Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics / With Some of Their Applications

by William Thomas Thornton

It is clear, then, that the principles to which we have been adverting would, if established, be really subversive of morality, inasmuch as they are incompatible with free agency, without which there can be no responsibility. The soundness of a doctrine does not, however, depend upon its tendencies; and Mr. Buckle was fully warranted in demanding that his views should be examined with reference, not at all to their consequences, but solely and exclusively to their truth. They certainly ought to be so examined, if examined at all; but morality is so indispensable to the happiness of mankind, that if there were reason for apprehending it to be based upon error, there would be equal reason for avoiding an enquiry which might demonstrate the weakness of its foundations, by bringing forward an antagonistic truth. The only adequate excuse, therefore, for enquiring, as I now proceed to do, into the validity of Mr. Buckle's theory, is the confidence I feel that it will be found to contain not recondite, newly-discovered truth, but, at best, only skilfully and curiously-compounded fallacies, which, being dispelled, will leave the foundations of morality as firm and unimpeachable as before.

In order that he might be able to prove the possibility of a Science of History, Mr. Buckle asked no more than the following concessions: 'That, when we perform an action, we perform it in consequence of some motive or motives; that those motives are the results of some antecedents, and that therefore, if we were acquainted with the whole of the antecedents and with all the laws of their movements, we could with unerring certainty predict the whole of their immediate results.' Now, there is certainly nothing in these demands which may not be unhesitatingly conceded. As there can be no effect without a cause, so there can be no action without a motive: the motive or motives of an action are the product of all the conditions and circumstances among which the agent is placed—which conditions and circumstances, again, must have been brought about by antecedent events. The same circumstances would indeed differently affect persons of different mental constitutions and characters; but the original constitution of a man's mind is itself the product of antecedent events, as is also any subsequent modification of character which it may have undergone. It cannot be denied, then, that men's motives are the results of antecedents. Equally undeniable is it that a knowledge of all the antecedents and of all the laws of their movements would enable us to foresee their results, for this, supposing the laws referred to to have any real existence, is merely equivalent to the self-evident proposition, that if we perceived certain causes and knew exactly how they would act, we should know beforehand what would be their effects. But what if there be no such laws? What if, on the showing of Mr. Buckle himself and of his associates, there neither are nor can be?

The true nature of a scientific law has never been better explained than by the writer already quoted as Mr. Buckle's dexterous apologist. A scientific law is not an ordinance, but a record. It simply professes to describe the order in which certain phenomena have been observed uniformly to recur. It differs from a legislative enactment, in that the one would be a law although it were never obeyed, whereas the other would cease to be a law if one single exception to its statement could be pointed out. Thus the Act of Parliament enjoining the registration of births, would be equally a law although no births were ever registered; whereas the law, that in a body moving in consequence of pressure the momentum generated is in proportion to the pressure, would entirely forfeit its legal character if, on any one occasion or in any circumstances, momentum were generated in any other proportion. It is essential, then, to the existence of a scientific law that there should be uniformity of phenomena. But in human affairs uniformity is impossible. No doubt, in exactly the same circumstances exactly the same events must happen; but exactly the same aggregation of circumstances cannot possibly be repeated. Such repetition is inconsistent with the very theory, which is based on the assumption that the repetition is continually happening.

'In the moral as well as the physical world' there are, say the exponents of the new theory, not only 'invariable rule' and 'inevitable sequence,' but 'irresistible growth' and 'continual advance.' In other words, things can never be twice in precisely the same condition—never, at least, within the same cycle. It has, indeed, been suggested that there may be in human affairs the same sort of regularity as is observed by the hands of a clock; and that, as the latter, at the end of every twenty-four hours, recommence the movement which they have just concluded, so at the end of, say 'every ten thousand years,' all the same events which have been happening throughout the period may begin to happen over again in the same order as before. Such a succession, however, would involve quite as much of retrogression as of progression, and the continual advance so boastfully spoken of would be nothing else than a tendency of society to return to the condition from which it had originally emerged. But, even on this uncomfortable hypothesis, there could be no regularity of occurrences within the same cycle; no clue as to the future could be obtained from investigation of the past. On the contrary, the only certainty would then, as now, be that no combination of events which had happened once could happen again, as long as the existing order of things continued. The inference here follows necessarily from the premises. If there be continual advance—if things are constantly moving forward—they cannot remain in the same state; and if not in the same state, they cannot produce the same effects. For, if it be obvious, on the one hand, that precisely the same causes must invariably produce the same results, it is equally evident, on the other, that the same results cannot be reproduced except by the same causes. If causes calculated to bring about certain phenomena undergo either augmentation or diminution, there must be a corresponding change in the phenomena. Now, effects cannot be identical with their causes, and, in the moral world, effects once produced become in turn causes, acting either independently or in conjunction with pre-existing causes. They become in turn the antecedents spoken of by Mr. Buckle, from which spring the motives of human conduct. But, as all such antecedents must necessarily differ from all former antecedents, they must also give rise to motives, must be followed by actions, and must bring about combinations of circumstances, differing from any previously experienced. Thus, in human affairs, there can be no recurrence either of antecedents or of consequences; and, as a scientific law is simply a record of the uniform recurrence of consequences, it follows that in human affairs there can be no scientific laws.

It will be understood that human conduct, and the circumstances or causes which influence it, are here spoken of in the aggregate. It is not pretended that particular causes or circumstances may not continue permanently in operation, though with an influence modified by the concomitance of fresh circumstances; or that they may not continue to produce consequences differing from their former consequences not more than in proportion to the modification undergone by the causes. Still less is it pretended that certain human phenomena, with which human motives have little or nothing to do, may not be repeated once and again, notwithstanding the important changes constantly going on in every human society. It is not denied that marriages may continue for years together to bear much the same annual proportion to the population, provided that during those years there be no material change in the amount of the economical obstacles which commonly interfere, more than anything else, with men's natural inclination to marry. Still less is it denied that, in a given number of births, the number of girls may always preserve nearly the same superiority over that of boys, or that the proportion between red-haired and flaxen-haired children may generally be about the same, or that the percentage of letters misdirected in a given country may vary little during long periods. But, in the first of these cases, men do not get married, as Mr. Buckle imagined, irrespectively of their volition. If, for several years together, marriages continue to bear about the same proportion to population, it is because during that period circumstances continue to present a certain amount, and no more, of opposition to men's connubial proclivities. In the other cases, it is not at all because the parents wish it that a girl is born instead of a boy, or with flaxen hair instead of carrots; neither is it from any motive or intention that letters are often misdirected, but, on the contrary, from want of thought, and from the carelessness and haste with which letter-writing, like most other human actions, is unfortunately too often performed. But, before assuming that this carelessness and haste bear an invariable proportion to numbers, we should inquire whether the proportion of misdirected letters is the same in all human societies—the same, for instance, in France and Spain as in England. If not—if varying circumstances produce different results in this respect in different countries—it may be inferred that a variation of circumstances may produce a difference of result in the same country. It will, at any rate, be clear that there is no 'necessary and invariable order' in which letters are misdirected. In one sense, indeed, it may be said that the proportion of misdirected letters depends upon 'the state of society,' if by that expression be meant, among other things, the numerical proportion which individuals of different characters and habits bear to each other. In that sense, we may accept some far more startling propositions. We may partly admit that the state of society determines the number of murders and suicides, if by this be simply meant that the number of murders and suicides committed will depend upon the number of persons whose characters have been so moulded by circumstances as to dispose them to put an end to their own or other people's lives. But Mr. Buckle, by whom the assertion was made, was careful to explain that his meaning was the very reverse of what is here supposed. Speaking of suicide, he declares it to be 'a general law that, in a given state of society, a certain number of persons must put an end to their own lives;' adding that 'the question as to who shall commit the crime depends upon special laws,' and that 'the individual felon only carries into effect what is a necessary consequence of preceding circumstances.' In other words, it is not the amount of crime that depends upon the number of persons prepared to commit it; it is the number of criminals which depends upon the amount of crime that must needs be committed. 'Murder,' he elsewhere says, 'is committed with as much regularity, and bears as uniform a relation to certain known circumstances, as do the movements of the tides and the relations of the seasons.' 'The uniform reproduction of crime is more clearly marked, and more capable of being predicted, than are the physical laws connected with the disease and destruction of our bodies. The offences of men are the result not so much of the vices of individual offenders, as of the state of society into which the individuals are thrown.'

There is here so much looseness and inconsistency of language, that what is most offensive in it may easily bear more than one interpretation: and the shocking dogma that, in a given state of society, the force of circumstances constrains the commission of a certain amount of crime, may possibly admit of being explained away and softened down into the comparatively harmless proposition that, where all the circumstances, conditions or causes required for the commission of a certain amount of crime are present, that amount of crime will certainly be committed. But what is most provoking in Mr. Buckle is the heedlessness or wantonness with which he is constantly insisting that the causes in question are necessarily present and uniformly acting. What he calls the uniform reproduction of crime is likened by him to the uniform recurrence of the tides. According to him, it is a law that a certain number of suicides shall take place annually, just as it is a law that there shall be high and low water twice in every twenty-four hours. Now a law, as the word is here used, means a record of invariable repetitions of phenomena. Has it been observed, then, that suicides bear, we will not say an invariable, but anything like a definite proportion to population? Mr. Buckle thinks it has, and he adduces some facts in support of the opinion; but his facts, properly understood, disprove instead of proving what he asserts; and, even if they proved it, they would yet afford no support to his main theory.

In London, for some years past—how many is not stated—about 240 persons annually have made away with themselves—sometimes a few more, sometimes a few less—the highest number having been 266 in 1846, and the lowest 213 in 1849. But, while the number of suicides has thus been nearly stationary, population has been anything but stationary in the metropolitan district, but has advanced with vast and unremitting strides at an average rate of nearly 43,000 a year. In 1841 it was 1,948,369; in 1851, 2,361,640; and in 1861, 2,803,989. The proportion of suicide to population has consequently been by no means uniform, but has varied exceedingly, and on the whole has shown a constant tendency to decrease. But even if it had continued uniform, it would simply have shown that, during a certain number of years, the general character of Londoners had, in certain particulars, undergone no material change. It would not have proved that the regularity of suicide observable among Londoners was in accordance with any general law. To prove this it would have been necessary to show that the proportion had been uniform, not only in the same but in all societies; in Paris as well as in London, among the Esquimaux of Labrador, and among the Negroes of Soudan. For, if the proportion were found to vary by reason of the differing circumstances of different societies, it would plainly be seen to be at least susceptible of variation in the same society, inasmuch as in no society do circumstances remain the same from generation to generation. So equally with murders. Even if there were no doubt that the percentage of such crimes in England had long continued the same, still that fact would prove nothing as to the uniform reproduction of crime, if it could be shown that the percentage had ever varied anywhere else—in France or Italy, for example, or in Dahomey. For it would be mere childishness to point to the different conditions of England and Dahomey, and to plead that no more was intended to be said than that, with uniformity of circumstances there would also be uniformity of results. So much no one, in the least competent to discuss the subject, would for a moment dream of disputing. But in political affairs there cannot be uniformity of circumstances. The aggregate of circumstances from which spring human motives cannot, from the nature of things, ever be repeated; and, though a few general causes may continue permanently in operation, they cannot continue to produce the same identical results; for even though they could themselves remain stationary, it would be impossible that their operation should not be affected by the constant change going on around, or should not partake of an otherwise universal forward movement. In political affairs there cannot possibly be any recurrence of identical phenomena; nor can there, except within a very limited period, be any occurrence of very similar phenomena. But recurrence (and not merely recurrence, but complete and invariable recurrence) is the very foundation of science. Without it there can be no scientific laws, and without such laws—i.e., without records of past recurrences—there can be no sure predictions as to the future. It is only because certain motions of certain bodies have hitherto been observed to take place with invariable regularity, that they are expected to continue to do so, and it is upon that assumption only that we venture to predict that the sun will rise to-morrow morning, or that an eclipse will take place next year. But if no event recorded in history has ever yet been known to occur twice under precisely the same conditions, and as a consequence of the same causes, what ground can there be for predicting whether or when any such event will occur again? What possibility is there of constructing a science of history, when history supplies no materials for either foundation or superstructure?

There is nothing in this conclusion in the slightest degree opposed to the most approved doctrine of causation. No effect can be without a cause. No doubt, then, the regency of invariable causation holds good of human volitions. No doubt the volitions and consequently the actions of men are the joint results of the external circumstances amid which men are placed, and of their own characters; which again are the results of circumstances, natural and artificial. So much must needs be admitted, and something more besides. Certain causes will infallibly be succeeded by certain effects. From any particular combination of circumstances, certain determinate consequences and no others will result; those again will give rise to consequences equally determinate, and those in turn to others, and so on in an infinite series. It follows, then, from the regency of causation, that there is a determinate course already, as it were, traced out, which human events will certainly follow to the end of time; every step of which course, however remote, might now be foreseen and predicted by adequate, that is to say by infinite, intelligence. Infinite intelligence would do this, however, not by the aid of law, but by virtue of its own intrinsic and unassisted strength, wherewith it would perceive how each succeeding combination of causes would operate. For, as cannot be too often repeated, a law is merely a record of recurrences; and in human affairs there can be no recurrences of the same aggregate either of causes or results. There being then no historic laws, there can be no Science of History, for science cannot exist without laws. The historic prescience, which is an attribute of Infinite Intelligence, not being regulated by law, or at any rate not by any law except that of causation, is not, technically speaking, a science, and even if it were, would be utterly beyond the reach of human intellect and attainable only by Infinite Wisdom.

The admission made in the last paragraph has cleared the way for the introduction of a question, from which the subject under discussion derives its principal interest, and which it is indispensable therefore carefully, though briefly, to examine. If there be certain determinate lines of conduct which men will infallibly pursue throughout all succeeding generations, how can men be free agents? How—for it is merely the old puzzle over again—how can foreknowledge be reconciled with freewill? The difficulty is not to be got rid of by discrediting the reality of freewill, and treating it as a thing for which there is no evidence. When Johnson silenced Boswell's chatter with the words, 'Sir, we know our will is free and there's an end on't,' he expressed a great truth in language not the less philosophically accurate on account of its colloquial curtness. The consciousness possessed by an agent about to perform an act, that he is at liberty to perform it or not, is really conclusive evidence that the act is free. For it matters not a jot whether consciousness be 'an independent faculty,' or whether—as, Mr. Buckle reminds us, 'is the opinion of some of the ablest thinkers'—it be not merely 'a state or condition of the mind.' If consciousness be a condition of the mind, so also is perception; but perception, whatever else it be, is also that which makes us acquainted with external phenomena, just as consciousness is that which makes us acquainted with internal emotions. The two informants, it is true, are not equally trustworthy. Perception often deceives us, but consciousness, never. We often fancy we perceive what we do not perceive. We may fancy we see a ghost, when we are merely mocked by an optical illusion, or we may mistake the impalpable imagery of the Fata Morgana for solid objects, or the rumbling of a cart for thunder. But consciousness is infallible. We cannot fancy we experience an emotion which we do not experience. We cannot fancy we are glad when we are not glad, or sorry when we are not sorry, or hopeful when in despair; and to pretend that we can possibly be conscious of willing when we are not willing, would be as absurd as to meet the cogito, ergo sum of Descartes, with the reply that, perhaps, we do not really think, but only think we think.

Freewill, then, being an indisputable reality, how can it be reconciled with foreknowledge? There can be no more conclusive way of showing that the two things are capable of co-existing than to point to an example of their actual co-existence, and such an example is afforded by the idea of Infinite Power. Omnipotence, which by its nature implies freewill, comprehends also Omniscience. Omnipotence can do anything whatsoever which does not involve a contradiction; but even Omnipotence can do nothing which Omniscience does not foresee. It can, indeed, do whatsoever it pleases; but Omniscience foresees precisely what it will be pleased to do. With unbounded liberty to choose any course of action, it can yet choose no course which has not been foreseen; but its freedom of choice is evidently not affected by the fact that the choice which it will make is known before hand. Neither is that of man. An eager aspirant to ecclesiastical preferment is not the less at liberty to refuse a proffered mitre, because all his acquaintances have a well founded assurance that he will accept. A wayfarer, with a yawning precipice before his eyes, may or may not, as he pleases, cast himself down headlong. Whether he will do so or not must always have been positively foreknown to Omniscience; but that fact in no degree affects his power of deciding for himself. If arguing on the notion that what is to be must be, he decide on moving forward to his destruction, then what has been foreseen is simply that he will so argue and be self-deceived, and will consequently perish. But the foreknowledge which simply perceives what direction will be taken by the will is a very different thing from an over-ruling destiny, which should compel the will to take some special direction. Still it is obvious that, in this instance also, foreknowledge is based entirely on causation. It is solely because human volitions take place as inevitable effects of antecedent causes that Omniscience itself can be conceived as capable of foreseeing them.