240 



INDUCTION. 



make out the meaning of Anaximenes, he 

 made choice of Air as the universal agent, 

 on the ground that it is perpetually in 

 motion, without any apparent cause ex- 

 ternal to itself : so that he conceived it as 

 exercising spontaneous force, and as the 

 principle of life and activity in all things, 

 men and gods inclusive. If this be not 

 representing it as the Eflficient Cause, the 

 dispute altogether has no meaning. 



If either Anaximenes, or Thales, or any 

 of their cotemporaries, had held the doc- 

 trine that j'oOs was the Efl&cient Cause, 

 that doctrine could not have been reputed, 

 as it was throughout antiquity, to have 

 originated with Anaxagoras. The testi- 

 mony of Aristotle, in the first book of his 

 Metaphysics, is perfectly decisive with 

 respect to these early speculations. After 

 enumerating four kinds of causes, or rather 

 four different meanings of the word Cause, 

 viz. the Essence of a thing, the Matter of 

 it, the Origin of Motion (Efficient Cause), 

 and the End or Final Cause, he proceeds 

 to say, that most of the early philosophers 

 recognised onlv the second kind of Cause, 

 the Matter of a thing, tos ev vAijs elSei 

 fxova^ (iriOi}crav dp^a; elvai TravruiV. As his 

 first example he specifies Thales, whom he 

 describes as taking the lead in this view 

 of the subject, 6 rff; TOtauTrj? dpxrjyo? <^tAo- 

 <ro(/)ias, and goes on to Hippon, Anaxi- 

 menes, Diogenes (of ApioUonia), Hippasus 

 of Metapontum, Heraclitus, and Empe- 

 docles. Anaxagoras, however, (he proceeds 

 to say,) taught a different doctrine, as we 

 know, and it is alleged that Hermotimus of 

 Clazomense taught it before him. Anaxa- 

 goras represented that even if these various 

 theories of the universal material were 

 true, there would be need of some other 

 cause to account for the transformations 

 of the material, since the material cannot 

 originate its own changes : ov yap 5tj to ye 

 viTOKeifxevo¥ avrb noiel ixerapdWeiv eavTO" 

 keyui S" olov oure to ^vKov ovre o xa^KOs aiTio? 

 ToO ixerapdWeiv eKarepov avTuJv, ovSe noiel 

 TO nev $v\ov kKLvtiv o 8e xaA*cbs avhptavTa, 

 oAA' eVepoj' ti ttjs jueTa/3o\rjs oLtiov, viz. 

 the other kind of cause, oOev i) apxri t^s 

 Kiv^o-ews — an Efl&cient Cause. Aristotle 

 expresses great approbation of this doc- 

 trine, (which he says made its author appear 

 the only sober man among persons raving, 

 olov vrjffxtiP e<t>dvr) irap elitri XeyovTa? tovs 

 wpoTepov ;) but while describing the influ- 

 ence which it exercised over subsequent 

 speculation, he remarks that the philo- 

 sophers against whom this, as he thinks, 

 insuperable difficulty was urged, had not 

 felt it to be any diflBculty : ov8ev eSv<rxe- 

 pdvav ev eavTois. It is surely unnecessaiy 

 to say more in proof of the matter of fact 

 which Dr. Tulloch and his reviewer dis- 

 believe. 



Having pointed out what he thinks the 

 error of these early speculators in not re- 

 cognising the need of an eflScient cause, 

 ^ristotle goes on to mention two ocher 



efficient causes to which they might have 

 had recourse, instead of intelligence : Tvx*?f 

 chance, and to avr tiaTov, spontaneity. He 

 indeed puts these aside as not sufficiently 

 vvorthy causes for the order in the universe, 

 ou6' ay to> avTop-drot Kal Tfj tvx*? TOaouToi' 

 intTp€\pai, npayfia koAm? elxev ; but he does 

 not reject them as incapable of producing 

 ani/ effect, but only as incapable of pro- 

 ducing that effect. He himself recognises 

 Tvxr) and t6 auToju-dToi/ as co-ordinate agents 

 with Mind in producing the phenomena of 

 the universe ; the department allotted to 

 them being composed of all the classes of 

 phenomena which are not supposed to fol- 

 low any uniform law. By thus including 

 Chance among efficient causes, Aristotle 

 fell into an error which philosophy has 

 now outgrown, but which is by no means 

 so alien to the spirit even of modern specu- 

 lation as it may at first sight appear. Up to 

 quite a recent period philosophers went on 

 ascribing, and many of them have not yet 

 ceased to ascribe, a real existence to the 

 results of abstraction. Chance could make 

 out as good a title to that dignity as many 

 other of the mind's abstract creations : it 

 had had a name given to it, and why should 

 it not be a reality? As for Tb avTOfidrov, 

 it is recognised even yet as one of the 

 modes of origination of phenomena, by all 

 those thinkers who maintain what is called 

 the Freedom of the Will. The same self- 

 determining power which that doctrine 

 attributes to volitions was supposed by 

 the ancients to be possessed also by some 

 other natural phenomena : a circumstance 

 which throws considerable light on more 

 than one of the supposed invincible neces- 

 sities of belief. I have introduced it here 

 because this belief of Aristotle, or rather 

 of the Greek philosophers generally, is as 

 fatal as the doctrines of Thales and the 

 Ionic school to the theory that the human 

 mind is compelled by its constitution to 

 conceive volition as the origin of all force, 

 and the efficient cause of all phenomena.* 



* It deserves notice that the parts of 

 nature which Aristotle regards as present- 

 ing evidence of design are the Uniformi- 

 ties : the phenomena in so far as reducible 

 to law. Tuxi? and to avTO/uiaToi' satisfy him 

 as explanations of the variable element in 

 phenomena, but their occurring according 

 to a fixed rule can only, to his conceptions, 

 be accounted for by an Intelligent Will. 

 The common, or what may be called the 

 instinctive, religious interpretation of na- 

 ture, is the reverse of this. The events in 

 which men spontaneously see the hand of 

 a supernatural being are those which can- 

 not, as they think, be reduced to a physical 

 law. What they can distinctly connect 

 with physical causes, and especially what, 

 they can predict, though of course ascribed 

 to an Author of Nature if tliey already 

 recognise such an author, might be con- 

 ceived,, they think, to arise from ^ blin^ 



