Page:System of Logic.djvu/202

196 ty men felt of conceiving sunset otherwise than as a motion of the sun, represent any "net result" of experience in support of its being the sun and not the earth that moves? It is not experience that is represented, it is only a superficial semblance of experience. The only thing proved with regard to real experience, is the negative fact, that men have not had it of the kind which would have made the inconceivable proposition conceivable.

Next: Even if it were true that inconceivableness represents the net result of all past experience, why should we stop at the representative when we can get at the thing represented? If our incapacity to conceive the negation of a given supposition is proof of its truth, because proving that our experience has hitherto been uniform in its favor, the real evidence for the supposition is not the inconceivableness, but the uniformity of experience. Now this, which is the substantial and only proof, is directly accessible. We are not obliged to presume it from an incidental consequence. If all past experience is in favor of a belief, let this be stated, and the belief openly rested on that ground: after which the question arises, what that fact may be worth as evidence of its truth? For uniformity of experience is evidence in very different degrees: in some cases it is strong evidence, in others weak, in others it scarcely amounts to evidence at all. That all metals sink in water, was a uniform experience, from the origin of the human race to the discovery of potassium in the present century by Sir Humphry Davy. That all swans are white, was a uniform experience down to the discovery of Australia. In the few cases in which uniformity of experience does amount to the strongest possible proof, as with such propositions as these, Two straight lines can not inclose a space, Every event has a cause, it is not because their negations are inconceivable, which is not always the fact; but because the experience, which has been thus uniform, pervades all nature. It will be shown in the following Book that none of the conclusions either of induction or of deduction can be considered certain, except as far as their truth is shown to be inseparably bound up with truths of this class.

I maintain then, first, that uniformity of past experience is very far from being universally a criterion of truth. But secondly, inconceivableness is still further from being a test even of that test. Uniformity of contrary experience is only one of many causes of inconceivability. Tradition handed down from a period of more limited knowledge, is one of the commonest. The mere familiarity of one mode of production of a phenomenon often suffices to make every other mode appear inconceivable. Whatever connects two ideas by a strong association may, and continually does, render their separation in thought impossible; as Mr. Spencer, in other parts of his speculations, frequently recognizes. It was not for want of experience that the Cartesians were unable to conceive that one body could produce motion in another without contact. They had as much experience of other modes of producing motion as they had of that mode. The planets had revolved, and heavy bodies had fallen, every hour of their lives. But they fancied these phenomena to be produced by a hidden machinery which they did not see, because without it they were unable to conceive what they did see. The inconceivableness, instead of representing their experience, dominated and overrode their experience. Without dwelling further on what I have termed the positive argument of Mr. Spencer in support of his criterion of truth, I pass to his negative argument, on which he lays more stress.