It will be perceived that there is an essential difference between the modes of investigation which I have followed in the preceding pages, and those guiding the speculations of the celebrated philosopher, from whose opinions I venture to dissent.Where the principles of investigation are different, the conclusions arrived at can hardly agree; and I scarce think, therefore, that I should assist the reader in forming an opinion on the subject, by entering into a particular discussion of the points in which we are at variance.The views I have endeavored to unfold must, in so far, stand alone.
It so happens, however, that concerning the principles of investigation themselves, there is a common standard to which the disciples of Adam Smith refer, and on the rules drawn from which, I also conceive, the determination of the questions debated must ultimately rest.Adam Smith has been said to have made political economy a science of experiment, a branch of the inductive philosophy.(126) Now, I apprehend, that the spirit of the philosophy of the author of the Wealth of Nations was completely opposed to the inductive philosophy -- the philosophy of Bacon, and that he never intended that that work should be received as if established on it.If the reader agree with me, he will probably consider that the whole discussion here, in a measure terminates.In placing before him the reasons for my belief, I shall confine myself, as much as possible, to transcribing the words of the Novum Organum, on the one side, and those of Adam Smith, in some of his speculations, on the other.
Lord Bacon affirms, that there always have been, and must be, two sorts of philosophy -- the popular, and the inductive; or, as they might perhaps be denominated, the philosophy of system, and of science.In the one, the mind explains natural phenomena according to its preconceived notions, in the other, it traces out, by a careful interpretation, the real connexions between them.(127) The former will always be the most popular, and on account of its facility of explication, and its fitness for the purposes of argument, will maintain its place in the discussion of all subjects of general interest; while the latter must be confined to a few, its spirit being difficult to seize, above the grasp of the commonalty, and only to be comprehended by them in its effects.
It is not difficult to perceive the foundation on which each of the two systems rests.Necessity obliges men to attend to the phenomena around them, to mark their actual successions, and to name them.They have thus a store of general facts, and of regular expressions for them.These, however, refer not to the laws of the general system themselves, but to the phenomena of events, the consequences of those laws.
Their farther discussions regarding them may be undertaken for the purpose either of explaining, or of investigating them.If for the former they will refer to principles already admitted; that is, to known modes of succession.
If for the latter, they will search for the causes on which those common successions proceed.An example will render this plain.
In the earliest stages of society, and before speculation commenced, men would make some general observations concerning the motions of the different bodies about them.They would observe, for instance, that, unless prevented by some obstacle, most bodies the to the earth.Adopting this observation as a general rule, when they saw one so falling, they would conceive of the event as a usual or natural occurrence.A savage, when, in traversing the forest, he sees a rotten branch break off and fall to the ground, thinks of it as an event which is a necessary consequence of its nature, and, if his language furnished the expression, might say it was a natural motion in it as a heavy body.Were he to see the same broken branch moving rapidly through the air upwards, or horizontally, he would conceive of it as not proceeding from its own nature, but from some disturbing cause, and might call it a motion produced by violence.He would observe too, that some substances, as air, and what he calls fire, rise upwards.
He would so conclude, that all light bodies ascended.In the same manner, the heavenly bodies seem to him to have naturally a circular motion.
Let us now suppose that the two sorts of philosophy: 1st.the explanatory or systematic, and 2nd.the inductive or scientific, in pursuit of their respective objects, apply themselves to the consideration of the complicated series of phenomena, connected with sensible motions of all sorts.
As what is conceived to be already known requires no explanation, the philosophy of system takes things which, because familiar, are admitted as obvious, as the media for explaining all other things.To do otherwise, were to undertake a work foreign to its objects.In this way, under its hands, the practical rules of the observer, become the speculative principles of the philosopher.Motion is divided into natural, and violent.Certain bodies have a natural tendency downwards, others upwards, others to move in a circle.From these principles, the whole phenomena are explained in a plausible manner, and arranged in a systematic form.Such was the plan of the philosophers of Greece, and such their pseudo science of motion.
It is evident, that however it might systematize and explain facts already known, it could not conduct to new truths.It could not lead farther than the principles from which it set out, and these evidently embraced not the laws of the general system of things, but only circumstances, the results of those laws.
The philosophy of induction has for its object the discovery of truth.
