INTRODUCTION
THE Philosophy of Necessity is the "reason why" of Necessity. Necessity implies Law or a
constant and invariable order of events in the physical and also in the moral world. Reason is exercised
in the knowledge and calculation of this fixed order, and if in any department of Nature this order did
not reign, in that department there could be no exercise of reason. This is the "reason why" of
"Necessity."
"Man, the servant and interpreter of Nature, can only understand and act in proportion as he
observes or contemplates the order of Nature; more he can neither know nor do."
It is now extensively admitted that Lord Bacon has defined in the above fundamental principle of
the inductive Philosophy, the extent of the knowledge of which man is capable; what Nature has really
enabled him and what she has forbidden him to do. For want of a clear perception of the boundaries of
his mind, which Nature herself has fixed, man has in all ages dogmatized upon endless subjects, which
from the very constitution of his being, are beyond his reach; and has formed, and is continually
forming, theories upon points which lie beyond the range of his powers. Much speculation would be
saved, much pernicious error would be prevented, if we would always keep in view that it is the order
of Nature alone, whether as relating to matter or to mind, that we are capable of observing and
understanding; that we can know neither the beginning nor the end of things, but can only observe what
is. We can know in itself, neither the real nature of matter nor of mind, but only the order in which one
event follows another, or in which one sensation follows another. "To aspire to the knowledge of more
than phenomena,— their resemblances, co-existences, and successions,— is to aspire to transcend the
inexorable limits of human faculties. To know more, we must be more."
Doubtless it is difficult to believe that all Science must he resolved into the knowledge of
antecedence and consequence — of cause and effect — of the powers of nature; for the power of
producing a given effect, and the cause, or the invariable antecedent of such effect, are all synonymous
terms; yet such, if we strictly analyse our knowledge, will he found to be the case, and that nothing is
really known to us but this relation of things to each other and to ourselves. Thus one billiard ball
striking another, communicates motion to it; yet, simple as this may appear, we know not how or why
it does so. We say the striking is the cause of the motion; but we do not know why one body striking
another should communicate motion to it, especially as it might be proved that it does not touch it. All
we know is that the motion invariably follows what we call the striking. Again, heat converts water into
steam; the expansive force of steam acts upon the piston; and the piston, by the intervention of many
further antecedents, produces many further effects. Here again, all we know is that such causes, cœteris
paribus, will invariably produce the same effects; in other words, we know the relation of heat to water,
of water to steam, of steam to the piston, and of the piston to what it has to perform. This kind of
knowledge may be called certain or Positive, because it may be proved,— that is, made to take place
again in the given or recognized order. But it will be said that independently of the knowledge of the
order of nature, and of the relation of things to one another, we possess a knowledge of things as
individuals and also of their qualities. This, however, is only a knowledge of their relation to us. What
we call individual existences and their qualities is the effect such existences have upon the senses, and
the senses upon the brain; it is the first link in the chain of sequences.
Again, we know that due proportions of oxygen and hydrogen form water; that sulphur, nitre, and
charcoal, form gunpowder; and that a spark applied to the latter mixture causes an explosion. But we
know not how or why all this should take place; why a spark should have this relation to gunpowder, i.
e, why it should have this power, or be the cause, or invariable antecedent of its explosion. We know it
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as we can only know everything else, by experience, from having observed that such is the ORDER OF
NATURE. Now as regards our knowledge of the relation that this explosion bears to ourselves, it is
exactly of the same character, merely the knowledge of the sequence of events. The powder acts upon
the air and the air upon the tympanum, the tympanum upon the nerves and the nerves upon the brain,
and the action of the brain is the only antecedent we can trace before the sensation which apprises us of
the explosion. To say that the brain acts upon the mind is introducing a link in the chain for which, in
the present state of our knowledge, we have no warrant. Not that I would be understood to affirm that
the brain is the cause of the sensation; but the action of the brain is the invariable antecedent of
sensation, and we have no knowledge at present of anything between; to add a link to the chain of
causation is as unphilosophical as to leave one out. To make discoveries in science, therefore, is merely
to show what antecedents precede such and such consequents; what causes invariably produce such and
such effects; and by this knowledge we are enabled to adapt our relation to external things, or their
relation to us, so as to produce the effect we wish. Thus to know, with the vulgar, that the explosion
produces the sound, is only available knowledge to a certain extent; to learn that the gunpowder acts
upon the air is a discovery in science, and the various other links between are essential to certain
knowledge; for by an alteration in the air, the tympanum, the nerves, or the brain, a different effect
would be produced, i. e. the relation of the gunpowder to ourselves would be changed; or if a link were
yet undiscovered and left out we might infer that the same cause did not always produce the same
effect. Knowledge becomes certain in proportion as we discover the invariable antecedent to the
consequent; it is therefore less certain where Life is concerned than it is in Physics, and still less so
where sensation is added to Life. In the action of medicine upon the body it is seldom that the same
remedy will produce precisely the same effect in cases which appear to us to be similar; the reason of
which is that so little is at present understood of vitality that there may be many circumstances in each
case which we are unable to calculate upon, any one of which might be sufficient to produce the
different result. Knowledge is so much more uncertain when Sensation is added to Life that invariable
antecedence and consequence is here supposed to cease, the same necessary relation between cause and
effect not being held to exist in mind as in matter. But this is an error, arising from the circumstance
that the causes that produce mental phenomena are not always so perceptible as those that admit of
more direct experiment. There is exactly the same connexion between every action of the mind and its
cause as between things external to the mind; and not the slightest change takes place in the mind, nor
the most transient idea passes through it, but has its cause; which cause is always adequate in the same
circumstances, to produce the same effect; and it is only by such admission that we can infer the
existence of anything external to ourselves, or even the existence of what we call ourselves. It is of very
great importance that we should clearly see that the self of the conscious being is nothing but an object
of observation, known only as everything else is known, by the chain of necessary antecedents and
consequents. Thus all we can know of the mind of man is its successive changes which are best
observed in others — in their effects or consequences; mere reflection on consciousness has produced
all the errors of Metaphysics. We see at once what a wide field is cleared when we are obliged to admit
that we know nothing of matter in itself, or of mind in itself, for all the speculations based on the
essential difference in their nature at once fall to the ground, and materialist and immaterialist can no
longer be said to exist.
The object of all Science, therefore, is to show the relation of things to each other and to
ourselves so as to anticipate events. To this it is limited. "All that we know is, nothing can be known,"
is true in one sense, for we know nothing of the essential nature of anything or of how any one cause
produces its effect. One thing invariably precedes another, and we say that it has the power to produce
it; but what this power is, or what makes the connexion, or whether the relation will always exist or has
only been established for a time, we do not know, neither is it necessary, as far as we can see, that we
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INTRODUCTION
should know, for the knowledge of the order of nature is all that is requisite for the proper exercise of
reason, and for the perfection of our happiness. Let us not then feel ourselves degraded by the idea that
the most diligent research has done no more, and can do no more than trace the relation of things here,
and discover but a part of the order of nature: and since our inquiries can but end in the discovery of
the relations of things as discernible by our present faculties, let us cease from all those fruitless
attempts to attain to knowledge upon subjects beyond the comprehension of beings in our scale of
intelligence, which have hitherto so retarded the Science of Mind, and prevented the happiness of man
from hearing any proportion to the means of happiness afforded him. Locke says, "We shall not have
much reason to complain of the narrowness of our minds, if we will but employ them about what may
be of use to us, for of that they are very capable; and it will be an unpardonable as well as childish
peevishness, if we undervalue the advantages of our knowledge, and neglect to improve it to the ends
for which it was given, because there are some things set out of reach of it." Bacon says "the real cause
and root of almost all the evils in science is this:— that falsely magnifying and extolling the powers of
the mind, we seek not its true helps."
My object in the present treatise is to pursue this inductive method of inquiry in investigating the
nature of man; his place in creation; the character of his mind; and particularly to trace to its legitimate
consequences the doctrine of philosophical necessity, which the connexion between cause and effect
implies. I would show that the mind of man is not an exception to nature's other works; that like
everything else it has received, a determinate character; that all our knowledge of it is precisely of the
same kind as that of material things, and consists in the observation of its order of action, or of the
relation of cause and effect. This is a truth which, although acknowledged by many writers, has never
yet been made of sufficient importance in the science of Mental and Moral Philosophy. It has either
been considered as a mere abstraction of no practical use, or else avoided and stifled as leading to
fatalism, and otherwise dangerous in its tendency. But I hope to be able to show, on the contrary, that
upon this truth alone,— however it may be said to militate against man's free-will or accountability, in
some acceptation of the terms,— our Educational and Political systems can be properly based, in
accordance with the nature of the being to be educated and governed. If in setting a steam engine to
work the engineer were to leave much to its free will, the work would be but badly performed. So as
relates to man, if in our educational systems the causes are inadequate to the intellectual and moral
results we desire, his free will will not supply the deficiency.
That the same certain and calculable laws exist in the departments of Life and Mind as in Physics
is daily being made evident by Statistics. Uncertainty may exist in individual cases, or in a limited field
of observation, but it is proved that in a larger field, in a given number of cases, invariable results may
always be looked for. Thus, in a recent Report of the Registrar-General on the population of England,
he shows the "law" to be that one person out of every 45 living at the commencement of any year will
die within that year. The departure from this law is very trifling, and the most valuable applications of
it are already made by Life Insurance Companies and others who base their calculations upon the
absolute certainty of its invariability. In the 12th Annual Report of the Registrar-General we are
informed "it may be broadly stated that 27 in 1,000 men of the population, of the age of 20 and under
60, are suffering from one kind of disease or other; that several of the diseases are of long duration, that
others are recurrent, and that some are hereditary." But Statistics now show that a similar uniformity is
found to prevail where mind is concerned as in matter. M. Quetelet has furnished tables relative to
crime in France, by which he shows that "law" is equally certain and calculable with respect to crime as
to deaths. The same effects have followed similar inquiries in this country. M. Quetelet says "the
possibility of assigning beforehand the number of the accused and condemned which should occur in a
country, is calculated to lead to serious reflections, since it involves the fate of several thousands of
human beings, who are impelled, as it were, by an irresistible necessity, to the bar of the tribunal, and
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towards the sentences of condemnation that there await them. These conclusions flow directly from the
principle, already so often stated in this work, that effects are in proportion to their causes, and that the
effects remain the same, if the causes which have produced them do not vary."
Year by year the same number of persons commit suicide, varying a little with varying
circumstances. In London about 240 persons every year make away with themselves, while in 1846, the
year of railway panic, 266 committed suicide. The number of marriages are not regulated as is
ordinarily supposed by Love, but by the price of corn, dial is, by the cheapness of provisions and by the
rate of wages.
To show the influence of numbers in reducing apparently inextricable uncertainty to
mathematical certainty, we will take as an illustration the hairs on our head. It might be supposed that
the hairs on no two persons heads were exactly the same in number, but if we presume that the greatest
number of hairs on any one person's head is 250 thousand, then all persons above that number must
agree in the number of their hairs with one of the 250 thousand, and in a million there must necessarily
be four alike. Varied as is human character and disposition,— as the hairs of our head, yet in the broad
features there is considerable agreement; and, supposing the variety to be expressed by 1,000 or
10,000, then there would be ten persons in every 10,000 or 100,000 who would, in similar
circumstances, act exactly alike.
"Everything throughout creation," says one of the most beautiful and philosophical writers of the
present day, "is governed by law: but over most of the tracts that come within the active experience of
mankind, the governing hand is so secret and remote that until very large numerical masses are brought
under the eye at once, the controlling power is not detected. To an appreciating mind there is something
attractively beautiful in the delicacy with which laws of unswerving regularity and resistless force are
withdrawn from view, masked behind an apparently inexhaustible variety, an independence and
spontaneity of action, and a playfulness of 'accident,' seemingly without control or bounds. It is
impossible too much to admire this indulgent feature of creative and administrative power, which
permits thus its graciousness to be lost to general sight in the success of the very illusion employed.
The whole vocabulary of those who talk of 'chance' and 'luck,' attests the matchless lightness and
elasticity of gait which disguise the majestic onward tread and movement of natural law. Statistics are
the touchstone under which the illusion at once vanishes. Like some potent chemical test it 'precipitates'
at once, and exposes to view the latent law so skilfully held in solution." It is in this wide space that
man finds room for an almost infinitely varied field of action for what he calls his freedom of will, and
which is the source of an infinitely varied series of sensations, productive of much more happiness than
were his actions apparently more "fixed in fate." But of course unless what is called "free-will" were
ultimately governed by law as everything else is, man's actions could never be calculated, and a "Social
Science," or a science of human nature, would be an impossibility. But "forgetfulness as well as freewill
is under constant laws,'' for a late return, made by the Post-Offices of London and Paris, shows that
we can calculate, that is, exactly foretell, the number of persons who will forget every year to address
their letters.
"To those who have a steady conception of the regularity of events, says Buckle, and have firmly
seized the great truth that the actions of men, being guided by their antecedents, are in reality never
inconsistent, but however capricious they may appear, only form one vast scheme of universal order, of
which we in the present state of knowledge can barely see the outline,— to those who understand this
which is at once the key and the basis of history, the facts just adduced, so far from being strange, will
be precisely what would have been expected, and ought long since to have been known. Indeed the
progress of inquiry is becoming so rapid and so earnest, that I entertain little doubt that before another
century has elapsed, the chain of evidence will be complete, and it will be as rare to find an historian
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INTRODUCTION
who denies the undeviating regularity of the moral world, as it now is to find a philosopher who denies
the regularity of the material world."
Bolingbroke observes that "Mankind, bred to think as well as speak by rote, furnish their minds
as they furnish their houses or clothe their bodies, with the fancies of other men, and according to the
mode of the age and country. They pick up their ideas and notions in common conversation or in the
schools. The first are always superficial, and both are commonly false." Holding fast then to the
principle of the inductive philosophy, and regardless of mere opinion, however prevalent, I shall
proceed to the elucidation of the doctrine of Philosophical Necessity and its Applications, to the
consideration of the Constitution of Man, and its relation to all that surrounds him.
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