W. Stebbing

“ Sciences have become deductive usually through its being shown, either by deduction or by direct experiment, that the varieties of some phenomenon in them uniformly attend upon those of a better known phenomenon, e.g. every variety of sound, on a distinct variety of oscillatory motion. The science of number has been the grand agent in thus making sciences deductive. The truths of numbers are, indeed, affirmable of all things only in respect of their quantity ”

“ Even popularly, accuracy of classification, and the extent of command over premisses, are thought clearer signs of logical powers than accuracy of deduction. On the other hand, the definition of logic as a 'science treating of the operations of the understanding in the search of truth,' though wide enough, would err through including truths known from intuition; for, though doubtless many seeming intuitions are processes of inference, questions as to [Pg 2] what facts are real intuitions belong to Metaphysics, not to Logic.
Logic is the science, not of Belief, but of Proof, or Evidence. ”

“ So that, a definition of a name being thus generally the sum total of the essential propositions which could be framed with that name for subject, is really, as Condillac says, an analysis. Even when a name connotes only a single attribute, it (and also the corresponding abstract name itself) can yet be defined (in this sense of being analysed or resolved into its elements) by declaring the connotation of that attribute, whether, if it be a union of several attributes (e.g. Humanity) , by enumerating them, or, if only one (e.g. Eloquence) , by dissecting the fact which is its foundation. ”

“ The business of Logic is, not to enumerate false opinions, but to enquire what property in the facts led to them, that is, what peculiarity of relation between two facts made us suppose them habitually conjoined or disjoined, and thus regard the presence or absence of the one as evidence of that of the other. For every such property in the facts, or our mode of considering them, there is a corresponding class of Fallacies. ”

“ Empirical laws must indeed be found; or a general Science of Society would be impossible: for, the character of any one generation is so much the result of the characters of all prior ones, that men could not compute so long a series from the elementary laws producing it. But the empirical laws, when found (as they can be, since the series of the effects as a whole is ever growing in uniformity) , must be shown by deductions to be, if not the only possible, or even the most probable, at least possible, consequences of the laws of human nature. ”

“ Some, and particularly Reid, have regarded man's voluntary agency as the true type of causation and the exclusive source of the idea. The facts of inanimate nature, they argue, exhibit only antecedence and sequence, while in volition (and this would distinguish it from physical causes) we are conscious, prior to experience, of power to produce effects: volition, therefore, whether of men or of God, must be, they contend, an efficient cause, and the only one, of all phenomena. ”

“ But, in the separate branches of Sociology, we cannot obtain empirical laws by specific experience. It is so particularly (on account both of the number of the causes, and also the fewness of the instances to be compared with the one in point) when the effect of any one (e.g. Corn Laws) of many simultaneous social causes has to be determined. We can, however, in such cases, verify indirectly a theory as to the influence of a particular cause in given circumstances, by seeing if the same theory accounts for the existing state of actual social facts which that cause has a tendency to influence. ”

“ Our object, therefore, must be to analyse the process of inference and the subsidiary operations, besides framing canons to test any given evidence. We need not, however, carry the analysis beyond what is necessary for the practical uses of Logic; for one step in analysis is good without a second, and our purpose is simply to see the difference between good and ill processes of inference. Minuter analysis befits Metaphysics; though even that science, when stepping beyond the interrogation of our consciousness, or rather of our memory, is, as all other sciences, amenable to Logic. ”

“ The end itself, however, is defined by the art, not by the science. Each art has one first principle or major premiss which does not, as the propositions of Science, assert that a thing is or will be, but recommends it as what ought to be. A scientific theory, however complete, of the history and tendencies of society does not show us (without Teleology, i.e. the Doctrine of Ends) what are the preferable ends. Art itself has its Philosophia Prima, for ascertaining the standard of ends. ”

“ We have, in truth, no right to consider a thing's sensible qualities akin to its nature, unless we suppose an absurdity, viz. that a cause must, as such, resemble its effects. In any case, the question whether Ontology be a possible science, concerns, not Logic, but the nature and laws of intuitive knowledge. And the question as to the nature of Mind is as out of place here as that about Body. As body is the unknown exciting cause of sensations, so mind, the other kind of substance, is the unknown recipient both of the sensations and of all the other feelings. ”

“ Its subjects are real things exclusively, but all real things, since, to place one object in a group, we ought to know the divisions of nature at large.
Any property may be the basis for a classification; but those best suited are properties which are causes, or, next, as the cause of a class's chief peculiarities seldom serves as its diagnostic, any effect which is a sure mark both of the cause and of the other effects. Only a classification so grounded is scientific ”

“ But the subject-matter of the law of universal causation is so diffused that there is no time, place, or set of circumstances, at least within the portion of the universe within our observation, and adjacent cases, but must prove the law to be either true or false. It has, in fact, never been found to be false, but in ever increasing multitudes of cases to be true; and phenomena, even when, from their rarity or inaccessibility, or the number of modifying causes, they are not reducible universally to any law, yet in some instances do conform to this. ”

“ The result of examining evidence is not always belief, or even suspension of judgment, but is sometimes positive disbelief. This can ensue only when the affirmative evidence does not amount to full proof, but is based on some approximate generalisation. In such cases, if the negative evidence consist of a stronger, though still only an approximate, generalisation, we think the fact improbable, and disbelieve it provisionally; but if of a complete generalisation based on a rigorous induction, it is disbelieved by us totally, and thought impossible. ”

“ Whatever phenomenon varies in any manner whenever another phenomenon varies in some particular manner, is either a cause or an effect of that phenomenon, or (since they may be effects of a common cause) is connected with it through some fact of causation. Through this method alone can we find the laws of the permanent causes. For, though those of the permanent causes whose influence is local may be escaped from by changing the scene of the observation or experiment, many can neither be excluded nor even kept isolated from each other ”

“ In any case an approximate generalisation can never be more than an empirical law. Its authority, however, is less when it composes the whole of our knowledge of the subject, than when it is merely the most available form of our knowledge for practical guidance, and the causes, or some certain mark of the attribute predicated, being known to us as well as the effects, the proposition can be tested by our trying to deduce it from the causes or mark. ”

“ Logic is the theory of Proof, and everything provable can be exhibited as a proposition, propositions alone being objects of belief. Therefore, the import of propositions, that is, the import of predication, must be ascertained. But, as to make a proposition, i.e. to predicate, is to assert one thing of another thing, the way to learn the import of predication is, by discovering what are the things signified by names which are capable of being subject or predicate. ”

“ Since every correct inductive generalisation is either a law of nature, or a result from one, the problem of inductive logic is to unravel the web of nature, tracing each thread separately, with the view, 1, of ascertaining what are the several laws of nature, and, 2, of following them into their results. But it is impossible to frame a scientific method of induction, or test of inductions, unless, unlike Descartes, we start with the hypothesis that some trustworthy inductions have been already ascertained by man's involuntary observation. ”

“ Nameable things are—I. Feelings or States of Consciousness.—A feeling, being anything of which the mind is conscious, is synonymous with state of consciousness. It is commonly confined to the sensations and emotions, or to the emotions alone; but it is properly a genus, having for species, Sensation, Emotion, Thought, and Volition. By thought is meant all that we are internally conscious of when we think; e.g. the idea of the sun, and not the sun itself, is a thought; and so, not even an imaginary thing like a ghost, but only the idea of it, is a thought. ”

“ The Methods of Elementary Chemistry are applied to social phenomena from carelessness as to, or ignorance of, any of the higher physical sciences: the Geometrical Method, from the belief that Geometry, that is, a science of coexistent, not successive facts, where there are no conflicting forces, is, and that the now deductive physical sciences of Causation, where there are conflicting forces, are not, the type of deductive science. Thus, it seems to have been supposed by many philosophers, that each social phenomenon results from only one force, one single property of human nature. ”

“ Such is the law of man's necessary progression, in contradiction to the above formula. But even this better generalisation is similarly, though not as grossly, fallacious as the preceding, when, though not itself a cause, but only a summary expression for the general result of all the causes, it is accepted as the law of human changes, past and even future. So, empirical generalisations, from present to past time, and from the character of one nation to that of another, are similarly fallacious when employed as causal laws. ”

“ The object of an inquiry into the nature of propositions must be to analyse, either, 1, the state of mind called belief, or 2, what is believed. Philosophers have usually, but wrongly, thought the former, i.e. an analysis of the act of judgment, the chief duty of Logic, considering a proposition to consist in the denying or affirming one idea of another. True, we must have the two ideas in the mind together, in order to believe the assertion about the two things ”

“ Besides uniformities of succession, which always depend on causation, there are uniformities of coexistence. These also, whenever the coexisting phenomena are effects of causes, whether of one common cause or of several different causes, depend on the laws of their cause or causes; and, till resolved into these laws, are mere empirical laws. But there are some uniformities of coexistence, viz. those between the ultimate properties of kinds, which do not depend on causation, and therefore seem entitled to be classed as a peculiar sort of laws of nature. ”

“ The fact is, that when universals were supposed to have an independent objective existence, this dictum stated a supposed law, viz. that the substantia secunda formed part of the properties of each individual substance bearing the name. But, now that we know that a class or universal is nothing but the individuals in the class, the dictum is nothing but the identical proposition, that whatever is true of certain objects is true of each of them, and, to mean anything, must be considered, not as an axiom, but as a circuitous definition of the word class. ”

“ Thus, that we see a property of geometrical forms to be true, without inspection of the material forms, is fully explained by the capacity of geometrical forms of being painted in the imagination with a distinctness equal to reality, and by the fact that experience has informed us of that capacity; so that a conclusion on the faith of the imaginary forms is really an induction from observation. ”

“ All sciences are based on induction; yet some, e.g. mathematics, and commonly also those branches of natural philosophy which have been made deductive through mathematics, are called Exact Sciences, and systems of Necessary Truth. Now, their necessity, and even their alleged certainty, are illusions. For the conclusions, e.g. of geometry, flow only seemingly from the definitions (since from definitions, as such, only propositions about the meaning of words can be deduced) : really, they flow from an implied assumption of the existence of real things corresponding to the definitions. ”

“ Another hypothetical or abstract science, which can be carved out of Sociology, is the as yet unexplored Political Ethology, i.e. the theory of the causes which determine a people's, or age's, type of character, which collective character, besides being the most interesting phenomenon in the particular state of society, is the main cause of the social state which follows, and moulds entirely customs and laws. ”

“ The general Science of Society, as contrasted with the branches, shows, not what effect will follow from a given cause under given circumstances, but what are the causes and characteristic phenomena of States of Society generally. ”