Chapter XI: Introduction: I--Relation of Berkeley's Philosophy to Other Systems (4)

Satisfactory examples of reasoning in sequence are less numerous than might be supposed. It is a poor category for argument. Series either occur with perfect regularity, like the seasons of the year, phases of the moon, &c., and then they rapidly become mere recollections and lose the problematical character essential to a true inference, or the connection between the objects is too casual for argumentative purposes. Darwin's theory of the formation of coral atolls is a fine argument in sequence, but the application of this theory to reefs not examined by him is hardly uncertain enough to be an argument. It is the first sequential inference that is valid--the rest are foregone conclusions.

Geology supplies some good sequences. It has been noticed, for instance, that the sea leaves ripple-marks on sandy beaches, and stones with similar marks have been found at a distance from the sea; it is a valid sequential inference that the marks in the latter case have also been formed by the action of the waves. Here the difference in locality between the two compared series--the modern complete and the ancient incomplete--supplies that slight element of doubt essential to an argument.

So as regards the mode of making ancient flint tools: it has been found that tools exactly similar to the ancient can now be made with the simplest possible means, and it is a true argument to infer that the ancient implements were made by these means. The conclusion is highly probable without being infallibly certain, and that is what a dialectical conclusion ought to be.

We may admit that some of the astronomical sequences are forms of reasoning, for they were such to their first discoverers, and to minds not thoroughly conversant with them they are still in the nature of predictions that might fail of accomplishment. Political, financial, and sporting forecasts are sequential arguments, and we may also include speculations on the future states of all growing organisms and developing institutions.

_Time._ The intervals between the objects of a sequence are imagined after the model of lateral intervals in association. This is Time. Like space it is mere blanks in experience, though treated by realists as external and self-subsisting. It can be measured by reference to objects on whose sequential recurrence we have the most reliance, such as the phases of the moon, the positions of the sun in the ecliptic, the movements of the hands of a clock or the chiming of its bells. Abstract or unbounded time is called 'eternity'; like abstract space it is a refined form of nothing. Time and space are usually coupled together as if co-ordinate, but eternity is the co-ordinate of space. Time is divided sequence and would correspond to materially divided space, that is, space with objects in it at regular intervals.

Matter, space, and time are the three pillars of the realistic world. We have now seen what they are made of. Matter is a general idea compiled by ourselves from phenomenal consciousness. It is no substance--only an average. Space has even less reality. It is first the interval between two objects in association; then this interval is used metaphorically as an expression and measure of perspective decadence. Time is an application of the same associative interval to express the blanks between objects in sequence. Space and time are thus pure nullities--negatives with positive names. These three notions being exploded as entities, there remain as a residuum of true fact and the starting-point of philosophy--_minds_, their _energies_, and their _consciousness_. This is a very ancient triad.

Science constantly confounds sequence and causation. We are told that the moon _causes_ eclipses of the sun, that heat _causes_ objects to expand, that a seal _causes_ an imprint. This is a metaphor from human causation, and the expression is now so rooted in language that it would hardly be possible to introduce a more correct phraseology. Yet it is as incorrect as to say that one o'clock causes two o'clock, or that daylight causes darkness. The confusion has arisen from the fact that both sequence and causation deal with fixed inconvertible series, but only in the latter is there real power exerted to produce the effect. Material things and their apparent effects are due to a cause lying behind both.

XXVII--CAUSATION

Causation differs from all other categories in that one of its elements is mental. It is a series beginning in the mind--in this relation denominated _cause_--and developing into objective phenomena called _effects_ or an effect. The series being known by judgment we can infer similar causes from perception of similar effects. The commonest causation is the use and interpretation of language. Because we utter words from a certain motive we infer that all who utter the same words do so from the same motive. That is the reason of the intelligibility of words.

This category is peculiar from the extremely narrow range of the experience which supplies the judgments. We never perceive any mind but one--our own--and this has to supply all the judgments by which we reason concerning other minds. There is therefore no category in which correct reasoning is so difficult and so rare. No amount of experience entirely overcomes this defect, for if we are ignorant we cannot understand the wise, and if we are wise we cannot conceive the motives of the ignorant and vicious. Only those persons who are mentally very like each other are mutually comprehensible.

This category has a further peculiarity. In all the rest the inference relates to objective experience, and this being due to interaction of minds we are justified in saying that until it is perceived it has no existence. But in causation we are inferring something with reference to a mind, and this exists though we never can perceive it. We know that minds exist without perception because we know that our own exists though no one perceives us--though we are in total darkness and silence and cannot ourselves perceive our bodies. As already stated, Existence has not the same meaning when applied to objects and to minds, objects being merely temporary conditions of minds. The non-existence of inferred but unperceived objects does not follow from any defect in the faculty of inference, but depends on the essential character of objects. They are created by mutual contact of minds and cannot exist without that condition, however clearly they may be inferred and however correctly their appearance may be predicted.

Causation is confounded with sequence because both are series. Let me illustrate the difference between them by an example. I turn the stop-cock of a pipe, and water flows from the open end of the pipe. In popular and even scientific language it would be said that I caused the water to flow. But this is incorrect. All I caused was the turning of the tap; that alone was wholly due to my energy and intelligence. There followed as a sequence the outflow of water, but that was due partly to cosmic force and partly to the previous human causation (not mine) implied in making and laying down the pipe so as to utilise the cosmic force. I merely removed an obstacle that prevented the further development of the force in a particular direction. My relation to the outflow was sequence, not causation.

In observation sequence registers fixed or probable series of _objects_ without regard to their causes. It is sufficient if they occur regularly enough to justify prediction. Causation, on the other hand, pays no regard to physical connection of any sort, but seeks out the being or beings who supplied the energy producing an effect or series of effects. The speculations in causation pass quite beyond the domain of objectivity, over into the realm of true creation.

When we read that 'the succession of events is an endless chain of effects which are in their turn causes of new effects,' what is meant is sequence, and for 'cause' and 'effect' the terms 'antecedent' and 'consequent' should have been employed. Sequences may be 'chains' and may be long, but if so their links have been forged by independent causes acting _across_ the chain; as when a line of soldiers fire in succession at regular intervals, or as in the case of the moon's quarters. In these instances the objects, although forming a series, has each a cause of its own.

Certainly a causation is a series, for the cause precedes the effect. But an effect is never the cause of a succeeding effect. When this appears to be the case the explanation is that the energy was not exhausted in producing the immediate simple effect, but has produced a complicated effect in which a series may be discovered. An objective effect, being a mere flash of consciousness--a shadow on a window-blind--is incapable of causing anything.

_Analysis of Cause._ Cause is mind in action. It consists of at least energy and a sentimental _motive_--energy exerted to gratify sentiment. If the mind is intellectualised there will probably be an ideal element in the cause--in this connection called _plan_ or _design_--for the better direction of the energy. Normal human causation consists of an effort of mind directed towards the objective realisation of a plan, for the gratification of a sentiment. This is the same as WILL.

All three elements of cause may be furnished by the same individual--or any two of them--or only one. For instance, the man who wants a house supplies the motive, the architect provides the design, the builder finds the energy.

One plan may use up an indefinite number of separate stores of energy. Even in an individual the realisation of a plan exhausts the powers of millions of organic cells. A military campaign illustrates the relation of plan to power. The design may have been formed by one man, and then communicated wholly or partially to a hundred thousand, and the energies of these may be devoted to its realisation. The soldier fights with his own energy, but he is directed by his commander's idea, or so much of it as has been confided to him. The design may stretch from the commander to the soldier, but not the energy. In order that the commander should be termed the 'cause' of his private's activity, it would be necessary to eliminate the notion of exerted energy from causation, and reduce it to bare communication of design, which would be absurd.

The stretching of one design over many relays of energy has no doubt helped to confirm the notion that causation is a long chain of alternate causes and effects. The truth is that energy can act only at short range, and has to be incessantly renewed. The world is in a constant state of creation and dissolution, say the Kabbalists. It is absurd to speak of anything that existed a thousand or even a hundred years ago as the _cause_ of anything existing to-day. The design may intellectually survive, but the energy is long since dissipated. We have never more than about a day's supply of energy in store at once.

If sentiment, power, and design are supplied by different individuals, no single one of them can be called the cause of the effect. The relation of each to the result is sequence. When we have traced an effect to the mind or minds that supplied the three or the two necessary elements--supposing the design is sometimes omitted and the act what we call _instinctive_--we have obtained a complete explanation of the effect. Our curiosity is then absolutely satisfied. We have reached a true beginning.

It is the want of this thorough explanation that renders material science so disappointing. We are put off with a mere physical antecedent, which itself needs explanation as much as its consequent. It does not make the antecedent more significant to place it far back in time, for time by itself is not a cause--it is merely a name given to intervals of experience. A thing is never truly explained until we see that its production either caused pleasure to something else, or was expected to cause pleasure. Behind everything must be Sentiment.

One generation of beings is not the cause of the following generation, else the former would have perished in begetting the latter. More particularly, a man is not the _effect_ of his parents or remoter ancestors, though they stood to him in an antecedent relation. The seed of his body was taken from theirs, but his energy is his own, drawn direct from the universal source. If he resembles them corporeally it is because he previously resembled them mentally, not because the cells of his body have hereditary tendencies to take particular forms. Hence the Darwinian genealogy of men and animals--supposing it were correct--does not explain them. It is a phenomenal schematism based on or implying an erroneous assumption--that generation is causation.

Atomism--the theory of Democritus--is founded on another false view of causation. The physical parts of a thing are conceived to be the causes of the thing, and so the least conceivable particles of 'matter' are considered the first causes and true explanation of all things. This notion appears to be useful in chemistry, but it cannot be accepted as philosophy. If our senses were sharpened to perceive atoms these would simply be small phenomena, and it would still be necessary to inquire what motive and power produced them. It has been suggested that atoms may be inherently sentient and dynamic: if so they are minute animals or cells, and we are still without an explanation of their occurrence in organised masses. It is inconceivable that they should spontaneously enter into intricate combinations, whose evident purpose has only an indirect and partial bearing on their welfare.

Though advocated by men of undoubted ability, Atomism and Evolution are nothing more than forms of the ordinary realistic belief, that things are caused by their physical antecedents. The two theories are supposed to be complementary, but in reality they are contradictory. If an animal body is caused by its parents it cannot be caused by its own atoms, and _vice versâ_.

_Varieties of Causation._ Abstract causation--the category--consists of a cause and an effect. The former, as we have seen, is complicated, the latter may comprise several objects. Ignoring the complications involved in the use of an organism--which comes between the mind and the final effect--we distinguish four or five varieties of causation.

C--_e_^1--_e_^2--_e_^3--_e_^4

The cause C produces from its own energy the series of effects _e_^1--_e_^4, like the rebounding of a missile from the surface of ground or water. This may be called 'ricochet.'

Effects, each having an independent cause, sometimes form a series like a ladder:

_e_^1 _e_^2 _e_^3 _e_^4 _e_^5
| | | | |
C C C C C

This is the species illustrated by a successive discharge of musketry. The causation of science consists of the _effects_ in this species considered apart from the causes.

In the 'gamut' the effects are in sequence, but they have all the same physical antecedent.

_e_^1 _e_^2 _e_^3 _e_^4 _e_^5
| | | | |
+------+------+------+------+
|
C

The successive acts of the same man or animal are of this kind.

In each of these species the effects are in series and may be treated as a sequence, but the cause or causes lie outside the sequence. Far from mere regularity of succession being a proof of causation between the objects, it may very easily be itself a part of the causal design.

In the 'capstan' several partial causes contribute to produce one effect, as when a gang of men manipulate one engine.

C C
\ /
C--_e_--C
/ \
C C

The 'star' or 'fountain' is the converse of the last. A single cause produces several simultaneous partial

_e_ _e_
\ /
_e_--C--_e_
/ \
_e_ _e_

effects, as when we strike our open hand smartly on the surface of water.

These sub-categories enable us, if we so wish, to define an energic series somewhat more precisely than by calling it a causation in the most abstract sense. Possibly also the figures delineated represent the primitive forms which energy takes when emerging into the phenomenal. The 'star' is a most characteristic form. The dendritic shape so frequently met with in objects is a star springing from a ray of a preceding star. Perhaps each vegetable bud has an independent cause; if not they are 'ricochets' from the general plant life. In the combinations of these elementary effects we have a likely explanation of plant and crystal formation.

_'Conservation' of Energy._ Energy is annihilated in the using. It emanates from a great universal centre, and at a short distance from that centre is completely and irrecoverably dissipated. The apparent fixity of things is purely formal--like the fixity of a water-fall, which renews its substance every few seconds. That is the meaning of saying that the world is in a constant state of formation and dissolution.

Physical theorists represent energy under the figure of substance, but they suppose it is fixed in _quantity_ though constantly undergoing change of _form_--the scientific view, here as elsewhere, being just the opposite of the philosophical.

Observe--say the conservationists--the case of a man raising a heavy stone from the earth. He fatigues himself but he does not destroy energy; he acquires command over the energy-in-position of the stone, and in using it to crack a cocoa-nut or drive a post he receives back his own energy undiminished in quantity.

That seems reasonable at first sight. A quantity of energy is taken from the man and put into the stone; it is taken from the stone and put into the driven post. To be sure, if the man undrives the post he does not thereby disfatigue himself, as the theory would lead us to expect--he fatigues himself the more.

The same 'law,' we are told, holds good in building a dam across a stream and utilising the force of water to drive a mill. The energy apparently lost in the construction is recovered in the superior ease with which we grind our corn or saw our timber. There is a confusion in the terminology here: to save energy that would otherwise be lost is not identical with recovering energy that has once been used.

We make a gun, load it, and discharge a bullet against a target. What has become of the force expended? It has been transformed into heat, say the conservationists. And when the target and flattened bullet have cooled down? The energy has gone to raise the general temperature of the universe!

That is a conclusion hard to believe and impossible to verify. But--granting that the individual explosions of a gun may be the 'conservation' of some antecedent power--how do we recover the initial expense of the instrument? And if not recoverable, where at least and in what form does it exist? Prior to the explosions that are represented by heated targets and the like, energy was spent in inventing and making the gun, making the ammunition, loading and aiming the piece. All these were essential to the effect--and what has become of them? Have they also gone to warm the universe?

Instead of raising a stone to a height, let us carry it along horizontally till we feel the same degree of fatigue. If energy in the using is merely transformed but not lost, we should now be in possession of some power equivalent to the energy expended. But we are not--we have nothing to show for our trouble.

If we construct a water-mill and fix it high and dry in the middle of a plain, instead of under a fall of water, we get no return for the energy expended. By such a law as the conservation of energy, and with the usefulness of a properly placed mill as the measure of compensation, we should receive an equivalent return no matter where the mill is placed. What has _place_ to do with the action of a universal law?

Instead of raising the stone or carrying it horizontally, let us find it near the edge of a precipice and roll it over. There is no proportion between the push that launched the stone, and the force it exhibits on reaching the foot of the precipice. How is the equivalence of energy maintained in this case? It will be replied that the force now at work is gravitation. If so, it was gravitation that brought down the first stone on the post--not any energy transferred from us to the stone. The raising of the stone put us in a position to use the force of gravity, just as climbing the precipice put us in a position to roll the stone over the edge of it.

Such considerations as these make this 'law' incredible to me. But when I pass from the explanation to the concrete facts, I have no difficulty in understanding them. It is the law that is obscure--not the facts.

There exists nothing but living minds of different degrees of energy. We men are small beings associated with a cosmical creature whose force is immeasurably greater than ours, and we have intelligence enough to utilise part of this force to supplement our own. That is the meaning of _mechanism_. Some efforts to control the cosmic forces are profitable, but there is no transmutation of our energy into the result, nor any necessary equivalence between the labour and the result. We may stumble upon an available cosmic force almost by accident--we may waste a life-time over a mechanical problem and fail to solve it.

The utilisation of cosmic force by man is best explained by comparing it with animal slavery. Trap a wild elephant and train him to draw and carry--you have constructed an engine. There are of course important differences between the two kinds of instrument, due to the enormous disproportion between the magnitude and power of the respective entities. In the case of the animal the whole life comes under our control: in the case of the cosmos we can utilise only a minute fraction of it, and that rather by putting ourselves in its way than by making it obey us. The animal we have to feed: the cosmic being does not draw upon us for its nourishment. We can direct the animal through his sensibility: the cosmic sensibility appears to be beyond our power of irritation.

Apart from these differences the general laws of the one kind of tool are those of the other also. We have not transferred power to the raised stone, or the coiled spring, or the loaded gun, or the embanked river--any more than to the tamed and harnessed horse. There is no fixed ratio between the fatigue of catching and training an animal, and the energy saved by making him work for us. The animal's work is not our own energy given back to us--neither is the machine's. A plough is useless without cattle to draw it--so is a turbine without water to drive it. When coal is burned to 'generate' electricity, that is the cosmic equivalent of exhausting or killing one animal to overpower or to feed another: the energy of combustion is utterly destroyed--not transformed into the electricity.

The question can be more accurately stated and brought to a plain issue if we use the terms and forms of dialectic.

A theory is an argument--when it is not a fallacy--and an argument, we have seen, consists of two parts. There is the matter of fact requiring explanation, and the antecedent knowledge which is used to illustrate it. Of these the precedent is the more important, and it is no valid objection to a criticism that the person who offers it knows less about the _case_ than the theorist. The critic may be in possession of a better precedent, which the theorist has failed to notice, perhaps from a too exclusive attention to the case.

In the question before us the case is Mechanical or Inorganic Energy. It is not an object, but an inference from the knowledge of our personal mental energy. This latter is the only energy we really perceive. But we find in objects, or associated with the perception of them, a power capable of assisting or of opposing our efforts--hence we conclude it is something of the same nature as our own power. We cannot well avoid that inference, and there is no apparent reason why we should try to avoid it.

So far science and philosophy are at one, but here they part company. Philosophy consistently endows Nature with sentiency also, for we never--to our certain knowledge--meet with energy without sentiency, and we have no right to transfer one attribute without the other.

Although science is indebted to the assimilation of organic and inorganic--Nature explained by Man--for the first notion of external energy, no sooner is the notion formed than the argument is discarded, and external energy is declared to be entirely destitute of an organic and mental character. How then is it to be further explained? To what shall it now be likened?

In the materialistic scheme all things are supposed to be resolved into matter and force. Matter is conceived as a self-existent substance, indestructible, &c. It is better known than force, for material things can be directly perceived whereas force is imaginary all the time. Under these circumstances it is natural though illogical to treat force as a species of matter. With only two things left in the universe, the better known of the two will be used to explain the less known, if an explanation is considered indispensable. Force is accordingly brought as a 'case' under matter as a 'precedent,' and is concluded to be indestructible because matter is believed to be indestructible; and when energy appears to be wasted the inference is that it has simply withdrawn from view, like an object that has ceased to be perceived and may be perceived again. That seems to be the evolution of the scientific notion of inorganic energy.

This theorem is fallacious in two respects. There is no such matter as science imagines. Matter is a general idea formed by the study of material objects, which are states of consciousness excited by noumenal contact. It is the average object--a mere affection or formation of the observing mind. _We_ are the makers of matter. Such an idea cannot be said to be indestructible: in a sense it is destroyed in an individual when it is forgotten or inactive; it would certainly be destroyed if all minds ceased to form it. Thus the precedent in the scientific theory of force is itself false.

Then energy is not in the least like matter--either the matter of science or that of philosophy. The energy we really know is a unique experience--not a general idea, nor anything analogous to a phenomenal object; so that even if the proposed precedent were true in itself, it is not applicable to the case. To complete our knowledge of external energy we must go back to that comparison which first suggested to us that there is external energy, namely, the comparison of living man with living nature.

If this is not a correct account of the derivation of the notion that cosmic energy is indestructible, let conservationists tell us what is the parallel on which they are arguing. Here is a blank theorem for completion--

_x_ | is indestructible
-------------------+------------------------------
Cosmic energy is a | _it must therefore be considered
sort of _x_ | indestructible_

Matter, as we have seen, is not _x_. Human energy is not _x_. Our individual power--so far as experience informs us--is destroyed in the using. A day's work exhausts us, and we have to pass into the condition called sleep to be refilled. It is sleep, not food, that refreshes the mind. Food restores the bodily tool we have been working with--puts a fresh edge on the chisel,--but it does not recuperate the power that wields the tool.

What then is _x_?

_NOTE ON DREAMS_

If dreams could be studied with our waking consciousness they
would throw much light on our mental nature. Being a poor
dreamer myself I am not competent to discuss this phase of
psychology as it deserves. I think however the bulk of our
dreams can be reduced to two principles. There is first
the simple lowering of the mental energy, which weakens the
attention and dissolves the artificial categories, thus making
ordinary reason impossible. There is just enough energy left
to revive a few scattered ideas, which blend together
without control or regard to precedent. Hence the singular
combinations they sometimes form.

In the waking state the objective and intellectual
experience are generally more vivid and engrossing than the
sentimental--at least in masculine persons. (I deliberately
avoid the phrase 'masculine mind,' because there is manifestly
no sex in mind.) In dreams the converse of this is the case.
The objects we appear to see are dull and indistinct, being
ideas mistaken for objects, whilst the feelings are evidently
genuine and sometimes of great intensity. This may be
explained on the occult principle alluded to in section X.

What I understand by occult influence is this. In ordinary
experience the object is first perceived, then a sentiment may
be excited either by the same noumenon or by recollection. In
the occult procedure this order is reversed. The sentiment is
first secretly reached through the chinks of our intellectual
armour, and the intellect is not excited at all or only by
association. During sleep, when the Self is nearly exhausted
of power, it is likely we are more exposed than usual to such
influences. They invade our mind and excite our sentiment
without awaking the intellect. Whatever ideas accompany the
sentiments are generally inadequate to explain them, the stock
of available ideas being now reduced.

The conversations we hold in dreams, and the apparent
communication of knowledge that takes place, are referred by
Du Prel to a division of the ego into two or more individuals
who talk together. This notion appears to me forced and
unthinkable. Under what image is the ego figured that
it should be capable of division? In the waking state we
sometimes ask ourselves questions, and on consideration find
answers to them. We cannot recall a name, a word, or date,
though we know it is somewhere in our memory, and we pause and
search till we succeed in exciting the latent image. When this
takes place in a dream the information is assumed to come from
another individual by an easy dramatisation.

A disturbance in the body during sleep may constitute--like
all bodily suffering--a drain upon our mental energy, which
will be felt as a sentiment and may excite ideas by sympathy.
No doubt many dreams are caused in this manner.

Since our waking consciousness is highly artificial and
imaginary, we may infer that whilst dreaming we are nearer to
the natural, primitive state of the mind, but in a weakened
condition.

[Footnote 13: Ueberweg's _Logic_, Fleming's _Vocabulary_, and
Dickenson's _Dict. of Philosophy_.]

[Footnote 14: When the perspective object is accurately
measured by instrument at a known distance from the eye, and
the tactual size of the object is also known, the associative
distance can be calculated by simple proportion. Multiply the
measuring distance by the tactual size and divide the product
by the perspective size--the quotient is the distance. The
perspective size of objects is greatly exaggerated in realism.
Most people think they see a man at his full stature for a
distance of fifty yards or so. At that distance the tallest
man does not measure half an inch in height. At twenty feet a
six-foot man measures 3·6 inches--at ten feet 7·2 inches.
The people assembled in a room forty feet long range in
real--perspective--height from seven inches to two inches.
When a man is nearer than ten feet we do not perceive him in
one operation--we observe him in parts which we put together
in the mind.]

[Footnote 15: Probably Dr. Johnson meant to be humorous in his
way. The principles of Idealism are apt to excite mirth in the
unphilosophical, but the laugh is not always on the side of
the scoffer. A member of the Persian philosophical sect
called Samradians once said to his steward: 'The world and
its inhabitants have no actual existence; they have merely
an ideal being.' The servant on hearing this took the first
favourable opportunity to conceal his master's horse, and
when he was about to ride brought him an ass with the horse's
saddle. When the Samradian asked, 'Where is the horse?'--the
servant replied, 'Thou hast been thinking of an idea; there
was no horse in being.' The master answered, 'It is true';
he then mounted the ass, and after riding for some time he
suddenly dismounted and taking the saddle off the ass's back
placed it on the servant's, drawing the girths tightly; and
having forced the bridle into his mouth, he mounted him and
flogged him along vigorously. The servant in piteous accents
exclaimed, 'What is the meaning of this treatment?'--to which
the Samradian replied, 'There is no such thing as a whip; it
is merely ideal; thou art only thinking of some illusion.'
After which the steward repented and restored the horse.

Another Samradian--or perhaps the same individual--having
married the daughter of a rich man, she, on finding out
her husband's creed, proposed to have some amusement at his
expense. One day the Samradian brought in a bottle of pure
wine, which during his absence she emptied of its contents and
filled with water. When the time for taking wine arrived she
poured out water instead of wine, into a gold cup which was
her own property. The Samradian having observed, 'Thou hast
given me water instead of wine,'--she answered, 'It is only
ideal; there was no wine in existence.' The husband then said,
'Thou hast spoken well; hand me the cup that I may go to
a neighbour's house and bring it back full of wine.' He
thereupon took out the gold cup, which he sold, and instead
of it brought back an earthen vessel full of wine. The wife on
seeing this said, 'What hast thou done with the golden cup?'
He replied, 'Thou art surely thinking of some ideal
golden cup'--on which the woman greatly regretted her
witticism.--_Dabistán_, v. i. p. 199-200.]

REDACTION OF COLLOQUIAL ARGUMENTS

XXVIII

A clever man has said that the use of language is to conceal thought. Its primary use is certainly not to reveal thought, but to enable one person to produce an effect on the mind of another or of others, either for their or his own advantage. In the course of using speech as an instrument of command, entreaty, persuasion, menace, or fustigation, it may happen that the movements of the speaker's mind are revealed to some extent, but this is a mere incident, not the main purpose of the speech.

Grammar is the system of rules which govern the use of language in its primary and ordinary capacity.

It follows from this that language is in no sense a revelation of the reasoning processes, nor do the rules of grammar coincide with the laws of intellect. It is just as reasonable to expect to find the metaphysic of thought revealed in any of the industrial and fine arts, as to look for it in the structure of speech. Aristotle drew his logic from the composition of the Greek sentence--he might as well have sought for logic in the constitution of the Greek buskin.[16]

Even when men begin to reason aloud and seek to render their logical movements as evident as possible, they are so hampered by the ordinary habits and rules of speech that their meaning is often difficult or impossible of comprehension. Whence arises the necessity, if we would reason aloud to any purpose, of redacting or translating language from the vernacular into a dialect more indicative of the logical processes that take place when we reason.

This redaction consists mainly in distinguishing clearly the four parts composing an argument, namely, the Subject of the Precedent; the Case which is brought under it for judgment; the Applicate or part of the precedent bearing on the case; the Conclusion, which is the ideal judgment concerning the case. When these four parts are expressed and clearly understood we have a perfect argument, so far as argumentation depends on language. But probably we have spoiled the language from the grammatical and rhetorical point of view. We may have had to supply much that would be redundant and unsightly in ordinary conversation or writing, and to take away much that is appropriate to colloquial discourse. We are diverting language to a use for which it was not designed, and we need not be surprised if the result is ungraceful. This cannot be helped since there exists no other means than language by which to express our concrete reasoning.

I have already shown practically how an argument can be arranged so as to indicate the logical relations subsisting between its parts. A Greek cross is drawn, and in the four angles thus made the four parts of the argument are written, or the principal words of each. Begin with the conclusion, for that is generally the most explicitly given; then find or supply the part of the precedent that agrees or logically rhymes with it; next place the subject in the first compartment, and the case under it. These relative positions should not be varied. When this has been practiced for a while it enables one to dismember the most intricate argument with ease and exactness.

The redaction or re-writing of the language can be abbreviated by regarding the horizontal line as equivalent to a declaration of resemblance between case and precedent-subject, and (by application) between the illustrative abstraction and conclusion. If there is an argument at all there must be this resemblance, and the right-hand parts must have one of the six categorical relations to the left-hand parts. The contents of the angles may be cut down to a word or two, as--

I.
Tyrants | death
--------+--------
Caesar | _death_

If the category be further indicated by a numeral over the upright line, we have the essential parts of the argument in a very compact form. The cross and categorical numeral may be regarded as a sufficient substitute for grammatical syntax and punctuation.

The negative word that generally occurs in stigmatic arguments requires special attention. It should always be put in the second angle, and when it may read so as to negative the subject it should be hyphened to the predicate, thus giving it the value of _non_, _un_, _im_, or other negative prefix. To say colloquially that 'all Russians are not angels' leaves room to believe that some Russians are angels, the 'not' applying to 'all' instead of to 'angels.' By linking 'not' to 'angels' we get a term equivalent to non-angelic, which expresses the meaning intended--that no Russians are angels.

Caution should be observed with partitive words like 'some,' 'many,' 'a few,' &c. There is little danger of ambiguity when they occur in the case, for that means that we bring only a portion of a group of things to judgment, which we are manifestly entitled to do. The conclusion however applies only to the portion in question, not to the rest of the group. 'Honest men deserve respect; some Negroes are honest men; _these particular Negroes deserve respect_.'

In the precedent, partitive words imply that only some of the subject have the applicate. If that portion is a dialectical 'all'--that is, if there has been no exception in the course of our experience--we may, though that experience has been limited, venture to treat the applicate as universal and ground a conclusion upon it. If the subject is really partitive--if we know for certain that some subjects have the applicate and others have it not--the conclusion must follow the greater probability. If the number and character of the observed cases is known we can express the probability arithmetically; it is the number of occurrences of a given character divided by the total number.

Redaction must not be used to correct original errors of observation; its purpose is to render explicit in language what is implicit in thought, not what might have been thought supposing the thinker had been more intelligent or industrious than he was.

'Conversion' is a process admitted or required in the artificial methods of syllogistic dialectic. It consists mainly in transposing the subject and predicate of a proposition, as 'some Europeans are Mohammedans'--'some Mohammedans are Europeans,' This operation never takes place in real argument, or is merely the emendation of a proposition at first awkwardly expressed. Conversion can take place only when the predicate is a class, hence the categorical propositions cannot be converted.

[Footnote 16: Though evidently suggested by language, the
form which the syllogistic logic finally assumed is so unlike
anything grammatical, that it is easily convertible into
symbols having no resemblance to language. It has been
put into literal symbols with algebraic values, and into
geometrical diagrams. A logical machine has even been invented
by Professor Jevons, 'worked by keys like a pianoforte,' which
returns 'infallible answers'--of the Aristotelian sort--to
every kind of question. That is sufficiently unlike both
reason and language.]

FALLACIES

XXIX--OF EQUIVOCATION AND MAL-OBSERVATION

Fallacies are counterfeit or sham arguments. They may fail to be arguments--(1) because their antecedents are false; (2) because the antecedents though true are not arranged dialectically, and do not suggest the right conclusion; (3) because the language is equivocal.

To take the last first. So many things are called by the same name, and so many different names may be applied to the same thing, that if we attempt to argue from words alone, without any personal knowledge of the things or judgments that are in question, we shall certainly make mistakes. The only security against this sort of fallacy is much experience, and the self-denial necessary to relinquish argument and the criticism of arguments, when we have no sufficient knowledge of the data.

The degree of imperfection in observation which should be considered to render the theorem fallacious, is no easy matter to determine. One class of logicians (the Formal) get over the difficulty by declaring that dialectic is not concerned with concrete knowledge at all,[17] but only with its general properties (as conceived by Aristotle), and they have set up as a standard of logical truth the capability of being imagined. A centaur is to them as true a fact as a horse, and they would accept as valid such a theorem as this: 'All centaurs object to be shod with iron; Gryneus is a centaur; therefore we may conclude that he would resist being shod with iron.' No amount of conceivability or formal coherence can make this other than nonsense.

J. S. Mill and his followers go to the opposite extreme. They study all the sciences and endeavour to master their methods of reasoning--which is well; but they do so with the prepossession that there exists some absolute standard of knowledge to fail in attaining which involves fallacy. They thus condemn as false all theorems based on superseded notions of nature and man. Only modern thinkers can argue rationally--the ancients were all and habitually victims of fallacy,--and of the moderns only the few are rational who have mastered the latest theories on every subject. This is the principle of Mill's doctrine on the fallacies of observation; we can see that he regarded all beliefs as fallacious which he had himself outgrown or did not feel a need of. 'Truth' was simply the facts and judgments that happened to suit Mill's mental constitution.

From the Substantial point of view this is an untenable position.

No degree of observation is intrinsically defective if it serve the purpose of intellect, which is to protect the mind. There is no intellectual truth as a thing in itself. The thoughts of a sparrow or a child are as perfect as those of a man, if they afford the necessary defence to the individual's sentiment. As we change our inner mental character, new intellectual ideas have to be acquired and the old are discarded, perhaps completely forgotten. They appear now to be ignorances and fallacies--mal-observation and bad reasoning. The new seem to be so much truer--perhaps infallibly true. All that is illusion. We make another advance, and the thoughts that a week before were as stable as rocks are now cast aside as absurd. Perhaps the belief in the certainty of present judgments is a condition of our making the best use of them; if so they should not be shaken until we are ready to enter on the next stage of knowledge.

It is quite true that one man may know more than another, but the ground on which the more intellectual is generally considered to be superior to the latter is not the right one. He is not better for his intellectual acquirements, but he is better if his mind, being of a finer sort, required a superior intellect to defend it. At bottom, then, the general cause of mal-observation--there are particular causes which interfere with the general rule--is inferiority of sentimental character. We do not see what we do not need to see, and we see imperfectly what is not essential to our well-being. That we should be ignorant or reason badly about what does not concern us is not in itself a defect.

It is inconsistent with these views on the function of intellect to admit that any sort of non-observation or mal-observation can be always and for all alike fallacious. If there are things which we habitually ignore, the presumption is that they do not concern us--that the knowledge they would confer is not essential to our welfare and would be intellectual lumber.

I should therefore abstain from condemning as fallacies theorems drawn in good faith from facts believed to be true, and which serve as motives of conduct. They are sophisms only when the reasoners have not taken ordinary pains to verify their data, or, knowing the antecedents to be false, pretend to believe them for some immoral purpose.

XXX--OF PARALLEL ARRANGEMENT

There is no fault of perversion, mutilation, or entanglement in the statement of an argument that we do not meet with in actual reasoning. Even in the writings of educated and honest thinkers it is rare to meet with an argument the parts of which are clearly distinguished by the author himself, and expressed so as to show the precise degree of force they ought to carry. Reasoning is still only a semi-conscious process directed by rule-of-thumb. We make certain statements and find they have a power of moving others, so we continue to make them. But whether the result is due to the rationality of the discourse or merely to the docility of the hearers, we do not know, and--so long as the desired result follows--we do not care to inquire.

For this state of things logicians are to a great extent responsible. They are uncritical imitators of the Greek philosophers, whose notions on dialectic were quite wrong. The Greeks and their medieval and modern followers have squandered attention on a mental process which is not reason, mistaking it for reason, so that practically there has never been a science of dialectic. However much reasoners may have wished to present their thoughts coherently, they have not been provided with a method or notation adapted to the purpose. With an instinctive sense of the futility of the Syllogism, they have ignored it completely. I cannot call to mind a single controversial work that has been presented in syllogistic form, nor do even trained logicians use it overtly in argument.[18] Yet if it were what it professes to be, it would be as natural and convenient to express our arguments in syllogism as it is to put down on paper a sum in arithmetic. We are, as regards the expression of reasoning, in the position of numerical thinkers before the invention of figures and the elaboration of arithmetical rules. We have to do all our arguments 'in our head,' and so we do them badly. We can seldom be sure of the correctness of our own reasonings, and we are constantly being misled by sophistry. Nothing indeed will enable us to reason well or to detect false reasoning on a subject of which we are entirely ignorant, but a large measure of protection would be afforded by the adoption of a uniform system of presenting arguments, by which all the assumptions they involve are rendered explicit.

One of the commonest omissions in argumentation is to take the precedent for granted. This is allowable when it is a fact universally known or believed. 'If you let the glass fall it will be broken,'--the omitted precedent is the known consequences of letting brittle things fall to the ground. 'Caius is a liar, therefore he is a coward'--presupposes that every liar is a coward.

This liberty of suppression is sometimes used sophistically. The tacit precedent is not universally known or accepted, but if it is questioned the sophist is ready with an exclamation of surprise or contempt at our supposed ignorance. Persons who are afraid of appearing singular in their beliefs are liable to be deceived by this trick.

'It frequently happens,' says Whately, 'in the case of a
fallacy [of omitted precedent] that the hearers are left to
the alternative of supplying either a premiss which is not
true, or else one which does not prove the conclusion: _e.g._
if a man expatiates on the distress of the country, and thence
argues that the government is tyrannical, we must suppose him
to assume either that "every distressed country is under a
tyranny," which is a manifest falsehood, or merely that "every
country under a tyranny is distressed," which, however true,
proves nothing, the Middle Term being undistributed.... Which
are we to suppose the speaker meant us to understand? Surely
just whichever each of his hearers might happen to prefer:
some might assent to the false premiss; others allow the
unsound syllogism; to the sophist himself it is indifferent,
as long as they can be brought to admit the conclusion.'

We sometimes attempt to reason from _Contrast_ instead of resemblance, with a confused notion that things which differ in some respects must differ also in others. 'Who spareth the rod hateth the child; the parent who loveth his child must _therefore_ spare not the rod.' The fallacy of this becomes apparent when we complete the theorem in the parallel form.

VI.
The hating parent | spares the rod
-------------------------------+---------------
The loving parent differs from | [_No Conclusion_]
the hating parent |

The following has often been presented as a valid argument--'What is universally believed must be true; the belief in God's existence is not universal; it is therefore not true.'

I.
What is universally believed | is true
-----------------------------+-------
The existence of God is not | _N. C._
universally believed

To establish the conclusion aimed at, it would be necessary to lay down as precedent--'What is not universally believed is not true.'

These theorems from contrast are on a par with the following--

I.
Cows | are four-footed
-------------------+--------------------------
Sheep are not cows | _sheep are not four-footed_

This is the fallacy called in the quaint language of the syllogists 'Illicit Process of the Major Term.'

In _False Analogy_ the resemblance is so slight that the application is untrustworthy, or a conclusion is drawn in excess of the resemblance. If from the habit of calling a deep bay or salt-water loch an 'arm' of the sea from its analogy to a human arm, we conclude that the sea has elbows and wrists, we commit this fallacy. The earth is like an orange, but we must not think that it is pulpy inside.

Akin to this is the fallacy of _False Generality_ or _Doubtful Precedent_. It consists in carelessly or perversely using bad antecedents when better are available. This applies to such current prejudices as that all Frenchmen are frivolous, all Germans mystical, all Jews dishonest, all Carthaginians faithless, all rich people purseproud, all nobles haughty, and so on. Even if all the Carthaginians we personally knew had proved faithless, our general knowledge of mankind should keep us from inferring that a whole nation should be faithless. The most we should conclude is that _some_ Carthaginians are faithless, but we are free to exercise caution in future dealings with members of that race. All these generalities are grounded on this prior argument: 'when a known portion of a class exhibits certain qualities, we are justified in inferring that the whole class possess these qualities'--which is only occasionally true.

The fallacy of _Accident_ occurs when the precedent is so defined as not to exclude exceptions, and the case happens to be one of the exceptions. 'What gives pain should be abstained from; surgical operations give pain; they should therefore be abstained from.' The painful things that should be universally abstained from are those which give needless or useless pain, not the sort that give less pain than they remove. Falstaff committed this fallacy when he supposed that the King would be a boon companion like the Prince. So did the colonists who introduced rabbits and water-cress into Australia, on the supposition that they would there have the same function or value as in Great Britain. In consequence of the Accidental change the rabbits have developed into a pest, and the water-cress obstructs navigation.