Part 58

§ 17. Dr. Carus (¶¶ 56-64) condemns my method of investigation as contrary to that by which science has been advanced; and holds that a radically different, and thoroughly positivistic method is requisite,—a method so intensely positivistic as to exclude all originality. I suppose he will not object to my forming an opinion concerning the methods of science. I was brought up in an atmosphere of scientific inquiry, and have all my life chiefly lived among scientific men. For the last thirty years, the study which has constantly been before my mind has been upon the nature, strength, and history of methods of scientific thought. I have no space here to argue the question. In its logical aspect, I have partly considered it in various publications; and in its historical aspect, I have long been engaged upon a treatise about it. My critic says (¶ 57) that 1 am “very positivistic in my logic of science.” This is a singular misapprehension. Few of the great scientific minds with whom I have come into personal contact, and from whom I endeavored to learn were disposed to contemn originality or the ideal part of the mind’s work in investigation; and those few, it was easy to see, really breathed an atmosphere of ideas which were so incessantly present that they were unconscious of them. Were I to name those of my teachers who were most positivistic in theory, a smile would be excited. My own historical studies, which have been somewhat minutely critical, have, on the whole confirmed the views of Whewell, the only man of philosophical power conjoined with scientific training who had made a comprehensive survey of the whole course of science, that progress in science depends upon the observation of the right facts by minds _furnished with appropriate ideas_. Finally, my long investigation of the logical process, of scientific reasoning led me many years ago to the conclusion that science is nothing but a development of our natural instincts. So much for my _theory_ of scientific logic. It is as totally opposed as anything can be to Dr. Carus’s theory (¶ 69, note; and “Ursache, Grund und Zweck,” p. 2) that originality is out of place in science.

But in my _practice_ of scientific reasoning, Dr. Carus accuses me of being what he calls a “constructionist”; that is, a theoriser unguided by indications from observation or accepted facts. To a mind upon whom that celebrated and splendid chapter of Kant upon the architectonical method failed to make a deep impression, I may appear so; but _travesty_ is in truth hardly too strong a word to describe the account of my method by Dr. Carus.

Perhaps exaggeration is not without its value. If so, let me sum up the method Dr. Carus recommends. Eschew originality, is its pious formula; do not think for yourself, nor countenance results obtained by original minds. Distrust them; they are not safe men. Leave originality to mathematicians and their breed, to poets, and to all those who seek the sad notoriety of having unsettled belief.[113] Flee all philosophies which smack of this aberrant nineteenth century.[114] This theory of Dr. Carus condemns itself; for it is highly original, and soars into the free ether untrammelled by historic facts.

Keppler comes very close to realising my ideal of the scientific method; and he is one of the few thinkers who have taken their readers fully into their confidence as to what their method really has been.[115] I should not feel justified in inflicting upon mine an autobiographical account of my own course of thought; but some things Dr. Carus’s accusation forces me to mention. My method of attacking all problems has ever been to begin with an historical and rational inquiry into the special method adapted to the special problem. This is the essence of my architectonical proceeding upon which Dr. Carus has commented very severely. To look an inch before one’s nose involves originality: therefore, it is wrong to have a conscious method. But further, in regard to philosophy, not only the methods, but the elementary ideas which are to enter into those methods, should be subjected to careful preliminary examination. This, especially, Dr. Carus finds very unscientific. (¶ 64, and elsewhere.) It is, undoubtedly, the most characteristic feature of my procedure. Certainly it was not a notion hastily or irreflectively caught up; but is the maturest fruit of a lifetime of reflection upon the methods of science, including those of philosophy; and if it shall be found that one contribution to thought on my part has proved of permanent service, that, I expect, will be the one. This method in no wise teaches that the method and materials for thought are not to be modified in the course of the study of the subject-matter. But instead of taking ideas at haphazard, or being satisfied with those that have been handed down from the good old times, as a mind keenly alive to the dangers of originality would have done, I have undertaken to make a systematic survey of human knowledge (a very slight sketch of which composed the substance of my paper on the “Architecture of Theories,”) in order to find what ideas have, as a fact, proved most fruitful, and to observe the special utilities they have severally fulfilled. A subsidiary object of this survey was to note what the great obstacles are to-day in the way of the further advance of the different branches of science. In my “Architecture of Theories,” I never professed to do more than make a slight sketch of a small portion of my preliminary studies, devoting thirteen lines to some hints as to the nature of the results. In the four following papers I have given a selection of a few of these results. Among those which remain to be reported are some of much more immediate importance than any of those hitherto set forth. If anybody has been surprised to find my subsequent papers developing thoughts which they were unable to foresee from my first, it is only what I warned people from the outset that they would find to happen. Nor have the greatest of these surprises yet been reached.[116]

The next series of facts reviewed was that of the history of philosophy. I waded right into this fearful slough of “originality,” in order to gather what seemed to throw a light upon the subject. Finally, I reviewed the general facts of the universe.

I now found myself forced by a great many different indications to the conclusion that an evolutionary philosophy of some kind must be accepted,—including among such philosophies systems like those of Aristotle and of Hegel. From this point the reasoning was more rapid. Evolution had been a prominent study for half a generation; and much light had been thrown upon the conditions for a fruitful evolutionary philosophy. The first question was, how far shall this evolution go back? What shall we suppose _not_ to be a product of growth? I fancy it is this cautious reflectiveness of my procedure which especially displeases Dr. Carus. It is not positivistic: it is architectonic. But the answer to the question was not far to seek. If an evolutionary explanation is to be adopted, philosophy, logic, and the economy of research all dictate that in the first essay, at least, that style of explanation be carried as far back as explanation is called for. What elements of the universe require no explanation? This was a simple question, capable of being decided by logic with as much facility and certainty as a suitable problem is solved by differential calculus. Being, and the uniformity in which being consists, require to be explained. The only thing that does not require it is non-existent spontaneity. This was soon seen to mean absolute chance. The conclusion so reached was clinched by a careful reëxamination of the office of chance in science generally, and especially in the doctrines of evolution. Arrived at this point, the next question was, what is the principle by which the development is to proceed? It was a difficult inquiry, and involved researches from different points of view.

But I will not trouble the reader with further autobiographical details. I have given enough to show that my method has neither been in theory purely empirical, nor in practice mere brain-spinning; and that, in short, my friend Dr. Carus’s account of it has been as incorrect as can be.

§ 18. The learned doctor (¶¶ 6, 7, 8) pronounces me to be an imitator of David Hume, or, at least, classes my opinions as closely allied to his. Yet be it known that never, during the thirty years in which I have been writing on philosophical questions, have I failed in my allegiance to realistic opinions and to certain Scotistic ideas; while all that Hume has to say is said at the instance and in the interest of the extremest nominalism. Moreover, instead of being a purely negative critic, like Hume, seeking to annul a fundamental conception generally admitted, I am a positive critic, pleading for the admission to a place in our scheme of the universe for an idea generally rejected. In the first paper of this series, in which I gave a preliminary sketch of such of my ideas as could be so presented, I carefully recorded my opposition to all philosophies which deny the reality of the Absolute, and asserted that “the one intelligible theory of the universe is that of objective idealism, that matter is effete mind.” This is as much as to say that I am a Schellingian, of some stripe; so that, on the whole, I do not think Dr. Carus has made a very happy hit in likening me to Hume, to whose whole method and style of philosophising I have always been perhaps too intensely averse. Yet, notwithstanding my present disclaimer, I have little doubt apriorians will continue to describe me as belonging to the sceptical school. They have their wonderful ways of arriving at truth, without stooping to confront their conclusions with facts; and it is amusing to see how sincerely they are convinced that nobody can have science at heart, without denying all they uphold.[117]

My opponent has a habit of throwing out surprising opinions without the least attempt to illuminate them with the effulgence of reason. Thus he says (¶ 8): “If Kant’s answer to Hume had been satisfactory, Mr. Peirce would probably not have renewed the attack.” What attack? All that Hume attacked I defend, namely, law as a reality. How could a defence of that which I defend as essential to my position, cause me to surrender that position, namely, that real regularity is imperfect? In any sense in which Hume could have admitted the possibility of law, it must be precisely followed; since its existence could consist only in the conformity of facts unto it. But perhaps Dr. Carus means that if one question had been completely settled, I should probably have confined myself to talking about that, instead of broaching a new one.

§ 19. Another misunderstanding of my position on the part of Dr. Carus (¶¶ 12, 13) is simply due to “boldly” having been twice printed where the reading should have been “baldly,” in my paper on “The Doctrine of Necessity.” (_The Monist_, Vol. II, p. 336, lines 20 and 25.) I wish printers would learn that I never use the word _bold_. I have so little of the quality, that I don’t know what it means. As I read the “revise,” as usual, it was presumably my fault that the _erratum_ occurred. At any rate, had my meaning been clearly expressed, the proof-reader would not have been misled by my defective chirography. What I was trying to say was, in substance, this: Absolute chance is a hypothesis; and, like every hypothesis, can only be defended as explaining certain phenomena.[118] Yet to suppose that an event is brought about by absolute chance is utterly illogical, since as a hypothesis it could only be admitted on the ground of its explaining observed facts; now from mere non-law nothing necessarily follows, and therefore nothing can be explained; for to explain a fact is to show that it is a necessary, or, at least, a probable, result from another fact, known or supposed. Why is not this a complete refutation of the theory of absolute chance? _Answer_: because the _existence_ of absolute chance, as well as many of its characters, are not themselves absolute chances, or sporadic events, unsubject to general law. On the contrary, these things _are_ general laws. Everybody is familiar with the fact that chance has laws, and that statistical results follow therefrom. Very well: I do not propose to explain anything as due to the action of chance, that is, as being lawless. I do not countenance the idea that Bible stories, for instance, show that nature’s laws were violated;—though they may help to show that nature’s laws are not so mechanical as we are accustomed to think. But I only propose to explain the regularities of nature as consequences of the only uniformity, or general fact, there was in the chaos, namely, the general absence of any, determinate law.[119] In fact, after the first step is taken, I only use _chance_ to give room for the development of law by means of the law of habits.

§ 20. In ¶ 28, I read: “Mr. Peirce does not object to necessity in certain cases; he objects to necessity being a universal feature of the world.” This is correctly stated, and so it is in ¶ 203. I object to necessity being universal, as well as to its ever being exact. In short, I object to absolute universality, absolute exactitude, absolute necessity, being attributed to any proposition that does not deal with the Α and the Ω, in the which I do not include any object of ordinary knowledge. But it is careless to write (¶ 193) that I “describe the domain of mind as the absence of law.” Is not one of my papers entitled “The Law of Mind”? It is true that I make the law of mind essentially different in its mode of action from the law of mechanics, inasmuch as it requires its own violation; but it is law, not chance uncontrolled. That it is not “an undetermined and indeterminable sporting” should have been obvious from my expressly stating that its ultimate result must be the entire elimination of chance from the universe. That directly negatives the adjective “indeterminable,” and hence also the adjective “undetermined.” Still more unwarranted is the statement (¶ 205) that I deny “that there are samenesses in this world.” If the slightest excuse for such an accusation can be found in all my writings I shall be mightily surprised.

§ 21. Dr. Carus fully admits (¶ 9) the justice of my first reply to the argument that necessity is postulated in all scientific reasoning, which reply is that to postulate necessity does not make it true. As this reply, if correct is complete, Dr. Carus was bound after that admission to drop the postulate-argument in favor of necessity.[120] But he takes no notice, at all, of my four-page argument to show that scientific reasoning does _not_ postulate absolute universality, exactitude, or necessity (_The Monist_, Vol. II, pp. 324-327); but calmly asserts, four or five times over (¶¶ 5, 11, 16, 62, 79), without one scintilla of argumentation, that that postulate _is_ made, and uses this as an argument in favor of necessity.

§ 22. He also fully admits (¶¶ 11, 14, 22) the justice of my argument that the absoluteness of universality, exactitude, and necessity, cannot be proved, nor rendered probable, by arguments from observation. That argument consisted in assuming that all arguments from observation are probable arguments, and in showing that probable inferences are always affected with probable errors.

Had I deemed it requisite, I might easily have fortified that argument by a more profound analysis of scientific reasoning. Such an analysis I had formerly given in my “Theory of Probable Inference” (in “Studies in Logic,” Boston: Little and Brown).

But, notwithstanding his admissions, Dr. Carus sets up his _ipse dixit_ against my argumentation. “We deny most positively,” says the editorial Elohim, “that the calculus of probabilities is applicable to the order of the world, as to whether it may or may not be universal.” (¶¶ 27, 31.)

To support this, he cites (¶¶ 31-34) four passages from articles written by me sixteen years ago. I hope my mind has not been stationary during all these years; yet there is little in those old articles which I now think positively erroneous, and nothing in the passages cited. My present views had, at that time, already begun to urge themselves on my mind; but they were not ripe for public avowal. In the first of the passages cited, I express the opinion, which I first uttered in my earlier lectures before the Lowell Institute, in 1866, afterwards in the _Popular Science Monthly_ in 1877, in still fuller elaboration in my “Theory of Probable Inference” in 1882, and maintain now as strongly as ever, that no definite probability can be assigned to any general arrangement of nature. To speak of an _antecedent_ probability would imply that there was a statistical science of different universes; and a _deduced_ probability requires an antecedent probability for one of its data.[121] This consideration only goes to fortify my present position, that we cannot conclude from observed facts with any degree of probability, and therefore _a fortiori_ not with certainty, that any proposition is absolutely universal, exact, or necessary. In the absence of any weight of probability in favor of any particular exact statement, the formal presumption is altogether against any one out of innumerable possible statements of that kind.

The second passage cited is one in which I argue that the universe is not a chaos, or chance-medley. Now Dr. Carus admits (¶ 28) that I do not to-day maintain that it is a chance-medley.

The third passage cited is this: “A contradiction is involved in the very idea of a chance-world.” This is in entire harmony with my present position that “a chaos ... being without connection or regularity would properly be without existence.” (“Architecture of Theories,” _The Monist_, Vol. I, p. 176.)

The fourth passage is to the effect that “the interest which the uniformities of nature have for an animal measures his place in the scale of intelligence.” This I still believe.

So much for my supposed contradictions. If I am not mistaken, our amiable editor, whose admirable editorship springs so largely out of his amiability, in copying out these passages was really not half so much intent on showing me to be wrong at present, as on showing me to have been right formerly. However hard he hits, he contrives to honey his sockdologers, and sincerely cares more to make the reader admire his antagonist when he is right than to condemn him when he is wrong. There is a touch of art in this that proclaims the born editor, and which I can hardly hope to imitate.

Though Dr. Carus admits over and over again that necessity cannot be based on observation, he often slips back to the idea that it can be so based. He says, (¶ 30) that “form is a quality of this world, not of some samples of it, but throughout, so far as we know of existence in even the most superficial way.” But does he not see that all we _do_ know, and all we _shall_ to-morrow, or at any date know, is nothing but a sample of our possible experience,—nay, is but a sample of what we are in the future to have already experienced? I have characterised inductive inference as reasoning from samples; but the most usual way of sampling a class is by examining _all_ the instances of it that have come under our observation, or which we can at once collect.

§ 23. Dr. Carus (¶¶ 44, 46) holds that from my social theory of reality, namely, that the real is the idea in which the community ultimately settles down, the existence of something inevitable is to be inferred. I confess I never anticipated that anybody would urge that. I thought just the reverse might be objected, namely, that all absoluteness was removed from reality by that theory, and it was many years ago that, in my “Theory of Probable Inference,” I admitted the obvious justice, as it seemed to me, of that objection. We cannot be quite sure that the community ever will settle down to an unalterable conclusion upon any given question. Even if they do so for the most part, we have no reason to think the unanimity will be quite complete, nor can we rationally presume any overwhelming _consensus_ of opinion will be reached upon every question. All that we are entitled to assume is in the form of a _hope_ that such conclusion may be substantially reached concerning the particular questions with which our inquiries are busied.

Such, at least, are the results to which the consideration of the doctrine of probability brings my mind irresistibly. So that, the social theory of reality, far from being incompatible with tychism, inevitably leads up to that form of philosophy. Socialistic, or as I prefer to term it, agapastic ontology seems to me likely to find favor with many minds at an early day, because it is a natural path by which the nominalist may be led into the realistic ways of thought, ways toward which many facts and inward forces impel him. It is well, therefore, to call attention to the circumstances that the realism to which it leads is a doctrine which declares general truths to be real,—independent of the opinions of any particular collection of minds,—but not to be destined, in a strictly universal, exact, and sure acceptation, to be so settled, and established. Now to assert that general truths are objectively real, but to deny that they are strictly universal, exact, and certain, is to embrace the doctrine of absolute chance. Thus it is that the agapastic ontologist who endeavors to escape tychism will find himself “led into” that “inextricable confusion” which Dr. Carus (¶ 4) has taken a contract to show that I am led into.

§ 24. Conservatism is wholesome and necessary; the most convinced radical must admit the wisdom of it, in the abstract; and a conservative will be in no haste to espouse the doctrine of absolute chance. I, myself, pondered over it for long years before doing so. But I am persuaded, at length, that mankind will before very long take up with it; and I do not believe philosophers will be found tagging on to the tail of the general procession.

My little dialogue between the tychist and the necessitarian (_The Monist_, Vol. II, pp. 331-333) seems to have represented pretty fairly the views of the latter; for Dr. Carus, in ¶¶ 151-155, does little more than reiterate them, without much, if at all, reinforcing them. His ¶¶ 158-160 merely work out, in a form perhaps not quite clear, what is manifest from the elementary principles of dynamics, and was considered in my dialogue.

His arguments in this connection, apart from those already noticed, are that absolute chance is something which if it existed would require explanation, that the manifold specificalness of nature is explained by law without any aid from chance, and that absolute chance if it existed, in the sense in which it is supposed to exist in my chaos, could not possibly breed law as supposed by me. To the consideration of these arguments I proceed to apply myself.

§ 25. One of the architectonic—and, therefore, I suppose, by Dr. Carus considered as highly reprehensible—features of my theory, is that, instead of saying off-hand what elements strike me as requiring explanation and what as not doing so, which seems to be his way, I have devoted a long time to the study of the whole logical doctrine of explanation, and of the history of explanations, and have based upon the general principles so ascertained my conclusions as to what things do and what do not require to be explained.