morality owes to expediency the checks which prevent it from rushing into Utopian
absurdities, expediency is indebted to absolute morality for all stimulus to
improvement. Granted that we are chiefly interested in ascertaining what is
relatively right , it still follows that we must first consider what is absolutely right ;
since the one conception presupposes the other.”
And the comment I then made on these passages I may make
now, that “I do not see how there could well be a more emphatic
assertion that there exists a primary basis of morals independent of,
and in a sense antecedent to, that which is furnished by experiences
of utility; and consequently independent of, and in a sense
antecedent to, those moral sentiments which I conceive to be
generated by such experiences.” I will only add that, had my beliefs
been directly opposite to those I have enunciated, {264} the reviewer
might, I think, have found good reasons for his assertion. If, instead
of demurring to the doctrine “that greatest happiness should be the
immediate aim of man,”33 I had endorsed that doctrine—if, instead
of explaining and justifying “a belief in the special sacredness of
these highest principles, and a sense of the supreme authority of the
altruistic sentiments answering to them,”34 I had denied the
sacredness and the supreme authority—if, instead of saying of the
wise man that “the highest truth he sees he will fearlessly utter;
knowing that, let what may come of it, he is thus playing his right
part in the world,”35 I had said that the wise man will not do this;
the reviewer might with truth have described me as not
understanding “the term ‘morality’ according to the true sense of the
word.” And he might then have inferred that the Doctrine of
Evolution as I hold it, implies denial of the “distinction between Duty
and Pleasure.” But as it is, I think the evidence will not generally be
held to warrant his assertion.
I quite agree with the reviewer that the prevalence of a
philosophy “is no mere question of speculative interest, but is one of
the highest practical importance.” I join him, too, in the belief that
“calamitous social and political changes” may be the outcome of a
mistaken philosophy. Moreover, writing as he does under the
conviction that there can be no standard of right and wrong save
one derived from a Revelation interpreted by an Infallible Authority, I
can conceive the alarm with which he regards so radically opposed a
system. Though I could have wished that the sense of justice he
generally displays had prevented him from ignoring the evidence I
have above given, I can understand how, from his point of view, the
Doctrine of Evolution, as I understand it, “seems absolutely fatal
{265} to every germ of morality,” and “entirely negatives every form
of religion.” But I am unable to understand that modified Doctrine of
Evolution which the reviewer hints at as an alternative. For, little as
the reader would anticipate it after these expressions of profound
dissent, the reviewer displays such an amount of agreement as to
suggest that the system he is criticizing might be converted, “rapidly
and without violence, into an ‘allotropic state,’ in which its
conspicuous characters would be startlingly diverse from those that
it exhibits at present.” May I, using a different figure, suggest a
different transformation, having a subjective instead of an objective
character? As in a stereoscope, the two views representing diverse
aspects, often yield at first a jumble of conflicting impressions, but,
after a time, suddenly combine into a single whole which stands out
quite clearly; so, may it not be that the seem­ing­ly-in­con­sis­tent
Idealism and Realism dwelt on by the reviewer, as well as the other
seem­ing­ly-fun­da­men­tal incongruities he is struck by, will, under
more persistent contemplation, unite as complementary sides of the
same thing?

My excuse for devoting some space to a criticism of so entirely

different a kind as that contained in the British Quarterly Review for
October, 1873, must be that, under the circumstances, I cannot let it
pass unnoticed without seeming to admit its validity.
Saying that my books should be dealt with by specialists, and
tacitly announcing himself as an expert in Physics, the reviewer
takes me to task both for errors in the statement of physical
principles and for erroneous reasoning in physics. That he discovers
no mistakes I do not say. It would be marvellous if in such a
multitude of propositions, averaging a dozen per page, I had made
all criticism-proof. Some are inadvertencies which I should have
been obliged to the reviewer for pointing out as such, but which he
prefers to {266} instance as proving my ignorance. In other cases,
taking advantage of an imperfection of statement, he proceeds to
instruct me about matters which either the context, or passages in
the same volume, show to be quite familiar to me. Here is a sample
of his criticisms belonging to this class:―
“Nor should we counsel a man to venture upon physical speculations who
converts the proposition ‘heat is insensible motion ’ into ‘insensible motion is heat ,’
and hence concludes that when a force is applied to a mass so large that no
motion is seen to result from it, or when, as in the case of sound, motion gets so
dispersed that it becomes insensible, it turns to heat.”
Respecting the first of the two statements contained in this
sentence, I will observe that the reader, if not misled by the
quotation-marks into the supposition that I have made, in so many
words, the assertion that “insensible motion is heat,” will at any rate
infer that this assertion is distinctly involved in the passage named.
And he will infer that the reviewer would never have charged me
with such an absurd belief, if there was before him evidence proving
that I have no such belief. What will the reader say, then, when he
learns, not simply that there is no such statement, and not simply
that on the page referred to, which I have ascertained to be the one
intended, there is no such implication visible, even to an expert (and
I have put the question to one); but when he further learns that in
other passages, the fact that heat is one only of the modes of
insensible motion is distinctly stated (see First Prin . §§ 66, 68, 171);
and when he learns that elsewhere I have specified the several
forms of insensible motion? If the reviewer, who looks so diligently
for flaws as to search an essay in a volume he is not reviewing to
find one term of an incongruity, had sought with equal diligence to
learn what I thought about insensible motion, he would have found
in the Classification of the Sciences , Table II., that insensible motion
is described by me as having the forms of Heat, Light, Electricity,
Magnetism. Even had there been in {267} the place he names, an
unquestionable implication of the belief which he ascribes to me,
fairness might have led him to regard it as an oversight when he
found it at variance with statements I have elsewhere made. What
then is to be thought of him when, in the place named, no such
belief is manifest; either to an ordinary reader or to a spec­ia ­ l­ly-in­‐
struc­ted reader?
No less significant is the state of mind betrayed in the second
clause of the reviewer’s sentence. By representing me as saying that
when the motion constituting sound “gets so dispersed that it
becomes insensible, it turns to heat,” does he intend to represent me
as thinking that when sound-undulations become too weak to be
audible, they become heat-undulations? If so, I reply that the
passage he refers to has no such meaning. Does he then allege that
some part of the force diffused in sound-waves is expended in
generating electricity, by the friction of heterogeneous substances
(which, however, eventually lapses from this special form of
molecular motion in that general form constituting heat); and that I
ought to have thus qualified my statement? If so, he would have had
me commit a piece of scientific pedantry hindering the argument. If
he does not mean either of these things, what does he mean? Does
he contest the truth of the hypothesis which enabled Laplace to
correct Newton’s estimate of the velocity of sound—the hypothesis
that heat is evolved by the compression each sound-wave produces
in the air? Does he deny that the heat so generated is at the
expense of so much wave-motion lost? Does he question the
inference that some of the motion embodied in each wave is from
instant to instant dissipated, partly in this way and partly in the heat
evolved by fluid friction? Can he show any reason for doubting that
when the sound-waves have become too feeble to affect our senses,
their motion still continues to undergo this transformation and
diminution until it is all lost? If not, why does he implicitly deny that
{268} the molar motion constituting sound, eventually disappears in
producing the molecular motion constituting heat?36
I will dwell no longer on the ex­clus­ive­ly-per­son­al questions raised
by the reviewer’s statements; but, leaving the reader to judge of the
rest of my “stupendous mistakes” by the one I have dealt with, I will
turn to a question worthy to occupy some space, as having an
impersonal interest—the question, namely, respecting the nature of
the warrant we have for asserting ultimate physical truths. The
contempt which, as a physicist, the reviewer expresses for the
metaphysical exploration of physical ideas, I will pass over with the
remark that every physical question, probed to the bottom, opens
into a metaphysical one; and that I should have thought the
controversy now going on among chemists, respecting the
legitimacy of the atomic hypothesis, might have shown him as much.
On his erroneous statement that I use the phrase “Persistence of
Force” as an equivalent for the now-gen­er­al­ly-ac­cep­ted phrase
“Conservation of Energy,” I will observe only that, had he not been in
so great a hurry to find inconsistencies, he would have seen why, for
the purposes of my argument, {269} I intentionally use the word
Force: Force being the generic word, including both that species
known as Energy, and that species by which Matter occupies space
and maintains its integrity—a species which, whatever may be its
relation to Energy, and however clearly recognized as a necessary
datum by the theory of Energy, is not otherwise considered in that
theory. I will confine myself to the proposition, disputed at great
length by the reviewer, that our cognition of the Persistence of Force
is a priori . He relies much on the authority of Professor Tait, whom
he twice quotes to the effect that―
“Natural philosophy is an experimental, and not an intuitive science. No à priori
reasoning can conduct us demonstratively to a single physical truth.”
Were I to take a hypercritical attitude, I might dwell on the fact
that Professor Tait leaves the extent of his proposition somewhat
doubtful, by speaking of “Natural philosophy” as one science. Were I
to follow further the reviewer’s example, I might point out that
“Natural philosophy,” in that Newtonian acceptation adopted by
Professor Tait, includes Astronomy; and, going on to ask what
astronomical “experiments” those are which conduct us to
astronomical truths, I might then “counsel” the reviewer not to
depend on the authority of one who (to use the reviewer’s polite
language) “blunders” by confounding experiment and observation. I
will not, however, thus infer from Professor Tait’s imperfection of
statement that he is unaware of the difference between the two;
and shall rate his authority as of no less value than I should, had he
been more accurate in his expression. Respecting that authority I
shall simply remark that, if the question had to be settled by the
authority of any physicist, the authority of Mayer, who is
diametrically opposed to Prof. Tait on this point, and who has been
specially honoured, both by the Royal Society and by the French
Institute, might well counter-weigh his, if not out-weigh it. I am not
aware, {270} however, that the question is one in Physics. It seems to
me a question respecting the nature of proof. And, without doubting
Professor Tait’s competence in Logic and Psychology, I should
decline to abide by his judgment on such a question, even were
there no opposite judgment given by a physicist, certainly of not less
eminence.
Authority aside, however, let us discuss the matter on its merits.
In the Treatise on Natural Philosophy , by Profs. Thomson and Tait, §
243 (1st ed.), I read that “as we shall show in our chapter on
‘Experience,’ physical axioms are axiomatic to those only who have
sufficient knowledge of the action of physical causes to enable them
to see at once their necessary truth.” In this I agree entirely. It is in
Physics, as it is in Mathematics, that before necessary truths can be
grasped, there must be gained by individual experience, such
familiarity with the elements of the thoughts to be framed, that
propositions about those elements may be mentally represented
with distinctness. Tell a child that things which are equal to the same
thing are equal to one another, and the child, lacking a suf­fi­cient­ly-
ab­stract notion of equality, and lacking, too, the needful practice in
comparing relations, will fail to grasp the axiom. Similarly, a rustic,
never having thought much about forces and their results, cannot
form a definite conception answering to the axiom that action and
reaction are equal and opposite. In the last case as in the first, ideas
of the terms and their relations require to be made, by practice in
thinking, so vivid that the involved truths may be mentally seen. But
when the individual experiences have been multiplied enough to
produce distinctness in the representations of the elements dealt
with; then, in the one case as in the other, those mental forms
generated by ancestral experiences, cannot be occupied by the
elements of one of these ultimate truths without perception of its
necessity. If Professor Tait does not admit this, what {271} does he
mean by speaking of “physical axioms ,” and by saying that the
cultured are enabled “to see at once their necessary truth?”
Again, if there are no physical truths which must be classed as a
priori , I ask why Professor Tait joins Sir W. Thomson in accepting as
bases for Physics, Newton’s Laws of Motion? Though Newton gives
illustrations of prolonged motion in bodies that are little resisted, he
gives no proof that a body in motion will continue moving, if
uninterfered with, in the same direction at the same velocity; nor, on
turning to the enunciation of this law quoted in the above-named
work, do I find that Professor Tait does more than exemplify it by
facts which can themselves be asserted only by taking the law for
granted. Does Professor Tait deny that the first law of motion is a
physical truth? If so, what does he call it? Does he admit it to be a
physical truth, and, denying that it is a priori , assert that it is
established a posteriori —that is, by conscious induction from
observation and experiment? If so, what is the inductive reasoning
which can establish it? Let us glance at the several conceivable
arguments which we must suppose him to rely on.
A body set in motion soon ceases to move if it encounters much
friction, or much resistance from the bodies struck. If less of its
energy is expended in moving, or otherwise affecting, other bodies,
or in overcoming friction, its motion continues longer. And it
continues longest when, as over smooth ice, it meets with the
smallest amount of obstruction. May we then, proceeding by the
method of concomitant variations, infer that were it wholly
unobstructed its motion would continue undiminished? If so, we
assume that the diminution of its motion observed in experience, is
proportionate to the amount of energy abstracted from it in
producing other motion, either molar or molecular. We assume that
no variation has taken place in its rate, save that caused by
deductions in moving other matter; for if {272} its motion be
supposed to have otherwise varied, the conclusion that the
differences in the distances travelled result from differences in the
obstructions met with, is vitiated. Thus the truth to be established is
already taken for granted in the premises. Nor is the question
begged in this way only. In every case where it is remarked that a
body stops the sooner, the more it is obstructed by other bodies or
media, the law of inertia is assumed to hold in the obstructing
bodies or media. The very conception of greater or less retardation
so caused, implies the belief that there can be no retardations
without proportionate retarding causes; which is itself the
assumption otherwise expressed in the first law of motion.
Again, let us suppose that instead of inexact observations made
on the movements occurring in daily experience, we make exact
experiments on movements specially arranged to yield measured
results; what is the postulate underlying every experiment? Uniform
velocity is defined as motion through equal spaces in equal times.
How do we measure equal times? By an instrument which can be
inferred to mark equal times only if the oscillations of the pendulum
are isochronous; which they can be proved to be only if the first and
second laws of motion are granted. That is to say, the proposed
experimental proof of the first law, assumes not only the truth of the
first law, but of that which Professor Tait agrees with Newton in
regarding as a second law. Is it said that the ultimate time-measure
referred to is the motion of the Earth round its axis, through equal
angles in equal times? Then the obvious rejoinder is that the
assertion of this, similarly involves an assertion of the truth to be
proved; since the undiminished rotatory movement of the Earth is
itself a corollary from the first law of motion. Is it alleged that this
axial movement of the Earth through equal angles in equal times, is
ascertainable by reference to the stars? I answer that a developed
system of Astronomy, leading through complex {273} reasonings to
the conclusion that the Earth rotates, is, in that case, supposed to
be needful before there can be established a law of motion which
this system of Astronomy itself postulates. For even should it be said
that the Newtonian theory of the Solar System is not necessarily pre-
supposed, but only the Copernican; still, the proof of this assumes
that a body at rest (a star being taken as such) will continue at rest;
which is a part of the first law of motion, regarded by Newton as not
more self-evident than the remaining part.
Not a little remarkable, indeed, is the oversight made by Professor
Tait, in asserting that “no a priori reasoning can conduct us
demonstratively to a single physical truth,” when he has before him
the fact that the system of physical truths constituting Newton’s
Principia , which he has joined Sir William Thomson in editing, is
established by a priori reasoning. That there can be no change
without a cause, or, in the words of Mayer, that “a force cannot
become nothing, and just as little can a force be produced from
nothing,” is that ultimate dictum of con­scious­ness on which all
physical science rests. It is involved alike in the assertion that a body
at rest will continue at rest, in the assertion that a body in motion
must continue to move at the same velocity in the same line if no
force acts on it, and in the assertion that any divergent motion given
to it must be proportionate to the deflecting force; and it is also
involved in the axiom that action and reaction are equal and
opposite.
The reviewer’s doctrine, in support of which he cites against me
the authority of Professor Tait, illustrates in Physics that same error
of the inductive philosophy which, in Metaphysics, I have pointed out
elsewhere (Principles of Psychology , Part VII.). It is a doctrine
implying that we can go on for ever asking the proof of the proof,
without finally coming to any deepest cognition which is unproved
and unprovable. That this is an untenable doctrine, I need {274} not
say more to show. Nor, indeed, would saying more to show it be
likely to have any effect, in so far at least as the reviewer is
concerned; seeing that he thinks I am “ignorant of the very nature
of the principles” of which I am speaking, and seeing that my
notions of scientific reasoning “remind” him “of the Ptolemists,” who
argued that the heavenly bodies must move in circles because the
circle is the most perfect figure.37
Not to try the reader’s patience further, I will end by pointing out
that, even were the reviewer’s criticisms all valid, they would leave
unshaken the theory he contends against. Though one of his
sentences (p. 480) raises the expectation that he is about to assault,
and greatly to damage, the bases of the system contained in the
second part of First Principles , yet all those propositions which
constitute the bases, he leaves, not only uninjured, but even
untouched,—contenting himself with trying to show (with what
success we have seen) that the fundamental one is an a posteriori
truth and not an a priori truth. Against the general Doctrine of
Evolution, considered as an induction from all classes of concrete
phenomena, he utters not a word; nor does he utter a word to
disprove any one of those laws of the redistribution of matter and
motion, by {275} which the process of Evolution is deductively
interpreted. Respecting the law of the Instability of the
Homogeneous, he says no more than to quarrel with one of the
illustrations. He makes no criticism on the law of the Multiplication of
Effects. The law of Segregation he does not even mention. Nor does
he mention the law of Equilibration. Further, he urges nothing
against the statement that these general laws are severally
deducible from the ultimate law of the Persistence of Force. Lastly,
he does not deny the Persistence of Force; but only differs
respecting the nature of our warrant for asserting it. Beyond pointing
out, here a cracked brick and there a quoin set askew, he merely
makes a futile attempt to show that the foundation is not natural
rock, but concrete.
From his objections I may, indeed, derive much satisfaction. That
a competent critic, obviously anxious to do all the mischief he can,
and not over-scrupulous about the means he uses, has done so
little, may be taken as evidence that the fabric of conclusions
attacked will not be readily overthrown.

In the British Quarterly Review for January, 1874, the writer of the
article I have dealt with above, makes a rejoinder. It is of the kind
which might have been anticipated. There are men to whom the
discovery that they have done injustice is painful. After proof of
having wrongly ascribed to another such a nonsensical belief as that
insensible motion is heat because heat is insensible motion, some
would express regret. Not so my reviewer. Having by forced in­ter­pre­‐
ta­tions debited me with an absurdity, he makes no apology; but,
with an air implying that he had all along done this, he attacks the
allegation I had really made—an allegation which is at least so far
from an absurdity, that he describes it only as not justified by “the
present state of science.” And here, having incidentally referred to
this point, I may as well, before {276} proceeding, deal with his
substituted charge at the same time that I further exemplify his
method. Probably most of those who see the British Quarterly , will
be favourably impressed by the confidence of his assertion; but
those who compare my statement with his travesty of it, and who
compare both with some authoritative exposition, will be otherwise
impressed. To his statement that I conclude “that friction must
ultimately transform all [the italics are his] the energy of a sound
into heat,” I reply that it is glaringly untrue: I have named friction as
a second cause only. And when he pooh-poohs the effect of
compression because it is “merely momentary,” is he aware of the
meaning of his words? Will he deny that, from first to last, during
the interval of condensation, heat is being generated? Will he deny
to the air the power of radiating such heat? He will not venture to do
so. Take then the interval of condensation as one-thousandth of a
second. I ask him to inform those whom he professes to instruct,
what is the probable number of heat-waves which have escaped in
this interval. Must they not be numbered by thousands of millions?
In fact, by his “merely momentary,” he actually assumes that what is
momentary in relation to our time-measures, is momentary in
relation to the escape of ethereal undulations!
Let me now proceed more systematically, and examine his
rejoinder point by point. It sets out thus:―
“In the notice of Mr. Spencer’s works that appeared in the last number of this
Review , we had occasion to point out that he held mistaken notions of the most
fundamental gen­er­al­i­za­tions of dynamics; that he had shown an ignorance of the
nature of proof in his treatment of the Newtonian Law; that he had used phrases
such as the Persistence of Force in various and inconsistent significations; and
more especially that he had put forth proofs logically faulty in his endeavour to
demonstrate certain physical propositions by à priori methods, and to show that
such proofs must exist. To this article Mr. Spencer has replied in the December
number of the Fortnightly Review . His reply leaves every one of the above
positions unassailed.”
In my “Replies to Criticisms,” which, as it was, trespassed unduly
on the pages of the Fortnightly Review , I singled {277} out from
those of his allegations which touched me personally, one that might
be briefly dealt with as an example; and I stated that, passing over
other personal questions, as not interesting to the general reader, I
should devote the small space available to an impersonal one.
Notwithstanding this, the reviewer, in the foregoing paragraph,
enumerates his chief positions; asserts that I have not assailed any
of them (which is untrue); and then leads his readers to the belief
that I have not assailed them because they are unassailable.
 Leaving this misbelief to be dealt with presently, I continue my
comments on his rejoinder. After referring to the passage I have
quoted from Prof. Tait’s statement about physical axioms, and after
indicating the nature of my criticism, the reviewer says:―
“Had Mr. Spencer, however, read the sentence that follows it, we doubt whether
we should have heard aught of this quotation. It is ‘Without further remark we
shall give Newton’s Three Laws; it being remembered that as the properties of
matter might have been such as to render a totally different set of laws axiomatic,
these laws must be considered as resting on convictions drawn from observation
and experiment and not on intuitive perception .’ This not only shows that the term
‘axiomatic’ is used in the previous sentence in a sense that does not exclude an
inductive origin, but it leaves us indebted to Mr. Spencer for the discovery of the
clearest and most authoritative expression of disapproval of his views respecting
the nature of the Laws of Motion.”
Let us analyze this “authoritative expression.” It contains several
startling implications, the disclosure of which the reader will find not
uninteresting. Consider, first, what is implied by framing the thought
that “the properties of matter might have been such as to render a
totally different set of laws axiomatic.” I will not stop to make the
inquiry whether matter having properties fundamentally unlike its
present ones, can be conceived; though such an inquiry, leading to
the conclusion that no conception of the kind is possible, would
show that the proposition is merely a verbal one. It will suffice if I
examine the nature of this proposition that “the properties of matter
might have been ” {278} other than they are. Does it express an ex­‐
per­im
­ en­tal­ly-as­cer­tained truth? If so, I invite Prof. Tait to describe
the experiments. Is it an intuition? If so, then along with doubt of an
intuitive belief concerning things as they are , there goes confidence
in an intuitive belief concerning things as they are not . Is it an
hypothesis? If so, the implication is that a cognition of which the
negation is inconceivable (for an axiom is such) may be discredited
by inference from that which is not a cognition at all, but simply a
supposition. Does the reviewer admit that no conclusion can have a
validity greater than is possessed by its premises? or will he say that
the trustworthiness of cognitions increases in proportion as they are
the more inferential? Be his answer what it may, I shall take it as
unquestionable that nothing concluded can have a warrant higher
than that from which it is concluded, though it may have a lower.
Now the elements of the proposition before us are these:—As “the
properties of matter might have been such as to render a totally
different set of laws axiomatic” [therefore ] “these laws [now in
force] must be considered as resting . . . not on intuitive
perception:” that is, the intuitions in which these laws are
recognized, must not be held authoritative. Here the cognition
posited as premiss, is that the properties of matter might have been
other than they are; and the conclusion is that our intuitions relative
to existing properties are uncertain. Hence, if this conclusion is valid,
it is valid because the cognition or intuition respecting what might
have been, is more trustworthy than the cognition or intuition
respecting what is! Scepticism respecting the deliverances of con­‐
scious­ness about things as they are, is based upon faith in a
deliverance of con­scious­ness about things as they are not!
I go on to remark that this “authoritative expression of
disapproval” by which I am supposed to be silenced, even were its
allegation as valid as it is fallacious, would leave {279} wholly
untouched the real issue. I pointed out how Prof. Tait’s denial that
any physical truths could be reached a priori , was contradicted by
his own statement respecting physical axioms. The question thus
raised the reviewer evades, and substitutes another with which I
have just dealt. Now I bring forward again the evaded question.
In the passage I quoted, Prof. Tait, besides speaking of physical
“axioms ,” says of them that due familiarity with physical phenomena
gives the power of seeing “at once ” “their necessary truth.” These
last words, which express his conception of an axiom, express also
the usual conception. An axiom is defined as a “self-evident truth,”
or a truth that is seen at once ; and the definition otherwise worded
is—a “truth so evident at first sight , that no process of reasoning or
demonstration can make it plainer.” Now I contend that Prof. Tait, by
thus committing himself to a definition of physical axioms identical
with that which is given of mathematical axioms, tacitly admits that
they have the same a priori character; and I further contend that no
such nature as that which he describes physical axioms to have, can
be acquired by experiment or observation during the life of an
individual. Axioms, if defined as truths of which the necessity is at
once seen, are thereby defined as truths of which the negation is
inconceivable; and the familiar contrast between them and the
truths established by individual experiences, is that these last never
become such that their negations are inconceivable, however
multitudinous the experiences may be. Thousands of times has the
sportsman heard the report that follows the flash from his gun, but
still he can imagine the flash as occurring silently; and countless
daily experiments on the burning of coal, leave him able to conceive
coal as remaining in the fire without ignition. So that the “convictions
drawn from observation and experiment” during a single life, can
never acquire that character which Prof. Tait admits physical axioms
to have: in other words, physical axioms cannot be {280} derived
from personal observation and experiment. Thus, otherwise applying
the reviewer’s words, I “doubt whether we should have heard aught
of this quotation” to which he calls my attention, had he studied the
matter more closely; and he “leaves us indebted to” him “for the
discovery of” a passage which serves to make clearer the
untenability of the doctrine he so dogmatically affirms.
I turn now to what the reviewer says concerning the special
arguments I used to show that the first law of motion cannot be
proved experimentally. After a bare enunciation of my positions, he
says:―
“On the utterly erroneous character of these statements we do not care to
dwell, we wish simply to call our reader’s attention to the conclusion arrived at. Is
that a disproof of the possibility of an inductive proof? We thought that every
tolerably educated man was aware that the proof of a scientific law consisted in
showing that by assuming its truth, we could explain the observed phenomena.”
 Probably the reviewer expects his readers to conclude that he
could easily dispose of the statements referred to if he tried. Among
scientific men, however, this cavalier passing over of my arguments
will perhaps be ascribed to another cause. I will give him my reason
for saying this. Those arguments, read in proof by one of the most
eminent physicists, and by a specially-honoured mathematician, had
their entire concurrence; and I have since had from another
mathematician, standing among the very first, such qualified
agreement as is implied in saying that the first law of motion cannot
be proved by terrestrial observations (which is in large measure
what I undertook to show in the paragraphs which the reviewer
passes over so contemptuously). But his last sentence, telling us
what he thought “every tolerably educated man was aware” of, is
the one which chiefly demands attention. In it he uses the word law
—a word which, conveniently wide in meaning, suits his purpose
remarkably well. But we are here speaking of physical axioms . The
question is whether the justification of a physical {281} axiom
consists in showing that by assuming its truth, we can explain the
observed phenomena. If it does, then all distinction between
hypothesis and axiom disappears. Mathematical axioms, for which
there is no other definition than that which Prof. Tait gives of
physical axioms, must stand on the same footing. Henceforth we
must hold that our warrant for asserting that “things which are equal
to the same thing are equal to one another,” consists in the observed
truth of the geometrical and other propositions deducible from it and
the associated axioms—the observed truth, mind; for the fabric of
deductions yields none of the required warrant until these
deductions have been tested by measurement. When we have
described squares on the three sides of a right-angled triangle, cut
them out in paper, and, by weighing them, have found that the one
on the hypothenuse balances the other two; then we have got a fact
which, joined with other facts similarly ascertained, justifies us in
asserting that things which are equal to the same thing are equal to
one another! Even as it stands, this implication will not, I think, be
readily accepted; but we shall find that its unacceptability becomes
still more conspicuous when the analysis is pursued to the end.
Continuing his argument to show that the laws of motion have no
a priori warrant, the reviewer says:―
“Mr. Spencer asserts that Newton gave no proof of the Laws of Motion. The
whole of the Principia was the proof, and the fact that, taken as a system, these
laws account for the lunar and planetary motions, is the warrant on which they
chiefly rest to this day.”
I have first to point out that here, as before, the reviewer escapes
by raising a new issue. I did not ask what he thinks about the
Principia , and the proof of the laws of motion by it; nor did I ask
whether others at this day, hold the assertion of these laws to be
justified mainly by the evidence the Solar System affords. I asked
what Newton thought. The reviewer had represented the belief that
the second law of motion is knowable a priori , as too {282} absurd
even for me openly to enunciate. I pointed out that since Newton
enunciates it openly under the title of an axiom, and offers no proof
whatever of it, he did explicitly what I am blamed for doing
implicitly. And thereupon I invited the reviewer to say what he
thought of Newton. Instead of answering, he gives me his opinion to
the effect that the laws of motion are proved true by the truth of the
Principia deduced from them. Of this hereafter. My present purpose
is to show that Newton did not say this, and gave every indication of
thinking the contrary. He does not call the laws of motion
“hypotheses;” he calls them “axioms.” He does not say that he
assumes them to be true provisionally ; and that the warrant for
accepting them as actually true, will be found in the as­tro­nom­ic­ al­ly-
proved truth of the deductions. He lays them down just as
mathematical axioms are laid down—posits them as truths to be
accepted a priori , from which follow consequences that must
therefore be accepted. And though the reviewer thinks this an
untenable position, I am quite content to range myself with Newton
in thinking it a tenable one—if, indeed, I may say so without
undervaluing the reviewer’s judgment. But now, having shown that
the reviewer evaded the issue I raised, which it was inconvenient for
him to meet, I pass to the issue he substitutes for it. I will first deal
with it after the methods of ordinary logic, before dealing with it
after the methods of what may be called transcendental logic.
To establish the truth of a proposition postulated, by showing that
the deductions from it are true, requires that the truth of the
deductions shall be shown in some way that does not directly or
indirectly assume the truth of the proposition postulated. If, setting
out with the axioms of Euclid, we deduce the truths that “the angle
in a semi-circle is a right angle,” and that “the opposite angles of any
quadrilateral figure described in a circle, are together equal to two
right angles,” and so forth; and if, because {283} these propositions
are true, we say that the axioms are true, we are guilty of a petitio
principii . I do not mean simply that if these various propositions are
taken as true on the strength of the demonstrations given, the
reasoning is circular, because the demonstrations assume the
axioms; but I mean more—I mean that any supposed experimental
proof of these propositions by measurement, itself assumes the
axioms to be justified. For even when the supposed experimental
proof consists in showing that some two lines demonstrated by
reason to be equal, are equal when tested in perception, the axiom
that things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one
another, is taken for granted. The equality of the two lines can be
ascertained only by carrying from the one to the other, some
measure (either a moveable marked line or the space between the
points of compasses), and by assuming that the two lines are equal
to one another, because they are severally equal to this measure.
The ultimate truths of mathematics, then, cannot be established by
any experimental proof that the deductions from them are true;
since the supposed experimental proof takes them for granted. The
same thing holds of ultimate physical truths. For the alleged a
posteriori proof of these truths, has a vice exactly analogous to the
vice I have just indicated. Every evidence yielded by astronomy that
the axioms called “the laws of motion” are true, resolves itself into a
fulfilled prevision that some celestial body or bodies, will be seen in
a specified place, or in specified places, in the heavens, at some
assigned time. Now the day, hour, and minute of this verifying
observation, can be fixed only on the assumption that the Earth’s
motion in its orbit and its motion round its axis, continue
undiminished. Mark, then, the parallelism. One who chose to deny
that things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one
another, could never have it proved to him by showing the truth of
deduced propositions; since the testing process would in {284} every
case assume that which he denied. Similarly, one who refused to
admit that motion, uninterfered with, continues in the same straight
line at the same velocity, could not have it proved to him by the
fulfilment of an astronomical prediction; because he would say that
both the spectator’s position in space, and the position of the event
in time, were those alleged, only if the Earth’s motions of translation
and rotation were undiminished, which was the very thing he called
in question. Evidently such a sceptic might object that the seeming
fulfilment of the prediction, say a transit of Venus, may be effected
by various combinations of the changing positions of Venus, of the
Earth, and of the spectator on the Earth. The appearances may
occur as anticipated, though Venus is at some other place than the
calculated one; provided the Earth also is at some other place, and
the spectator’s position on the Earth is different. And if the first law
of motion is not assumed, it must be admitted that the Earth and
the spectator may occupy these other places at the predicted time:
supposing that in the absence of the first law, this predicted time
can be ascertained, which it cannot. Thus the testing process
inevitably begs the question.
That the perfect congruity of all astronomical observations with all
deductions from “the laws of motion,” gives coherence to this group
of intuitions and perceptions, and so furnishes a warrant for the
entire aggregate of them which it would not have were any of them
at variance, is unquestionable. But it does not therefore follow that
astronomical observations can furnish a test for each individual
assumption , out of the many which are simultaneously made. I will
not dwell on the fact that the process of verification assumes the
validity of the assumptions on which acts of reasoning proceed; for
the reply may be that these are shown to be valid apart from
astronomy. Nor will I insist that the assumptions underlying
mathematical inferences, geometrical and {285} numerical, are
involved; since it may be said that these are justifiable separately by
our terrestrial experiences. But, passing over all else that is taken for
granted, it suffices to point out that, in making every astronomical
prediction, the three laws of motion and the law of gravitation are
all assumed; that if the first law of motion is to be held proved by
the fulfilment of the prediction, it can be so only by taking for
granted that the two other laws of motion and the law of gravitation
are true; and that non-fulfilment of the prediction would not
disprove the first law of motion, since the error might be in one or
other of the three remaining assumptions. Similarly with the second
law: the astronomical proof of it depends on the truth of the
accompanying assumptions. So that the warrants for the
assumptions A, B, C, and D, are respectively such that A, B, and C
being taken as trustworthy, prove the validity of D; D being thus
proved valid, joins C, and B, in giving a character to A; and so
throughout. The result is that everything comes out right if they
happen to be all true; but if one of them is false, it may destroy the
characters of the other three, though these are in reality exact.
Clearly, then, astronomical prediction and observation can never test
any one of the premises by itself. They can only justify the entire
aggregate of premises, mathematical and physical, joined with the
entire aggregate of reasoning processes leading from premises to
conclusions.
 I now recall the reviewer’s “thought,” uttered in his habitual
manner, “that every tolerably educated man was aware that the
proof of a scientific law consisted in showing that by assuming its
truth, we could explain the observed phenomena.” Having from the
point of view of ordinary logic dealt with this theory of proof as
applied by the reviewer, I proceed to deal with it from the point of
view of transcendental logic, as I have myself applied it. And here I
have to charge the reviewer with either being ignorant of, or else
deliberately ignoring, a cardinal {286} doctrine of the System of
Philosophy he professes to review—a doctrine set forth not in those
four volumes of it which he seems never to have looked into; but in
the one volume of it he has partially dealt with. For this principle
which, in respect to scientific belief, he enunciates for my instruction,
is one which, in First Principles , I have enunciated in respect to all
beliefs whatever. In the chapter on the “Data of Philosophy,” where I
have inquired into the legitimacy of our modes of procedure, and
where I have pointed out that there are certain ultimate conceptions
without which the intellect can no more stir “than the body can stir
without help of its limbs,” I have inquired how their validity or
invalidity is to be shown; and I have gone on to reply that―
“Those of them which are vital, or cannot be severed from the rest without
mental dissolution, must be assumed as true provisionally . . . . leaving the
assumption of their un­ques­tion­able­ness to be justified by the results.
Ҥ 40. How is it to be justified by the results? As any other assumption is
justified—by ascertaining that all the conclusions deducible from it, correspond
with the facts as directly observed—by showing the agreement between the
experiences it leads us to anticipate, and the actual experiences. There is no mode
of establishing the validity of any belief, except that of showing its entire congruity
with all other beliefs.”
Proceeding avowedly and rigorously on this principle, I have next
inquired what is the fundamental process of thought by which this
congruity is to be determined, and what is the fundamental product
of thought yielded by this process. This fundamental product I have
shown to be the coexistence of subject and object; and then,
describing this as a postulate to be justified by “its sub­se­quent­ly-
proved congruity with every result of experience, direct and indirect,”
I have gone on to say that “the two divisions of self and not-self, are
re-divisible into certain most general forms, the reality of which
Science, as well as Common Sense, from moment to moment
assumes.” Nor is this all. Having thus assumed, only provisionally ,
this deepest of all intuitions, far transcending an axiom in self-
evidence, I {287} have, after drawing deductions occupying four
volumes, deliberately gone back to the assumption (Prin. of Psy., §
386). After quoting the passage in which the principle was laid
down, and after reminding the reader that the deductions drawn had
been found congruous with one another; I have pointed out that it
still remained to ascertain whether this primordial assumption was
congruous with all the deductions; and have thereupon proceeded,
throughout eighteen chapters, to show the congruity. And yet having
before him the volumes in which this principle is set forth with a
distinctness, and acted upon with a deliberation, which I believe are
nowhere paralleled, the reviewer enunciates for my benefit this
principle of which he “thought that every tolerably educated man
was aware”! He enunciates it as applying to limited groups of beliefs,
to which it does not apply; and shuts his eyes to the fact that I have
avowedly and systematically acted upon it in respect to the entire
aggregate of our beliefs (axioms included) for which it furnishes the
ultimate justification!
Here I must add another elucidatory statement, which would have
been needless had the reviewer read that which he criticizes. His
argument proceeds throughout on the assumption that I understand
a priori truths after the ancient manner, as truths independent of
experience; and he shows this more tacitly, where he “trusts” that
he is “attacking one of the last attempts to deduce the laws of
nature from our inner con­scious­ness.” Manifestly, a leading thesis of
one of the works he professes to review, is entirely unknown to him
—the thesis that forms of thought, and consequently the intuitions
which those forms of thought involve, result entirely from the effects
of experiences, organized and inherited. With the Principles of
Psychology before him, not only does he seem unaware that it
contains this doctrine, but though this doctrine, set forth in its first
edition published nearly twenty years ago, has gained {288}
considerable currency, he seems never to have heard of it. The
implication of this doctrine is, not that the “laws of nature” are
deducible from “our inner con­scious­ness,” but that our con­scious­‐
ness has a pre-established correspondence with such of those laws
(simple, perpetually presented, and never negatived) as have, in the
course of prac­ti­cal­ly-in­fi­nite ancestral experiences, registered
themselves in our nervous structure. Had he taken the trouble to
acquaint himself with this doctrine, he would have learned that the
intuitions of axiomatic truths are regarded by me as latent in the
inherited brain, just as bodily reflex actions are latent in the
inherited nervous centres of a lower order; that such latent intuitions
are made potentially more distinct by the greater definiteness of
structure due to individual action and culture; and that thus,
axiomatic truths, having a warrant entirely a posteriori for the race,
have for the individual a warrant which, substantially a priori , is
made complete a posteriori . And he would then have learned that
as, during evolution, Thought has been moulded into increasing
correspondence with Things; and as such correspondence, tolerably
complete in respect of the simple, ever-present, and invariable
relations, as those of space, has made considerable advance in
respect of the primary dynamical relations; the assertion that the
resulting intuitions are authoritative, is the assertion that the
simplest uniformities of nature, as experienced throughout an
immeasurable past, are better known than they are as experienced
during an individual life. All which conceptions, however, being, as it
seems, unheard of by the reviewer, he regards my trust in these
primordial intuitions as like that of the Ptolemists in their fancies
about perfection!
 Thus far my chief antagonists, passive if not active, have been
Prof. Tait and, by implication, Sir William Thomson, {289} his
coadjutor in the work quoted against me—men of standing, and the
last of them of world-wide reputation as a mathematician and
physicist. Partly because the opinions of such men demand
attention, I have dealt with the questions raised at some length; and
partly, also, because the origin and consequent warrant of physical
axioms are questions of general and permanent interest. The
reviewer, who by citing against me these authorities has gained for
some of his criticisms consideration they would otherwise not
deserve, I must, in respect of his other criticisms, deal with very
briefly. Because, for reasons sufficiently indicated, I did not assail
sundry of his statements, he has reiterated them as unassailable. I
will here add no more than is needful to show how groundless is his
assumption.
What the reviewer says on the metaphysical aspects of the
propositions we distinguish as physical, need not detain us long. His
account of my exposition of “Ultimate Scientific Ideas,” he closes by
saying of me that “he is not content with less than showing that all
our fundamental conceptions are inconceivable.” Whether the
reviewer knows what he means by an inconceivable conception, I
cannot tell. It will suffice to say that I have attempted no such
remarkable feat as that described. My attempt has been to show
that objective activities, together with their objective forms, are
inconceivable by us—that such symbolic conceptions of them as we
frame, and are obliged to use, are proved, by the alternative
contradictions which a final analysis of them discloses, to have no
likeness to the realities. But the proposition that objective existence
cannot be rendered in terms of subjective existence, the reviewer
thinks adequately expressed by saying that “our fundamental
conceptions” (subjective products) “are inconceivable” (cannot be
framed by subjective processes)! Giving this as a sample from which
may be judged his fitness for discussing these ultimate questions, I
pass over his phys­ic­ o-meta­phys­ic­ al criticisms, and proceed at once
to {290} those which his special discipline may be assumed to render
more worthy of attention.
Quoting a passage relative to the law that “all central forces vary
inversely as the squares of the distances,” he derides the assertion
that “this law is not simply an empirical one, but one deducible
mathematically from the relations of space—one of which the
negation is inconceivable.” Now whether this statement can or
cannot be fully justified, it has at any rate none of that absurdity
alleged by the reviewer. When he puts the question—“Whence does
he [do I] get this?” he invites the suspicion that his mind is not
characterized by much excursiveness. It seems never to have
occurred to him that, if rays like those of light radiate in straight
lines from a centre, the number of them falling on any given area of
a sphere described from that centre, will diminish as the square of
the distance increases, because the surfaces of spheres vary as the
squares of their radii. For, if this has occurred to him, why does he
ask whence I get the inference? The inference is so simple a one as
naturally to be recognized by those whose thoughts go a little
beyond their lessons in geometry.38 If the reviewer means to ask,
whence I get the implied assumption that central forces act only in
straight lines, I reply that this assumption has a warrant akin to that
of Newton’s first axiom, that a moving body will continue moving in
a straight line unless interfered with. For that the force exerted by
one centre on another should act in a curved line, implies the
conception of some second force, complicating the direct effect of
the first. And, even could a central force be truly conceived as acting
in lines not straight, the average {291} distribution of its effects upon
the inner surface of the surrounding sphere, would still follow the
same law. Thus, whether or not the law be accepted on a priori
grounds, the assumed absurdity of representing it to have a priori
grounds, is not very obvious. Respecting this statement of mine the
reviewer goes on to say―
“This is a wisdom far higher than that possessed by the discoverer of the great
law of attraction, who was led to consider it from no cogitations on the relations of
space, but from observations of the movements of the planets; and who was so
far from rising to that clearness of view of the truth of his great discovery, which is
expressed by the phrase, ‘its negation is inconceivable,’ that he actually
abandoned it for a time, because (through an error in his estimate of the earth’s
diameter) it did not seem fully to account for the motion of the moon.”
To the first clause in this sentence, I have simply to give a direct
denial; and to assert that neither Newton’s “observations of the
movements of the planets” nor other such observations continued by
all astronomers for all time, would yield “the great law of attraction.”
Contrariwise, I contend that when the reviewer says, by implication,
that Newton had no antecedent hypothesis respecting the cause of
the planetary motions, he (the reviewer) is not only going beyond
his possible knowledge, but he is asserting that which even a
rudimentary acquaintance with the process of discovery, might have
shown him was impossible. Without framing, beforehand, the
supposition that there was at work an attractive force varying
inversely as the square of the distance, no such comparison of
observations as that which led to the establishment of the theory of
gravitation could have been made. On the second clause of the
sentence, in which the reviewer volunteers for my benefit the
information that Newton “actually abandoned” his hypothesis for a
while because it did not bring out right results, I have first to tell him
that, in an early number of the very periodical containing his
article,39 I cited this fact {292} (using these same words) at a time
when he was at school, or before he went there.40 I have next to
assert that this fact is irrelevant; and that Newton, while probably
seeing it to be a necessary implication of geometrical laws that
central forces vary inversely as the squares of the distances, did not
see it to be a necessary implication of any laws, geometrical or
dynamical, that there exists a force by which the celestial bodies
affect one another; and therefore doubtless saw that there was no a
priori warrant for the doctrine of gravitation. The reviewer, however,
aiming to substitute for my “confused notions” his own clear ones,
wishes me to identify the proposition—Central forces vary inversely
as the squares of the distances—with the proposition—There exists a
cosmical attractive force which varies inversely as the squares of the
distances. But I decline to identify them; and I suspect that a
considerable distinction between them was recognized by Newton.
Lastly, apart from all this, I have to point out that even had Newton
thought the existence of an attractive force throughout space was an
a priori truth, as well as the law of variation of such a force if it
existed; he would still, naturally enough, pause before asserting
gravitation and its law, when he found his deductions did not
correspond with the facts. To suppose otherwise, is to ascribe to him
a rashness which no disciplined man of science could be guilty of.
See, then, the critical capacity variously exhibited in the space of a
single sentence. The reviewer, quite erroneously, thinks that
observations unguided by hypotheses suffice for physical discoveries.
He seems unaware that, on a priori grounds, the law of the inverse
square had been suspected as the law of some cosmical force,
before Newton. He asserts, without warrant, that no such a priori
conception preceded, in Newton’s mind, his observations and {293}
calculations. He confounds the law of variation of a force, with the
existence of a force varying according to that law. And he concludes
that Newton could have had no a priori conception of the law of
variation, because he did not assert the existence of a force varying
according to this law in defiance of the evidence as then presented
to him!
Now that I have analyzed, with these results, the first of his
criticisms, the reader will neither expect me to waste time in
similarly dealing with the rest seriatim , nor will he wish to have his
own time occupied in following the analysis. To the evidence thus
furnished of the reviewer’s fitness for the task he undertakes, it will
suffice if I add an illustration or two of the animus which leads him
to make grave imputations on trivial grounds, and to ignore the
evidence which contradicts his in­ter­pre­ta­tions.
Because I have spoken of a balanced system, like that formed by
the sun and planets, as having the “peculiarity, that though the
constituents of the system have relative movements, the system, as
a whole, has no movement,” he unhesitatingly assumes me to be
unaware that in a system of bodies whose movements are not
balanced, it is equally true that the centre of gravity remains
constant. Ignorance of a general principle in dynamics is alleged
against me solely because of this colloquial use of the word
“peculiarity,” where I should have used a word (and there is no word
perfectly fit) free from the implication of exclusiveness. If the
reviewer were to assert that arrogance is a “peculiarity” of critics;
and if I were thereupon to charge him with entire ignorance of
mankind, many of whom besides critics are arrogant, he would
rightly say that my conclusion was a very large one to draw from so
small a premise.
To this example of strained inference I will join an example of
what seems like deliberate misconstruction. From one of my essays
(not among the works he professes to deal with) the reviewer, to
strengthen his attack, brings {294} a strange mistake; which, even
without inquiry, any fair-minded reader would see must be an
oversight. A statement true of a single body acted on by a tractive
force, I have inadvertently pluralized: being so possessed by another
aspect of the question, as to overlook the obvious fact that with a
plurality of bodies the statement became untrue. Not only, however,
does the reviewer ignore various evidences furnished by the works
before him, that I could not really think what I had there said, but
he ignores a direct contradiction contained in the paragraph
succeeding that from which he quotes. So that the case stands thus:
—On two adjacent pages I have made two opposite statements,
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