William Whewell

“ We believe each appearance to come into existence,—we conceive every change to take place,—not only with something preceding it, but something by which it is made to be what it is. An effect without a cause;—an event without a preceding condition involving the efficacy by which the event is produced;—are suppositions which we cannot for a moment admit. That the connexion of effect with cause is universal and necessary, is a universal and constant conviction of mankind. It persists in the minds of all men, undisturbed by all the assaults of sophistry and skepticism ”

“ We know nothing in either case which confines the intensity of the force within any limit, or prescribes to it any law of uniformity. Why, then, should we make a merit of cramping our speculations by such assumptions? Whether the causes of change do act uniformly;—whether they oscillate only within narrow limits;—whether their intensity in former times was nearly the same as it now is;—these are precisely the questions which we wish Science to answer to us impartially and truly: where is then the wisdom of ‘an earnest and patient endeavour’ to secure an affirmative reply? ”

“ We have to examine the structure and scheme, not of a shapeless mass of incoherent materials, of which we doubt whether it be a ruin or a natural wilderness, but of a fair and lofty palace, still erect and tenanted, where hundreds of different apartments belong to a common plan, where every generation adds something to the extent and magnificence of the pile. The certainty and the constant progress of science are things so unquestioned, that we are at least engaged in an intelligible inquiry, when we are examining the grounds and nature of that certainty, the causes and laws of that progress. ”

“ Now it is clear that certain individual objects are all called man, or all called tree, in virtue of some resemblance which they have. If we had not the power of perceiving in the appearances around us, likeness and unlikeness, we could not consider objects as distributed into kinds at all. The impressions of sense would throng upon us, but being uncompared with each other, they would flow away like the waves of the sea, and each vanish from our contemplation when the sensation faded. ”

“ We cannot doubt that it must apply to all events past and future, in every part of the universe, just as truly as to those occurrences which we have ourselves observed. What causes produce what effects;—what is the cause of any particular event;—what will be the effect of any peculiar process;—these are points on which experience may enlighten us. Observation and experience may be requisite, to enable us to judge respecting such matters. But that every event has some cause, Experience cannot prove any more than she can disprove. ”

“ How are we to learn that the colour of a rose arises from the bulk, figure, texture, and motion of its particles? Certainly our senses do not teach us this; and in what other way, on Locke’s principles, can we learn it? Reid’s statement is not more free from the same objection. How does it appear that our notion of Warmth is relative to our own sensations more than our notion of Solidity? And if we take Brown’s account, we may still ask whether our selection of certain qualities to form our idea and definition of Matter be arbitrary and without reason? ”

“ He knows that there is a mask of theory over the whole face of nature, if it be theory to infer more than we see. But other men, unaware of this masquerade, hold it to be a fact that they see cubes and spheres, spacious apartments and winding avenues. And these things are facts to them, because they are unconscious of the mental operation by which they have penetrated nature’s disguise.
And thus, we still have an intelligible distinction of Fact and Theory, if we consider Theory as a conscious, and Fact as an unconscious inference, from the phenomena which are presented to our senses. ”

“ What philosopher, in speculating respecting a magnetic fluid, or a luminiferous ether, would hesitate to apply to it the mechanical principles which are applicable to fluids of known mechanical properties? When we assert that the quantity of motion in the world cannot be increased or diminished by the mutual actions of bodies, does not every mathematician feel convinced that it would be an unphilosophical restriction to limit this proposition to such modes of action as we have tried? ”

“ Instead of terming this rule of speculation merely ‘the Principle of the Conditions of Existence,’ we might term it ‘the Principle of the conditions of organs as Means adapted to animal existence as their End.’ And how far this principle is from being a mere barren truism, the extraordinary discoveries made by the great assertor of the principle, and universally assented to by naturalists, abundantly prove. The vast extinct creation which is recalled to life in Cuvier’s great work, the Ossemens Fossiles, cannot be the consequence of a mere identical proposition. ”

“ But this turn of men’s thoughts shows that they see in events a connexion which is not mere succession. They see in cause and effect, not merely what does, often or always, precede and follow, but what must precede and follow. The events are not only conjoined, they are connected. The cause is more than the prelude, the effect is more than the sequel, of the fact. The cause is conceived not as a mere occasion; it is a power, an efficacy, which has a real operation. ”

“ The cause of gravity,’ he adds, ‘I do not pretend to know, and would take more time to consider of it.’
Cotes maintains his opinion by urging, that we learn by experience that all bodies possess gravity, and that we do not learn in any other way that they are extended, moveable, or solid. But we have already seen, that the ideas of space, time, and reaction, on which depend extension, mobility, and solidity, are not results, but conditions, of experience. We cannot conceive a body except as extended; we cannot conceive it to exert mechanical action except with some kind of solidity. ”

“ And here also the very earliest history of civilization presents to us some of the most remarkable examples of man’s success in his attempts to attain to science. Space and time, position and motion, govern all visible objects; but by far the most conspicuous examples of the relations which arise out of such elements, are displayed by the ever-moving luminaries of the sky, which measure days, and months, and years, by their motions, and man’s place on the earth by their position. Hence the sciences of space and number were from the first cultivated with peculiar reference to Astronomy. ”

“ And if the motion had been still more unaccountable, it would not have occasioned any uncertainty whether it were consistent with the agency of gravity and the laws of motion. If a body suddenly alter its direction, or move in any other unexpected manner, we never doubt that there is a cause of the change. We may continue quite ignorant of the nature of this cause, but this ignorance never occasions a moment’s doubt that the cause exists and is exactly suited to the effect. And thus experience can prove or discover to us general rules, but she can never prove that general rules do not exist. ”

“ That sight, of itself, can give us only a plane picture, the doctrine of Berkeley, appears to be indisputable; and, no less so, the doctrine that it is the consciousness of our own action in space which puts together these pictures so that they cover the surface of a solid body. We can see length and breadth with our eyes, but we must thrust out our arm towards the flat surface, in order that we may, in our thoughts, combine a third dimension with the other two. ”

“ And a person who, knowing the Fact of the earth’s annual motion, refers it distinctly to its mechanical cause, conceives the sun’s attraction as a Fact, just as he conceives as a Fact, the action of the wind which turns the sails of a mill. He cannot see the force in either case; he supplies it out of his own Ideas. And thus, a true Theory is a Fact; a Fact is a familiar Theory. That which is a Fact under one aspect, is a Theory under another. The most recondite Theories when firmly established are Facts: the simplest Facts involve something of the nature of Theory. ”

“ And we naturally expect that, even when we extend our range of speculation wider still, when we contemplate the world within us as well as the world without us, when we consider the thoughts and actions of men as well as the motions and operations of unintelligent bodies, we shall still find some general analogies which belong to the essence of truth, and run through the whole intellectual universe. Hence we have reason to trust that a just Philosophy of the Sciences may throw light upon the nature and extent of our knowledge in every department of human speculation. ”

“ WE have seen how the progress of knowledge upon the subject of motion and force has produced, in the course of the world’s history, a great change in the minds of acute and speculative men; so that such persons can now reason with perfect steadiness and precision upon subjects on which, at first, their thoughts were vague and confused; and can apprehend, as truths of complete certainty and evidence, laws which it required great labour and time to discover. This complete development and clear manifestation of mechanical ideas has taken place only among mathematicians and philosophers. ”