3x8 



INDUCTION. 



sibly even more so, since Newton's 

 law, after all, was but an extension of 

 the law of weight— that is, of a gene- 

 ralisation familiar from of old, and 

 which already comprehended a not 

 inconsiderable body of natural pheno- 

 mena. The general laws of a similarly 

 commanding character, which we still 

 look forward to the discovery of, may 

 not always find so much of their foun- 

 dations already laid. 



These general truths will doubtless 

 make thei? first appearance in the 

 character or hypotheses ; not proved, 

 nor even admitting of proof, in the 

 first instance, but assumed as premises 

 for the purpose of deducing from them 

 the known laws of concrete pheno- 

 mena. But this, though their initial, 

 cannot be their final state. To entitle 

 an hypothesis to be received as one of 

 the truths of nature, and not as a 

 mere technical help to the human 

 faculties, it must be capable of being 

 tested by the canons of legitimate 

 induction, and must actually have 

 been submitted to that test. When 

 this shall have been done, and done 

 successfully, premises will have been 

 obtained from which all the other 

 propositions of the science will thence- 

 forth be presented as conclusions, and 

 the science will, by means of a new 

 and unexpected Induction, be rendered 

 Deductive. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



OF THE LIMITS TO THE EXPLANATION 

 OP LAWS OP NATURE, AND OP HYPO- 



§ I. The preceding considerations 

 have led us to recognise a distinction 

 between two kinds of laws or observed 

 uniformities in nature — ultimate laws 

 and what may be termed derivative 

 laws. Derivative laws are such as 

 are deducible from, and may, in any 

 of the modes which we have pointed 

 out, be resolved into other and more 

 general ones. Ultimate laws are those 

 which cannot. We are not sure that 

 any of the uniformities with which 



we are yet acquainted are ultimate 

 laws ; but we know that there must 

 be ultimate laws, and that every 

 resolution of a derivative law into 

 more general laws brings us nearer 

 to them. 



Since we are continually discover- 

 ing that uniformities, not previously 

 known to be other than ultimate, are 

 derivative and resolvable into more 

 general laws — since (in other words) 

 we are continually discovering the 

 explanation of sOme sequence which 

 was previously known only as a fact — 

 it becomes an interesting question 

 whether there ,are any necessary 

 limits to this philosophical operation, 

 or whether it may proceed until all 

 the uniform sequences in nature are 

 resolved into some one universal law. 

 For this seems at first sight to be 

 the ultimatum towards which the 

 progress of induction, by the Deduc- 

 tive Method resting on a basis o£ 

 observation and experiment, is tend- 

 ing. Projects of this kind were uni- 

 versal in the infancy of philosophy, 

 any speculations which held out a 

 less brilliant prospect being in those 

 early times deemed not worth pursu- 

 ing. And the idea receives so much 

 apparent countenance from the nature 

 of the most remarkable achievements 

 of modern science, that speculators 

 are even now frequently appearing 

 who profess either to have solved the 

 problem or to suggest modes in which 

 it may one day be solved. Even 

 where pretensions of this magnitude 

 are not made, the character of the 

 solutions which are given or sought 

 of particular classes of phenomena 

 often involves such conceptions of 

 what constitutes explanation as would 

 render the notion of explaining all 

 phenomena whatever by means of 

 some on ecause or law, perfectly ad- 

 missible. 



§ 2. It is therefore useful to remark 

 that the ultimate Laws of Nature can- 

 not possibly be less numerous than 

 the distinguishable sensations or other 

 feelings of our nature — those, I mean, 



