On the Philosophy of Discovery, Chapters Historical and Critical

by William Whewell

(Moral Sciences.)—1. Both M. Comte and Mr. Mill, in speaking of the methods of advancing science, aim, as I have said, at the extension of their methods to moral subjects, and aspire to suggest means for the augmentation of our knowledge of ethical, political, and social truths. I have not here ventured upon a like extension of my conclusions, because I wished to confine my views of the philosophy of discovery to the cases in which all allow that solid and permanent discoveries have been made. Moreover in the case of moral speculations, we have to consider not only observed external facts and the ideas by which they are colligated, but also internal facts, in which the instrument of observation is consciousness, and in which observations and ideas are mingled together, and act and react in a peculiar manner. It may therefore be doubted whether the methods which have been effectual in the discovery of physical theories will not require to be greatly modified, or replaced by processes altogether different, when we would make advances in ethical, political, or social knowledge. In ethics, at least, it seems plain that we must take our starting-point not without but within us. Our mental powers, our affections, our reason, and any other faculties which we have, must be the basis of our convictions. And in this field of knowledge, the very form of our highest propositions is different from what it is in the physical sciences. In Physics we examine what is, in a form more or less general: in Ethics we seek to determine what OUGHT to be, as the highest rule, which is supreme over all others. In this case we cannot expect the methods of physical discovery to aid us.

But others of the subjects which I have mentioned, though strongly marked and influenced by this ethical element, are still of a mixed character, and require also observation of external facts of human, individual, and social conduct, and generalizations derived from such observations. The facts of political constitutions and social relations in communities of men, and the histories of such communities, afford large bodies of materials for political and social science; and it seems not at all unlikely that such science may be governed, in its formation and progress, by laws like those which govern the physical sciences, and may be steered clear of errors and directed towards truths by an attention to the forms which error and truth have assumed in the most stable and certain sciences. The different forms of society, and the principal motives which operate upon men regarded in masses, may be classified as facts; and though our consciousness of what we ourselves are and the affections which we ourselves feel are always at work in our interpretations of such facts, yet the knowledge which we thus obtain may lead us to bodies of knowledge which we may call Sciences, and compare with the other sciences as to their form and maxims.

(Political Economy.)—2. Among such bodies of knowledge, I may notice as a specimen, the science of Political Economy, and may compare it with other sciences in the respects which have been referred to.

M. Comte has given a few pages to the discussion of this science of Political Economy[291]; but what he has said amounts only to a few vague remarks on Adam Smith and Destutt de Tracy; his main object being, it would seem, to introduce his usual formula, and to condemn all that has hitherto been done (with which there is no evidence that he is adequately acquainted) as worthless, because it is "theological," "metaphysical," "literary," and not "positive."

Mr. Mill has much more distinctly characterized the plan and form of Political Economy in his system[292]. He regards this science as that which deals with the results which take place in human society in consequence of the desire of wealth. He explains, however, that it is only for the sake of convenience that one of the motives which operate upon man is thus insulated and treated as if it were the only one:—that there are other principles, for instance, the principles on which the progress of population depends, which co-operate with the main principle, and materially modify its results: and he gives reasons why this mode of simplifying the study of social phenomena tends to promote the progress of systematic knowledge.

Instead of discussing these reasons, I will notice the way in which the speculations of political economists have exemplified tendencies to error, and corrections of those tendencies, of the same nature as those which we have already noticed in speaking of other sciences.

(Wages, Profits, and Rent.)—3. We may regard as one of the first important steps in this science, Adam Smith's remark, that the value or price of any article bought and sold consists of three elements, Wages, Profits, and Rent. Some of the most important of subsequent speculations were attempts to determine the laws of each of these three elements. At first it might be supposed that there ought to be added to them a fourth element, Materials. But upon consideration it will be seen that materials, as an element of price, resolves itself into wages and rent; for all materials derive their value from the labour which is bestowed upon them. The iron of the ploughshare costs just what it costs to sink the mine, dig up and smelt the iron. The wood of the frame costs what it costs to cut down the tree, together with the rent of the ground on which it grows.

(Premature Generalizations.)—4. But what determines Wages?—The amount of persons seeking work, that is, speaking loosely, the population; and the amount of money which is devoted to the payment of wages. And what determines the population? It was replied,—the means of subsistence. And how does the population tend to increase?—In a geometrical ratio. And how does the subsistence tend to increase?—At most in an arithmetical ratio. And hence it was inferred that the population tends constantly to run beyond the means of subsistence, and will be limited by a threatened deficiency of these means. And the wages paid must be such as to form this limit. And therefore the wages paid will always be such as just to keep up the population in its ordinary state of progress. Here was one general proposition which was gathered from summary observations of society.

Again: as to Rent: Adam Smith had treated Rent as if it were a monopoly price—the result of a monopoly of the land by the landowners. But subsequent writers acutely remarked that land is of various degrees of fertility, and there is some land which barely pays the cultivator, if cultivating it he pay no rent. And rent can be afforded for other land only in so far as it is better than this bad land. And thus, there was obtained another general proposition; that the Rent of good land was just equal to the excess of its produce over the worst cultivable land.

Now these two propositions are examples of a hasty and premature generalization, like that from which the sweeping physical systems of antiquity were derived. They were examples of that process which Francis Bacon calls anticipation; in which we leap at once from a few facts to propositions of the highest generality; and supposing these to be securely established, proceed to draw a body of conclusions from them, and thus frame a system.