Part 60

I have noticed above (§ 7) Dr. Carus’s dubious attitude toward the first argument. I considered in the last section his attempted reply to the second. To the third argument, he replies (¶ 65) that law ought to be accounted for by the principle of sufficient reason. But, of course, that principle cannot recommend itself to me, a realist; for it is nothing but the lame attempt of a nominalist to wriggle out of his difficulties. Reasons explain nothing, except upon some theistic hypothesis which may be pardoned to the yearning heart of man, but which must appear doubtful in the eyes of philosophy, since it comes to this, that Tom, Dick, and Harry are competent to pry into the counsels of the Most High, and can invite in their cousins and sweethearts and sweethearts’ cousins to look over the original designs of the Ancient of Days.

§ 27. My fourth argument it is which seems to have made most impression upon Dr. Carus’s mind (¶ 85), and his reply is rather elaborate.

While embracing unequivocally the necessitarian dogma, equally for mind and for matter (¶ 193), Dr. Carus wishes utterly to repudiate materialism and the mechanical philosophy (¶ 133). To facilitate his, thus, walking the slack-rope, he makes (¶ 168) a division of events into “(1) mechanical, (2) physical, (3) chemical, (4) physiological, and (5) psychical events.” The first three (¶¶ 169-171) are merely distinguished by the magnitude of the moving masses, so that, for philosophical purposes, they do not differ at all. As for physiological events, though he devotes a paragraph (¶ 172) to their definition, he utterly fails to distinguish them from the mechanical (including the physical and chemical) on the one hand, or from the psychical on the other. Dr. Carus seems to think (¶ 176) that by this division he has separated himself entirely from the materialists; but this is an illusion, for nobody denies the existence of feelings.

The truth is, he distinctly enrolls himself in the mechanical army when he asserts that mental laws are of the same necessitarian character as mechanical laws (¶ 193). The only question that remains as to his position is whether he is a materialist or not. He instances (¶ 185) the case of a general receiving a written dispatch and being stimulated into great activity by its perusal, and causing great motions to be made and missiles to be sped in consequence. Now, the dilemma is this. Will Dr. Carus, on the one hand, say that the motion of those missiles was determined by mechanical laws alone, in which case, it would only be necessary to state all the positions and velocities of particles concerned, a hundred years before, to determine just how those bullets would move and, consequently, whether the guns were to be fired or not, and this would constitute him a materialist, or will he say that the laws of motion do not suffice to determine motions of matter, in which case, since they formally certainly do so suffice, they must be _violated_, and he will be giving to mind a direct dynamical power which is open to every objection that can be urged against tychism?

Now admire the decision with which he cuts the Gordian knot!

“THERE ARE NO PURELY MECHANICAL PHENOMENA.” (¶ 175.)

That is,

“_The laws of motion ARE applicable to and will explain all motions_.” (¶ 177.)

But hold!

“The mechanical philosopher ... feels warranted in the hope that ... the actions of man ... can be explained by the laws of motion .... We may anticipate that this conclusion will prove ERRONEOUS. _And so it is._” (¶ 176.)

At the same time,

“NO OBJECTION CAN BE MADE _to the possibility of explaining the delicate motions in the nervous substance of the brain by the laws of molar or molecular mechanics_.” (¶ 178.)

Yet,

“_The simplest_ psychical reflexes, including those _physiological reflexes_ which we must suppose to have originated by conscious adaptation ... CANNOT _be explained from mechanical_ or physical _laws_ alone.” (¶ 186.)

However,

“_We do NOT say that there are motions_ ... in the brain ... _which form exceptions to the laws of mechanics_.” (¶ 187.)

Nevertheless,

“The brain-atoms are possessed of the same spontaneity as the atoms of a gravitating stone. Yet there is present an additional feature; there are present states of awareness.... Neither states of awareness nor their meanings can be weighed on any scales, be they ever so delicate, nor are they determinable in foot-pounds.” (¶ 192.)

Clearness is the first merit of a philosopher; and what ¶ 192 comes to is crystal-clear. Dr. Carus wants to have the three laws of motion always obeyed; but he wishes the forces between the molecules to be varied according to the momentary states of awareness. All right: he is entitled to suppose whatever he likes, so long as the supposition is self-consistent, as this supposition is. It conflicts with the law of energy, it is true; for that law is that the forces depend on the situations of the particles alone, and not on the time. It is liable to give rise to perpetual motion. It was intended, no doubt, to be an improvement on my molecular theory of protoplasm, earlier in the same number. It escapes materialism. It supposes a direct dynamical action between mind and matter, such as has not been supposed by any eminent philosopher that I know of for centuries. I am sorry to say that it shows a dangerous leaning toward originality. The argument for thus rejecting the law of the conservation of energy, I leave to others to be weighed. It seems to suppose a much larger falsification of that law than my doctrine; but it is a pretty clever attempt to escape my conclusions. It rejects what has to be rejected, the law of the conservation of energy; and is far more intelligent than the theory of those (like Oliver and Lodge) who wish to give to mind a power of deflecting atoms, which would satisfy the conservation of energy while violating the law of action and reaction. If it can have due consideration, I doubt not it will accelerate the acceptance of my views. Meantime, I do not see where that “inextricable confusion” into which I was to be led is to come in. (¶ 4.)

§ 28. Little more requires to be noticed in Dr. Carus’s articles. He admits (¶ 2) that indeterminism is the more natural belief, which is no slight argument in its favor.

§ 29. The remarks upon the theological bearings of the theories, if they are found somewhat wide of the mark, are explained by the haste of the editor to show just what all the affiliations of my views were, before I had had time to explain what those views are. The remarks to which I refer will be found in ¶¶ 3, 36, 81, 82, 83, 128, 203, 204. They are worth putting together.

§ 30. The doctrine of symbolism, to which Dr. Carus has recourse, seems to be similar to that of my essay “Some Consequences of Four Incapacities” (_Journal of Speculative Philosophy_, II.) (¶¶ 180, 183, 199.) On this head, I can only approve of his ideas.

§ 31. It is true that I wrote many definitions for one of the “encyclopedic lexicons.” But they were necessarily rather vaguely expressed, in order to include the popular use of terms, and in some cases were modified by proof-readers or editors; and for reasons not needful here to explain, they are hardly such as I should give in a Philosophical Dictionary proper.

C. S. PEIRCE.

FOOTNOTES:

[101] J. S. Mill had in the first edition of his _Logic_ decisively taken an objective conception of chance and probability; but in his second edition he had become puzzled and had retracted, leaving that chapter, and with it his whole logic, a melancholy wreck, over which the qualified reader sighs, “And this once seemed intelligible!” Venn in the first edition of his book set forth the same objective conception with great clearness, and for that he was entitled to high praise, notwithstanding his manifest inadequacy to the problems treated. But in his second edition, he too has fallen away from his first and correct view, and has adopted a theory which I shall some day show to be untenable. Venn’s whole method in logic, as well as his system, is in my opinion of the weakest.

[102] Mill often did good service in substituting precise terms for ambiguous ones; as when in speaking of mathematical conclusions he prefers to say they are legitimate deductions rather than that they are necessary.

[103] In his _Ursache, Grund and Zweck_, Dr. Carus alludes to this passage. But he prefers the treatment of the question by Reid, whom he calls Mill’s opponent (_Gegner_).

[104] It is of comparatively little consequence what Hume really meant. The main interest is in what Kant thought he meant.

[105] Along with the distinction, I would of course do away with this use of the words _abstract_ and _concrete_ to which no clear idea can be attached, as far as I can see.

[106] I cannot but disapprove of this use of the word “construction” to mean a studied theory, because the word is imperatively required in the theory of cognition to denote a mathematical diagram framed according to a general precept.

[107] I apply this term because it is essentially like the passage from the concrete “virtuous” to the abstract “virtue,” or from the concrete “white” (adjective) to the abstract “whiteness,” or “white” (substantive).

[108] I can never use this word without thinking of the explanation of it given by Petrus Peregrinus in his _Epistole de Magnete_. He says that physical properties are occult in the sense that they are only brought out by experimentation, and are not to be deduced from admixtures of _hot_ and _cold_, _moist_ and _dry_.

[109] It follows as a corollary from this that if the positions of the particles at any one instant, together with the velocities at that instant, and the law of force, are given, the positions at all instants can be calculated. Of course, to give the positions and velocities at one instant, is a special case of the giving of the positions at two instants. The two instants may be such that there will be more than one solution of the problem; but this is an insignificant detail.

[110] It would seem to follow from his notion that in uniform motion each minute’s motion is the cause of that of the next. Yet he says (¶ 19) “there is no cause that is equal to its effect.”

[111] But, as I have elsewhere said, I should like to persuade mathematicians to speak of “positional energy” as _Kinetic potency_, the _vis viva_ as _Kinetic energy_, and the total “energy” as the _Kinetic entelechy_.

[112] The differential equation being an ordinary, not a partial one, this is an absolute constant, determined by initial (or final, or any instantaneous) conditions.

[113] Dr. Carus calls attention to the connection between my doctrine of the fixation of opinion and his anti-originalism.

[114] Dr. Carus passes a sweeping judgment on Post-Kantian philosophy, as being original.

[115] This was a remark of my father’s.

[116] A person in the last _Monist_, breaks in upon my series of articles to foretell what the “issues of synechism” will be. Were he able to do so, it would certainly be the height of ill-manners thus to take the words out of my mouth.

[117] As I am writing, I am shown a letter, in which the writer says: “Peirce with all his materialistic ideas, yet,” etc I never promulgated a materialistic idea in my life. The writer simply assumes that science is materialistic. As I am correcting the proofs, I notice that Mr. B. C. Burt, in his new _History of Modern Philosophy_, sets me down as sceptical, though doubtfully. There are a good many inaccuracies in the work. This was inevitable in a first edition. But the ingenious plan of the book admirably adapts it to the wants of just that class of students who cannot understand that no repertory of facts ever can be trusted implicitly.

[118] Its being hypothetical will not prevent its being established with a very high degree of certainty. Thus, all history is of the nature of hypothesis; since its facts cannot be directly observed, but are only supposed to be true to account for the characters of the monuments and other documents.

[119] Somebody may notice that I here admit a proposition as absolutely true. Undoubtedly; because it relates to the Absolute.

[120] Indeed, to admit that reply is all but to admit the non-absolute grade of necessity.

[121] I rightly go somewhat further in my _Theory of Probable Inference_; but that has no bearing on the present discussion.

[122] Dr. Carus, in his _Ursache, Grund und Zweck_, well says that _reasons_ are discovered by induction, in the strict sense. It is often admitted that _causes_ can only be inferred by hypothetic reasoning.

[123] The conservation of a vortex, which consists of the preservation of a certain character of motion by the same particles, though derived from the coöperation of other laws, is, in form, quite different.

[124] In speaking of directions, we assume the Euclidean hypothesis that the angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles.

THE FOUNDER OF TYCHISM, HIS METHODS, PHILOSOPHY, AND CRITICISMS.

IN REPLY TO MR. CHARLES S. PEIRCE.

INTRODUCTORY AND PERSONAL.

Soon after I had received Mr. Peirce’s manuscript he wrote me in a private letter as follows:

“You have not found, I trust, that in my rejoinder I have anywhere overstepped the limit of amiable disputation. If anything of that kind did, unconsciously to me, in the heat of composition, slip from my pen, I am most anxious to have it pointed out to me, so that there may be no feeling in the matter of a disagreeable kind. For if you should not mention it, I should at some future time discover it, and it would be a source of real unhappiness to me.”

This is a very amiable disposition of mind. Mr. Peirce presses me very hard in the struggle for truth: he does not hesitate to take advantage of even the smallest weak point which he espies or rather which he believes he espies. He does not shrink from using plain terms, such as “absurd,” “unthinking,” “weak,” “hasty,” “irrational.” Yet he preserves in the heat of the controversy a friendly spirit towards his antagonist, which I cannot but appreciate and wish publicly to acknowledge. But I would not have him change a word or soften the language of his article in the least, _for my sake_. If Mr. Peirce is wrong, I will take care of myself; if he is right, let the truth come out.

We are both, as it were, by profession champions of truth; so we need not mind an occasional fling if in the end the cause of truth be promoted. Especially, in the present case, I need not mind the hard blows which Mr. Peirce deals with such assurance, for all the points at which he strikes are well protected. The fiercer the onslaught, the better the test. I feel satisfied that his severe scrutiny only serves to prove the strength of the position which I defend.

I shall speak my mind as freely and unreservedly as does Mr. Peirce, and hope he in his turn will resent plain words as little as I do. As offense is not intended, so offense should not be taken.

Let me add here in these introductory remarks that I am always open to conviction. The views which I uphold have been well considered and thought out in their most important consequences. They are consistent and well guarded in spite of Mr. Peirce’s thinking the contrary, so that I feel no need of changing them. But should some unforeseen difficulty arise which would oblige me to revise the whole system of my ideas, I shall not hesitate publicly to confess it and allow myself to be lead by truth whithersoever it be.

* * * * *

The issue of our controversy is the problem of chance—not of chance as it occurs, for instance, in the throw of dice, but of “absolute chance,” or perfect lawlessness. Mr. Peirce makes absolute chance the corner-stone of his philosophy; he propounds a radical and sweeping indeterminism, while I reject the idea, not of chance, but of absolute chance as incompatible with the philosophy of science.

I. DIFFERENCES OF METHOD.

Mr. Peirce calls himself a Scotist and professes to represent mediæval Realism, speaking at the same time of me as a Nominalist. We find, however, that the inverse statement would be nearer the truth.

Before discussing Mr. Peirce’s philosophy itself, we must examine his methods. Difference of method will produce important divergencies of opinion.

1. ATTENTION TO DETAIL.

Mr. Peirce takes up in his rejoinder many incidental points, which have little or no bearing upon the main issues between us. On the one hand, things of no consequence, such as my granting that “absolute chance” like the impossibilities of fairy tales, is not unimaginable, and my saying that tychism is attractive but weak for lack of arguments, are adduced as “momentous admissions,” and “inconsiderate concessions.” On the other hand, Mr. Peirce catches at straws to prove a lack of information on my part. He cannot forbear calling attention to the little breach of etiquette committed in not giving an English baronet his proper title.

Mr. Peirce shows on all these and other occasions a love of the incidental, and if I were to allow myself to follow his example the battle would soon be broken up into innumerable skirmishes.

It is noteworthy that Mr. Peirce’s procedure appears to be a nominalistic tradition. Nominalists, regarding universals as mere names of many particular things, have always showed a great preference for the single, the incidental, the scattered; while realists viewing universals as real things were in the habit of laying perhaps too much stress upon universalities and generalities to the neglect of the particular and individual.

Indeed, Mr. Peirce’s favorite idea, which is a belief in absolute chance, is in my opinion the most nominalistic and anti-realistic proposition I have ever met with. Regularity, or natural law, is to him the product of evolution. Thus he demolishes the eternity of the universal, and eternity is only universality in time. Now suppose that eternity (i. e. universality in time) could be proved an error; then, the universality of the universal in space also will become illusory. If those abiding features of nature which we call natural laws have indeed originated from a general sporting, from chance, from a chaotic lawlessness, by a gradual habit taking, who can assure us that nature has not taken different habits in other parts of the universe?

I look upon Mr. Peirce as an extreme nominalist, or, if he prefers it, as a nominal realist soaked with nominalistic opinions. He professes to be a realist, but he rescinds the foundation of realism.

Like the bear of the hermit Mr. Peirce throws the stone at the fly of necessary connection, and in doing so kills the philosophy of realism itself.

2. ORIGINALITY.

Originality, wherever we find it, is pleasing; but a hankering after originality is dangerous. Experience teaches us to regard a thinker’s love of originality as one of the main causes of his going astray. Let the poet be original, but not the scientist, not the philosopher, not the searcher for truth. The conceit of being original flatters our vanity, and original ideas in philosophy are tantamount to original errors.

I do not deny the value of originality, but I do deny that it is a criterion of truth.

Originality consists in the free exercise of our imagination, and a vivid imagination is very valuable to the thinker. But it so happens that every dreamer cherishes with a mother’s love the children of his fancy. And it is, therefore, necessary to be especially critical with the offspring of one’s own brain.

Kepler (“who,” Mr. Peirce says, “comes very close to realising my ideal of the scientific method”) was endowed with an extraordinarily vivid imagination. He invented an extremely original scheme of explanation for the solar system, and expounded it with great poetical fervor in his “Mysterium Cosmographicum.”[125]

Kepler at once became famous by his “Mysterium Cosmographicum” and was generally admired for his originality. But his bent for hatching original ideas did not alone make Kepler what he is to us now in the history of science. A greater quality than his poetical fervor and original imagination was his rigorous self-criticism. He took notice of every little fact that did not agree with his theories, and for the sake of truth, of objectively provable truth, that is, the agreement of his views with positive facts, he sternly slew all those creatures of his fancy which he foresaw could not survive.

Having myself a good deal of imagination, and having tried myself many original ideas, I can appreciate the self-denial and discipline of Kepler. I have come to the conclusion that originality is only an important means of attaining truth. Our ways of reaching the truth, our methods of finding it, may deserve the praise of originality, but truth itself is never original; for truth is the faithfulness of a copy which in our representations we make of reality, and to praise ideas as original is certainly no argument that they are true.

There is no need of showing that Mr. Peirce is not just in his statement of my view of originality, by maintaining that I have advised people “think not for yourself.” Confessedly he exaggerates, but in truth he misrepresents.

Mr. Peirce does not relish what I have to say on the subject, and, to pacify his mind, he does not tire of praising originality as the high-water mark of genius.

Mr. Peirce’s love of originality is a nominalistic feature of his mind. A nominalist who denies the existence of universals cannot understand that everything in science must be sacrificed to truthfulness. The question, Does this idea correctly represent its respective reality? has no sense to a nominalist. The nominalist is only interested in what a thinker makes of things. The subjective conception, in his opinion, exhausts the subject. I can understand that a nominalist should be greatly pleased with originality, but a realist should not allow himself to be seduced by its charms.

Mr. Peirce’s penchant for, and my distrust of, originality, have a direct influence upon our respective methods of thought. It naturally makes him bolder and me more cautious.[126]

3. A MODERN PROCRUSTES.

There was a man in ancient Greece named Procrustes, who had two beds; one long, the other short. He used to lay his tall guests upon the short bed, and his short guests upon the long bed, cutting off the limbs of the former and stretching out the bodies of the latter, until they fitted the size of their unpleasant resting places. In the same way Mr. Peirce treats philosophical views.

There is the bed of the materialist and, as all processes to the materialist are purely mechanical, necessitarianism is stretched in the materialist’s bed to mechanicalism. I plead, since ideas and feelings are not motions, that mental processes cannot be explained by the laws of motion, but can, for that reason, be none the less determined; but I plead in vain. That view of necessitarianism does not suit the bed upon which my Procrustes places me. Other views, however, are cut down without further ado because they are said to be nominalistic. Anything that does not appeal to Mr. Peirce’s realistic mind is dismissed with a shrug.

I am neither a realist nor a nominalist, or rather, I am both realist and nominalist. I am convinced that to some extent both sides were right and both sides were wrong, and regard it as our duty to sift their propositions and accept the truth whether it be nominalistic or realistic.

We must follow the principle of hearing both sides, and not consider at all whether a statement agrees or disagrees with certain party principles.[127]

4. OCCAM’S RAZOR.