One day I said to him: You lack philosophy—I mean, what the Germans call metaphysics. You have learned men, but you have no thinkers. Your God impedes you. He is the Supreme Cause, and you dare not reason on causes, out of respect for him. He is the most important personage in England, and I see clearly that he merits his position; for he forms part of your constitution, he is the guardian of your morality, he judges in final appeal on all questions whatsoever, he replaces with advantage the prefects and gendarmes with whom the nations on the Continent are still encumbered. Yet, this high rank has the inconvenience of all official positions; it produces a cant, prejudices, intolerance, and courtiers. Here, close by us, is poor Mr. Max Müller, who, in order to acclimatize the study of Sanscrit, was compelled to discover in the Vedas the worship of a moral God, that is to say, the religion of Paley and Addison. Some time ago, in London, I read a proclamation of the Queen, forbidding people to play cards, even in their own houses, on Sundays.[397] It seems that, if I were robbed, I could not bring my thief to justice without taking a preliminary religious oath; for the judge has been known to send a complainant away who refused to take the oath, deny him justice, and insult him into the bargain. Every year, when we read the Queen's speech in your papers, we find there the compulsory mention of Divine Providence, which comes in mechanically, like the invocation to the immortal gods on the fourth page of a rhetorical declamation; and you remember that once, the pious phrase having been omitted, a second communication was made to Parliament for the express purpose of supplying it. All these cavillings and pedantries indicate to my mind a celestial monarchy; naturally it resembles all others; I mean that it relies more willingly on tradition and custom than on examination and reason. A monarchy never invited men to verify its credentials. As yours is, however, useful, well adapted to you, and moral, you are not revolted by it; you submit to it without difficulty, you are, at heart, attached to it; you would fear, in touching it, to disturb the constitution and morality. You leave it in the clouds, amidst public homage. You fall back upon yourselves, confine yourselves to matters of fact, to minute dissections, to experiments in the laboratory. You go culling plants and collecting shells. Science is deprived of its head; but all is for the best, for practical life is improved, and dogma remains intact.
[Section III.—Mill's Philosophical Method]
You are truly French, he answered; you ignore facts, and all at once find yourself settled in a theory. I assure you that there are thinkers amongst us, and not far from hence, at Christ Church, for instance. One of them, the professor of Greek, has spoken so deeply on inspiration, the creation and final causes, that he is out of favor. Look at this little collection which has recently appeared, "Essays and Reviews;" your philosophic freedom of the last century, the latest conclusions of geology and cosmogony, the boldness of German exegesis, are here in abstract. Some things are wanting, amongst others the waggeries of Voltaire, the misty jargon of Germany, and the prosaic coarseness of Comte; to my mind, the loss is small. Wait twenty years, and you will find in London the ideas of Paris and Berlin.—But they will still be the ideas of Paris and Berlin. Whom have you that is original?—Stuart Mill.—Who is he?—A political writer. His little book "On Liberty" is as admirable as Rousseau's "Contrat Social" is bad.—That is a bold assertion.—No, for Mill decides as strongly for the independence of the individual as Rousseau for the despotism of the State.—Very well, but that is not enough to make a philosopher. What besides is he?—An economist who goes beyond his science, and subordinates production to man, instead of man to production.—Well, but this is not enough to make a philosopher. Is he anything else?—A logician.—Very good; but of what school?—Of his own. I told you he was original.—Is he Hegelian?—By no means; he is too fond of facts and proofs.—Does he follow Port-Royal?—Still less; he is too well acquainted with modern sciences.—Does he imitate Condillac?—Certainly not; Condillac has only taught him to write well.—Who, then, are his friends?—Locke and Comte in the first rank; then Hume and Newton.—Is he a system-monger, a speculative reformer?—He has too much sense for that; he only arranges the best theories, and explains the best methods. He does not attitudinize majestically in the character of a restorer of science; he does not declare, like your Germans, that his book will open up a new era for humanity. He proceeds gradually, somewhat slowly, often creepingly, through a multitude of particular facts. He excels in giving precision to an idea, in disentangling a principle, in discovering it amongst a number of different facts; in refuting, distinguishing, arguing. He has the astuteness, patience, method, and sagacity of a lawyer.—Very well, you admit that I was right. A lawyer, an ally of Locke, Newton, Comte, and Hume; we have here only English philosophy; but no matter. Has he reached a grand conception of the universe?—Yes.—Has he an individual and complete idea of nature and the mind?—Yes.—Has he combined the operations and discoveries of the intellect under a single principle which puts them all in a new light?—Yes; but we have to discover this principle.—That is your business, and I hope you will undertake it.—But I shall fall into abstract generalities.—There is no harm in that?—But this close reasoning will be like a quick-set hedge. We will prick our fingers with it.—But three men out of four would cast aside such speculations as idle.—So much the worse for them. For in what does the life of a nation or a century consist, except in the formation of such theories? We are not thoroughly men unless so engaged. If some dweller in another planet were to come down here to ask us the nature of our race, we should have to show him the five or six great ideas which we have formed of the mind and the world. That alone would give him the measure of our intelligence. Expound to me your theory, and I shall go away better instructed than after having seen the masses of brick, which you call London and Manchester.
[Part I.—Experience]
[Section I.—The Object of Logic]
Let us begin, then, at the beginning, like logicians. Mill has written on logic. What is logic? It is a science. What is its object? The sciences; for, suppose that you have traversed the universe, and that you know it thoroughly: stars, earth, sun, heat, gravity, chemical affinities, the species of minerals, geological revolutions, plants, animals, human events, all that classifications and theories explain and embrace, there still remain these classifications and theories to be learnt. Not only is there an order of beings, but also an order of the thoughts which represent them; not only plants and animals, but also botany and zoology; not only lines, surfaces, volumes, and numbers, but also geometry and arithmetic. Sciences, then, are as real things as facts themselves, and therefore, as well as facts, become the subject of study. We can analyze them as we analyze facts, investigate their elements, composition, order, relations, and object. There is, therefore, a science of sciences; this science is called logic, and is the subject of Mill's work. It is no part of logic to analyze the operations of the mind, memory, the association of ideas, external perception, etc.; that is the business of psychology. We do not discuss the value of such operations, the veracity of our consciousness, the absolute certainty of our elementary knowledge; this belongs to metaphysics. We suppose our faculties to be at work, and we admit their primary discoveries. We take the instrument as nature has provided it, and we trust to its accuracy. We leave to others the task of taking its mechanism to pieces, and the curiosity which criticises its results. Setting out from its primitive operations, we inquire how they are added to each other; how they are combined; how one is convertible into another; how, by dint of additions, combinations, and transformations, they finally compose a system of connected and developed truths. We construct a theory of science, as others construct theories of vegetation, of the mind, or of numbers. Such is the idea of logic; and it is plain that it has, as other sciences, a real subject-matter, its distinct province, its manifest importance, its special method, and a certain future