236 



INDUCTION. 



own state of mind. " Their stum- 

 bling-block was one as to the nature 

 of the evidence they had to expect 

 for their conviction. . . . They had 

 not seized the idea that they must 

 not expect to understand the processes 

 of outward causes, but only their 

 results : and consequently, the whole 

 physical philosophy of the Greeks was 

 an attempt to identify mentally the 

 effect with its cause, to feel after some 

 not only necessary but natural con- 

 nection, where they meant by natural 

 that which would per se carry some 

 presumption to their own mind. . . . 

 They wanted to see some reason why 

 the physical antecedent should pro- 

 duce this particular consequent, and 

 their only attempts were in directions 

 where they could find such reasons." * 

 In other words, they were not content 

 merely to know that one phenomenon 

 was always followed by another ; they 

 thought that they had not attained 

 the true aim of science unless they 

 could perceive something in the nature 

 of the one phenomenon from which it 

 might have been known or presumed 

 previous to trial that it would be 

 followed by the other ; just what the 

 writer, who has so clearly pointed out 

 their error, thinks that he perceives 

 in the nature of the phenomenon 

 Volition. And to complete the state- 

 ment of the case, he should have 

 added that these early speculators 

 not only made this their aim, but 

 were quite satisfied with their success 

 in it ; not only sought for causes 

 which should carry in their mere 

 statement evidence of their efficiency, 

 but fully believed that they had found 

 such causes. The reviewer can see 

 plainly that this was an error, because 

 Tie does not believe that there exist 

 any relations between material phe- 

 nomena which can account for their 

 producing one another ; but the very 

 fact of the persistency of the Greeks 

 in this error shows that their minds 

 were in a very different state : they 

 were able to derive from the assimi- 



* Prospective Revieie for February 1850. 



lation of physical facts to other 

 physical facts the kind of mental 

 satisfaction which we connect with 

 the word explanation, and which the 

 reviewer would have us think can 

 only be found in referring phenomena 

 to a will. When Thales and Hippo 

 held that moisture was the universal 

 cause and external element of which 

 all other things were but the infinitely 

 various sensible manifestations ; when 

 Anaximenes predicted the same thing 

 of air, Pythagoras of numbers, and 

 the like, they all thought that they 

 had found a real explanation, and 

 were content to rest in this explana- 

 tion as ultimate. The ordinary se- 

 quences of the external universe 

 appeared to them, no less than to 

 their critic, to be inconceivable with- 

 out the supposition of some universal 

 agency to connect the antecedents 

 with the consequents ; but they did 

 not think that Volition, exerted by 

 minds, was the only agency which 

 fulfilled this requirement. Moisture, 

 or air, or numbers, carried to their 

 minds a precisely similar impression 

 of making intelligible what was other- 

 wise inconceivable, and gave the same 

 full satisfaction to the demands of 

 their conceptive faculty. 



It was not the Greeks alone who 

 ** wanted to see some reason why the 

 physical antecedent should produce 

 this particular consequent," some con- 

 nection "which would per se carry 

 some presumption to their own mind." 

 Among modem philosophers, Leibnitz 

 laid it down as a self-evident principle 

 that all physical causes without excep- 

 tion must contain in their own nature 

 something which makes it intelligible 

 that they should be able to produce 

 the effects which they do produce. 

 Far from admitting Volition as the 

 only kind of cause which carried inter- 

 nal evidence of its own power, and as 

 the real bond of connection between 

 physical antecedents and their conse- 

 quents, he demanded some naturally 

 and per se efficient physical antece- 

 dent as the bond of connection be- 

 tween Volition itself and its effects. 



