FALLACIES OF SIMPLE INSPECTION. 



499 



•' Again, we find the Greek philoso- 

 phers applying themselves to extract 

 their dogmas from the moj^t general 

 and abstract notions which they coulcl 

 detect : for example, from the con' 

 ception of the Universe as One or aa 

 Many things. They tried to deter- 

 mine how far we may, or must, com-, 

 bine with these conceptions that of a 

 whole, of parts, of number, of limits, 

 of place, of beginning or end, of full 

 or void, of rest, or motion, of cause 

 and effect, and the like. The ana- 

 lysis of such conceptions with such 

 a view occupies, for instance, almost 

 the whole of Aristotle's Treatise on 

 the Heavens. " 



The following paragraph merits par- 

 ticular attention : — " Another mode 

 of reasoning, very widely applied in 

 these attempts, was the doctrine of 

 contrarieties, in which it was assumed 

 that adjectives or substances which 

 are in common language, or in some 

 abstract mode of conception, opposed 

 to each other, must point at some 

 fundamental antithesis in nature, 

 which it is important to study. Thus 

 Aristotle says that the Pythagoreans, 

 from the contrasts which number 

 suggests, collected ten principles — 

 Limited and Unlimited. Odd and 

 Even, One and Many, Right and 

 Left, Male and Female, Rest and 

 Motion, Straight and Curved, Light 

 and Darkness, Good and Evil, Square 

 and Oblong. . . . Aristotle himself 

 deduced the doctrine of four elements 

 and other dogmas by oppositions of 

 the same kind." 



Of the manner in which, from pre- 

 mises obtained in this way, the ancients 

 attempted to deduce laws of nature, 

 an example is given in the same work 

 a few pages farther on. "Aristotle 

 decides that there is no void on such 

 arguments as this. In a void there 

 could be no difference of up and 

 down ; for as in nothing there are no 

 differences, so there are none in a 

 privation or negation; but a void is 

 merely a privation or negation of 

 matter ; therefore, in a void, bodies 

 could not move up and down, which 



it is in their nature to do. It is easily 

 seen " (Dr. Whewell very justly adds) 

 " that such a mode of reasoning ele- 

 vates the familiar forms of language 

 and the intellectual connections of 

 terms to a supremacy over facts, 

 making truth depend upon whether 

 terms are or are not privative, and 

 whether we say that bodies fall natU' 

 rally y 



The propensity to assume that the 

 same relations obtain between objects 

 themselves which obtain between our 

 ideas of them is here seen in the ex- 

 treme stage of its development. For 

 the mode of philosophising exempli- 

 fied in the foregoing instances assumes 

 no less than that the proper way of 

 arriving at knowledge of nature is to 

 study nature itself subjectively ; to 

 apply our observation and analysis 

 not to the facts, but to the common 

 notions entertained of the facts. 



Many other equally striking ex- 

 amples may be given of the tendency 

 to assume that things which for the 

 convenience of common life are placed 

 in different classes, must differ in 

 every respect. Of this nature was 

 the universal and deeply-rooted pre- 

 judice of antiquity and the Middle 

 Ages, that celestial and terrestrial 

 phenomena must be essentially dif- 

 ferent, and could in no manner or 

 degree depend on the same laws. Of 

 the same kind, also, was the prejudice 

 against which Bacon contended, that 

 nothing produced by nature could be 

 successfully imitated by man : " Cal- 

 orem solis et ignis toto genere differre ; 

 ne scilicet homines putent se per opera 

 ignis, aliquid simile iis quie in Na- 

 tura,fiunt, educere et formare posse : " 

 and again, " Compositionem tantum 

 opus Honiinis, Mistionem vero opus 

 solius Naturae esse : ne scilicet homi- 

 nes sperent aliquam ex arte Corporum 

 naturalium generationem aut trans- 

 formationem." * The grand distinc- 

 tion in the ancient scientific specu- 

 lations, between natural and violent 

 motions, though not without a plau- 



* Novum Organum, Aph. 75. 



