§ 39. And now to observe the bearings of these truths on our general argument. Having roughly analyzed the progress of the past, let us take advantage of the light thus thrown on the present, and consider what is implied respecting the future.
Note first that the likelihood of the universality of Law, has been ever growing greater. Out of the countless coexistences and sequences with which mankind are environed, they have been continually transferring some from the group whose order was supposed to be arbitrary, to the group whose order is known to be uniform. Age by age, the number of recognized connexions of phenomena has been increasing; and that of unrecognized connexions decreasing. And manifestly, as fast as the class of ungeneralized relations becomes smaller, the probability that among them there may be some that do not conform to law, becomes less. To put the argument numerically—It is clear that when out of surrounding phenomena a hundred of several kinds have been found to occur in constant connexions, there arises a slight presumption that all phenomena occur in constant connexions. When uniformity has been established in a thousand cases, more varied in their kinds, the presumption gains strength. And when the established cases of uniformity mount to myriads, including many of each variety, it becomes an ordinary induction that uniformity exists everywhere. Just as from the numerous observed cases in which heavenly bodies have been found to move in harmony with the law of gravitation, it is inferred that all heavenly bodies move in harmony with the law of gravitation; so, from the innumerable observed cases in which phenomena are found to stand in invariable connexions, it is inferred that in all cases phenomena stand in invariable connexions.
Silently and insensibly their experiences have been pressing men on towards the conclusion thus drawn. Not out of a conscious regard for these abstract reasons, but from a habit of thought which these abstract reasons formulate and justify, all minds have been advancing towards a belief in the constancy of surrounding coexistences and sequences. Familiarity with special uniformities, has generated the abstract conception of uniformity—the idea of Law; and this idea has been in successive generations slowly gaining fixity and clearness. Especially has it been thus among those whose knowledge of natural phenomena is the most extensive—men of science. The Mathematician, the Physicist, the Astronomer, the Chemist, severally acquainted with the vast accumulations of uniformities established by their predecessors, and themselves daily adding new ones as well as verifying the old, acquire a far stronger faith in Law than is ordinarily possessed. With them this faith, ceasing to be merely passive, becomes an active stimulus to inquiry. Wherever there exist phenomena of which the dependence is not yet ascertained, these most cultivated intellects, impelled by the conviction that here too there is some invariable connexion, proceed to observe, compare, and experiment; and when they discover the law to which the phenomena conform, as they eventually do, their general belief in the universality of law is further strengthened. So overwhelming is the evidence, and such the effect of this discipline, that to the advanced student of nature, the proposition that there are lawless phenomena, has become not only incredible but almost inconceivable.
Hence we may see how inevitably there must spread among mankind at large, this habitual recognition of law which already distinguishes modern thought from ancient thought. Not only is it that each conquest of generalization over a region of fact hitherto ungeneralized, and each merging of lower generalizations in a higher one, adds to the distinctness of this recognition among those immediately concerned—not only is it that the fulfilment of the predictions made possible by every new step, and the further command so gained of nature’s forces, prove to the uninitiated the validity of these generalizations and the doctrine they illustrate; but it is that widening education is daily diffusing among the mass of men, that knowledge of generalizations which has been hitherto confined to the few. And as fast as this diffusion goes on, must the belief of the scientific become the belief of the world at large. The simple accumulation of instances, must inevitably establish in the general mind, a conviction of the universality of law; even were the influence of this accumulation to be aided by no other.
§ 40. But it will be aided by another. From the evidence above set forth, it may be inferred that a secondary influence will by and by enforce this primary one. That law is universal, will become an irresistible conclusion when it is perceived that the progress in the discovery of laws itself conforms to law; and when it is hence understood why certain groups of phenomena have been reduced to law, while other groups are still unreduced. When it is seen that the order in which uniformities are recognized, must depend upon the frequency and vividness with which they are repeated in conscious experience; when it is seen that, as a matter of fact, the most common, important, conspicuous, concrete and simple uniformities were the earliest recognized, because they were experienced oftenest and most distinctly; when it is further seen that from the beginning the advance has been to the recognition of uniformities which, from one or other circumstance, were less often experienced; it will by implication be seen that long after the great mass of phenomena have been generalized, there must remain phenomena which, from their rareness, or unobtrusiveness, or seeming unimportance, or complexity, or abstractness, are still ungeneralized. Thus will be furnished a solution to a difficulty sometimes raised. When it is asked why the universality of law is not already fully established, there will be the answer that the directions in which it is not yet established are those in which its establishment must necessarily be latest. That state of things which is inferable beforehand, is just the state which we find to exist. If such coexistences and sequences as those of Biology and Sociology are not yet reduced to law, the presumption is not that they are irreducible to law, but that their laws elude our present means of analysis. Having long ago proved uniformity throughout all the lower classes of relations; and having been step by step proving uniformity throughout classes of relations successively higher and higher; if we have not at present succeeded with the highest classes, it may be fairly concluded that our powers are at fault, rather than that the uniformity does not exist. And unless we make the absurd assumption that the process of generalization, now going on with unexampled rapidity, has reached its limit, and will suddenly cease, we must infer that ultimately mankind will discover a constant order of manifestation even in the most involved, obscure, and abstract phenomena.
§ 41. Not even yet, however, have we exhausted the evidence. The foregoing arguments have to be merged in another, still more cogent, which fuses all fragmentary proofs into one general proof.
Thus far we have spoken of laws that are more or less special; and from the still-continuing disclosure of special laws, each formulating some new class of phenomena, have inferred that eventually all classes of phenomena will be formulated. If, now, we find that there are laws of far higher generality, to which those constituting the body of Science are subordinate; the fact must greatly strengthen the proof that Law is universal. If, underneath different groups of concrete phenomena, Mechanical, Chemical, Thermal, Electric, &c., we discern certain uniformities of action common to them all; we have a new and weighty reason for believing that uniformity of action pervades the whole of nature. And if we also see that these most general laws hold not only of the inorganic but of the organic worlds—if we see that the phenomena of Life, of Mind, of Society, whose special laws are yet unestablished, nevertheless conform to these most general laws; the proof of the universality of Law amounts to demonstration.