Chapter I: Front Matter

NOVUM ORGANON RENOVATUM.

BY WILLIAM WHEWELL, D.D.,

MASTER OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AND CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE.

BEING THE SECOND PART OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INDUCTIVE SCIENCES.

_THE THIRD EDITION, WITH LARGE ADDITIONS._

ΛΑΜΠΑΔIΑ ΕΧΟΝΤΕΣ ΔIΑΔΩΣΟΥΣIΝ ΑΛΛΗΛΟIΣ

LONDON: JOHN W. PARKER AND SON, WEST STRAND. 1858.

IT is to our immortal countryman; Bacon, that we owe the broad announcement of this grand and fertile principle; and the developement of the idea, that the whole of natural philosophy consists entirely of a series of inductive generalizations, commencing with the most circumstantially stated particulars, and carried up to universal laws, or axioms, which comprehend in their statements every subordinate degree of generality; and of a corresponding series of inverted reasoning from generals to particulars, by which these axioms are traced back into their remotest consequences, and all particular propositions deduced from them; as well those by whose immediate considerations we rose to their discovery, as those of which we had no previous knowledge.

HERSCHEL, _Discourse on Natural Philosophy_, Art. 96.

CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

{{iii}} PREFACE.

EVEN if Bacon's _Novum Organon_ had possessed the character to which it aspired as completely as was possible in its own day, it would at present need renovation: and even if no such book had ever been written, it would be a worthy undertaking to determine the machinery, intellectual, social and material, by which human knowledge can best be augmented. Bacon could only divine how sciences might be constructed; we can trace, in their history, how their construction has taken place. However sagacious were his conjectures, the facts which have really occurred must give additional instruction: however large were his anticipations, the actual progress of science since his time has illustrated them in all their extent. And as to the structure and operation of the _Organ_ by which truth is to be collected from nature,--that is, the Methods by which science is to be promoted--we know that, though Bacon's general maxims are sagacious and animating, his particular precepts failed in his hands, and are now practically useless. This, perhaps, was not wonderful, seeing that they were, as I have said, mainly derived from conjectures respecting knowledge and the progress of knowledge; but at {iv} the present day, when, in several provinces of knowledge, we have a large actual progress of solid truth to look back upon, we may make the like attempt with the prospect of better success, at least on that ground. It may be a task, not hopeless, to extract from the past progress of science the elements of an effectual and substantial method of Scientific Discovery. The advances which have, during the last three centuries, been made in the physical sciences;--in Astronomy, in Physics, in Chemistry, in Natural History, in Physiology;--these are allowed by all to be real, to be great, to be striking; may it not be that the steps of progress in these different cases have in them something alike? May it not be that in each advancing movement of such knowledge there is some common principle, some common process? May it not be that discoveries are made by an _Organ_ which has something uniform in its working? If we can shew that this is so, we shall have the _New Organ_, which Bacon aspired to construct, _renovated_ according to our advanced intellectual position and office.

It was with the view of opening the way to such an attempt that I undertook that survey of the past progress of physical knowledge, of which I have given the results in the _History of the Sciences_, and the _History of Scientific Ideas_[1\P]; the former containing the history of the sciences, so far as it depends on {v} observed _Facts_; the latter containing the history of those _Ideas_ by which such Facts are bound into Theories.

[Note 1\P: Published in two former editions as part of the _Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences_ (b. i--x.).]

It can hardly happen that a work which treats of Methods of Scientific Discovery, shall not seem to fail in the positive results which it offers. For an Art of Discovery is not possible. At each step of the investigation are needed Invention, Sagacity, Genius,--elements which no art can give. We may hope in vain, as Bacon hoped, for an Organ which shall enable all men to construct Scientific Truths, as a pair of compasses enables all men to construct exact circles[2\P]. This cannot be. The practical results of the Philosophy of Science must be rather classification and analysis of what has been done, than precept and method for future doing. Yet I think that the methods of discovery which I have to recommend, though gathered from a wider survey of scientific history, both as to subjects and as to time, than (so far as I am aware) has been elsewhere attempted, are quite as definite and practical as any others which have been proposed; with the great additional advantage of being the methods by which all great discoveries in science have really been made. This may be said, for instance, of _the Method of Gradation_ and _the Method of Natural Classification_, spoken of b. iii. c. viii; and in a narrower sense, of _the Method of Curves_, _the Method of_ {vi} _Means_, _the Method of Least Squares_ and _the Method of Residues_, spoken of in chap. vii. of the same Book. Also the Remarks on the _Use of Hypotheses_ and on the _Tests of Hypotheses_ (b. ii. c. v.) point out features which mark the usual course of discovery.

[Note 2\P: _Nov. Org._ lib. i. aph. 61.]

But one of the principal lessons resulting from our views is undoubtedly this:--that different sciences may be expected to advance by different modes of procedure, according to their present condition; and that in many of these sciences, an Induction performed by any of the methods which have just been referred to is not the next step which we may expect to see made. Several of the sciences may not be in a condition which fits them for such a _Colligation of Facts_; (to use the phraseology to which the succeeding analysis has led me). The Facts may, at the present time, require to be more fully observed, or the Idea by which they are to be colligated may require to be more fully unfolded.

But in this point also, our speculations are far from being barren of practical results. The examination to which we have subjected each science, gives us the means of discerning whether what is needed for the further progress of the science, has its place in the Observations, or in the Ideas, or in the union of the two. If observations be wanted, the Methods of Observation, given in b. iii. c. ii. may be referred to. If those who are to make the next discoveries need, for that purpose, a developement of their Ideas, the modes in which such a developement has usually taken {vii} place are treated of in Chapters iii. and iv. of that Book.

No one who has well studied the history of science can fail to see how important a part of that history is the explication, or as I might call it, the _clarification_ of men's Ideas. This, the metaphysical aspect of each of the physical sciences, is very far from being, as some have tried to teach, an aspect which it passes through at an early period of progress, and previously to the stage of positive knowledge. On the contrary, the metaphysical movement is a necessary part of the inductive movement. This, which is evidently so by the nature of the case, was proved by a copious collection of historical evidences, in the _History of Scientific Ideas_. The ten Books of that History contain an account of the principal philosophical controversies which have taken place in all the physical sciences, from Mathematics to Physiology. These controversies, which must be called _metaphysical_ if anything be so called, have been conducted by the greatest discoverers in each science, and have been an essential part of the discoveries made. Physical discoverers have differed from barren speculators, not by having _no_ metaphysics in their heads, but by having _good_ metaphysics in their heads while their adversaries had bad; and by binding their metaphysics to their physics, instead of keeping the two asunder. I trust that the _History of Scientific Ideas_ is of some value, even as a record of a number of remarkable controversies; but I conceive that it also contains an indisputable proof that there {viii} is, in progressive science, a metaphysical as well as a physical element;--ideas as well as facts;--thoughts as well as things. Metaphysics is the process of ascertaining that thought is consistent with itself: and if it be not so, our supposed knowledge is not knowledge.

In Chapter vi. of the Second Book, I have spoken of _the Logic of Induction_. Several writers[3\P] have quoted very emphatically my assertion that the Logic of Induction does not exist in previous writers: using it as an introduction to Logical Schemes of their own. They seem to have overlooked the fact that at the same time that I noted the deficiency, I offered a scheme which I think fitted to supply this want. And I am obliged to say that I do not regard the schemes proposed by any of those gentlemen as at all satisfactory for the purpose. But I must defer to a future occasion any criticism of authors who have written on the subjects here treated. A critical notice of such authors formed the Twelfth Book of the former edition of the _Philosophy of the Sciences_. I have there examined the opinions concerning the Nature of Real Knowledge and the mode of acquiring it, which have been promulgated in all ages, from Plato and Aristotle, to Roger Bacon, to Francis Bacon, to Newton, to Herschel. Such a survey, with the additions which I should now have to make to it, may hereafter be put forth as a separate book: but I {ix} have endeavoured to confine the present volume to such positive teaching regarding Knowledge and Science as results from the investigations pursued in the other works of this series. But with regard to this matter, of the _Logic of Induction_, I may venture to say, that we shall not find anything deserving the name explained in the common writers on Logic, or exhibited under the ordinary Logical Forms. _That_ in previous writers which comes the nearest to the notice of such a Logic as the history of science has suggested and verified, is the striking declaration of Bacon in two of his Aphorisms (b. i. aph. civ. cv.).

[Note 3\P: Apelt _Die Theorie der Induction_: Gratry _Logique_.]

"There will be good hopes for the Sciences then, and not till then, when by a true SCALE or Ladder, and by successive steps, following continuously without gaps or breaks, men shall ascend from particulars to the narrower Propositions, from those to intermediate ones, rising in order one above another, and at last to the most general.

"But in establishing such propositions, we must devise some other FORM OF INDUCTION than has hitherto been in use; and this must be one which serves not only to prove and discover _Principles_, (as very general Propositions are called,) but also the narrower and the intermediate, and in short, all true Propositions."

And he elsewhere speaks of successive FLOORS of Induction.

All the truths of an extensive science form a Series of such Floors, connected by such Scales or Ladders; and a part of the Logic of Induction consists, as I {x} conceive, in the construction of a _Scheme_ of such Floors. Converging from a wide basis of various classes of particulars, at last to one or a few general truths, these schemes necessarily take the shape of a Pyramid. I have constructed such Pyramids for Astronomy and for Optics[4\P]; and the illustrious Von Humboldt in speaking of the former subject, does me the honour to say that my attempt in that department is perfectly successful[5\P]. The Logic of Induction contains other portions, which may be seen in the following work, b. ii. c. vi.

[Note 4\P: See the Tables at the end of book ii.]

[Note 5\P: _Cosmos_, vol. ii. n. 35.]

I have made large additions to the present edition, especially in what regards the Application of Science, (b. iii. c. ix.) and the Language of Science. The former subject I am aware that I have treated very imperfectly. It would indeed, of itself, furnish material for a large work; and would require an acquaintance with practical arts and manufactures of the most exact and extensive kind. But even a general observer may see how much more close the union of Art with Science is now than it ever was before; and what large and animating hopes this union inspires, both for the progress of Art and of Science. On another subject also I might have dilated to a great extent,--what I may call (as I have just now called it) the _social_ machinery for the advancement of science. There can be no doubt that at certain stages of sciences, {xi} Societies and Associations may do much to promote their further progress; by combining their observations, comparing their views, contributing to provide material means of observation and calculation, and dividing the offices of observer and generalizer. We have had in Europe in general, and especially in this country, very encouraging examples of what may be done by such Associations. For the present I have only ventured to propound one Aphorism on the subject, namely this; (Aph. LV.) That it is worth considering whether a continued and connected system of observation and calculation, like that of Astronomy, might not be employed in improving our knowledge of other subjects; as Tides, Currents, Winds, Clouds, Rain, Terrestrial Magnetism, Aurora Borealis, composition of crystals, and the like. In saying this, I have mentioned those subjects which are, as appears to me, most likely to profit by continued and connected observations.

I have thrown the substance of my results into Aphorisms, as Bacon had done in his _Novum Organum_. This I have done, not in the way of delivering dogmatic assertions or oracular sentences; for the Aphorisms are all supported by reasoning, and were, in fact, written after the reasoning, and extracted from it. I have adopted this mode of gathering results into compact sentences, because it seems to convey lessons with additional clearness and emphasis.

I have only to repeat what I have already said; that this task of adapting the _Novum Organum_ to the {xii} present state of Physical Science, and of constructing a _Newer Organ_ which may answer the purposes at which Bacon aimed, seems to belong to the present generation; and being here founded upon a survey of the past history and present condition of the Physical Sciences, will I hope, not be deemed presumptuous.

TRINITY LODGE,

1 _November_, 1858.

{{xiii}} TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PAGE
PREFACE **iii

BOOK I. APHORISMS CONCERNING IDEAS.

APHORISMS I.--XVIII. Ideas in general 5--7
XIX.--XLIV. Ideas in the Pure Sciences 8--12
XLV.--LV. Ideas in the Mechanical Sciences 13--15
LVI.--LXXI. Ideas in the Secondary Mechanical
Sciences. 15--18
LXXII.--**LXXIII. Ideas in the Mechanico-chemical
Sciences 18
LXXIV.--LXXIX. Ideas in Chemistry 18
LXXX.--LXXXI. Ideas in Morphology 19
**LXXXII.--C. Ideas in Classificatory Science 20--23
CI.--CVI. Ideas in Biology 23--24
CVII.--CXVII. Ideas in Palæontology 24--26