George Jacob Holyoake

“ Such a system of universal knowledge as should instruct us in the full meaning or meanings of every term, and the truth or falsity, certainty or uncertainty of every proposition, thus superseding all other studies, it is most unphilosophical to expect, or even to imagine. And to find fault with logic for not performing this, is as if one should object to optics for not giving sight to the blind—or complain of a reading glass for being of no service to a person who had never learnt to read.'*** This would be a most conclusive answer if confident assertion could be accepted in lieu of proof. ”

“ Imagination is the dexterous and astonishing use of realities. It is a species of mental experiment, whereby, without permission of the line-and-rule men, we join strange things together, and to the surprise of every body, the junction is a happy one. 'Angelo's greatness lay in searching for untried existence.'** But observation primarily suggests the combination. If, as in the case of Angelo, imagination essays the highest flights of genius, and goes in search of untried existence, it is not existence out of nature, but founded upon nature—its success is a revelation of some hidden reality. ”

“ There is contamination, there is evil, in preposterous and obscene images crowding before the intellectual vision, notwithstanding a full and distinct perception of their character—but there is no contamination, no evil, in a thousand false arguments coming before the understanding, if their quality is clearly discerned. The only possible evil in this case is mistaking false for true—but the man who shrinks from investigation lest he should mistake false for true, can have no reason for supposing himself free from that delusion in his actual opinions. ”

“ But these observations of Macaulay have the merit of showing us that induction has its foundation in nature, and afford a further confirmation of our views, that observation is the source of our knowledge, and that it is the province of logic to teach us to systematise our thoughts. Observation, experiment, hypothesis and induction, are but different names for the operation—varying in degree, in method, in expedient, and elaboration—whereby we discover truth. Nature is the treasure-house of truth, and the sole fee of appropriation is attention. ”

“ All this we can see in our mind's eye, for the actor gave us a picture of passion that time can never obliterate. But how would it have been with a cloddish unimaginative fellow, whom nature never intended should understand Shakspere? Would he not, conscious that he was among shoals and quicksands of feelings, too nice for his appreciation, seek to tear over all by a tempest of rant, which would be a more ruthless murder on Shakspere than Macbeth's on the king? And why should we be delighted with Mr. Macready's delineation, and disgusted with the ranter? ”

“ But all these conjectures must be founded on observation. For, in the wildest conjecture, unless made by a madman, there is some reason. Hypothesis is incipient truth founded on a few facts which make it probable, but not on sufficient to make it certain. Hypothesis does not directly discover truth, but it is a guide to experiment, which does. The hypotheses of Columbus respecting an unknown continent, did not of itself discover America—but it directed the experiment of his voyage there, which did. To hypothesise alone is the error of the visionary and the dreamer. ”

“ Truth is the ultimate benefit of many, but the immediate ruin of the few. Here, however, comes to our aid the wise and far-seeing aphorism of Burke—'In all exertions of duty there is something to be hazarded'—and the brave man and wise friend of mankind will risk the fate which surely awaits him—the fate of Galileo, Newton, Salomon de Caus, Volta, Fulton, Winser, Arkwright, Gall, and all who present themselves, with truth in their hands, at the door of this great bedlam called the world—the fate of being received with stones and hisses. ”

“ These admissions seem to me to prove that whenever a casual fact proves to us a new truth, it does so by its coincidence with previously known facts, and that the novelty of the occasion attracts all credit to itself, and we lose sight of the generalisation below—the fruitful soil of experience on which the new fact, like a seed, falls. We only recognise difference by comparison, and the comparison is an induction, however slender. ”

“ In these cases our belief is founded on our experience and knowledge of mankind. It is quite true that travellers exaggerate, and scientific men are sometimes mistaken; but we know that there is always some truth at the bottom of what is communicated by well-meaning writers. More or less, every man's experience assures him of this; and it is the cause of our reliance on the records of history, and the reports of science. Therefore, since all information is made up of knowledge and opinion, plainly knowledge is the one thing which comprises all intelligence. ”

“ We shall have less occasion to contend that all lofty and sublime ideas derive their value and beauty from their coherence with the instincts of sensation, 'Poetry, we grant, creates a world of its own; but it creates it out of existing materials.' 'Imagination' may be but 'thought on fire,' but the spark, which ignites it, is material. Is there any other distinction between the nights of the rhapsodist and those of genius, than that genius illumines reality and rhapsody obscures it? ”

“ The Logic of the Schools is an elaborate attack upon the lesser evil.
Sir James Mackintosh has remarked that 'Popular reason can alone correct popular sophistry'—and it is in vain that we expect amendment in the reasoning of the multitude, unless we make reasoning intelligible to the multitude. As to my object, could I, like Gridiron-Cobbett, adopt a symbol of it, I would have engraved Æsop's 'Old Man and his Ass,' who, in a vain attempt to please everybody, failed (like his disciples—for even he has disciples) to please anybody. ”

“ But scepticism is not capable of disturbing the well-grounded repose of the wise; for when the sceptic thinks he has involved everything in doubt, everything is still left in as much certainty as his scepticism.
In the great maze of conflicting opinion, it matters little that we are cautioned that reason is not all-sufficient—it is the best sufficiency we have. If reason will not serve us well, will anything serve us better? Bishop Berkeley may demonstrate that we are not sure of matter's existence—but are we more sure of any thing else? ”

“ If in logic they made a shrewd mastery of plain facts—being as sure as they could, when once set on surety, eschewing conjecture and pernicious supposition—if they followed the methods of nature and good sense, where the elaborate methods of art are hidden from them, who will not admit that they would be more intelligible than now, exercise a power they never yet possessed, and extort the attention and esteem of the public where now they excite only its pity, or contempt, or outrage what just taste it has? ”

“ The uninformed look on the recondite structure of logic, and they are repelled by the difficulty of comprehending it, and wrap themselves up in absolute and obstinate ignorance, which they believe to be their destiny. The populace, in our manufactories, have to choose between subsistence and intelligence. For study, after protracted toil, they have not the strength—and to abridge their labour is to abridge their subsistence, and this they cannot afford. But because they are precluded by the destiny of civilisation from knowing much, they need not remain utterly unskilled in reasoning. ”

“ In all cases, in which you must judge from appearances and reason from conjectures, adopt the fairest interpretation possible. On this principle, credit will sometimes be given where none is due—but in nine cases out of ten, justice will be done, for I am satisfied that there is more worth among men than wisdom, and that we do well much oftener than we reason well. We seldom need judge charitably, did we always endeavour to judge justly. But we make a virtue of our own errors, and we often affect to condescend to pronounce an opinion, which it would be criminal to withhold. ”

“ A lady, who has given intellectual laws to many whom I address, has said—'A truth I consider to be an ascertained fact, which truth would be changed into an error the moment the fact on which it rested was disproved.' But that which can be disproved cannot be an 'ascertained fact.' Allowing, however, the relevancy of this definition of a truth, it would, in a treatise on logic, be considered as a definition only of a particular truth. Many such truths are required to make a logical truth. ”

“ When every man shall be a thinker, when the autobiography of intellect shall be more freely furnished than it ever yet has been, unanimity of opinion not yet dreamed of will prevail. Harmony of opinion is the sign of intellectual conquest—the standard-bearer of truth no advocacy is victorious while dissent occupies the field. ”

“ Without inquiry it is impossible for us to know whether our opinions are true or false, and various are the pretences employed for declining investigation: frequently they are masked under vague and metaphorical phrases: "inquiry implies the weighing of evidence, and might lead to doubt and perplexity"—"to search into a subject might shake the settled convictions of the understanding"—to examine opposite arguments, and contradictory opinions, might contaminate the mind with false views. ”

“ The high popularity of common sense—'the exercise of the judgment unaided by rule'—has been interpreted into a virtual rejection of logic by the multitude. But it ought not to be overlooked, that the credit in which mere common sense is held, is a matter of necessity as well as choice. It being the best sense the untutored have, they wisely use it, and no wonder that they are inclined to laud what they are constrained to employ. ”

“ Claude Lorraine, with a passionate sympathy for the beautiful, sate in the fields from sun-rise to dewy eve, watching, catching, and saturating his very soul, as it were, with all the evanescent beauties of a summer's day, as they chased each other over the face of the fair scene; fixing on canvass, taking captive and imprisoning in our cabinets, the wanton daughters of nature, that before his time never were caught, but flitted before the fascinated eye only long enough to make the heart afterwards feel more achingly the void of their vanishing. ”

“ The fruitlessness of the ancient logic, as an instrument of discovery, had been abundantly proved by past experience, and the watchword which these two great thinkers of their age both uttered, and which has been ever since the guiding principle of all philosophy, was—analysis. Bacon, who gave his attention chiefly to the direction and improvement of physical science, taught to analyse nature, while Descartes, who aimed rather at grounding all human knowledge upon its ultimate principles, instructed how to analyse thought. ”

“ Geometry is, of all sciences, reputed the most conclusive in its arguments—and we know it is distinguished above all sciences for carefulness in its data. It begins with axioms, the most indubitable of all data, and its subsequent conclusions are founded only on established facts—and to be sure that they are established facts, the geometer, before he employs them, establishes them himself. If an analogy is to decide the province of logic, here is an analogy whose pretensions over those of arithmetic are eminent. ”