[22] Published many years since in America, this statement was republished in England eight years since. See Athenæum for July 22nd, 1882.
ON LAWS IN GENERAL, AND THE ORDER OF THEIR DISCOVERY.
[The following was contained in the first edition of First Principles. I omitted it from the re-organized second edition, because it did not form an essential part of the new structure. As it is referred to in the foregoing pages, and as its general argument is germane to the contents of those pages, I have thought well to insert it here. Moreover, though I hope eventually to incorporate it in that division of the Principles of Sociology which treats of Intellectual Progress, yet as it must be long before it can thus re-appear in its permanent place, and as, should I not get so far in the execution of my undertaking, it may never thus re-appear at all, it seems proper to make it more accessible than it is at present. The first and last sections, which served to link it into the argument of the work to which it originally belonged, are omitted. The rest has been carefully revised, and in some parts considerably altered.]
The recognition of Law being the recognition of uniformity of relations among phenomena, it follows that the order in which different groups of phenomena are reduced to law, must depend on the frequency with which the uniform relations they severally display are distinctly experienced. At any given stage of progress, those {146} uniformities will be best known with which men’s minds have been oftenest and most strongly impressed. In proportion partly to the number of times a relation has been presented to consciousness (not merely to the senses), and in proportion partly to the vividness with which the terms of the relation have been cognized, will be the degree in which the constancy of connexion is perceived.
The succession in which relations are generalized being thus determined, there result certain derivative principles to which this succession must more immediately and obviously conform. The first is the directness with which personal welfare is affected. While, among surrounding things, many do not appreciably influence us in any way, some produce pleasures and some pains, in various degrees; and manifestly, those things of which the actions on the organism for good or evil are most decided, will, cæteris paribus, be those of which the laws of action are earliest observed. Second comes the conspicuousness of one or both phenomena between which a relation is to be perceived. On every side are phenomena so concealed as to be detected only by close observation; others not obtrusive enough to attract notice; others which moderately solicit the attention; others so imposing or vivid as to force themselves on consciousness; and, supposing conditions to be the same, these last will of course be among the first to have their relations generalized. In the third place, we have the absolute frequency with which the relations occur. There are coexistences and sequences of all degrees of commonness, from those which are ever present to those which are extremely rare; and manifestly, the rare coexistences and sequences, as well as the sequences which are very long in taking place, will not be reduced to law so soon as those which are familiar and rapid. Fourthly has to be added the relative frequency of occurrence. Many events and appearances are limited to certain times or certain places, or both; {147} and, as a relation which does not exist within the environment of an observer cannot be perceived by him, however common it may be elsewhere or in another age, we have to take account of the surrounding physical circumstances, as well as of the state of society, of the arts, and of the sciences—all of which affect the frequency with which certain groups of facts are observable. The fifth corollary to be noticed is, that the succession in which different classes of relations are reduced to law, depends in part on their simplicity. Phenomena presenting great composition of causes or conditions, have their essential relations so masked, that it requires accumulated experiences to impress upon consciousness the true connexions of antecedents and consequents they involve. Hence, other things equal, the progress of generalization will be from the simple to the complex; and this it is which M. Comte has wrongly asserted to be the sole regulative principle of the progress. Sixth comes the degree of concreteness, or absence of abstractness. Concrete relations are the earliest acquisitions. Such analyses of them as separate the essential connexions from their disguising accompaniments, necessarily come later. The analyses of the connexions, always more or less compound, into their elements then becomes possible. And so on continually, until the highest and most abstract truths have been reached.
These, then, are the several derivative principles. The frequency and vividness with which uniform relations are repeated in conscious experience, determining the recognition of their uniformity, and this frequency and vividness depending on the above conditions, it follows that the order in which different classes of facts are generalized, must depend on the extent to which the above conditions are fulfilled in each class. Let us mark how the facts harmonize with this conclusion: taking first a few that elucidate the general truth, and afterwards some that {148} exemplify the special truths which we here see follow from it.
The relations earliest known as uniformities, are those subsisting among the common properties of matter—tangibility, visibility, cohesion, weight, etc. We have no trace of a time when the resistance offered by an object was regarded as caused by the will of the object; or when the pressure of a body on the hand holding it, was ascribed to the agency of a living being. And accordingly, these are the relations of which we are oftenest conscious: being, as they are, objectively frequent, conspicuous, simple, concrete, and of immediate personal concern.
Similarly with the ordinary phenomena of motion. The fall of a mass on the withdrawal of its support, is a sequence which directly affects bodily welfare, is conspicuous, simple, concrete, and very often repeated. Hence it is one of the uniformities recognized before the dawn of tradition. We know of no era when ordinary movements due to terrestrial gravitation were attributed to volition. Only when the relation is obscured, as where the withdrawal of a support is not obvious, or, as in the case of an aërolite, where the antecedent of the descent is unperceived, do we find the conception of personal agency. On the other hand, motions of intrinsically the same order as that of a falling stone—those of the heavenly bodies—long remain ungeneralized; and until their uniformity is seen, and indeed for a long time after, are construed as results of will. This difference is clearly not dependent on comparative complexity or abstractness, since the motion of a planet in an ellipse of slight eccentricity, is as simple and concrete a phenomenon as the motion of a projected arrow in an ellipse of extreme eccentricity indistinguishable from a parabola. But the antecedents are not conspicuous; the sequences are of long duration; and they are not often repeated. And that these are the causes of their slow {149} reduction to law, we see in the fact that they are severally generalized in the order of their frequency and conspicuousness—the moon’s monthly cycle, the sun’s annual change, the periods of the inferior planets, the periods of the superior planets.
While astronomical sequences were still ascribed to volition, certain terrestrial sequences of a different kind, but some of them equally without complication, were interpreted in like manner. The solidification of water at a low temperature, is a phenomenon that is simple, concrete, and of much personal concern. But it is neither so frequent as those which we see are earliest generalized, nor is the presence of the antecedent so manifest. Though in all but tropical climates, mid-winter displays the relation between cold and freezing with tolerable constancy; yet, during the spring and autumn, the occasional appearance of ice in the mornings has no very obvious connexion with coldness of the weather. Sensation being so inaccurate a measure, it is not possible for the savage to experience the definite relation between a temperature of 32° and the congealing of water; and hence the long continued belief in personal agency. Similarly, but still more clearly, with the winds. The absence of regularity and the inconspicuousness of the antecedents, allowed the mythological explanation to survive for a great period.
During the era in which the uniformity of many quite simple inorganic relations was still unrecognized, certain organic relations, intrinsically very complex and special, were generalized. The constant coexistence of feathers and a beak, of four legs with an internal bony framework, are facts which were, and are, familiar to every savage. Did a savage find a bird with teeth, or a mammal clothed with feathers, he would be as much surprised as an instructed naturalist. Now these uniformities of organic structure thus early perceived, are of exactly the same kind as those more numerous ones later established by biology. The constant {150} coexistence of mammary glands with two occipital condyles to the skull, of vertebræ with teeth lodged in sockets, of frontal horns with the habit of rumination, are generalizations as purely empirical as those known to the aboriginal hunter. The botanist cannot in the least understand the complex relation between papilionaceous flowers and seeds borne in flattened pods: he knows these and like connexions simply in the same way that the barbarian knows the connexions between particular leaves and particular kinds of wood. But the fact that sundry of the uniform relations which chiefly make up the organic sciences, were very early recognized, is due to the high degrees of vividness and frequency with which they were presented to consciousness. Though the connexion between the sounds characteristic of a certain bird, and the possession of edible flesh, is extremely involved, yet the two terms of the relation are conspicuous, often recur in experience, and a knowledge of their connexion has a direct bearing on personal welfare. Meanwhile innumerable relations of the same order, which are displayed with even greater frequency by surrounding plants and animals, remain for thousands of years unrecognized, if they are unobtrusive or of no apparent moment.