J0H2T STUART MILL'S PHILOSOPHY TESTED. 



ST 



not derive the law of causation from intuition, 

 consciousness, or any manner of innate source. 

 It was the avowed purpose of his System of Logic 

 to show that an appeal to intuition, independent- 

 ly of observation and experience, was the great 

 intellectual support of false doctrines and bad 

 institutions. It is from experience, then, that 

 we must learn the universality of the law of cau- 

 . sation. But here the great difficulty of Mill's 

 position begins to be felt. He allows that we 

 do not see this law of Nature writ up in plain 

 figures, neither in material Nature nor in the 

 mind. The law was quite unknown, he admits, 

 in the earliest ages. It is an induction by no 

 means of the most obvious kind. But Mill's own 

 words must be carefully quoted. Speaking of 

 the fundamental principle, or general axiom of 

 induction, he says : * 



" I hold it to be itself an instance of induction, 

 and induction by no means of the most obvious 

 kind. Far from being the first induction we make, 

 it is one of the last, or at all events one of those 

 which are latest in attaining strict philosophical 

 accuracy." 



But here comes the rub. If the inductive 

 method, by which we ascertain the connection of 

 cause and effect, presuppose the general law of 

 causation, and this law of causation is one of the 

 latest results of inductive inquiry, how could we 

 ever begin? The experimental methods are of 

 no validity, until we have proved a most gener- 

 al, in fact a universal law, which can only be 

 proved by those methods. Logic, let it be always 

 remembered, is, according to Mill, the Science of 

 Proof; and, in such a matter as the methods of 

 inductive proof, we cannot be supposed to deal 

 with mere surmise. We have now got into this 

 position. The universal law of causation is rep- 

 resented by the world resting upon the elephant, 

 that is, upon inductive inquiry, and the four legs 

 of that quadruped may correspond to the four 

 pillars of Mill's edifice, the four celebrated Ex- 

 perimental Methods. But upon what do the ele- 

 phant's legs rest ? Upon the world— the world 

 which is already resting on the elephant's back. 



To leave the difficulty at this point, and to 

 imply that Mill was totally unconscious of the ap- 

 parent circulus in probando, would be to do him 

 injustice. This case is one of peculiar interest, 

 because it seems to be almost the only case in 

 which Mill was aware of the difficulty from the 

 first, and strove to explain it away. The expla- 

 nation occurs in the twenty-first chapter of the 

 third book, treating " Of the Evidence of the Law 

 1 Chapter iii, fourth paragraph. 



of Universal Causation." The substance of the 

 explanation is found even in the first edition ; 

 but Mill appeared to feel its inadequacy, and de- 

 veloped his argument in the third, and in some 

 subsequent editions. The result is a notable piece 

 of sophistical reasoning, 1 as follows : 



" As was observed in a former place (supra, Book 

 III., chapter iii., section 1), the belief we entertain 

 in the universality, throughout Nature, of the law 

 of cause and effect, is itself an instance of induc- 

 tion; and by no means one of the earliest which 

 any of us, or which mankind in general, can have 

 made. We arrive at this universal law, by general- 

 ization from many laws of inferior generality. We 

 should never have had the notion of causation (in 

 the philosophical meaning of the term) as a con- 

 dition of all phenomena, unless many cases of cau- 

 sation, or, in other words, many partial uniformi- 

 ties of sequence, had previously become familiar. 

 The more obvious of the particular uniformities 

 suggest, and give evidence of, the general uniform- 

 ity, and the general uniformity, once established, 

 enables us to prove the remainder of the particu- 

 lar uniformities of which it is made up. As, how- 

 ever, all rigorous processes of induction presup- 

 pose the general uniformity, our knowledge of the 

 particular uniformities from which it was first in- 

 ferred was not, of course, derived from rigorous 

 induction, but from the loose and uncertain mode 

 of induction per enumerationem simplicem ; and 

 the law of universal causation, being collected from 

 results so obtained, cannot itself rest on any better 

 foundation. 



" It would seem, therefore, that induction per 

 enumerationem simplicem not only is not necessa- 

 rily an illicit logical process, but is in reality the 

 only kind of induction possible ; since the more 

 elaborate process depends for its vitality on a law, 

 itself obtained in that inartificial mode. Is there 

 not, then, an inconsistency in contrasting the loose- 

 ness of one method with the rigidity of another, 

 when that other is indebted to the looser method 

 for its own foundation ? 



" The inconsistency, however, is only apparent. 

 Assuredly, if induction by simple enumeration 

 "were an invalid process, no process grounded on it 

 could be valid; just as no reliance could be placed 

 on telescopes, if we could not trust our eyes. But, 

 though a valid process, it is a fallible one, and fal- 

 lible in very different degrees : if, therefore, we 

 can substitute for the more fallible forms of the 

 process an operation grounded on the same pro- 

 cess in a less fallible form, we shall have effected 

 a very material improvement. And this is what 

 scientific induction does." 



Various reflections are suggested by this un- 

 fortunate passage. Mill here discovers that the 

 law of causation could not have been derived 

 1 Chapter xxi., section 2. 



