Page:Philosophical Review Volume 11.djvu/133

No. 2.] but hardly that of an artist. Our adequate knowledge of the earlier constitution of the stellar universe depends upon the degree in which we are familiar with what as a matter of fact has come since. So the comprehensive world-formula about the operation of certain forces depends absolutely upon the empirical knowledge that as matter of fact certain results take place when certain conditions are present. The formula is a mere summary or shorthand record of the entire historical series—so much for its magic power in deduction and derivation. The mode of reasoning is tautological. Since we know the nature of the antecedent only through the specific consequence, adequate knowledge of primitive conditions can mean nothing else but a complete knowledge of the whole thing from beginning to end. It is surprising how a priori the average empiricist becomes the moment he takes himself to the adoration of causes. He surrenders his belief in a reality apprehended through experience, in behalf of a notion of the superior metaphysical excellence of what he mentally constructs as a bygone existence. He regards the later terms of experience not as real in their experienced character, but as something to be deduced or derived from a reality adequately given in what he is pleased to denominate cause.

So much time has been spent upon the fallacy involved in supposing that the early forms of an historical series are superior to the later, that before passing on I must recur to the proposition on its positive side. It still remains true that the statement of any event or historical series, in terms of its earlier members, has an advantage for science: its logical superiority consists in presenting the matter in so simplified a form that we can detach and grasp separately elements which are wholly lost in the confused complexity of the mature phases. We can single out a particular fact from its company of associates, and give it more exact and more exclusive attention. This is what is meant by saying that history does for moral matters, for matters of conscious value, what experimentation does for physical things: it gives control by furnishing relative isolation.

This also establishes the significance of the later members of the series. Starting with the earlier ones as our clue, we can