Part 6

Suppose we have to determine dialectically the specific gravity of a piece of metal, but do not know whether it is gold or gun-metal. It is evident we must first somehow make up our mind as to its identity, and then proceed on the usual method of argumentation. The 'making up our mind' is probably itself an argument, and might be of this character--'A piece of yellow metal stamped with what appears to be a hall-mark, is more likely to be gold than gun-metal; this piece of metal has traces of such a stamp; so I conclude _it is gold_.' Then we proceed to the principal question--'The specific gravity of gold is 19·26; I have concluded that this object is gold; I conclude further that _it has a specific gravity of_ 19·26.'

We may work out all the alternative conclusions first and fix on a datum afterwards, as in deciding how we shall invest our money. 'If I put my money in Consols I shall have a small return with good security; if I buy Patagonian bonds I may have a large interest for a time, but the security is bad.' The next thing to settle is whether in our experience or on accepted principles small profit with good security is, or is not, to be preferred to large profit and bad security: having decided in favour of the former alternative, we now choose our investment dogmatically--'A good security with small profit is to be preferred; Consols are of this character; _they are a suitable investment for me_.'

We may be unable to decide for any of the alternative data, but we work out all the possible arguments as hypotheses, and so are prepared in a degree for all the possible events. A person is seen approaching our residence, but we cannot discern whether it is A. B., who is a bore, or C. D., who is an entertaining companion. We argue rapidly--'If it is A. B. _I shall have a bad half-hour_, for he always wearies me; if it is C. D. _I shall have an agreeable distraction_, for he is very amusing.'

According to the syllogists, the dilemmatic premises are a statement of alternative data and the choice of one of them, and the inference is the rejection of the remainder: or the rejection may be given as matter of fact and the selection as conclusion. In neither case have we argument.

From the moment we select a datum the remaining data are of no import to us, and they need not be mentioned. The selection of one datum is logically identical with the rejection of the rest, and this is therefore not a conclusion from that.--'Do you take tea or coffee?'--'Tea, please.'--'Then I conclude you do not take coffee.'--A person who would 'conclude' in this fashion would be justly deemed irrational. The choice of the tea is a fact, and the rejection of the coffee is the same fact otherwise expressed, so that the rejection cannot be a rational conclusion.--'My doctor sends me off every winter to Nice, Algiers, or Egypt; but I never go to Algiers or Egypt.'--There is no occasion to say, 'therefore you go to Nice'; that has been already announced as a matter of fact and is not susceptible of inference. For the sake of verbal emphasis we might remark, 'So it is to Nice you go', but this is not logically requisite.

Whately's examples of this kind of theorem are exactly of the model just given.--'Either the earth is eternal, or the work of chance, or the work of an intelligent Being; it is not eternal, nor the work of chance, _therefore_ it is the work of an intelligent Being.' This is put forward in all gravity as a specimen of reasoning. It is plain that if we know the premises as matters of fact, we also know the proposed conclusion as a matter of fact. There is no occasion to reason about it.

The Aristotelian hypothetical can be reduced to arithmetical subtraction. Suppose we put five balls into a bag and afterwards take out three without seeing the remainder: is the judgment that two balls remain in the bag a logical inference? No--it is matter of fact. Since we last perceived the objects they have undergone diminution, but that does not confer on what is left of them the imaginary character proper to a rational conclusion. What remains is as much fact--recollected but not imaginary fact--as before the subtraction.

Whately's next example is--'It is either spring, summer, autumn, or winter; but it is neither spring nor summer; therefore it is either autumn or winter.' This is aggravated fallacy. Not only is it mere subtraction, but the remainder is _perceived_--not recollected, as in the preceding case. The actual season of the year is a known fact, and is not rendered more certain by an inference drawn from the absence of some other season. Arguments have no validity as against matters of fact, and add nothing to their authority. Fact is above, and independent of, argument. The example just cited may be paralleled thus--'The cards in my hand are either spades, hearts, clubs, or diamonds; but they are neither spades nor hearts; therefore they are either clubs or diamonds'.--I _see_ that they are either clubs or diamonds: the perceptual judgment renders the rational--imaginary--judgment superfluous. Reason is intended to supplement experience--not to supersede it.

XX--DEBATE

The purpose of debate is to determine the goodness or badness of an argument by general logical criticism and knowledge of the matter. This is not dialectic, but takes place after the dialectician has declared that a given theorem is valid argument. If then its conclusion is repugnant to us we may seek to stigmatise it--or remove a stigma as the case may be--by going behind the argument to the composition of the judgments that enter into it.

Let us take the case of Caesar being proved to be a tyrant in a society that punishes tyranny with death. There are two ways in which he may be saved or his punishment mitigated.

We are not bound to take the first precedent that is offered from which to generate a conclusion. We grant that Caesar resembles the general notion 'tyrant,' but we ask if he does not resemble in an equal or greater degree some other person or class in regard to whom capital punishment is no just treatment. Does he resemble a 'successful and patriotic general'--a 'benevolent monarch'--a 'wise legislator'--a 'virtuous man'? All these resemblances are compatible with his being a tyrant in some senses of the word. Let us not condemn Caesar for what may be a merely technical offence--the usurpation of authority--if in other respects he is an admirable man. So an opportunity must be given to Caesar or his advocate to suggest other precedents, yielding a different conclusion, by which to complete our imperfect knowledge of the case. Socrates, when he was brought under the class 'perverters of youth'--which also yielded the conclusion 'death'--suggested as an amendment that he should be classed under 'national benefactors,' with the conclusion 'maintenance for life at the public expense.'

It is not enough that we can say of a case that it 'is' this or that, and so proceed to draw the conclusion bound up in that classification. 'Is' in the case means likeness to the precedent, and one 'is' is good only when no better can be found.

If after having weighed the alternative precedents it appears clear that Caesar resembles tyrants more than any other class of persons, the prospect looks bad for him. But there is still a chance of escaping the worst penalty. It turns on the meaning of the word 'all,' which in logic generally introduces a proposition to which no exception has been found--the misnamed and misleading 'universal.'

Logicians do not hesitate to say that in this connection it means 'all possible, known or unknown, past or future individuals of the class.' They suppose, or talk as if they supposed, that at some fixed date in our life we enter into possession of our general ideas, and that no subsequent experience can modify them. Hence the moment it is admitted that Caesar is a tyrant, he is supposed to come under the rule of a stereotyped general idea with inflexible consequences.

This is not quite so. 'All' does not mean 'all possible' but 'all known up to the present time, _exclusive of the case under discussion_.' Our general or average ideas are the plasmic product of the individuals we have actually known--not a unit more. And as that idea is liable to be modified by every new individual examined, it is possible that on examining Caesar we may find reason to change our general idea, to the extent at least of dividing it into two species, the tyrants who deserve death and the tyrants who deserve some milder punishment, and that we shall resolve to bring Caesar under the latter species. Thus if the idea threatens to hang Caesar, on the other hand Caesar may burst the idea, and his case establish itself as a new precedent. That is how general ideas multiply--by a sort of fission.

In the proposition 'tyrants deserve death' as first proposed, we are dealing with the old general idea, and--as regards all individuals except those from which it was drawn--the proposition is little more than a hypothesis. The idea is itself on trial. Until Caesar is examined we do not fully know how the general tyrant is in future to be defined. Our examination of Caesar is a part of our education on the subject of tyrants. In judging we learn, and the general idea which remains _after Caesar is examined_ is that by which he is to be judged.

If our idea of tyrant remains unshaken after the trial of Caesar, and if he is found to resemble that class more than any other, then--and not till then--are we compelled to pass on him the judgment associated with the definition of tyrant.

An argument based on a particular or solitary precedent is criticised on the same principles. We seek to prove either that the case is not sufficiently like the precedent to justify the application, or that the applicate is not a property of the precedent. If we make good either of these propositions, we prevent the suggested conclusion from being fastened on the case.

The syllogistic dialecticians do not admit alternative precedents or reconstruction of general ideas: their terms and figures are not adapted to express such notions. Hence they cannot evade a conclusion whose premises are correctly given. They have an axiom to the effect that a judgment must be absolutely true or absolutely false--a door must be open or shut, it cannot be ajar; every colour is white or black, it cannot be green or grey, and so on. Now in practical reasoning we may and constantly do admit premises and reject the conclusions they dialectically involve. We look at the question 'from another point of view.' This means that while admitting there is some ground for bringing a case under a certain precedent, we contend that on the whole it is preferable to bring it under another precedent with a different conclusion. The proposed handle _may_ fit the vase somehow, but we think another sort of handle will suit it better. Or--rather than accept an objectionable conclusion--we will divide our idea. This is degree in truth. And that is the elastic method on which we reason in actual affairs. Logicians give a false account of reason, and so their systems are neglected and their authority is never recognised in real debates.

CATEGORIES

XXI--CATEGORIES OF SUBSTANTIALISM, AND OTHERS

A Category is primarily a class of Judgments. Since arguments are composed of judgments, a category is also a class of arguments; that is to say, the argument follows the classification of the judgment. This is not the practice of syllogists, who have categories for judgments only, the arguments being classified according to verbal expression.

I distinguish six categories--two Natural and four Artificial. The judgments of a natural category concern experience presented in a synthesis whose composition is due to the noumenal mind; the categories corresponding to this definition are--

Inherence-- Association.

An artificial category is so called because the synthesis is formed by the subjective mind.

The first category of this kind is

Perspection--

which is an artificial arrangement of objects according to a figurative interpretation of certain appearances they present.

The second artificial category I will call

Concretion--

as it is an ideal cohesion of experiences never wholly perceived at once. These two categories are those chiefly responsible for the realistic mode of thought.

The third artificial category is that which is called in science causation, but it is only

Sequence,--

that is, a series of phenomena sufficiently coherent to afford a basis for inference, but not necessarily or energically connected. Hume and others have conclusively proved that such phenomena are not causally related.

Finally there is

Causation--

in the proper sense of the word, that is, the relation between energic mind and its effects. This is the category of human affairs generally, and of all the Cosmic that we explain by analogy with the Human. It is the only exhaustive explanation of phenomena, and so is the category which philosophy would substitute for the rest. When we can truly resolve things into effects analogous to human actions, we have reached the highest standpoint from which they can be viewed. _Realistic_ anthropomorphism is the first and rudest explanation of things: _idealistic_ anthropomorphism is the last and most refined.

The artificial categories are all formed on analogies supplied by the natural, since the intellect is incapable of imagining anything absolutely original.

Each category may include judgments of other categories in a subordinate relation. Inherence and concretion enter to some extent as auxiliaries into all the others. A group category may be treated as an individual object for certain purposes, and an individual as a group of properties. In the one case a fictitious unity is created, in the other a real unity is imaginatively dissolved. But in general the categories are sufficiently distinct and may be considered as mutually exclusive. They will be separately analysed and exemplified.

The term category is used in common logic to signify the final classes into which _judgments_ can be arranged. To this minor use only is the category applied. It does not either denote a classification of _arguments_ or a distinct province of ideas whose origin and validity should be a matter of investigation. In Greek and modern logic arguments are distinguished solely by their verbal expression--never by the character of the judgment that enters into them. Treated in this superficial and haphazard way, the categories necessarily play a quite insignificant part in philosophy.

The oldest known set of categories is that quoted by Aristotle in his Metaphysic as being held by a sect of Pythagoreans. It consists of the following series of contraries--

Bound. Infinity. Odd. Even. Unity. Plurality. Right. Left. Male. Female. Rest. Motion. Straight. Crooked. Light. Darkness. Good. Bad. Square. Oblong.

Aristotle's own categories are the following:--

(1) _Essence_ or _Substance_, as man, horse: (2) _Quantity_, as two cubits long: (3) _Quality_, as white, erudite: (4) _Relation_, as double, half, greater: (5) _Place_, as in the Agora: (6) _Time_, as yesterday: (7) _Posture_, as standing, sitting: (8) _Having_ (Condition?), as to be shod, armed: (9) _Action_, as he is cutting, burning: (10) _Passion_, as he is being cut.

This list can be reduced to one half the number. Quantity, Quality, Posture, Condition are kinds of _Attribute_ or _Property_ of the Substance. Place and Time are valid. Action and Passion are both referable to causation. Non-causal sequence or consecution (as day following night)--one of the commonest judgments--is not mentioned.

The Stoics reduced Aristotle's ten categories to four--Substratum or Substance, the Essential Quality, Manner of being, and Relation.

Ka[n.]áda, a Hindu philosopher, has six categories--Substance, Quality, Action, Genus, Individuality, and Concretion or Co-inherence.

Plotinus was acquainted with the Aristotelian and Stoic lists and offers as his own:--(1) Fundamental forms of the _Ideal_--Being, Rest, Motion, Identity, Difference; (2) Categories of the _Sensible_--Substance, Relation, Quality, Quantity, Motion.

Descartes recognised but two final categories, the Absolute and the Relative.

Kant has an elaborate scheme of categories, which he considered to be, not merely classes of judgments, but innate power of the mind by which we are moved to form the judgments. They are the following:--

I. _Of Quantity._ Unity, Plurality, Totality. II. _Of Quality._ Reality, Negation, Limitation. III. _Of Relation._ Of Inherence and Subsistence (_substantia et accidens_). Of Causality and Dependence (cause and effect). Of Community (reciprocity between the active and the passive). IV. _Of Modality._ Possibility, Impossibility, Existence, Non-existence, Necessity, Contingency.

Sir William Hamilton's categories were Being, Being by itself, and Being by accident.

Categories have also been proposed by Spinoza, Locke, Wolff, Leibnitz, Herbart, Mill, and others. No two of them are alike. They are not formed on any definite principle, but are individual opinions as to the most convenient way to classify judgments[13].

XXII--INHERENCE

An object being given by perception we develop our knowledge of it, first by narrowing our focus of attention so as to perceive parts and single attributes of the object; next by widening our attention so as to include several objects in one view. The first process is Analysis or Abstraction; it informs us what attributes co-inhere to constitute the object. The second is Synthesis or Grouping, by which we learn the relations of one thing to others. These operations comprise all we know about a thing, for it can have no attributes which are not either internal or external.

Practical analysis means cutting a thing to pieces or dissolving it, and this has a certain value because it multiplies objects. But it does not increase our knowledge of the first thing. On the contrary, by destroying a thing we render a knowledge of it impossible. The analysis which gives knowledge is Metaphysical Abstraction--an attention concentrated on the parts of a thing without destroying their connection with the other inherent parts. The metaphysical elements may be quite different from the mechanically divisible parts. They are generally a species of things which could not exist alone, such as red, blue, straight, curved, square, round, acid, sweet, insipid, fragrant, sharp, hot, heavy, dull, loud, bright, and a multitude of properties of that abstract kind.

For many of these--at least for the description of them--a comparison of two or more things is essential. A sound is heard to be loud by comparison with another which is low or soft; a knife is known to be blunt by experience of another more sharp, or the same knife in a sharper condition. But comparison does not alter the essential character of abstract attention--it serves merely as an incitement to it. Difference between qualities otherwise alike whets our attention to a finer discrimination.

The properties recognised by each sense are easily distinguished in the bulk from those of another sense. Colour is distinct from Figure in a more marked degree than red from blue or square from circular. Fine degrees of Sound may be difficult to discriminate, but not the difference between a sound and a smell or a taste.

Still broader contrasts give rise to an artificial but sometimes useful kind of attribution--the negative. When we do not know much concerning the positive characteristics of a thing, it is something to know that it has _not_ this or that property. What Thought is, positively, few people know, but they are able to say (with a little prompting) that it is un-extended, im-material, im-ponderable, and so forth. This comparison re-acts on the thing better known, and so we call visual objects 'extended' from their dissimilarity to thoughts. But for that there would have been no occasion to notice the abstract extension of visual objects. The term 'visual object' would have tacitly included extension. There must be great and general ignorance of a thing to excuse the negative attribution: it is not allowable to speak of plants as non-metals, or sheep as non-horses, but a large class of animals is called in-vertebrate. In this case the negative property serves to bar a possible inference that all animals are vertebrate, since those we know best are so.

The judgment in this category is a consciousness of the attributes making up a thing, or so much of it as interests us. 'Cleopatra's Needle is an obelisk of granite, about sixty-eight feet high, and is carved with hieroglyphics.' If we go on to say that it stands on the Thames Embankment, we shift into the category of association. The relation of an object to its place is different from that of one inherent attribute of the object to another, or to the whole.

The properties of a general idea are defined in this category. The synthesis is natural or noumenal, the artificiality of the idea consisting merely in the omission of some of the concrete properties. 'Garden rhubarb [in general] has broadly cordate leaves, strongly veined beneath; the footstalks are long, thick, and fleshy, with a channel above; its growth is exceedingly rapid.' These are properties inherent in a unity not of our making. The botanist changes into the category of sequence when he says, 'the stalks are used for tarts and made into jam.'

In a complicated object or general idea some of the judgments we treat as inherent may be inferences in other categories used subordinately. 'The ancient Persians had remarkably thin and weak skulls. They were good horsemen and archers, courageous and spirited in battle. They wore a tunic and trousers of leather.... They were quick and lively, keen-witted, capable of repartee, ingenious, and--for Orientals--far-sighted. They had fancy and imagination, a relish for poetry and art, and they were not without a certain power of political combination.' Some of these properties might have been perceived objectively, but not the possession of fancy and imagination, which could only be known by inference in causation--here used to complete a coherent unity. The historian employs causation as a principal category when he tells us that 'their bards did not touch the chords which rouse what is noblest and highest in our nature.' The thought implied in touching chords--the notion of will directing action--is a different judgment from the perception of an inherent permanent attribute.

The argument in this category consists in ideally completing an imperfect object by comparison with a similar object, or the idea of a similar object. Suppose we have studied thoroughly one or more rhubarb plants, and then see a plant with broadly cordate leaves, footstalks long, thick, and fleshy, and having a channel above. In the time at our disposal we cannot ascertain if its growth is exceedingly rapid, but we are justified in inferring that it is, and that the plant we are examining is in all other respects rhubarb. If the Egyptian obelisks we have seen were sculptured with hieroglyphics throughout their length, and we see an obelisk part of which is underground, it is a rational inference that that part also is sculptured.

We have proved that certain samples of aluminium have a specific gravity of 2·6, and then see a metal--of specific gravity unknown--which has all the other properties of aluminium: we may confidently infer that this metal also would, if tested, show a specific gravity of 2·6.