A merely factual account of a series of events is not science, and never could be.
Dewey now turns to the ethical field, with the purpose of showing that the historical method in ethics does for this science precisely what the experimental method does for other sciences. "History offers to us the only available substitute for the isolation and for the cumulative recombination of experiment. The early periods present us in their relative crudeness and simplicity with a substitute for the artificial operation of an experiment: following the phenomenon into the more complicated and refined form which it assumes later, is a substitute for the synthesis of the experiment."[154] Hydrogen and oxygen are the historical antecedents of water, whose synthesis the scientist observes, and so the more primitive forms of conduct are the elements which the moralist traces in their process of becoming fused into the present social fabric. Primitive social practices cannot be artificially isolated, like the physical elements, but they can be traced to their historical origins, and their interweaving towards present complex conditions can be observed.
The historical method is subject to two misunderstandings, Dewey says, one by the empiricists and materialists, the other by the idealists. The former, having isolated the primitive facts, suppose them to have a superior logical and existential value. "The earlier is regarded as somehow more 'real' than the later, or as furnishing the quality in terms of which the reality of all the later must be stated."[155] The later is looked upon as simply a recombination of the earlier existences. "Writers who ought to know better tell us that if we only had an adequate knowledge of the 'primitive' state of the world, if we only had some general formula by which to circumscribe it, we could deduce down to its last detail the entire existing constitution of the world, life, and society."[156] The primitive elements, however, take on new qualities on entering into new combinations. Water is more than hydrogen and oxygen. There is a similar process intervening between the earlier and the later in the moral field, of which the primitive state and the present are merely end terms. Actual study must take account of the whole process.
The idealistic fallacy is of the opposite nature. It takes the final term of the process to be exclusively real. "The later reality is, therefore, to him the persistent reality in contrast with which the first forms are, if not illusions, at least poor excuses for being.... It is enough for present purposes to note that we have here simply a particular case of the general fallacy just discussed—the emphasis of a particular term of the series at the expense of the process operative in reference to all terms."[157] The true reality is the whole process, which is represented in empiricism only by the primitive terms, and in idealism only by the end terms. Only a historical method can deal with it in its entirety.
In summing up the advantages of the historical method, Dewey says that it gives a complete account of the origin and development of ethical ideas, opinions, beliefs, and practices. "It is concerned with the origin and development of these customs and ideas; and with the question of their mode of operation after they have arisen. The described facts—yes; but among the facts described is precisely certain conditions under which various norms, ideals, and rules of action have originated and functioned."[158] Dewey finds it irritating that the facts thus singled out should be treated as mere facts, apart from their significance. The historical method employs description, to be sure, but it also aims at interpretation. "The historic method is a method, first, for determining how specific moral values (whether in the way of customs, expectations, conceived ends, or rules) came to be; and second, for determining their significance as indicated in their career."[159]
It is true, as Dewey holds, that the historical method may furnish a basis for interpretation, as well as description. But the mere scrutiny of what has happened will not reveal the elements, nor determine their significance. The historian must approach his material with something more than his eyes. But there are many historical methods. Which shall be used in dealing with the development of morals?[160] Chemistry, for instance, in interpreting the fusion of hydrogen and oxygen into water, employs a system of atoms related to each other in a mathematical order, and something similarly definite must underlie the study of morals. The historical method, in general, needs no defence, but since it takes many forms, great care must be exercised in its application. Dewey seems to ignore these difficulties.
Dewey's argument now leads him to a comparison of the evolutionary methods with the intuitional and empirical methods in ethics. In making the comparison, he does not propose to raise the question of fact concerning the existence of intuitions. The question to be confronted is rather a logical one, concerning the validity of beliefs. "Under what conditions alone, and in what measure or degree, are we justified in arguing from the existence of moral intuitions as mental states and acts to facts taken to correspond to them?"[161]
The answer is that the existence of a belief argues nothing as to its validity. The intuitionist takes his belief as a brute fact, unrelated to objective conditions. The 'inexpugnable' character of the belief cannot establish its validity, because the life of a single individual occupies but a brief span in the continuity of the social life in which the belief is embedded. Beliefs last for generations, and then very often disappear. "What guarantee have we that our present 'intuitions' have more validity than hundreds of past ideas that have shown themselves by passing away to be empty opinion or indurated prejudice?"[162] Intuitionism has no way of guaranteeing its beliefs.
The evolutionary method, on the other hand, is able to determine the validity of beliefs. "The worth of the intuition depends upon genetic considerations. In so far as we can state the intuition in terms of the conditions of its origin, development, and later career, in so far we have some criterion for passing judgment upon its pretensions to validity.... But if we cannot find such historic origin and functioning, the intuition remains a mere state of consciousness, a hallucination, an illusion, which is not made more worthy by simply multiplying the number of people who have participated in it."[163] Certain savage races, for instance, possessed moral intuitions which made the practice of infanticide an obligation. But the fact that it was universally held does not establish its validity. It must be condemned or justified by the results to which it led.
Dewey's criticism of intuitionism scarcely does justice to that method, whatever may be its inherent weakness. There doubtless have been thinkers who held that truth is revealed to the reason of man in its naked purity, in the shape of apodictic intellectual principles. But even in the case of so extreme a position as that of Kant, there are important qualifying considerations to be taken into account. There is no reason to suppose that moral judgment, as Kant conceived it, was excluded from the consideration of relevant data, such as the knowledge of actual effects produced by given courses of conduct. His position seems to have been, not that moral judgment lacked specific content, but that reason took something with it to the moral situation. The intuitionists may have over-estimated the original endowment of the mind, but it must be admitted with them that the mind which approaches the moral situation empty of concepts cannot make moral decisions. If man is to hold no beliefs except those proved valid by experience, how can there be any to validate? Intelligence must have the capacity to frame beliefs in the light of its past knowledge, and its acts of judgment, consequently, presuppose a test of the validity of ideas which belongs to intelligence as such, and not to history taken abstractly. Beliefs are adapted to their objects in the making, and on this account are usually found to have had some justification, even where set aside. 'A principle that is suitable for universal legislation already presupposes a content.'